On Being Crafty and the List of Impossibles

It gets real for me when I start buying things like clothes hangers. That means that a shoot is nigh more than anything else. Of course, there is a script and a vague kind of schedule, but beyond that, there is an agreement between all of the disparate parties we've assembled that this will happen relatively soon. When I know this is a certainty, my mind jumps to things that have been a source of problems during past shoots.

I can't say it often enough. If a film has a tiny budget, it behooves producers to make sure that there are some amenities that make the actor feel like they are appreciated. We don't have a wardrobe person, but we should still have their costumes set up in their changing space in the best way possible so that they can be easily seen and used in proper order. That means clothes on hangers in the order worn. There should absolutely be dressing rooms available. Barring that, there should be a comfy room to hang out and run lines.

And then, there is the crafty and food issues which brings me to toasters. On both The Privateers and DemonUnder Glass, we didn't have the right or enough appliances. We had great coffee makers, but no electric kettle for hot water. We had a microwave but no toaster oven. You really need something to toast bagels or properly reheat a slice of pizza. These items seem unimportant compared to the script – and in some ways, they are not as important. Yet, I was still running around like crazy in drug stores in the middle of the night to make sure we had them on the craft service table the next day. Thus, I am picking up hangers and pricing small appliances for pick up very soon. It's great that it is back to school time. The sales are fantastic. What happens to the appliances after the shoot? We used to give them away to a member of the cast or crew or to a thrift shop and write it off. But now that we have a home for the production company, we'll just store it in our trash barrels (one for glass, one for paper and one for plastic and one for garbage) until the next shoot. I also must address the List of the Impossible ®.

The List of the Impossible is my own name to the elastic, seemingly trivial yet vitally important list of items that an actor, a director or various crew people may need. No one has this disparate grouping of items normally. No one. But film is a strange environment and sometimes requires a sack of goodies that would rival any in a video game. It can be a highlighter (you must have a variety of colors because the actor may hate yellow). I've been asked for cough drops (also keep a variety from the candy type to the all natural), band aids, antacids, herb tea, tooth brushes or dental floss, safety pins, mints, gum (mint and cinnamon for both of those and the dental floss). I had a lot of those items during the last shoot I worked on though it was not my job to be the List Keeper. I don't mind wearing this hat. I am a maniacal list keeper anyway, so this is easy. It's just weird when the bags of strange stuff start piling up around the apartment. There is only one item that I refuse to stock from the List and deliberately make difficult for actors to get – cigarettes. I feel almost as strongly about energy drinks, but I won't not carry them – yet. If they continue to make the crew cranky and a little crazy, I may ban them from my sets.

I assemble these things well in advance, because once the train gets going, there is very little time to think about anything more than the stuff that is on camera. Please note, that this is true only when it is a tiny budget. In big budgets, there are people assigned to fill these lists and get these appliances for Craft Services. The list for Craft Services itself is a whole other matter. I deal with that as a function of feeding the cast and crew. Since I am now a pro-am chef (I am being paid to cook on a limited and exclusive basis), I will be feeding them as well as running sound and other production tasks.

Next Time – What is in the new script?!

Updates from a Hollywood Mansion!

I don't like to be too personal when I write on this blog, but the personal has intruded in the progress of the web series in the last few weeks, so I thought I share some of the mayhem that's been going on. We've had some set backs with the production that coincided with some personal issues that caused us to seriously think about pulling the plug on the productions. But our leads told us to wait, take a breath and look at the problem on another day. We did and some amazing things began to happen those amazing things lead to some other amazing things. Within a few weeks, we were back on track. I also got to meet some Trek stars. Usually, that would be for my personal blog. But this may be relevant to Demonspawn as well. That part of the story is still unfolding..

I look back on the last two weeks with excitement and exhaustion. I've had trouble doing a blog about it, because I still don't know how I feel about it. Let's start with the good stuff. I survived almost a week on shoot that was 12 hours overnight (6pm to 6am) in a 4 story location where use of the steep staircase was mandatory. The whole prospect was frightening. I can have so many issues that can keep me from really getting out of bed on any given day. I still never know when that day will be. But there were many reasons that I very much wanted to work this shoot. The most important reason was to prove to myself that I can do the work in some fashion. I knew that I couldn't run around as I once did, but I could do some things. I was very grateful to the producers to be given the opportunity.

No Place Like This Home

Some of the crew remarked that it would be cool to live in that mansion way up in the Hollywood Hills. I was not among them. It wasn't a house that was built to live in, actually. It made absolutely no sense as a house that one lives in. I later found out that it was built as a location. I mean, even the most vain individual would not have a four station professional make-up room with a pro wardrobe room attached. There were even two private toilets off the make-up room. It was set up for actors. But that's good, because there was a lot for the director to work with. The setting even made me want think about how we could do bits of Demonspawn there. Most of the rooms that faced the east had these gigantic electronic black out shades. I could see Simon Molinar totally renting a place with that many large windows as a lark and because no one would think of him renting such a place. I actually had a chat with the very nice young men who were running the location about a short shoot there. That kind of location can really sell the notion of a hero with deep pockets. One scene goes a very long way. Here is the house in all of its glory though there are many rooms not shown. http://www.coldwellbankerpreviews.com/property/280715974 Where the sister property is the one I think would be more to Simon's tastes because it has more woods and darker colors. I just see Simon as liking that more. http://www.estately.com/listings/info/6451-weidlake-drive.

Our Director of Photography was also working the shoot. He agreed that those houses had possibilities. He also told me about a location just up the block from the houses that could solve our long standing problems

with where to do certain scenes that required a more isolated location. The Los Angeles Reservoir was just up the hill from where we were shooting. It is an astonishingly beautiful vista in such an urban location. And there were little hiking paths that were ideal for part of the script. We could use one of the houses as a home base for that part of the shoot. That would save us from renting trailers. We'll have to see though which is cheaper.The house has the advantage of kitchen space and many, many bathrooms. I'm a girl. I can't help thinking about these essentials.

The big development is that we have a stable location for casting, rehearsals and for some parts of the shoot that are well within our budget! It can double for any number of places we need, and we have a professional space to work out of for the duration. Of course, we still have scheduling issues. Our leads are busy in one direction. Our crew is busy in another. The next few days will be spent coordinating schedules that bring us all together. Doing that though will be far easier with these new assets and this bitchin' new script.

We hope to introduce you to new actors filling the open roles very soon.  Meanwhile, Check out these photos from the house!

My 'office' for the shoot.

The kitchen is bigger than our apartment!

The view from my 'desk' in my 'office' at the shoot.

The Living Room!

Biding Time and Plotting Mayhem

There is a common image on any film shoot that is also a metaphor for how film works. I've seen it on our first shoot on the Privateers and I've seen it on Demon Under Glass and I've seen it on the last feature that I worked on last month. This is also true no matter the size of the production. The image is of a punch of people sitting around waiting for something to happen. To outsiders, it looks like there is a lot of time being wasted on any given set. While that can be true on occasion, there are reasons for the gaps in action for the most part. Even long gaps in action seldom happen without good reason. There can be technical difficulties with lighting or a piece of equipment. There could be a delay in getting a prop of a piece of equipment. There could be any number of weather problems that grind things to a halt. The most maddening are paperwork delays like the permit or the unions. We had all of those happen at some point during Demon Under Glass. Everyone involved in the shoot understood these delays as part of the business. Still it is tough on anyone who works on a film to sit

Matty waiting for his cue during our tiniest shoot to date.

around and wait. It is especially frustrating when the problems are beyond our control.

An opportunity presented itself a few months back that looked great for Demonspawn as a project and for us personally and professionally. A film came along that offered some work around the time we were thinking of shooting. It was fabulous timing. The money would be of great use for the shortfall in fundraising. We would get some long needed practice working a rigid shooting schedule, and I was able to fill in the missing crew people from the roster of that film. I knew many of them, but didn't know they'd be interested in working a web series. Fortunately, they all were. Also, working for that show had me on a lot of scouting missions during which I found locations that were lifesavers for our limited resources. Admittedly, there would be challenges in shooting around another shoot, but it was something we were looking forward to tackling. Things couldn't be better...until they weren't anymore.

The production we were planning to work is going though just about everything I mentioned above and a few things I hadn't. That is a drag. We need to wait to figure out if our production will be stepping on theirs. We have a lot of personnel in common now from our DP to our Production Assistants and our Art Department. We have to find out what days of the week they're shooting to make sure our crew isn't seven days a week for the entire time our shoot is going. We also need to be certain that we won't have a whole lot scheduled only to find that shoot is on and we're committed to work (it is really, really bad form to go back on a commitment no matter what. Word gets around if you pull that kind of thing). And then, there is still the monetary shortfall if we begin before this other shoot and how to overcome that. None of this is new, but it can be a bit disheartening. There were things we could do. We have to cast three parts. We need to table read and even rehearse. There is a lot to do before we walk onto a location.

So I talk to my cast and they agreed that they would prefer to start when we could work straight through. The reasoning made sense. They get a lot of scripts for auditions or for parts. Even if things are slow that could mean three or four parts while they wait. They would forget and get out of the character's head if there is too long a gap between a rehearsal or table read. It didn't make sense to cast the available parts for much the same reason. Most actors expect that they will be working soon after they are cast. Otherwise, it's a waste of their time. That's another thing that a production company does not want to be known for – a time waster. My lead was really clear that the cast can pull it together on a dime. It would be best to get everything together first and then plow ahead. The caveat to that is that a location may come up out of sequence that we should grab when it is available. He though that was doable as well.

So we're waiting. I was unsure of what to say in the blog, because it could all change the day after it was posted. Finally, I decided to just detail everything and hope it made sense. We think the show will commence sometime in the next week or so with casting and the actual shoot would be a couple of weeks after that. Everything will be documented for readers here to follow. Everyone involved knows that this process will be heavily documented. Spoilers will be clearly marked.

We have no idea what will be happening in the next few weeks. The only thing certain is that it won't be dull. Thank you again for you patience. I'd also like to thank my amazing cast and crew. They're ready to follow us anywhere. That could be interesting.

Casting About for New Cast

It's time to talk about casting! No matter how many actors we get to know, I never have enough of the right ones available when we want to shoot something. That means that we have to do a casting call or Breakdown. Our feelings are decidedly mixed about these. On the one hand, a casting session is the first indication that a project is real. There is also nothing like hearing the dialog spoken by actors for the first time. That can also be the first time you realize that the dialog needed to be polished something fierce. But there is another side to casting that makes us cringe.

Before I get to that, let me show you an article that gives a clear and concise description of how a casting session should be.

http://www.backstage.com/advice-for-actors/backstage-experts/21-things-make-casting-directors-happy-audition-room/

Jon and I can add some numbers to that list that makes us dread going into a casting session.

Number 21 – Please, keep your clothes on unless we ask you to remove them (and we won't).

This has happened during the auditions for Demon Under Glass. The part was for a man who is mistaken for Molinar in the hooker sting. More than one actor thought, well if I'm about to get in bed with a hooker, I need to get naked. We are not talking about lifeguard physiques here. I thought the casting director was going to dive under his desk.

Number 22 – Please, make sure that your headshot is within ten years of your actual age.

We have had some actors come in that were decades older than their headshots. In one case, many decades older. Time makes many changes in one decade. Come one people, 70 is NOT the new 30!!!

Number 23 - Please, make sure that the height listed on your headshot is within six inches of your actual height in either direction.

We've expected a 5'8 inch female and gotten 6'2 inches. And we've expected a 5'8 inch man and gotten 5'2 inches. With an ensemble cast, we cast relative to the height of the leads. These numbers are important.

Number 24 – If you insist on using a prop, please make sure that prop makes sense.

We were auditioning for a tough guy space pirate, as you do, was using a waiter's cork screw as a substitute for a switch blade. It took us forever to figure that out, and then we were fixated on what happened during this man's day that he thought switch blade and came up with corkscrew. We didn't hear a word he was saying.

Number 25 – If you come up with your own stage direction, please try to remember it.

An actor during a call back decided to do a long monologue while pretending to be tied to a chair. Ballsy, we thought. But then, he kept getting out of the chair to dramatically stalk about the stage. Even after Jon reminded him twice that he was supposed to be tied up by his own choice, he kept getting up. Even when Jon made it an official adjustment to the performance, he didn't remember. Next.

Number 26 – If you don't know how to pronounce a word or what it means, PLEASE ask!

That's self explanatory and should be common sense. It really isn't. And while the guesses at words and how they are meant in sentences can be highly entertaining, it really isn't good for anyone. Casting is difficult when it's running smoothly, because you are rejecting people who are putting themselves out for your judgment. It's worse when things are unnecessarily difficult.

With all of this weighing on our minds, we have put out a casting call. You can read the character http://demonspawntales.blogspot.com/p/demonspawn-web-series.html. There are very mild spoilers in the descriptions. We've had literally hundreds of submissions for each part. We also have suggestions from the cast and crew. It's a lot to go through. It's quite daunting. However, we'll be having the finalists do scenes with our leads. This is great, because we can really get a feel for the actors that have the best chemistry with the cast. If all involved agree, we will record these sessions as a perk for the donors and for the DVD release!

breakdowns here:

Next up, more on the final script!

Pre-Production Looms

We've been super busy these past weeks, but it is paying off in a most satisfying way! We had a great meeting with Garett Maggart recently and went over the script treatment. Since he's lived with Joe McKay for quite some time, so we wanted to make sure that there was nothing in our plans that didn't ring true. We also wanted to make double super sure that what we have plan will be fun for him actor-wise. Fun doesn't always mean comedy for actors. It means that it's something fun for them to do. Fun varies with the actor, their personalities and experiences. He liked what we came up with for the script and its underpinnings.

That means that we can really start pre-production asap. I'm assembling the crew. I've been very lucky to find crew from the original Demon Under Glass. Aside from them knowing the material, there is a comfort level of working with people you've known for a decade. I trust that they can pull off miracles because I've seen them do it before. Additionally, they've honed their skills either through school or through job experience. And then, there are some new people that I've met doing my experiments with cooking and little comedy videos. Among them is a really adorable actor that I hired to be adorable. I discovered recently that he has this fight background and really wants to choreograph some vampire fights. I also think he'll made adorable vampire chow!

We have all of our equipment squared away with frugal use of the Indiegogo funds and the lovely Frugal Filmmaker Youtube page. We even found a solution to the fangs that is comfortable but not insanely expensive. And that came from the Goth crown that follows the film. It's absolutely amazing and it won't take very long to order. That was a relief as we really needed to have more than one set of fangs in case of an accident or a hard piece of sourdough bread.

The answer to the big question is mid-June. I'm working a production now (that's the interesting photo we

have here) but we're still setting up for this one. It's sort of like when you've worked for 8 hours, you don't mind working ten. What's an extra day to my week. Eek! I'll be posting the script and the casting breakdown on a link to a pdf next week for those who don't mind spoilers.

Thank you for your patience!

Scouting Party

I went location scouting last week. I both love and hate location scouting. Why they used to be called scouting parties is beyond comprehension. There was no cake at all! But it is an essential chore. On the one hand, I have to see with my own eyes how close the locations are to what has been written in the script. This is especially true when Jon is directing. After working with him for many years, I know exactly how much leeway I have with his needs to get the scene just right. I also know how many angles Jon needs in photographs for each location. I usually have a lot of questions to ask like how much can we alter the location (move things around or re-dress the location as something else). I love location scouting, because it makes me excited about what is going to happen next with the film. It's second to casting in making the project more real. Finally, as a woman, I have to make sure there are decent bathrooms nearby and that there is a place to eat and rest for the cast and crew. The hate of location scouting comes from the walking. When I set up a scout, I pick a very narrow area in which there is a hub where I can rest and get my bearings. When others set up scouts, there usually isn't a hub. There is a lot of walking hither and yon. I put in six miles in one day. And it was not a good day for that. We were having a spate of really cool days and one that was blistering hot. Guess which one was the one we scouted? Blistering! The upside is that I know where to find the cooler spots for that location. And then there are the stairs. I always manage to avoid locations with stairs. Even one flight can seem like Everest after ten hours. After 12 hours, it might as well be Mt. Doom. Yes, including the fire. Elevators help, but crew always find themselves taking stairs because they are always faster. They are exhausting when everyone is healthy. I really try to avoid them now. But the area is perfect in so many ways. I can forgive one set of stairs. It could be worse. We've always

wanted to film on Vasquez Rocks. That involves a cliff!

With that little scouting trip, we believe we now have all the locations we need that do not have permit or insurance issues. They will not be secured until the script is locked down. That should happen very soon as well. The location will actually help in finishing the script, because we had an issue with night shoots. One of our actors has a play this summer, so we wouldn't be able to do the number of night shoots that we would need to to for these scenes. This issue was becoming a real source of tension as we tried to finalize the script. This location always looks like night even in broad daylight. For the first time since the end of the fundraising campaign, I am actually visualizing scenes in my head. This has not been an easy process – re-tooling the script in light of the much smaller budget. I know what fans have been clamoring to see regarding Joe and Simon over the years (Is Joe a frightened prisoner or a willing accomplice? Do they fight over Simon's feeding? Have their been others who knew what Simon was?) We also wanted to explore the theme of vampire fans throughout the ages. I felt that the script we had really explored all of those in a fun way. But I am also reminded of a saying in screenwriting. A writer must be willing to 'murder your darlings.' That means, so save a script, a writer must be willing to 'kill' scenes that they love because they aren't feasible for some reason. That's never easy even though the scenes or plots or whatever gets killed can come back in another script. It sure shan't been here. I'm really liking the results here.

Note: Donors who do not fear major spoilers will be given a link to the new synopsis and episode outline in the next blog.

Our next big challenge is casting the two new characters that are in this script. I plan to put the actors among others on the case.

The Yin and Yang of Delays

If you read any of my other blogs, you will note that this one is stripped of everything personal. It's been all about the web series or indie filmmaking. I figure that our donors and future viewers aren't really interested in our personal problems. Everyone has many of their own to worry about. And I agree with that. However, sometimes the health of someone on a project's cast or key crew becomes an issue in whether or not that project can continue. For example, the cancer that impacted the leads for Dexter and Spartacus. Health issues are amplified as problems when the cast and crew are so very small.

I am a survivor of a rare cancer of the appendix. Current stats contend that a diagnosis like mine is one in a million in cancer patients. The upside of such a rare cancer is that it is of great interest to a teaching hospital. Thus, I got and continue to get excellent care. The downside is that I'm studied like a lab rat. Every six months, I undergo a battery of tests to make sure I'm cancer free. This go around, some 'oddities' were found in my CT scan of the abdomen and in my mammogram (they make sure to test for everything). The results of those oddities has been more tests, including needle biopsies on both breasts. Each one left me almost incapacitated for a week. And every extra test left me a nervous wreck. Meanwhile, Jon is rushed to the ER twice in six weeks with excruciating pain in his side. Turns out, he has kidney stones. Though not life threatening, the attacks left Jon exhausted physically and mentally. This was especially true of the second as it really aggravated his his kidney. For at least two weekends in the last six, we've been forced to just stay still and completely rest. Since weekends are when we work on Demonspawn, that means we've fallen behind our current schedule.

What could possibly be the upside of that sort of delay, you ask? Well, one of the really important scenes we were writing that fit our budget yet was still exciting takes place in a location that no one we knew had access to. We didn't even know anyone that had access to a location that we could make look like the location we really wanted. The delay has resulted in someone very close to us having access to the perfect location when we shoot. It was almost kismet!

Speaking of Delays

Meanwhile, a year ago, our producing partner approached me about helping him schedule and budget an indie film for a writer he'd met on a shoot. Scheduling is a skill set that I learned after someone tried to charge me 10,000 to do one. As I recall, I laughed derisively, hung up the phone on him and fired up Google. I had an advantage of having done a feature schedule the old fashioned way – cardboard strips with each scene written on it along with codes for the rest of the elements in the scene (and then manually arranged them). It was easy to learn how to make the scheduling software work after going through something like that. Since that summer, I've scheduled dozens of films. I can now tell by just reading a script what the minimum number of shoot days would be. Anyway, we helped work on the development of the film a while ago and even agreed to work on it. At the time, we didn't think the shoots would interfere with each other in any way. Many delays later, the shoot is nigh and they still want me to continue to work on it. And not just me, half our cast may be working on it as well at some point. Our current plan is to try to shoot it during this film's pre-production in May or directly after that one wraps. What is the upside of twice the work? First, this film is a big lot of fun. Second, it's be great just to be in the habit of running a shoot. We'd have something like a running start. And third, I think we can lure some of the film's cast and/or acquire some of its assets. This would be most exciting to any fan of genre Sci-fi. And that's all I can really give away.

The upshot to all of this is that we are all much better physically, and we will have a script ready for a table read in another week or two. By then, I will also be able to reveal what this mystery film is as well. We really appreciate your patience and understanding and so does the cast and crew.