I'm totally sorry to all. Been a really busy couple of weeks. So what's happened since the last time I blogged on here. Well I've been meeting up with lots of wonderful DP's, Producers, etc. that are all interesting in working on my film. It's been really exciting to meet up with folks and to hear their kind thoughts about my project and how they figure I can pull this off. As you can probably tell from my Rayven Choi website, I'm still nowhere close to my $5500 goal but after talking to Oscar, a friend and fellow filmmaker, he convinced me to move full speed ahead on making it happen. I don't have a lot of frills when it comes to the set design and if things work out like I plan I won't have to pay for the location I have reserved. Fingers crossed.
This past weekend, I put out my casting notices. And like everything else in this whole process, it's something that I wish I would have done a few weeks earlier. However, the reluctance and downright confusion I've been in on how to make all of this stuff happen has had me dragging my feet. It's scary. Especially when I haven't made the budget that I was originally trying to meet. However, Oscar told me a story of how a guy at Sundance (Oscar's short film was an official selection in Sundance) made a film with a budget of $300 bucks with a MiniDV video camera (like the one sitting on my floor) and took home the grand prize at the Sundance. I can't tell you how much that story inspired me and reassures me that I too can do this!
I'll just have to masterfully or not so masterfully plan out the whole process. My whole idea with shooting this film was that it would look gritty and real so the kids who'd see it would be able to see themselves in the characters I created on page. It doesn't have to look Hollywood glossy, it just has to look good enough. So that's what I'm going for from now on with this film. I want to get the shots that are good enough and that get to the grit of what this story is about instead of trying to make it look good for Hollywood. I'm just gonna do my best and if I run out of money, which I pray doesn't happen, I'll just have to come back and shoot the rest later. I'm gonna do my best to cut as many corners and get as many donations in other forms from folks who believe in what I'm trying to do with this project.
So back to my casting process. It's been a real eye opening thing from a directors standpoint and from a person who used to pursue commercial acting. I find that when I'm looking through all of these headshots it's not the really pretty or really fit folks who stand out, it's the regular people. I suggest to any actor who's out here trying to make it to definitely have a few different kinds of shots that show them with their normal day to day look. I think when most writers write and when most directors cast projects, the main characters aren't these made up people with all this perfect hair and teeth, they want someone with some characteristics that will make them appear different on camera. Otherwise, everyone would look alike, and who wants to go see that at a movie. So far, I have a pretty good pool of candidates to pick from for about 4 out of 10 of my main characters who aren't extras. Hopefully, by the end of this week I'll have all the rest of my folks so I can get my actors on the ball.
To conclude, before this blog gets any longer, I really wish I had talked to Oscar weeks ago about my project so that I would have felt more confident in my ability to get this film done and could have set things in motion a few weeks sooner. But everything seems to happen for a reason so maybe it was supposed to happen this way. Check back next week, I PROMISE I'm gonna post a new entry :-). I should hopefullly be on my quest for auditions and will hopefully have some video footage of auditions to talk about.
Oh and an interesting piece of information to all of my Wolfpack folks out there....why did my DP graduate from Chapel Hill and one of the Producers I'm meeting with the same. Tarheels and the Wolfpack working together...who would have figured that...lol
Until next week...
Smooches,
Shequeta
p.s. Be sure to check out my other blog www.theblackhollywoodfiles.com
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
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