Do I tend to overthink things in filmmaking?

[Greg Smith]

There is a local filmmaker who has a day job as a District Attorney in the next county over, which I imagine keeps him pretty busy. But he likes Westerns and tries to produce one short film a year. He either writes the scripts himself or adapts them from existing novels and short stories. He has a standing company of collaborators and actors, all of whom also have real jobs, and some people come and go from this group each year. What he does is to convince everyone to take their annual vacations at the same time. They all load up in a couple of RVs and head to Colorado, Montana or Arizona where he has pre-arranged with some property owners to use their locations. Nobody gets paid, but they work at a relaxed pace for a couple of weeks shooting the movie, do some sightseeing, eat in local restaurants and stay in decent hotels. The director pays for their meals, lodging and transportation. Everyone thinks they had a great Western vacation at minimal expense, and they have a surprisingly decent little movie to show as a memento of their trip.

His productions started out somewhat amateurish some 30 years ago, but as time has gone by, the director, actors and all his technical crew have gained experience and proficiency, and the quality has improved to the point they could be mistaken for, say, 1960s quality 30 minute TV episodes at first glance.

This is strictly a hobby for him, but I have no doubt that some of the people involved have put it on their resumes and used the experience to get other minor-league acting and production jobs.

Perhaps Ryan could adopt a similar model. Forming long term relationships with the rest of the team seems to be the key element, and doing it over an extended vacation period makes the logistics work.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, I didn't think that people would want to make a movie during their persona vacation time, but I could ask and see.

[Paul R Johnson]

Amateur film making and theatre groups have people who spend huge amounts of time because it's fun and they really enjoy it. Your people say yes, then seem to dig their heels in when things go wrong. If they are doing it for free, you, like that example above, need to make the experience pleasant and something they want to repeat. Those people in cowboy country spending their vacation are doing it for fun. If everyone is there because you've pressganged them you will get the problems you do. They say yes until something better comes along. We find it so hard to try to convince you about things here, do your people get equally frustrated with you? Have you considered if you are nice to work for? I find it hard to believe you lose people during shoots or lose the locations? Why is this happening? You MUST sort this out because it is NOT normal for amateur productions. My observation on amateur groups is they work and work till the director calls pub time, then they all move to the pub as one group. Your team just don't seem to be like this?

[Brian Drysdale]

People will put in the hours if they believe what they're doing is of reasonable quality and they're getting a good social day from a group activity.

I can only recall being asked to leave a location once and that's because the production team probably misinformed the owner of the shop about how long it was going to take and what was involved. At most locations they know we would be filming for a full day and we would be bringing in a lighting rig.

Shooting at high speed, isn't a pleasurable experience for anyone involved, even on a professional production, so could be a reason for your drop out rate That's because there's no sense of I want to be there because everything is being compromised. The camera people also get pissed off because they can't do their lighting properly (even though their resources may be limited.)

[Josh Bass]

I have this vision of the location owner meeting Ryan and thinking "he seems like a good ol' chap." And then on the shoot day, the owner is still there, and starts hearing lots of screaming and stabbing and shooting and cursing and simulated sexual assault and after a few hours of that, they're like "nah, eff this, YOU GUYS ARE OUTTA HERE!!!"

[Rainer Listing]

My daughter (jnr high school age) once roped off an aisle in a local supermarket to shoot a sequence. The owner (total stranger) appeared and she told him he couldn't interfere, they were filming. "But you don't have permission and it's my shop" he said. She told him just to wait, and he did. Not recommended anyone tries to do it this way, pretty sure if you ask a local store they'll make a time available, won't work for big chains, you need a concealed camera..

Ryan, starting from scratch, here's how it works:

1. You identify a local film festival that you want to enter - often this sets a theme.
2. You advertise for anyone interested in helping with an entry, especially the local theatre group.
3. You arrange a preprod conference at a convenient venue, e.g room at local community centre for the 8-10 people who responded.
4. Everyone discusses who what why where when
5. You write the script within the people resources and develop a schedule
6. You do the shoot and wrap: you just have to provide some of the equipment (always someone with a better camera than yours anxious to use it) snacks, pizza and drinks
7. Cut the film (unless someone else wants to do it) and enter the festival.
8. Don't get upset if the organiser's partner whose film is much worse than yours wins. Even if you do win, something, it's rare for prizes to cover the cost of the pizza.
For this comparatively small investment, you made a film. You got to wear a special pass at the festival. You learned a lot. You met people keen to make more films, enter regional and national festivals - maybe, just maybe maybe, help you make your feature.

[Brian Drysdale]

LOL Only a junior high school girl could get away with that. She obliviously has a future as an AD or a steward at rock concerts.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, in my experience the people are happy to put in the time, it's just something unexpected in their lives comes up that day that they have to deal with. But I can try those approaches and hope to get longer amounts of time from everyone.

Plus I can also try to do less coverage as well if that helps, if I do not need as much coverage as some say, if this will help save time to, because then if the actors have to do more takes, at least they do not have to do more takes on more shots, if that will help.

[Brian Drysdale]

Don't do more coverage than you need, however, it still comes down to you trying to shoot faster than you, the cast and crew have the resources or experience to shoot. Sure you can shoot fast, but if it's of poor quality, it becomes wasted time in the long run because you're not improving.

It sounds like some of them are creating excuses not to go filming. If it's common, there's possibly something going on in their lives, which makes them unreliable. Insecurities and a drink problem are some that I had with an actor, fortunately, when we had a larger cast and crew his reliability improved.

Spending time at rehearsals should provide some measure of bonding, so possibly making it less likely that they'll drop out on the day.

[Pete Cofrancesco]

Ryan at this level of movie making you're not hiring professional actors being properly compensated to endure long hours on location, to show up and perform on cue with very few takes.

These people have other obligations. They're doing it for the fun. If it becomes unpleasant drudgery and they're not passionate and involved in the creative process you will lose them and they'll not go the extra mile. Creating a fun and exciting environment falls on you. The primary role of a director is working with people bringing out their best performance. Acting isn't about reading lines, it's about becoming the character. Your cast and crew want someone they trust, respect, who can lead them to achieve a result they can be proud of. Based on the performances I'm seeing you're not spending enough time and energy on that aspect. Again your priorities are most likely askew and you're focused too much on yourself and your movie instead of thinking about everyone else.

[John Nantz]

Originally Posted by Ryan Elder

Oh ok, but if you say the audience doesn't need to see everything though, and I can just imply, then why is there an exception when it comes to needing a shot of the. cuffs? Why is it an essential prop when everyone knows what it is without needing to see it?

Saying that I need a shot of cuffs seems to contradict that. So where does not needing to see something begin and where does it end?

Just catching up with some posts. eBay can fix the handcuff problem.
Cheap and easy:
Next problem.

[Ryan Elder]

Originally Posted by Pete Cofrancesco

Ryan at this level of movie making you're not hiring professional actors being properly compensated to endure long hours on location, to show up and perform on cue with very few takes.

These people have other obligations. They're doing it for the fun. If it becomes unpleasant drudgery and they're not passionate and involved in the creative process you will lose them and they'll not go the extra mile. Creating a fun and exciting environment falls on you. The primary role of a director is working with people bringing out their best performance. Acting isn't about reading lines, it's about becoming the character. Your cast and crew want someone they trust, respect, who can lead them to achieve a result they can be proud of. Based on the performances I'm seeing you're not spending enough time and energy on that aspect. Again your priorities are most likely askew and you're focused too much on yourself and your movie instead of thinking about everyone else.

Oh okay. Well if they are doing it for fun, perhaps it doesn't become fun if you ask them to work 10 hours on a scene maybe? It's just in the past, I would ask people to go longer, and they didn't like it, or said that they couldn't, where as if I tried to keep it under 8 hours, everyone seemed to have more fun.

So what you are saying makes sense. But if everyone is just doing it for fun, and I shouldn't go longer if it's a zero budget project, how do I turn out better performances, if I don't take longer then? If I need to take more time, how do I do it but at the same time, so it doesn't become un-fun for everyone?

[Josh Bass]

If you know you’re planning longer days you tell them UP FRONT. real actors are used to it; for amateurs it may be a nasty surprise so if youre using non-pros tell them before they agree that you may be looking at 10-12 (or whatever) hour days. My experience is amateurs have no idea of the time and effort it takes to make a film so you have to spell this stuff out for them explicitly, otherwise they assume theyll be in and out of there in an hour and a half or something.

[Brian Drysdale]

I was involved in a series of short films made by a local screen writing group, they weren't made by professionals, although the odd one helped out. Each was shot over 2 days with roughly 10 to 12 hour days, which is roughly hat you'd expect, usually over a weekend. The cast were mixed with some professionals working for free,

There was no problem with the length of the days, The standard was way above any of Ryan's films.

If you're working 8 hour days, add another day onto the schedule, you're not paying people, so the budget aspect doesn't apply so much.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay. Well what if it's a situation like before where I am scheduled at a location for 8 hours, but then about an hour after we setting up, the location owner comes and tells us bad news, that he have to shoot the scene in two hours and be out of there, or something of that sort. How do you deal with location owners changing their minds because something comes up, if the plan was for a whole day originally?