Production Budgeting

This past week we put together a budget for the Libby and Art project. We got handouts that listed all of the above the line expenses, like the cast, director, producer, etc; and then we worked on the below the line stuff as well, which was made up of most of the grips, make-up, etc.

I decided to look into budgeting spreadsheets online and found this:
http://uscreen.co.uk/uploads/how-to/Film_Budget.pdf

It's the same one we used in class. It would be nice to have an XLS file of this kind given out in class for us to use on our capstones. I found this one that is close online.
http://mfc.com.mt/filebank/imagebank/pdf/Annex2-ExampleofProductionBudget..xls

I also looked up what certain people did on a set, to help assign the amounts to the different roles, and I was able to find this great resource online.
http://www.film.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/4897/Crew-Roles-and-Departments-Guide.pdf

Casting of Libby and Art

On Friday, the class got to watch the performances from the casting call with each pair of actors performing with each other in the roles of Libby and Art.

There were some great parings of the two actors and I really had several couples in my final choices that would work.

In the end, I would choose:

For Libby - Jurnee

For Art - Cosmin

For Socrates - Bill

For the Professor - Brad

I didn't think Bill or Brad fit either roll well, but with how they played the roles that I remember, I would switch them from the video I saw. Maybe we should use Phil for a part.

Little Hollywood Shootout

I was in a group that participated in the Little Hollywood Shootout over spring break and it was pretty fun.

Here is the cast.

 Cathy as Cora

 Dan as Stranger

 Bruce as Jack

  Ricky as Alo

Here are some of the production shots.

 

After the shoot, we noticed a few of the takes didn't get the audio we needed, so we had to shoot some ADR to cover those takes. It was a little frustrating to say the least, but it was a true learning experience.

On Saturday night at the film festival our team took 3rd place. Here is the final production.

The Eternal Bargain - Little Hollywood Shoot-out 2014

A Visit from Katherine Szewczyk

How to Scout Locations...Properly

On Friday, we had a visit from Katherine Szewczyk. Kathy is a student from Dixie who got picked to be the location scout for a Jared Hess film coming to southern Utah a few weeks ago.

She talked about her experience in working with BLM and other land owners, to secure locations.

In one case, the script for the Jared Hess film called for sheep herders in a BLM location, and the BLM would not allow the sheep in the location. So they had cut the sheep from the film to use that location.

She gave us some handouts for organizing our location scout as well as some forms from the BLM that are required to file when requesting the use of a BLM site.

A Visit from Sam Perez

We got a presentation from Sam Perez today. He spoke about his capstone journal and how he is setting it up for his project.

His pages were extensive and full of information about his boxing movie and the training he is having the lead actor go through for his production.

It was inspirational and got me going on my journal. Thanks Sam.

A Visit from Dan Levine

On Wednesday, we had a special guest in class. Dan Levine stopped in to talk to us about writing screenplays and working in Hollywood.

He worked on TV shows like Lois & Clark, Mental, The Division and many more. Check out his IMDB page.

I got his contact information in case I wanted to have him review any of my writing in the future.