Prepping to Direct a Feature Film

Lately I have been busy prepping to direct a feature film that will shoot primarily in August. Since a lot of my time has been spent working on getting it ready, I thought I would spend a moment and discuss the different items on my agenda. This isn't a how-to, it's more of the beginning to a production journal.

Script

For the last year my co-writer and I have been working on a script. We started writing a completely different story in November of last year, but it proved to be more difficult and more budget-involved than we could really handle. Over the course of the next six months we wrote and rewrote, then completely changed the story again.

My co-writer (who also happens to be my producer) took it over one week and just completely rewrote everything. He changed the storyline and a ton of characters to what we had discussed in conversations here and there. It came out pretty great. There was something in the script that hadn't been in there before and it was completely filmable on our meager budget.

We have one more set of revisions to make and then I'm going to call it a lock on the script. That's when we're going to do our budget and breakdowns.

Budgets and Breakdowns

Production Breakdown

A lot of the time, when you do a production for real, you have a production manager break down the script for every single element. We are hoping to have a PM on board for this production, but since we are running on a no-string budget, we can't really afford anyone.

Our PM (or one of the producers) is going to break down the script by scene and extract information on what we need to find resources for - things like locations, costume, props, effects, etc.

Hopefully we can write out any of the higher budget items in the script and just focus on resources we already have.

Budget

Our budget consists of zero dollars. Seriously, we have no money. But what we do have is a lot of resources. We are hoping to use what we have and borrow/beg/plead to get everything else. From what I can tell without seeing a full breakdown, I would say all that we really need to worry about is props and effects.

Props can be cheap, especially if we buy them on a credit card and return them when we're done. Effects however, are really difficult. We don't want to leave too much for post-production, but we also don't have the type of budget that most Hollywood films have. We are going to just play it by ear while storyboarding and choreographing our action scenes, maybe we can focus on what we have in those scenes and use tricks of the camera for most other effects we'll need. We may need to bust out our pocketbooks for a few effects, but we're going to have to be really sure those effects are worth it.

Director's Breakdown

Once we have a locked script, I'm going to do my director's breakdown. This will consist of not only camera angles and a shot list, but also moods, motivations, and notes about how I want something to look or feel. This breakdown will travel with me throughout the production and will serve as my personal journal for the film. It will help me remember what I wanted during the times when making a decision will be very difficult (i.e. when I'm very tired).

Casting

One of the most difficult things to do on an independent movie is to cast. It's fairly difficult when you have such a low budget, and damn-near impossible without any money at all. For this movie we are going to go with people we know. When we run out of people we know, we're going to turn to Craigslist.

We will be pulling in favors from all sorts of friends, neighbors, co-workers and family. With the combined strength of all the producers and myself, we should be able to find enough people to fill all of the roles.

We have one main character, three supporting characters, a villain and his two supporting, followed by a whole slew of extras and day players.

When you live in a place like Los Angeles, there is plenty of talent waiting for a chance to be a part of something, so you'll find more resources and more actors willing to work for no money or deferred pay. But it's still really hard.

Schedule

We are filming in August, but we can only film during nights and weekends because most of the production crew work full-time (including me). This causes some major complications, but needs to be worked around since we are all trying to keep our livelihood until we get paid to do this full-time. (We're not quitting our day jobs... yet.)

We have a total of eight days for production. Even in a professional environment, when we have everything in place and all cast and crew ready to go - this is a very difficult amount of time. It's just too fast. Once we get going, we're going to have to turn around and wrap it up. How will we keep ourselves on target to get everything we need? Scheduling.

Scheduling is going to be our biggest asset. With a great breakdown of what needs to be filmed each day and a good First AD, we can get the schedule running like clockwork.

It will also help to have all of our locations planned out beforehand. If we can stay in one location for the entire weekend, we will be saving ourselves several trips and time-consuming setups. We can just light the one location and get crazy filming.

Set photo from a short film directed by my friend Spencer.

So that's pretty much everything I'm focusing on right now. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we are ready and willing. I'll keep you updated on the blog as much as I can, as well as featuring behind-the-scenes on my YouTube page.

If you are interested in helping us with the film, are currently in or can be in Los Angeles, and are available in August - leave a comment below or write us at splanderson (at) hotmail.com.