Went and checked out a location for “Inventing: Music” (the latest GTF project. It’s a short subject that we’re shooting on Dec 14 and 15.
Looks like we’ll be shooting the coffee shop scenes (the bulk of the action) at Big City Swing Studio. It’s a darling location, which will work perfectly. Except…the Green Line runs by the studio every five minutes. And apparently you can hear it. Good thing we’ll be running short takes. Jebus, who am I, Pete fucking Jones here?
I met with my cast (sans one actor, who was out of town for the holidays) on Monday night. I think we’re making some real headway with this script. With one exception, all of my actors are DWG alumni, so we’ve worked together before, which helps. My PD has some good ideas for the set dressing, and I’m really excited to see what Lippy does as DP.
One of the interesting things about I:M is our process. Dallas wrote the screenplay without any input from me (I didn’t even see it until it was in a revision draft phase), and I’ll be directing it. Then Dallas will edit it. Of course, since he doesn’t know how to use FCP, I’ll be doing the work, but I’m just going to be his arms and legs – he’s calling the shots, and I’m not gonna volunteer anything. But before he cuts the film, I’m going to make my own, “director’s cut”, if you will. We’re interested to see a) what happens when the writer cuts the film without the director’s input, and b) what the differences are between our cuts.
Knowing that someone other than me is going to be editing this without my input really affects how I will shoot it; if I wanted to, I could almost “force” Dallas to go down the road I want, with the footage I give him. But knowing that he’s going to need to have choices, I’m going to have to shoot a lot more than I need, if that makes any kind of sense.
m.