VERTIBLOG Film School VII - THE $1,000 MOVIE, Part 6

PRE PRODUCTION (continued)

STEP 1. BREAK DOWN YOUR SCRIPT (cont.)
STEP 1b: The Production Board (cont.)
III. Shooting Schedule (post 2)

So, you're going to be shooting weekends and nights, days off and holidays. That's OK. You have no choice.

Now, you've got to determine exactly what scenes you shoot on which day. Below find a list of things to keep in mind.

******************MONEY / TIME SAVING HINT*******************

People will only take you as seriously as you take yourself.. DO NOT be wishy-washy when it comes to getting people to commit to your project. Get a firm answer -- yes or no. If the answer's 'maybe', then find someone else. You cannot be left without what you need on the day you need to shoot.

*******************************

-DAY VS. NIGHT

Clearly it's easier to shoot daytime scenes in the daytime and night time scenes in the night time. So, schedule them appropriately. Sometimes, you'll have a night scene in the script that immediately, or soon after, follows a day scene (or vice-versa; same actors/same wardrobe/same props/same location). If so, schedule the day shoot in the late afternoon, and get the night stuff after the sun goes down.

Also, unless it's IMPERATIVE, don't write scenes that tale place at dawn or dusk. It's an absolute nightmare trying to beat the sun to get your coverage. If you're shooting a vampire flick, then sure... I see the importance. Otherwise, don't make your life any harder than it has to be.

Another good idea is to not have early call times the day after a night shoot. You never know what's going to happen on set/location, and you don't want to be looking at a 7:00am call time when you're still shooting at 3:00am the night before.

-LOCATION SHOOTS

Try not to schedule two different locations on the same day.

If that simply doesn't make sense... if you only have actors for one day and you need them in two different locations... OK.

Usually location shoots require a certain amount of logistical organization -- you have to get permission to shoot somewhere, promise to be there by a certain time, get directions to everybody in the cast/crew, and hope nobody breaks down or gets lost.

-EFFICIENT USE OF CAST

You won't need every actor every day, so schedule smartly here. If Jim, Bob and Larry are in seven scenes together and these are the only scenes for Jim, try to schedule them all in one day, and wrap Jim. Of course, take the 'day/night' and 'location' rules into account: If three of the scenes are in a location three hours away, and you have other scenes to shoot there, too. Then screw Jim and make him work an extra day.

-EFFICIENT USE OF CREW

If you have days where there is no dialogue -- you're only gathering B-roll, or shooting cutaways or second-unit type footage, then give your audio guy a day off. He'll appreciate that a hell of a lot more than standing there with nothing to do because you're just gathering reference audio on the camera mic.

BE FLEXIBLE & WATCH THE WEATHER CHANNEL

Earlier I had recommended writing some of your film to take place outdoors. A good idea... but sometimes it rains, sometimes you want sun, sometimes you want clouds. Be flexible. And watch the Weather Channel. Keep an eye on storm fronts as exterior shooting approaches. Don't panic when you see rain in the 10 day forecast, 10 days from now. That's likely to change. And don't put yourself in a position to have to panic when a storm threatens an exterior shoot two days from now. Have a backup plan for every day of shooting. Know that you can shoot Day 11 on Day 8 if it's going to rain.

And let your cast/crew know up front that these things happen.

Creating a shooting schedule, like pretty much all of independent filmmaking, is about being practical and efficient.

So, be practical and efficient.

VERTIBLOG Film School VI - THE $1,500 MOVIE, Part 5

PRE PRODUCTION (continued)

STEP 1. BREAK DOWN YOUR SCRIPT (cont.)
STEP 1b: The Production Board (cont.)
III. Shooting Schedule

Filmmaker's Software and the other Scheduling/Budgeting software packages out there do more than just create strips. They create shooting schedules, call sheets, budgets, daily reports, contacts sheets and more. That stuff comes later. For now we have to nail down a shooting schedule.

When you've entered in your last strip, what you have is a grid-based representation of your movie. Right in front of you is a description of every scene and everything that's necessary for every scene. The problem is, it's all in the order that the script dictates. It starts with Scene One and ends with Scene Whatever (let's say 80). What we now need to do is create a shooting schedule that makes sense for the logistics of our particular wants/needs.

Now, a shooting schedule requires a lot of common sense. Chances are, you won't be able to shoot your movie in sequence, so you're going to need to figure out what scenes make sense to group together to shoot on certain days.

Plan on having each day be 8-10 hours long. And here's where the page count starts to help us out -- try not to schedule more than 10 pages a day.

There are exceptions, of course. If you have a 15 page scene that takes place in a controlled environment, is all dialogue, and you have really good actors who will know their lines... then sure, you'll be able to get away with that. Also to consider -- if you have a 15 page scene with two people doing nothing but talking, you may want to take another look at the script. Outside of MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (great director, brilliant actors), I haven't seen that pulled off too many times.

So, how many pages can you shoot in 8-10 hours? It depends. A good target is 6-9 pages. You figure most scenes are about 2 pages long. Some longer, some shorter, but they average out. That means three scenes per day, which requires three lighting set ups, three blocking rehearsals (where the actors rehearse the scene with the director and director of photography to figure out 'who says what where', and 'who walks where when', and how am I going to light it? Blocking and lighting will probably take at least an hour; break down and moving will take half an hour; that four and half hours and you haven't even shot a single frame of tape (note I didn't say: "you haven't shot a single foot of film." Nobody but nobody is making a movie with film in this budget range).

My point here is that half of your day is devoted to not shooting. Sometimes, it's a lot more. There were days on MAGDALENA'S BRAIN where we shot 3 pages in 12 hours.

So anyway. Let's say 8 pages a day. How's long the script? 77 pages? So, we're looking at 9-10 days of shooting.

This is going to be difficult.

There are two basic approaches you can make in developing a shooting schedule.

-Shoot all at once, in consecutive days.
-Shoot when you can, weekends/nights, whenever possible.

Both have their strengths and weaknesses. I certainly have a preference, but sometimes necessity dictates which way you go.

We shot MAGDALENA'S BRAIN in 14 days, with two days off within a 16 day period. The result was exhausting, but after 14 days, we had the movie in the can. We also had the luxury of a modest -- but still well over $1,000 -- budget. Which meant we were able to pay people something who were taking time off of their regular jobs, or turning down other work that may have come their way.

With $1,000 in the budget, you can be sure you'll have to shoot your movie the second way -- nights and weekends. I always prefer to shoot consecutive days. I've been involved with both approaches, and the piecemeal way has a lot more cons than pros.

-Creating a schedule is made much more difficult.
-Continuity is a nightmare.
-Consistent performances are difficult.
-Excitement wanes, followed by attendance.

There are other cons, to be sure. But the above are enough of a bear to work around. The pros?

-Exhaustion is unlikely.
-Sanity is maintained.
-You don't have to pay people.

Insanity and exhaustion are key elements to pretty much any shoot, but only reach dangerous levels when you've got three, four, six, 12+ days in a row. Onesies and twosies on a Saturday or Sunday? You'll still have your mind intact, though I think you're actually missing out on something of the filmmaking experience to shoot like this.

It's that last pro that makes this pretty much the required route. Nobody will take 10 days off of work to help you make your movie.

Let's break down the cons, and find some ways to alleviate the negative. Just because we have to deal with them doesn't mean we have to let them kick our ass.

-Creating a schedule is made much more difficult.

Damn, is it ever.

What you're forced to do here determine who are going to be the most important people in your production, and then customize the schedule around them. For me, the list looks something this:
#1. You
#2. The director of photography
#3. The sound mixer
#4. The actors

I think it's extraordinarily important to have the same guy holding the camera every time you shoot. Or at least, as often as humanly possible. The responsibility of lighting, composing and shooting your movie should not fall on your little brother. And it should certainly not fall on you, either. You're going to have your hands full with a million other things, not the least of which are performances. It's tough to direct actors while looking through a viewfinder.

So, if it's not you or your little brother... who is it going to be? We'll get to that in a bit. Just keep in mind that it's a very good idea to consider your DP your right-hand man throughout production, and your schedule should reflect the importance of that relationship.

And a sound mixer? Can you afford a sound mixer? Actually, no... you probably can't, but there are some good cheap cheats that I can fill you in on later. Just make sure you always have someone on site in charge of audio.

So, if you're not available, don't shoot.
If your DPs not available, you probably shouldn't shoot.
And, if no one knows anything about the audio, you probably shouldn't shoot.

But you're going to know everybody's personal schedule weeks before you shoot. And knowing their schedules is going to help you you make yours.

Oh wait... what about the actors? Well, you can't shoot without them, I guess. But here's the thing (and we'll talk more about this later), they'll always make themselves available. I love actors, really I do. And we couldn't do what we do without them, but here's the thing -- they're desperate to do anything. If you've got a pretty good script, you will have no shortage of bad and mediocre actors lining up at 4:00am on a Sunday morning to get covered in pig's blood. Good actors? They're desperate, too, just tougher to find.

Great actors you probably won't have to worry about.

-Continuity is a nightmare.

Continuity is hard enough... when you start putting 6-7 days between shoots, it can become downright impossible. On proper shoots, you'd have a script supervisor, a person who is never without a three ringed binder containing their own personal copy of the script. This copy has crazy notes in the margins, between dialogue, sometimes on the back. The have scribbly code like 47A.1 Left hand-cup (3/4). No drink. Hair - front right ear, pulls back on "...gel suspended in cystalline lattice".

Roughly translated, we're shooting scene 47A. An actor, who has a 3/4-filled cup in her left hand but doesn't drink from it, pulls the hair in front of her right ear back, as she delivers the line "...gel suspended in cystalline lattice". This is what a script supervisor/continuity person does. All day.

Below find a sample page from MAGDALENA'S BRAIN, created by our own script supervisor, Maria Escribano:

They also prepare tape logs, which log every take of every scene -- everything recorded gets noted here. On these, they also write things like:"47A . 1 - No. 47A.2 - Good, good. One more for safety. 47A.3 Good safety. Moving on."

Translated, that means that Scene 47A was being shot. Take one (.1) was no good... the director said "No"; for take 2, the director said, "good, good". But he decided he wanted another take "for safety". Take three was a good safety and it was decided to move on to the next scene.

Without a script supervisor to even tell you what color pants Jill was wearing last weekend, you'd better have a real good memory.

******************MONEY / TIME SAVING HINT*******************

At the end of each scene, and the each shooting day, take digital photos of each of your actors. Keep them in a log to SEE what each actor looks like in different parts of the movie.

*******************************

-Consistent performances are difficult.

You're probably dealing with amateur actors, so an irregular shooting schedule is going to make it that much more difficult to get consistent performances out of them. When an actor is living with a character day in, day out, they start to inhabit a strange place. It's kinda of scary sometimes (I don't get actors). When actors work 40 hours selling envelopes in between shoots, the performance is sure to suffer.

******************GOOD PERFORMANCE HINT*******************

Rough cut scenes together in between shoot and share them with the cast. It'll help actors "get in character".

*******************************

-Excitement wanes, followed by attendance.

Conceptually, filmmaking is the coolest thing ever. The idea of making movies is glamorous, romantic and profound. The thought of the lights, of the camera, of the action...it's intoxicating.

In reality, it's unbelievably tedious, boring and staggeringly repetitive.

When you're roping people into your filmmaking experience, you're going to get a lot of newbies. And these newbies aren't all going to last. By the third shoot day, they're going to realize that the first two boring days weren't just the exception, but rather the rule.

*

The above are some cons. But remember the pro:

-You don't have to pay people.

(continued)

© 2006 by Marty Langford

VERTIBLOG Film School V - THE $1,500 MOVIE, Part 4

PRE PRODUCTION (continued)

STEP 1. BREAK DOWN YOUR SCRIPT (cont.)
STEP 1b: The Production Board

This gets a little complicated.

But fortunately, there's an amazing piece of software out there that, once you figure out how to use it, is going to save you loads of time and money, and as a super-bonus will make you look like the most organized and prepared filmmaker around. This alone makes it worth its price. With the reports and print outs you can generate, your crew will be confident in your ability as a filmmaker.

As a little aside here, as I mentioned before, the confidence you exude as a writer/producer/director/filmmaker to your crew is crucial. The men and women "helping you out", and "giving you a hand" will sacrifice many things in their own lives if they believe in you and your project. This app. is an easy, cheap way to begin the trust that you need from your crew.

Anyway, it's called Filmmaker's Software and you can download it here. To use their words, it's a "multi-featured film production software package designed for full-scale scheduling, budgeting and managing". Now to be honest, compared to all of the other production packages out there, it's no great shakes. But when you take into consideration that most other apps with the same features are $300-$900, and filmmaker's Software is $15.00, it's clear it'll be the best money you spend in pre-pro.

The most important aspect to this piece of software is the ability to create Production Boards. Production boards look like this...















... but, as earlier stated, it's a bit complicated.

One of the drawbacks to this $15 app is that its makers didn't create proprietary code for this software to be a stand-alone, specifically-designed production app. They created a series a macros to work with Microsoft Excel... it's how they can afford to sell it so cheaply. But no worries, there's a manual and some FAQs, and once you get the hang of it, like everything else in life, it becomes second nature.

*(*soapbox warning*)* Now, industrious yet dishonest people out there may read through the above stuff and determine: "well, if these other more expensive apps are better, why not just surf over to one of those torrent or file sharing sites and get me one." Well, you could that; matter of fact, you could do that very easy. We all know how to. My only response to that is fine, do just that... and when your movie gets picked up and you start to get royalties/percentages of each unit sold, don't bitch when people start thinking the same way about downloading your film, and literally stealing money from you. *(*end*)*

STEP 1b: The Production Board
I. Mindlessly inputting important data.

Don't you hate the word 'data'? Like 'product' and 'content', I've always bristled at how it takes what could be brilliant ideas/thoughts/creations, and reduces it to a single distasteful term. In our case, data means scene information that's entered to create "strips".

Strips include:
-scene number
-slug line info (INT./EXT, LOCATION, TIME OF DAY)
-short description (John meets Alice at roller rink; chaos breaks out)
-number of pages (in 8ths)
-script day (for help in continuity, it's very useful to know where each scene exists in the
timeline reality of your movie. If you film takes place over a 7 day period, you have
to know what day you're shooting. This can help an actor's performance and aid in
wardrobe.)

So, you go through your horizontally-lined/scene-numbered script, page-by-page, scene-by-scene and enter this info into well-designed fields.

STEP 1b: The Production Board
II. Carefully inputting important data.

You're not done. These five pieces of info represent only part of the strip. Once they are inputted you then go the script once again, page-by-page, scene-by-scene. This time, however, you have to read every word you've written. Very carefully. What you're doing is determining what physical and logistical elements you're going to need when you eventually shoot these scenes.

We're talking:
-cast
-extras
-special effects
-sound elements
-props
-vehicles
-wardrobe
-special makeup/hair needs
-location details
-special equipment (dolly, jib, steadicam...etc)

As intimately as you knew your script before, you'll soon know it exponentially more.

And that's a good thing.

Because you have to plan every aspect of every element of every moment of your shoot. I don't like getting into the relative values/importance of the different stages of production, but one thing is sure... without proper pre-pro, you have little chance of having a successful production & post production experience.

So, we've created strips. If you've done it right, it's taken you hours, not minutes. And you're ready to start thinking about how and when you're going to start shooting this thing.

(continued)

© 2006 by Marty Langford

VERTIBLOG Film School IV - THE $1,500 MOVIE, Part 3

PRE PRODUCTION

When a movie is in our head and the words only exist on the page, we have the luxury of time. We revise; we rewrite. We noodle things around.

But when we start to extricate that movie from its residence in our mind's eye, it starts to become more real. More possible. It's not longer just a script, it's a potential movie. And then there's this natural inclination that many of us have -- this voice that screams in our head:

"Let's shoot."

It seems so tempting to just grab the camera and shoot that scene, that simple one in the gravel pit. All we need is the two lead actors. There isn't even any dialogue. How about we do it Saturday?

You probably shouldn't.

This is going to be your shot at a feature film and the last thing you want to do is have it implode. For many of us $1,500 is a lot of money. All it takes for your movie to fail is for others to see that you're not prepared. And if they don't have faith in you, you're sunk. These are the people who are going to be working for cold pizza and no money, with the hope that whatever you have up your sleeve will somehow benefit them. Not to speak too cynically, but there are really only two reasons that people will work on your film.

-For money. Not likely in this case. You're going to be VERY careful about whom you pay.
-For credit/experience/exposure/reciprocity. This is the crowd you want to surround yourself with.

There is a third reason, I guess:

-For friendship.

The talent level may be nil, though you'll need all the help you can get. But you won't be able to dip into this well too many times. As soon as your otherwise uninterested family and friends see how unbelievably tedious filmmaking can be, they'll be done with it.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

Now is the time for action. We've been sitting in front of that computer for long enough, right?

STEP 1. BREAK DOWN YOUR SCRIPT

Actually, no... we're should probably stay in front of it a little longer. Or at least stay in the seated position.

The first thing you need to do is print out your script. The second thing you need to do is get it three hole punched.

******************MONEY SAVING HINT*******************

Every so often I'll pipe in with a little tip I've picked up about saving cash during filmmaking.

So, you need paper, right? Hopefully, you're employed and they need it, too. Now, I'm not condoing stealing, but mention to your boss that you're working on a film and have to print up some script pages. He/she either won't care and say 'whatever'. Or they'll be pretty interested and say, 'sure'. Very few will actually say, 'no.' Bosses KNOW people steal stuff, like paper when employees are printing up church bazaar flyers or fantasy baseball rosters. They'll appreciate that you're being up front with them.

To get your script 3-hole punched for free, bring your printed up script to a mom and pop printing shop. Don't go to Staples or Office Max. Mom and pop stores are independently run, and when you go in have them 3-hole punch your script, start a conversation with them. "Hey, do you guys have a 3-hole punch machine? I was hoping you could punch these 77 pages for me. It's a script for a movie I'm making". They'll be so interested in what/how you're making a movie in their little town, that they won't charge you for the punching. Seriously, it works every time.

*******************************

It's worth mentioning here that you should have been aiming for a certain length of your script. The target? 90 to 120 pages. A page of screenplay averages out to a minute of screen time. If your script is 58 pages long, you're not making a feature film -- you're making a short. Which is fine, unless you want to make a feature film... then it's not fine.

In the $1,500 independent film world 120 pages is probably pushing it. Even 90 may even be a bit long in the tooth. Our script for MAGDALENA'S BRAIN was about 82 pages long. Our rough cut of the movie? About 82 minutes. Seriously. It was weird. So let's revise that last paragraph.

The target? 75 to 90 pages.

So you now have 77 pages in front of you and should, as they sayin the industry,"break it down".
This is a multi-part process; the reason we do it is to create a budget, create a shooting schedule, determine our casting needs, determine the props we'll need, and figure out every location that's necessary.

Yeah, it does a lot. To start with, though... it's pretty easy...

STEP 1a: Break it down into 8ths

... and actually, pretty fun. Scriptwriting and filmmaking require every ounce of your attention during every second that your involved with it.

This doesn't.

Here's all you have to do: Get a ruler (actually any straight edge will do) and get a pencil. Then, draw eight equidistant horizontal lines across the paper. Start by drawing three lines that bisect each of the 3 holes punched on the left hand side. Then draw 2 lines in between the first and second holes, and again between the second and third holes.

It should look a little something like this:

Of course, there would be words all over the place, but you get the idea.

By breaking the script down to 8ths, we get manageble chunks of page count to work with. Each scene of the movie will be a certain length, measured in 8ths, with 1/8th being the shortest possible scene we'll have. When we go to the next part of breaking the script down, we'll use these measurements to create a shooting schedule that will give a per-day page count to shoot for. We'll know that on day 6, we have to shoot 6 2/3 pages to keep on schedule.

So, grab your pencil and go to town making those lines on each and every page.

STEP 1b: Scene Numbers

Next, you need to apply a scene number to each and every scene. For each slug line/scene heading you have that represents a location shift/change, you need to number it in ascending order. Write (or type) the scene number in both the left and right margins.

The first scene in your script is Scene 1, the last is Scene Whatever. How many scenes in a script varies wildly from screenplay to screenplay. MAGDALENA'S BRAIN had about 80 scenes. Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze's ADAPTATION has 123 scenes, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN has 227 scenes.

So now, before you, you will have a marked up script with a bunch of horizontal lines going through it and a bunch of numbers to the left (and right) of each scene heading.

But, up until this point, we haven't really "broken down" anything. We've just gotten things ready. This next step is a very revealing one, and will get you more intimate with your script than you ever have been before.

(continued)

© 2006 by Marty Langford

VERTIBLOG Film School III - THE $1,500 MOVIE, Part 2

OK.

$1,500 isn't a lot of money. But, it IS enough to make a feature film.

But in all honesty, probably not a very good one.

People with established talent demand money. Good established actors, good established cinematographers, good established sound mixers, and so on. Working professionals usually work professionally. And a $1,500 feature film budget is not a professional environment.

That's not to say that you can get talent for free. You most certainly can. You probably just won't be able to get established talent for free.

So, that means you have to seek out talent and discover it. More on this later.

THE STORY

We'll get to the script in a sec. First a little Storytelling 101.

What's your story about?

I don't mean plot. I'm talking about premise.

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS isn't about a young FBI tracking down a serial killer with the help of another serial killer. Sure, that the plot. But it's not what the picture is really about. It's not what drives the characters or what drives the narrative. It's not what makes a film that won Best Picture, a film that is widely recognized a near-masterpiece, a film that in my opinion is one of the 20 best movies of all-time.

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is about a women trying to find her place in the world. It's about a young character, unsure of who is she is and what she's capable of; it's about how far she'll go to determine the answers to those questions... about what she's willing to reveal, what she's willing to risk. Clarice is struggling with her past, with where she came from, and trying to find out if she's "good enough" -- as a daughter, as a woman, as an FBI agent, and as a person.

What's your movie about?

Great films aren't about their plots. Great films are about something else.


THE SCRIPT

Remember... pragmatism. Be realistic.

Don't write in stunts. Don't cast children. No animals. No pyrotechnics. No car chases. Don't have dozens of extras. Don't have 12 principal speaking roles. Don't write long passages of dialogue that amateur actors will mess up take after take. Don't have a dozen key locations that are miles and miles apart from each other. Don't write 'walk and talks', which are a nightmare with continuity and retakes... for long dialogue scenes, keep people stationary. Keep it contemporary, set it today, not in 1970 or 1885.

What to do: Keep it simple: a small cast of characters. Few locations. Try to write a lot of scenes to take place outdoors. Outdoors, you don't have to light -- huge timesaver. However, outdoors you have to battle the sounds of the outdoors, so keep it far from the street, and not next to a construction site.

Also, you should take advantage of locations. You know somewhere cool. That old derelict train trestle back behind your uncle's property, overgrown and rusted, but an incredibly interesting looking structure. Or the cool empty silo that your friend's cousin knows about.

That place by the river.

The movie theater where your buddy works.

Rack your memory, and ask your friends and family if they know any unique, super cool locations. I guarantee you they will. And exploit them. Let them inspire you.

The scene you were going to shoot in your mom's kitchen is going to be a hell of a lot more interesting at the old abandoned amusement park way up near Mount Tom.

I'm working on a feature, DEAD DUDES, written and directed by my friend, Karl Konopka. Karl decided he wanted to make a zombie film. He loves zombies. The budget is probably around $750.

Karl wrote his script with the intent to shoot it, which I'm assuming is your intent, too. He wrote it with few characters, few locations, and cleverly had the whole film take place in a day (certainly helped with wardrobe and makeup continuity). That was all smart.

He did another smart thing. All of his characters, with only one exception, are between 19-25 years old. Why was that smart? Because he was able to hire students. The other role? He wrote it with his college professor in mind.

Then Karl did yet another smart thing. He decided he wanted to write about something.

The script's plot is about a couple of guys trying to avoid zombies while they're trying to avoid the mob. Simple. And if that was all that the movie was about, it could very easily fail; let's be honest, for $1,500 you're not gonna have much in the way of zombie action +/or that many cool mob shootouts.

Karl's idea was to use the zombie story to look at the values we hold dear in society today. What's important to us? And if faced with a zombie onslaught, would it still be important? Would we try to protect only ourselves, or would we choose to help others. Are a bunch of mindless zombies only interested in eating your brains that much different from a bunch of people only interested in saving themselves?

These are pretty good ideas. And they will separate his zombie movie from the countless other zombie movies out there that are about, well... zombies.

An aside here. Scriptwriting is a singular writing discipline. There is a very specific format that we must adhere to. There is wiggle room, sure, but all correctly formated scripts look pretty much the same. There's a lot of white space, a lot of things abbreviated and capitalized. I'm not going to go into screenplay format... there's a whole lot of other books that devote dozens and dozens of pages to that.

A wonderful, and widely recognized, reference book for screenplay formatting is "The Complete Guide to Standard Script Formats: The Screenplay", by Judith H. Haag & Hillis R. Cole. Here's a handy link to it on Amazon.

Screenplay fomatting software is also a must. For years I just used Microsoft Word and really got to know the tab key. The industry standard is Final Draft. But that's going to cost you about $200.

Before you splurge, try either Simply Screenplay or Script Maker, two freeware apps that utilzise macros within Microsoft Word. They're certainly a little clunkier than Final Draft, but you save 20% of your budget!

Finally, if you haven't already: READ A LOT OF GOOD SCRIPTS. Go here now: SimplyScripts.com. This website compiles pretty much every script that id available for free electronicall on the web. Everything from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY to THE BOONDOCK SAINTS to THE PACIFIER (though I'd only recommend the first). There are easily a few hundred scripts availbe for download, free of charge. Beware of transcripts, though... which are simply scripts that have beenn typed up verbatim by people that have way too much time on their hands.


PRE-PRODUCTION

(continued)

© 2006 by Marty Langford

VERTIBLOG Film School II - THE $1,500 MOVIE, Part I

So you've got $1,500.

And you have a great script. Or at least a script that you think is great. Or at the very least, you have a script you hope is great.

And here's how you approached the script:

Pragmatically.

Now, pragmatism in a creative endeavor is a sticky wicket. You're already thinking in terms of logistics and money, and that seems to fly in the face of creating art. For me... that's OK. It's smart. Primarily because I maintain that filmmaking is first a craft. Sure, sometimes it's a process that may approach the level of art, but at its core it's a collaborative affair that requires the ideas, toolsets, and talent of other people.

You can't do it alone.

The auteur theory may suggest otherwise, but that's where we have to be honest with ourselves. We're not all complete artists. We're not all David Lynch. We're not all Jacques Tati. We're not all Stanley Kubrick. We're craftsmen (and perhaps artists) who strive to make something that other people will enjoy watching. That will have somehow gratify them from having watched it.

Whether our intent is to provoke, caution, enlighten, expose or just to entertain, we have to be aware of the restrictions that are placed upon us; that which opposes us.

And what opposes us are simply two things. The two most basic things that oppose just about everything in our lives: Time and Money. Everything else we can deal with.

When David Lynch was creating ERASERHEAD, he was driven. He was passionate. He gave up five years of his life, spent his own money as well as the money received from the American Film Institute; he lived to get his singular vision to the screen.

And he succeeded.

ERASERHEAD is a testament to his talent, to his (arguable) genius.

But here's the rub.

We're not David Lynch are we?

We don't have five years to make our movie. We're not willing to spend ALL of our money on our film. We're not willing to risk our families, our jobs, our livlihoods.

And my take on all of this is... we don't have to.

I teach screenwriting and independent filmmaking at local colleges, and my approach to the classes is not to teach exceptions. I admire David Lynch for what he did. Hell, I'm in awe of him and what he accomplished. But I feel it would be a disservice to encourage students to take the risks he took and suggest they could do the same and make their breakout film.

Lynch is an exception.

For every David Lynch, there are dozens, hundreds, who lose so much in trying to achieve their vision. They fail. They fail for any number of reasons, but primarily, I propose, there are four biggies.

To succeed as Lynch did, you need ambition... that we can manage; you need lots of talent... some of which can be learned, some must be -- for lack of better phrase -- God-given; you need luck, something we have little control over; and you need contacts.

To succeed as Lynch did, two out of the four won't do it. But maybe three will... if you happen to have one or more of the other components in spades. Say, if you're a genius. Or your dad owns a movie studio. Or you are so driven with ambition, that you absolutely won't say no -- in the face of failure, in the face of ruin, you persist. That may work if you also have, say, some luck and lots of talent.

My point is that the risk/reward factor is so unbelievably skewed in independent filmmaking, that trying to learn from these exceptions can be dangerous. And thus, not very smart.

Spike Lee could have ended up homeless if John Pierson hadn't taken a shine to SHE'S GOTTA HAVE IT. Ambition and talent he had to spare. But without some luck and a few contacts, there would be no 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks.

Lots of very talented filmmakers go down in flames, never to have their films screened, picked up, or even acknowledged outside of the cast/crew, their friends and family.

We're not David Lynch, we may not be Spike Lee, but we could certainly be one of those guys.

Anyway.

You have $1,500 and a really great script.

Let's get to work.

(continued)

© 2006 by Marty Langford

VERTIBLOG Film School I - Prologue & The Budget

Prologue

I love movies.

I love everything about them.

I still get excited sitting in a theater and watching the opening moments of the studio logo. I love discussing the potential of movie before seeing it; and if the movie lived up to that potential after having seen it. I love collecting movies. I love writing about movies. I love writing movies.

But most of all, I love making them.

Over the past 25 years of my life, I've made many. My first movies starred Green Lantern and perhaps a Super Powers figure of Black Lightening. They utilized stop motion, miniatures and other effects work. Some were :30 long, others maybe 5-10 minutes. One featured a ferret.

In high school I'd try and turn every research paper, project, or assignment into a video presentation of some kind. Some teachers went for it; others didn't.

I made my first feature film at the age of 15. It was called GOOD GUYS HAVE BIG GUNS. It was a noir drama starring myself as Detective Ronald Jakes. The screenplay was 80 pages long, written longhand; the finished film well over an hour. It was a rushed production, but it has its moments.

I went to Boston University's film school where I made my breakout film, THE HIDDEN ALIEN BLOB THING. It was chosen to show in the semester film festival, up against some graduate films even. I remember sitting through some pretty deadly films that night -- most about suicide, death personified and/or fugue states that resulted in madness.

Mine was about a hidden, alien, blob thing.

It starred my brother and my friend, Jeff. I used Hershey's syrup for blood because Hitch did it in PSYCHO.

I came out of BU with three feature length screenplays, typed this time, and the feeling that, yeah... I did want to make movies for a living.

So I did as much as I could to make it happen. I wrote several more screenplays, I made some more accomplished short films. I helped on crews for others filmmakers, and in turn asked them for help on mine.

I sold a screenplay that got made into a mediocre movie. I sold another one that never got made, had the option return to me, and one day plan on making myself.

Then I decided to get serious and make a feature; not just write a script for someone else, but to conceive, write, produce, direct and own myself. Well, not just by myself.

I hooked up with with my co-worker, Warren Amerman, and we wrote a script with the intention of actually shooting it. For $20,000. We made some grievous errors along the way. I'll get to them all later.

We also did many things right. The first was realizing that we had limited funds, and determining smart ways to craft a story around those lacking funds. The result was MAGDALENA'S BRAIN -- a movie with pretty much 4 actors and one location. We gave ourselves 14 days to shoot it.

All in all, I'm proud of what we accomplished... with several dozen caveats thrown in if you ever care to listen. But again, knowing what we had to spend, and knowing what the reality of our situation was, forced us to look at the process with very open eyes.

Though... we still didn't really know what we were doing.

I plan on expanding this pretentiously titled opening later. For now, let me get to what I want to say:

Budget Before Script

This is something I truly believe in IF -- and please note the 'if'; without it, the following means nothing -- IF you're making the movie yourself, independently, with little to no money. If you're writing a spec script in the hope of selling it outright, then you've got no worries. Write away, with as many locations and extras and stunts and animals and black holes as you want. If you're approaching your film guerilla style, then you've got to know what you're realistically capable of pulling off. And for that, you need to know how much money you're going to spend.

For starters... a caveat. You need a great script. Regardless of the talent of your cast and crew, the money you have to throw around, and that guy you know in L.A., you need a great script. Don't have one? Re-write it until you do.

Also, making a film with 'no' money is frankly impossible. Notwithstanding tape stock and the value of your time, as well as the time of others, you really need to at least feed your cast and crew. That's independent filmmaking 101... if you're asking a bunch of friends and family to help out with your effort, then you absolutely have to spring for some pizza. So, it's going to cost you something.

But how much?

Robert Rodriguez made EL MARIACHI for $7,000.
Richard Linklater made SLACKER for $23,000.
Ed Burns made THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN for $25,000.
Kevin Smith made CLERKS for $27,000.
Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez made THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT for $35,000.
Darren Aronofsky made PI for $68,000.

I think we can agree that these are all pretty respectable films. And if we're serious about our craft, I think we can all find ourselves able to pull one of these off.

Warren Amerman and Marty Langford made MAGDALENA'S BRAIN for $30,000.

We got out of principal photography for about $20,000, and dropped another $10,000 or so through the labyrinth of post-production. Lots more on that later. Lots.

So.

Based on my experience, I feel comfortable talking about three different "price points". Up to $1,500, $10,000-$15,000, and $30,000-$50,000. I've been involved in feature films that figure into those three realms.

All are painful; all are euphoric.

Now, with some simple extrapolation, I also feel pretty comfortable discussing other "price points"; more money doesn't mean wholly different approaches. I feel I could make a $75,000 picture, or a $100,00 picture. Personally, though... I just don't think it's very smart. I'll get to that later. For now, let's stay in the lower strata of the independent film atmosphere, and because we're left to right/up and down learners, let's start at the bottom.

I should make it clear here that pretty much everything I'll be talking about from this point on could benefit a filmmaker working in any budget range. Much of what I'll be discussing are tried and true practices that filmmakers use when their budget is $125 million.

And now would be a good place to reiterate what I suggested earlier.

You need a great script.

I'm assuming you have one. And if you don't, I'm assuming you think you do. Because if you're about to spend ANY of your own money on a film, you had better be passionate about the story.

I'm also assuming you've made some short films. I'm assuming you've written something, or had something written for you, and you've picked up a camera, or had someone pick one up for you, and you've shot a story.

If you haven't made any short films. Make them. Make one and see how you like it. Write a 5 page script and shoot it in a day. That you can do for free. You know someone with a camera. You know someone with a cool location. You know someone who can mix Karo syrup and red food coloring. You know someone who knows Final Cut Pro or Premiere and would LOVE to edit together your stuff for their reel, or for practice.

If you love movies, you've already met the folks who can help you make them at this level.

Just be clear you understand what this level is.

It's the level where you can't pay anybody. The level where you surround yourself with people that will work for pizza because they love movies. The level where you work toward making something good enough to show people who have the gear and the skills you're going to need when you're putting that $1,500 feature together.

That's where you need to start.

So make a short. Make two. Make them until you've made one that you're proud of. Until you feel as though you've learned from mistakes you've made, and understand the process.

Make them until you know more than the people who are working for you for pizza know.

Then, get $1,500.


THE $1,500 MOVIE

(continued)

© 2006 by Marty Langford

FINAL MAGDALENA'S BRAIN artwork!

What do you think?

We certainly like it. Moody, elegant and thematically approporaite for the movie. Be sure to check out our listing on the IMDB, and leave a comment if you've seen (and like) it!

The DVD master has been sent to the replicator and we couldn't be happier. The transfer is gorgeous, the extras are super-cool and the menu designs are striking. The best thing of all? We now have an FBI warning... we're legit.

The title is popping up all over the place on-line for pre-ordering from different suppliers, so be sure to get your copy reserved. Also, bombard Best Buy and Hollywood Video for the title, so they'll be sure to order extra copies when it's released!

On-Line Film School

I don't know everything there is to know about filmmaking. I especially no nothing about the big-budget kind. But I do know some stuff that may be of value to young, independent, and relatively poor filmmakers. Not enough for a book, maybe.. but for a continuing series of blog entries? Sure, why not.

I'm going to use this space as a kind of thought organizer. As I think back on experiences I've had, information I've gathered, lessons I've learned, I'll post them here. Most will be centered around my experiences with ther feature film I co-wrote, produced and edited, MAGDALENA'S BRAIN. If you scroll down a wee bit, you'll see that that's all I've pretty much been talking about for a while. We've been picked up by a distributor, so that's cool. It's also a nice bookend to the film's story -- from that original idea to the day it comes out on DVD.

Right now, I'm just going to leave this introductory entry posted. Rather than just leap into a rambling diatribe, I'll at least try to form coherent, concise material for posting.

Who knows, six months from now I may be able to gather it all up and turn it into a book.

Getting there...

We're still not quite thrilled with the font , but they've developed a striking back cover now. This image is actually an ad-slick that will go to retailers and wholesalers, but the DVD artwork will be nearly identical.

Nice, huh?

MAGDALENA'S BRAIN proposed artwork 2