That’s a wrap!

Last night I had a nightmare.  Here’s what it was…

I was sleeping and it was the day of the first night shoot of my film.  I was awakened by what seemed like my entire crew wanting to have a production meeting in my living room.  I got up and joined them.  My team and I talked through the shoot during an endless stream of crew walking in and out bringing and taking who knows what.

A woman who morphed back and forth between crew positions expressed her concern that my lead’s performance might look too much like Joaquin Phoenix’s and that it needed urgently to be addressed.  I listened to her and asked her what film I should watch to see his performance so I could compare it.  She listed off five films, all of which I clearly could not see before the shoot that evening.  I thought, “This is ridiculous.  What does she want?”  I told her I didn’t have time watch all those films but that I would certainly keep an eye out while we shot and at this point we just needed to buckle down and shoot.  I told her not to worry, I’d take care of everything on set.  But she wasn’t comfortable with this and insisted that the performance was doomed.  There was nothing I could say to console her.  She was bent on believing the film was ruined.  Seeing this, I fired her.

At that point I woke up, annoyed that I had to spend my day finding a new crew member.  Then I groggily realized I already shot the film this past weekend and a feeling of victory overcame me for not being foiled by that irritating woman in my dreams.

Here’s the thing.  When you’re making a film all sorts of complications, problems, obstacles come up.  Some of them are solvable, some are not and some have absolutely nothing to do with you or your film.

On this last film we had trouble locking down our location because of our small budget, our second lead dropped out at the last minute because she didn’t want to do a night shoot, and all the regular low-budget short film problems caused much of my energy to be spent goading and cheerleading rather than focusing one hundred percent on making my film.  One thing no one tells you - in the beginning when you’re building your career you will be making films under the most challenging circumstances of it.  But there’s nothing you can do about it so you’ve just got to man or woman up and get it done.

On the upside, the cast I ended up with was brilliant, we got the location we wanted and the crew I worked with was amazing.  The film looks beautiful.

All those problems that came up early on don’t matter a single bit because they didn’t have an effect on the finished film.  That is the only thing I care about when I’m trying to make my movie.  And fortunately I work with a rock star team who all feel the same way so in the end we always make it happen.

Also in the end, when the film is good, all the lame stuff is quickly forgotten.  Just like my bad dream.