I learned a lesson in auditioning

I learned a lesson in Filmmaking

So as I transition myself from DOP over to Director, I'm learning a lot, I'm currently funding £150 for a 3 minute short film.

What iv learned so far:

1. its bloody hard organising everything yourself especially when your talented at being shit at organising.
2. get a trainee producer or partner to organise everything.
3. no one likes auditioning for no budget films.
4. 10% of my casting applications were acceptable, around 5% of those 10% actually responded and confirmed meetings.
5. the adrenaline getting closer to the shoot date is rising each day.
6. constantly worrying if things go wrong.

So the script is done, Shot list is done, talented Crew are assembled.
2 cast have been selected and confirmed out of 4 roles, storyboarding to be done this coming week.

I know the vision of the story and the direction we should all head in, casting wise it hasnt gone well so far, but I got a gut feeling its still gonna be a great short for what it is.

I have put out an ad for Runners with no pay but will feed them and got over 40 responses.. im tempted to get them all but dont think i could afford to feed the mob haha, I reckon around 5 will do to fill in all the little jobs and script supervisor.

Next update will be just before we begin or just after and all other progress.

I am working with Gorillaonabike and LDS on this project.
 
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Update 1

So I have a fully assembled cast, one of whom I feel will carry the film and is an undiscovered Talent although a little slightly over acting.

Time to reconfirm with everyone attendance and order props etc etc...

I have a shot list,

all thats left is to draw a storyboard
confirm Crew
liase with makeup artist in accordance with storyboard.
create a call list
create a shooting schedule for the day
then reconfirm everyone again last minute...
Buy Food.

Next update coming soon...
 
New update day before shoot...

Make up artist pulled out for no reason whatseoever, my actor friend pulled in a favour and managed to get one, whether she turns up or not remains to be seen..

2 out of 5 runners have pulled out, as a note.. that is all females of production have pulled out.. no more hiring females.. useless...

I'm training my girlfriend to be my producer and makeup artist..

all actors confirmed for the shoot, other runners confirmed (hopefully will turn up)

all props sorted, day schedule sorted, shotlist written up, storyboard drawn up, food cooked and ready for tomorrow, I got a lift to my shoot thanks to my neighbour who actually provided 2 props for me.

what have i learned so far? well females are useless (most of them, not all), I need to write a more professional schedule, I hate make-up artists.

I have 20 shots to pull off in order to create my 3 minute horror short in one day, the shoot is from 9am - 4pm but we aim to finish by 3pm.

next update will be of how it went, what went wrong, who got shot and tasered (likely to be me) and who didnt turn up...
 
2 out of 5 runners have pulled out, as a note.. that is all females of production have pulled out.. no more hiring females.. useless...

what have i learned so far? well females are useless (most of them, not all), I need to write a more professional schedule, I hate make-up artists.
If that's the lesson you learned, maybe they pulled out for a reason.

Stop aspiring to the bush leagues. That ghetto attitude comes from there. Keep a pro attitude and treat people like a pro treats others pros, and nobody will ever drop out of your shit.

Also, be careful about having your gf do makeup. That industry is heavily regulated with requirements and licenses, at least in my state, because it can hurt people and transfer diseases.
 
If that's the lesson you learned, maybe they pulled out for a reason.

Stop aspiring to the bush leagues. That ghetto attitude comes from there. Keep a pro attitude and treat people like a pro treats others pros, and nobody will ever drop out of your shit.

Also, be careful about having your gf do makeup. That industry is heavily regulated with requirements and licenses, at least in my state, because it can hurt people and transfer diseases.

appreciate the advice but it seems to be an ongoing theme with females on other projects... not just with me, so im 100% sure im not alone.

I intend on her probably gaining a professional qualification, since she offered to do it :)

Update:

Everyone arrived on time apart from actress who came an hour late (saved by Gorrilaonabike)
we started shooting an hour and half later than scheduled.
I definitely needed a first A.D, there was too much going on, My DOP was too inexperienced, he was standing around doing nothing waiting for things to come to him (I would have been looking for the shots that no one had seen and taking lots of cutaways, he took 0 ....) I came to the conclusion that until I find a better DOP than me then I will be shooting and directing at the same time (Kinda been doing that all along but not directing as much).

We merged some shots into 1 continuous shot, Camerawork was shoddy and I told the DOP afterwards his mistakes, Actors performed ok one in particular was outstanding in my opinion just a magnificent character to watch.

I didnt pay as much attention to the actors as i should have done, I was too busy being Semi First A.D, as the other guy we suddenly made AD had no idea what he was doing and was too nervous to be effective.

as we were shooting in the woods it was very unpredictable, so much so an effing WoodPecker!!! started hammering away at a tree..... in all my years of being in england iv never seen or heard a woodpecker until my shoot... sigh... there were also kids, dogs etc etc making loads of noise which isnt good, major work will need to be done on the sound to try and rescue it.


so in short:

1. get a first A.D pretty much essential.
2. make sure everyone on set communicates with each other in english (2 friends talking in their own language, told them I deemed it rude).
3. know the limitations of your crew.
4. check transport (station I told everyone to meet at was closed...)
5. be confident.
6. if things don't go to plan then amend and carry on, don't give up!


I've now created a first rough cut, having looked at the piece I dont know if its strong enough to get a festival nomination, I understand a lot of what I did wrong and how so easily it could have been corrected.

I'll update with how the sound went on and what my plans are then...
 
Also, get a line producer who can double as the script supervisor. That will keep things rolling really well.

AD is pretty essential for helping you set up shots, taking up all the grunt work.

Grats on getting principal photography and a rough cut done. I've noticed a lot of people shoot a short, then never get it to a rough cut so that's a good sign of your dedication.

As far as the woodpecker, I hope you got a lot of room tone just in case you need to ADR some voice in later. There's also some software I've seen that can help tone that down, linked around these forums somewhere (recently).
 
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Update:

Im currently applying vfx for some scenes, iv stabilised all the footage, I've learned that I need more connecting shots which could have been a result of the rushed day and DP failing to perform quicker.

once VFX is done I will refine the cut more then lock it for sound which someone else will clear up for me, while he is doing that I will begin Colouring and titles etc
 
Update: Picture Lock complete, I have also graded the footage its not the best but I wanted to keep it as natural as possible.

I am now Syncing Sound, having heard some scenes I realised some mistakes I made such as having more than one actor/actress screaming/speaking at the same time... rookie mistake... major rookie mistake the screaming drowns out the other dialogue..

really glad I did this short as iv learned so much already, its pretty amazing what you can learn from a days shoot.

I have also made a poster:
11079505_736086766511049_9081664185210458170_o.jpg
 
Congrats, man! It is an accomplishment just to make it all the way through to a final product. So many people give up somewhere in between.

The poster may be the first thing any potential audience sees so I recommend creating another one. The simplicity of it is fine but it needs to look a little more professional starting with the right font.

Check out Dreadylocks on this forum. She makes cool posters for no/low budgets films.
 
Thanks!

It's tough sticking to it, I already dislike it since its not how i imagined but the important thing was to learn from it.

If anything the saying of your first short film will be shit was true... il keep updating on the sound situation.
 
I'm gonna send my film to Troma Dance Detroit. I missed cut off submission date (march 15th) for the one in Jersey but the D-rock one is June 1st so where good on that. You got a preview?
and where you from? were you shooting in the snow these past months?
 
Update:

Have completed the Dialogue sound sync and sent it off to my friend for an audio cleanup if possible, I slightly cut the film again and again and have it under 4 minutes, upon reflection I feel sad that a better job wasnt done on the day, but have begun writing another short film which I have simplified from this one.

After the dialogue comes back I will begin the sound design, in the meantime I will work on credits and intro etc..
 
Dialogue has come back and its been modified a bit, I have spent the whole day cutting it up so its just words however there were still background noises such as planes and dogs etc... once i carried onto the final bit of audio I discovered a youtube video showing me how to clear up background noise in Adobe Audition using a capture noise print technique which took less than 30 seconds to do, I decided to sample my last audio clip to see how it would work and it was actually really really good, the only issue now is that I have to go back and do every single clip again because I cut out the noise reference clips to create just dialogue, so while im pissed off at that fact im also happy that I can salvage reasonably (for a no budget film) audio that I would have had to otherwise re-do via ADR (I do not want to do this...)..

I will then begin Sound design baring in mind I have no idea what the hell im doing ... happy days

I have finished writing my other short film going into it learning from my previous mistakes and hopefully having learned from them, I am also writing a feature film but have yet to compile a playlist to keep me writing.. that will be another thread eh...
 
The film is now complete, Thanks to Mussonman for the Sound Design and to stephenh123 for the score and to Gorillaonabike for his massive help on the day and to LDS for being a pain in the ass and helping me write the script.

A new thread with the final film will be released later today.
 
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