A Day In The Life of Pre-Production

I have to say that it's quite fun watching Jim be a director. For a guy who aspires to be as anti-social as Howard Hughes, could never remember half the names of people at our old office (even though he worked there for almost ten years!), and who has always insisted that he hates small talk -- I just love to watch him as he makes the rounds every morning, saying hello to everyone, making an effort to memorize names, ensuring that every department has what they need from him, and yes, even making the dreaded small talk (which he doesn't seem to mind...)

I've always thought about Jim's ability to direct in more visual terms, but he's really shining in ways I've never seen him shine before. He is an absolutely awesome team leader. Jim is such a nice, down-to-earth guy, and so socially-sensitive to the needs and feelings of others, there's really no doubt that this is what he was born to do, in more ways than I had ever considered. I'm already so proud of what a great director he is.

Then again, everyone who has joined our team has been pretty great... well, at least according to Jim. I've spent most days in our office doing solo work, such as making script edits, writing character bios, drafting official blog entries (which have yet to be published), and taking on the anti-social role that Jim used to covet. Not that I'm anti-social per se. I just have no reason to get out there and interact the way he does. Everyone is busy, and I also have a lot to do. Our producers expressed that they are very happy to have me there, as my responsibilities normally fall on the writer-director which often ends up being the straw to break the camel's back. I couldn't imagine if Jim had to make all these edits while running the circus. His workload is already pretty intense!

Emails start coming in as early as 5:30 a.m. and continue until after midnight. When we're actually at the office, he is sucked into hours upon hours of meetings. Of course, these aren't exactly your boring corporate agenda meetings. They're much more interesting. I always look forward to hearing Jim's two minute recap, as he makes a quick pit-stop by our office to share a handful of trail mix with me before he's out the door and on to his next one. (Craft services rock, btw! But I gotta start bringing a lunch, or else I'll just pick away at the treats all day. Although I do try to opt for the fruit n' gum, instead of the sticky buns n' chocolate bars. ;)

So for example, today Jim's morning began with a Special FX/Stunts meeting, where they discussed what visuals might be easier to do using FX instead of tricky camera work. Like the shimmer of Maggie's pin, when caught in the light. They also discussed how stunts like the car accident and dog bite scene will go down, and a few YouTube clips were provided so we could see some of their dogs' work.

Next Jim found himself in an impromptu Transport meeting, where he discussed the styles of cars our characters will drive, and picked some of them out from a catalog of options.

Right after that, he was pulled into a Locations meeting, where a bunch of the crew tried to nail down which locations we're going to use, and start committing to dates. Some locations have been hard to find in the zone we're shooting, like an old university. While others would be too expensive to dress with our budget, like a large community hall. This is where script changes fall back to me. I have to quickly revise scenes so they work in the locations we can find and afford.

Another tricky issue that effects both location and set design is that our script has apparently a ridiculous number of sets -- 56 to be exact. Each room, hallway, street, etc. is a set, which makes a TON of work for our set design department. They seem to be pretty concerned about being able to pull things off and really need more people on their team. (There's currently about five of them.) I had no idea our script was so crazy ambitious, and am curious to see how it will change over the next two n' a half weeks before we begin shooting.

Jim managed to have a bit of a breather before he headed off to his Props meeting. Apparently, not only do you have an insane number of sets, but we also have a ton of props. Every book, watch, calendar, sticker, etc. mentioned in the script is considered a prop... and we've got a friggin' million of 'em!!

Monday all departments plan to present their budgets, and there is a bit of a concern that currently our script is "not fitting in the box". I guess we'll see how over-budget we are, and then we'll quickly find out how much we have to reel it back in. I have to admit that I'm a little nervous about the outcome of this meeting, (some productions have actually fallen apart at this stage and the movie doesn't get made!) but I know we'll do what we gotta do to make it work. I'm game to tweak the script however I can.

That being said, TC said that most people tend to inflate their departmental budgets for a variety of reasons -- as a safety net, to impress eveyone by coming in under budget later on, or sometimes just for effect -- so once we truly cut the phat, then we'll know what we're dealing with. So, while it all seems a bit dodgy, I'm trying hard not to think about it, and know that everyone will manage... although I can't help but find myself wanting to join our short-staffed set design department to pitch in however I can.

Something tells me that if we can pull off a film as ambitious as ours for our minuet budget, it *will* be recognized and do amazing things for us. Much smaller films in scale have been made for ten times the budget as ours. I don't know how we'll pull this off, but I know that we will!

Anyhow, getting back to Jim's day... so yeah... he had a long meeting with Props, where they discussed everything from the types of pages in Don's journal, to whether or not he would have an answering machine or a chequing account if he just moved back to town after thirty years. Smart people!

This is all such an incredible learning experience. I will definitely be more aware of these sorts of things as we write the next script. Although with any luck, we'll hopefully be working with ten times the budget by then. ;)