Some of you may have noticed that for the past two weeks this column was the same as the two weeks before that. Why? Because I missed a deadline. There was an article written, an attempt to upload, but to elaborate would fall into the category of excuses. Any excuse I had, true, false, elaborate, simple, would not change the fact that the server needed the article entered, processed, and checked by a certain time to post on the day it was scheduled. Adding the article the next day would be like missing the bus, so you just step out into the street and figure you'll get where you need to.
Deadlines are important. For writing, for producing, for directing, for anything you want to get done. If you don't set yourself a schedule, you'll not only not get nearly as much accomplished, but the work you do won't be nearly as good. It's not about restricting yourself, putting pressure on yourself, or making the process more difficult, though that does work for some people. It's about keeping your motivation and momentum going.
Right now it's December. Besides holiday activities of all sorts, parties, family functions, watching DIE HARD, I'm working three jobs. Retail needs people, and the chance for extra cash to catch up on bills (some from reckless Black Friday spending) is hard to resist. Still, I don't want my ideas to go away, forgotten or stale come January when I have much more time. I may only be home a few hours a week, and some of those are wasted on sleep, but I needed to find a way to keep up my creative momentum.
I promised myself I'd finish three screenplays by the end of the year. Not last week, but at the beginning of November. The first thing I did was start a new script. A fresh idea I could dive head first into. I started establishing the characters, the environment, the situation, the premise, and got to the "how does this idea actually work" point and stalled. I knew I would, but I managed to make real so much more of the idea than I would have sitting and waiting to start until it was all worked out. When you start a script you can't really see every problem you'll hit anyway.
I wrote down all of my sticking points, then went to my next idea. I did the same thing. It was a simpler premise, so the set up was easy to get through. Then I realized that the structure involved "smoke and mirror" style scenes that make the story seen far more complex, pulling the audience away from the simple beginning that comes back at the end. My easy idea wasn't so easy.
I have a schedule to keep, and it was fairly loose in definition. While I spent breaks at work or while stuck in traffic, I would brainstorm solutions to the problems I was facing, make connections, develop themes, come up with scenes that fit my message, or just gags I liked. When I was home I would add any scenes I knew helped either of those scripts, but usually I would work on a second draft of yet another script. It was part of a previous marathon challenge I put upon myself, and while a complete story only came in at just over sixty pages. It also lacked some wit and detail in places where I knew the what but not the how. I said complete three scripts, and getting a good second pass on this one counts as a complete. Cheating? Not if I get something accomplished that might have continued to sit on the back burner indefinitely.
Truth be told, I'm probably only going to finish two scripts by the end of the year, counting the rewrite, but that's two more than if I hadn't decided I need to. While brainstorming I have also come up with other ideas I can pull out when I have more free time. In a few weeks I'm going to set my goals for next year. I'm putting myself on a schedule, because as a creative type I need discipline. When you put together a production, you will have a lot of creative types around. They will need discipline.
On set, there is a lot of waiting. While lights get set up, props are placed, effects are tested, and the script is reviewed, everyone has a chance to breathe intermittently. Conversations get started about topics related to the movie and not. People go outside for a smoke. Distractions abound. Now you're ready to shoot. Those cigarettes, conversations, a cup of coffee, and whatever else get wrapped up. Somebody sees someone else not yet ready and takes their own time finishing. A five minute break to check sound levels turns into twenty minutes of wrangling if you let it become a habit. Each day gets extended at least an hour, probably a lot more. Days wind up getting shuffled around or lost. The whole schedule becomes a mess a few minutes at a time.
Editing isn't the greatest joy in the world. You spend hours looking for moments. Just picking the first wave of footage to survive means going over everything you've shot multiple times, comparing it to other shots, and making notes and decisions. An hour long tape could take five to review and trim down. How many tapes do you have?
Post production means not just fixing the light, sound, effects, and so forth in each shot, but stepping back to make each scene consistent, then taking each scene into the context of the whole, going back, and possibly redoing chunks from scratch as it comes together.
Right now it's December. Say you want to finish a movie by this time next year. That means your final mixed cut needs to be done with two weeks minimum before the premiere to make sure the disc you burn (assuming digital projection) is error-free, will work in the machine you're using, and is mixed right. That means a few weeks before that you need an almost final print to make last minute changes to the levels, edits, color, etc. Back a few weeks for timing to the music and any dubbing, plus time for the music to be written and effects to be processed. For those to be done, you need a near-final cut. That comes from weeks on the rough cut, which because of logging, pick-ups, and playback took a few weeks on its own. We'll say you're at the beginning of September when you start dumping footage onto your computer, which is a little tight for the post work because chances are you have a fulltime job or two.
Shooting is usually the shortest part of a production. Assuming work schedules, location availability, and whatnot, take the whole month of August to film. Weekends, evenings, vacation days. Ten uninterrupted days of twelve to sixteen hours days is often still a rush job, so broken up over a month in little blocks you'll have added set-up and break-down time added to each shoot. If you can get the uninterrupted time, the rest of the month will probably be best served having everyone work make-up shifts, doing enough laundry to last, and anything else they won't have time for while shooting.
June and July are the prep time. Finalize locations, get all of your props and costumes together, get and test your equipment, pre-record anything you might need, schedule the shoots in detail, keep in contact with everyone, develop contingency plans, and be ready for the shoot. That means your cast and crew needs to be together by May, doing read-throughs and getting on the same page for what you want out of the production. April is the start of all of that, as well as getting financing together and starting the buzz about the project.
Right now you have a little over three months, considering a tight schedule, to get a script conceived, organized, written, reviewed, re-written, completed, broken into location, budgeted, and ready for the rest of what is to come. You think, "I have plenty of time to get all of that together!" You do. The difference between people who get something as complex as an independent feature accomplished in any reasonable time frame is knowing the difference between having plenty of time, and using plenty of time. A schedule lets you know how much you haven't done at any point, how likely you won't meet your goals.
That's why I'm writing so much now. I may not meet my unrealistic goals, but at least on a few things I can be ahead of a production schedule I haven't even put together yet. Trust me, I'm going to need every minute that allows me.
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| Make Me Proud |
Every other Monday
Exploring everything you should consider as you make your
indie masterpiece.
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| Patrick Storck |
Patrick hails from Baltimore, MD, where playing by the rules is frowned upon. Only average things come from playing it safe.
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