Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Habakkuk Project

About seven weeks ago my youth pastor approached me and said, "Hey, I'm doing a sermon series on the book of Habbakuk. You want to shoot something for it?"

I said, "Of course". Thus began my crazy adventure in directing for the very first time.

We met shortly after this exchange and I asked "Well, do you have an outline for what you want to do?"

"No." he said.

"Well isn't that fantastic."

So for the next few weeks we got together and ironed out a story that we both agreed on. Then talked about casting choices, figured out who would be a good leading man, and then I went off to write.

Two weeks later I had an outline and approached the family I wanted in my movie. They said yes (after saying please and offering lots of beer). At this point I had about four weeks until it was due and I had to figure out when everyone was available to shoot. So I call my actor on a Tuesday and asked him if it would be better to shoot this Saturday or next. He said this Saturday would be best. No problem, I can get my act together in 3 days.

Ignorance is such bliss.

I managed to make a shot list, get a camera, get a A.D. (assistant director), location scout my two major places I was shooting, go to home depot morning of shoot and get last minute supplies and then hopefully by 7am start shooting.

Which I did.

About half of my short was shot in sequence, which was awesome. The other half was out of sequence and much harder to keep the story together in my head. However, the day went very good and my last shot was 3:30 that afternoon. I was beyond tired.

The following Thursday I shot the last remaining scenes that I was not able to get on Saturday. It went quick and painless and now there was only one more day of shooting left.

So, the next Saturday we shot the last of my short in a few hours and thus concluded principal photography.

Now, for the last week in a half I have been editing. I have a third of it done and working on the rest now.

I know I haven't posted in a while and I know this isn't really mean or funny (or both), but I thought I would just give you a quick rundown of what's been going on over the past month. Hope all of your Christmas' were awesome. As soon as I'm done editing I will get back to my regularly scheduled tom foolery.

(My short is about a guy who interviews for a promotion and instead loses his job. )