12 More Days To Go

With the cast in place (mostly) and the locations shaping up, it is down to the nitty gritty of prepping for Salvaging. We were set to shoot next weekend but it is so busy in Chicago this summer that no one is available to work on the movie and the equipment resources are a little tight as well. We were forced to punt and move the shoot to the following week when both the crew and equipment situation is much more favorable. It is great that film work in the city is finally at capacity but it sure makes it tough to get a no-pay short film together. But pushing a week will definitely help my preparation because I can always use more time to plan.

So now that the two week countdown has begun, I'm hard at work on the final details. I've finished the first draft of the shot list and am diligently refining it as I type it into the computer. It remains to be seen how useful the list will be but at the very least, any time spent thinking about the shot sequence has to have some value. My hope is that having the list will make decisions a little easier and therefore faster to make while out in the middle of the street with a whole crew around me looking for answers in quickly fading daylight. And it will allow me to concentrate on the actors' performances.

Speaking of which, it will soon be time to get a table read of the script together with the actors. It will be the first chance I have to get a sense of their views on the story and what we need to work on before we get to the shoot. That will lead to rehearsal sessions. I'm hoping to get two rehearsal periods together before the shoot but we'll see what's possible as the time gets shorter. The waiting game is coming to an end...

Joe