failed shoot, it needed to happen

R

RealJasonBourne

it just needed to happen. It was an unorganized mess, I spent the whole day buying supplies and still showed up late and had to leave the location to look for last minute things and ended up making the crew wait an extra hour and a half.

1 hour into fail shooting me and my brother agreed we didnt want to be here anymore and started handing out the money and telling them we need to leave.

they were professional.

this shit needed to happen, it just shows every centimeter needs to be planned out, 8 grand down the drain.

EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQiz...ature=youtu.be
 
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Nothing you have said on this thread should have stopped the shoot. Directing is much like an acting on a stage; everyone is looking at you and you can either sit there and be nervous, or you can start moving and talking. And, if you really are worried about what everyone is thinking, show them that first shot, so they realize what you are getting. Now, they can start believing in the project, but only after you show them one thing....., then another and another.... All of a sudden, people don't mind waiting around, because they realize you have a vision and it's slowly coming together.


RealJasonBourne said:
Ill keep trying next time and won't destroy the entire mood before shooting even starts lol
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Before "next time," go out shoot some tests. It's okay to stumble before you run. Get used to how your camera works, indoors, outdoors, wide angle, zoomed in, panning, tilting, handheld, tracking, etc. Learn how to get coverage and alternate takes. "Make" your movie in the editing room. Cut out all the bits of bad acting and poor shots and edit together the best 10% of what you got.

Start with a really simple short, then work up to bigger things. Experience will dictate to you what can be accomplished.

Good luck!
 
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Nikola Damov said:
I can't tell if you're a perfectionist or you give up way too easy...
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I think sfoster established this trend on page two - I'm inclined to lean towards the latter. Rik is right, you should have continued; the shot wasn't bad at all!

I think if you want to be a successful filmmaker, you need to stop giving up/ditching your own projects before everyone else does. More so, I think you need to come to terms with the planning aspect, which is pretty much the entirety of the process in the extreme.

As mentioned above, your first films won't be gold. Don't abruptly pull the plug if things don't go right, what will go wrong, will go wrong. Instead, persevere and get a product out of each experience, even it's a poor product.

I've always said in music, you have to write a dozen bad songs to get half of a good song. Film is no different.
 
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RealJasonBourne said:
I might still do this same script in the future but I'm thinking of just switching to guerilla shooting.
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That's really where you should have started - don't go spending a lot of money until you've done enough to know what kind of results you'll get for that money.

I had to cancel because it wasn't a good experience for anyone and thats my fault for not planning ahead.
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There's a big difference between being prepared for everything, and being prepared for anything.

Preproduction is an attempt at being prepared for everything. The problem is you can never anticipate and prepare for everything that's going to come up during production. Being prepared for anything means that when the unexpected happens you're ready, willing and able to adapt and keep moving forward with the production - it's the attitude and approach that it's going to happen no matter what.

You can make a film with little or no preproduction if you're ready for anything - but it's going to be exhausting and inefficient. On the other hand, no amount of preproduction will be enough if you aren't able to deal with the unexpected. You need both to successfully get through a production.

It sounds like this time you just weren't prepared, period. So go ahead and plan ahead more for next time, but know that that isn't enough, and it wasn't your only shortcoming this time. You've got to be prepared for anything.
 
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RealJasonBourne said:
In the display finder, I was thinking, look at this shitty lighting. That threw me off and made me want to give up on low budget night shooting but when I got home I was saying to my brother "..... uh oh.... " because the lighting looked better on my computer screen. ...................
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What made you think it was shitty?
Shitty is a pretty emotional not objective discription.
Did you think it was too dark?
Or not enough 'hollywood'?

What camera did you use?
 
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It sounds as if you were too concerned with everyone else rather than trying to salvage whatever you could from the shoot. From what you were paying, they should have been happy to put in a day's work. You should have kept shooting and try to fix what you could in post. If they were all volunteers, I might have a different answer.
 
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at some point you do have to cut losses, but it dosent seem like you were there yet?
I had a shoot that was going from bad to worse and I made that hard call to shut it down while I regrouped. This was the result of bad planning and poor execution. I had neglected to phone a vital resource (a car and a driver) that was needed, in addition I as trying to shoot an exterior night shot (new thing for me at the time) and had one too many moving parts to manage and blew what could have been an EXCELLENT scene, but I think I was overreaching and just couldn't get there from here.. if you know what I mean.. . Rewrote to make it a day shoot, and rescheduled.
 
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Will Vincent said:
Since they all, apparently, were paid $500 to stand around twiddling their fingers for a couple hours... I'd wager one or two of 'em would be willing to do that again. Hell, I'll do that kind of gig all day long for $250-500/hr. :yes: Where do I sign up?
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Will -- you stole my post! Where do I sign up OP? I think we're a couple thousand miles apart, but surely there's some help I can give you for $500 / hour.
 
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(No criticism of the OP here intended.)

Here are some lessons to take away from this for everyone else:

The decision to choose cool shots, utilization of cool gear over KISS filmmaking. A nutty one.

Have we at IT contributed to that nutty decision making? Yup. (I'm looking at you gearheads.)
 
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The shot you posted is okay - not spectacular but perfectly usable. It seems the problem is one of attitude - not that of your actors or their fathers, but yours. Filmmaking is about creative problem-solving - something you have to do all day every day when shooting. By just throwing up your hands and giving in you wasted everyone's time and efforts, not just your own. On the evidence here, you could make a good DP. But a film-maker? Not so much...
 
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