Working with Film Companies to Complete My Film

By the end of 2005, my first short movie won an award at one of the most popular film festivals in the Midwest and was highlighted in a newspaper review. While the production ran longer than expected over a two-year period, actions made by a few key contributors in areas including set design, casting and props aided in it's completion. Here are simple acts of kindness that went a long way during the process of getting my movie made.

Pre-Production

The casting process did not include formal auditions and resulted in spontaneous selections of cast members based on their level of availability to work on the movie. One of the lead actors helped me locate talent to fill key roles by recommending a local performance artist who wanted to participate in the production, literally chasing down a woman on a main city road and driving me to public venues where I could find individuals who fit the description of specific characters in my script. All of the additional actors who were eventually selected to fill the empty roles fit their characters almost perfectly, making the efforts of this lead actor an asset to the completion of my casting process to the extent that I could begin production and find extras and day parts later.

Production

All of the actors in my movie provided their own wardrobe, which became beneficial for this particular project. Not only did it reduce the time necessary to locate and secure wardrobe for nearly one dozen people but it also allowed one of the actors to decide how they wanted to be portrayed during a slightly intimate scene and take control of the wardrobe decisions for that particular scene. Most of the indoor locations were donated for this movie, allowing me to save on studio rentals and start production quicker.

The script called for a shopping scene with some of the characters, and my cameraman used his job at a retail store to secure a location where we could shoot. The manager of a small grocery store also allowed me to shoot additional retail store scenes at a family owned business, under the condition that my movie production did not have a significant impact on their day-to-day operations. The set design elements including bed sheets and the like were not donated so much as borrowed despite hesitation by the owner of these items. I hijacked a relative's bedroom to use sheets, pillows and any other items needed for some of the scenes in this movie. The actors provided some of the props by using their own property including cell phones and vehicles for scenes that included these elements.

The manager of a local grocery store filled in as an actor when two local residents who were scheduled to do the scene did not show up at the set. We shot the scene using this one manager, although the script called for two friends to interact but this last-minute adjustment during production ended up working out smoothly.

Post-Production

A close friend and very talented video professional donated post-production services for my movie. After all of the trials and tribulations during production, it was the efforts, efficiency and skills of this editor that was key in helping me finally complete my movie.