Tuesday, June 03, 1997 - Last Day of Pre-Production

So you want to make a movie...

I scheduled production for June 4 - June 21. Why? Weather, time off, sufficient time and resources. Tomorrow is my mother's 68th birthday. And the 21st is solstice. What better time to shoot? Lots of light, and light is the key.

I feel hopelessly ill-prepared for this. It's been in the planning stages for years now. All of the location scouting, script reviews, rehearsals, breakdown sheets, dreams and nightmares, and I still don't feel like I've accomplished much. The crew gets here in 30 minutes for the final pre- production meeting. I've thrown together some food. I'm tired already.

Rehearsals have gone exceedingly well. I'm most pleased with the talent. Now I only need to get them on film.

Today we went over to the city to pick up a few things, the most important being the sound equipment. I can't believe I'm still acquiring those kind of resources. We lucked upon a Plymouth Voyager Van which has sliding doors on either side. It should prove to be an excellent chase care. Just hope no one wrecks it over the next 3 weeks.

Mondays are scheduled off. We're 6 days on one day off (Mondays). There are a couple days here and there where we can't do much of anything because of actor availability. C'est la vie.

The meeting went well. All of the crew is excited. The camera department got familiar with the Eclair. We have a real camera, guess that means we'll have a real picture. The sound crew spent a goodly amount of time getting the DAT recorder together. I have a good crew assembled. I feel comfortable we'll make this work. Steph and Andrew are sleeping upstairs, but I just can't seem to get to sleep.

Spent half the night fussing over the camera. I know I'll get very little sleep tonight. But making a feature film is not something you do every day.

Vita brevis est, ars, longa.

-George