Post Shoot & back to reality

Production went great. I'm still amazed. As a director, I fell down a few times, but rather than beat myself up for it, I learned from it at each step -- and we still got most of the shots I was looking for.

Hit a snag hooking up the 'hoodmount' kit 'Super Grip'. The shift manager at my old (brief) grip job said, "I put it together in 3 minutes once", didn't give me a single instruction, and split.

I figured it couldn't be too hard. After a struggle with visualizing how it would work/ look, I rigged it up at night in ~1 hour ... but didn't test mount my camera. First shooting day, we were waiting for people to finish eating, so I rigged it all up and found I was short ONE screw. Couldn't believe it. The hoodmount was due back Mon at noon, so after a trip to the hardware store we were driving with it Mon 11am - 12pm. (The final shots look so good, I might buy that setup.)

My main mistake was not storyboarding directly along with the screenplay, but rather storyboarding the general kinds of shots I wanted. When I wrote my shotlist, it was based on time of day, not a numbered shot list. After the hoodmount didn't work, we were behind all day anyway, so the numbered list would've helped people prioritize.

BUT the biggest problem I had was not explaining clearly enough my vision. We had a lot of cars and a few actors trying to understand what I'd said. This caused some chaos at parts where I thought I'd explained things clearly. My AD David gave me a clearer understanding of how to go about this, and Elizabeth pulled out the Martini-glass cars for visual aids.

My biggest obstacle was I wanted to leave room for creativity and not get bottled in, but also give clear directions. I was surprised that everything flowed much easier on day #2, even though the day was much looser.

Also, the shots on day 2 were only single camera, at most 2 cars, and the crew shrank from 8 (3 actors / 5 crew) on day 1, to 4 on day 2 (3 crew and 1 Actor), including myself. Maybe it was just having a smaller crew?

I also made a lot of unnecessary photocopies of the script, the time breakdown for the day, and the storyboards -- but they helped me feel more confident throughout the project. What was the challenge there was having the paperwork handy when needed! I printed up a bunch of releases as well, and I'm glad I had them.

I'm grateful I brought in all talent and crew that I like and respect. I'm grateful I brought on an AD and a 'script checker/PA' who both gave me very useful feedback during the shooting. I'm grateful my girlfriend was so sweet and offered me her place as an HQ. I'm grateful my 'talent' really did great jobs. And I'm grateful there were no accidents in the cars! Whew! (Even after we shot some freeways bits.)