WE DID WHAT?
Updated: 16 hours ago
Hitting a career goal!
January is usually a quiet month for me. Last year I spent it hunkered down writing a treatment for a feature I had been hired to write. In winter I try to leave my house as little as possible. It's winter, and I hate the cold. Also, when I leave my house, I spend money, and after December I usually should not spend money. But this year...this year was oh so different. Because this January, January 2025! I was in the hectic, blissfull, stressful, wonderful world of movie production! That's right we spent two weeks filming my own DIGITAL SERIES!
My goal has always been to make longer form content. I understand that making short films is important for skill building, but I've often felt in order to advance, I need to level up to long form projects. So pulling off this series is a big deal to me, and I'm really proud of what we were able to do.
In July 2024 I got the call that a mockumentary comedy I had pitched to Bell Fibe TV had been selected for licensing. It was one of the best phone calls I've ever gotten. Finally I was getting money to make something I'd conjured up in my head. In the lead up to pitching the show I had been working with a writer I admired, knowing I would want help writing the show if we got the funding. Once we got the call, he decided to join me as a co-creator. The fun thing is, when I pitched the show I had not done a proper budget, and we quickly realized my concept was a bit ambitious, and the money we were getting did not equal what it would cost to pull off the show I was dreaming of. So as we set to writing, we kept this in mind and wrote towards the true budget.
Initially we thought we could go to camera in November of 2024, but we quickly realized this was insane and pushed it to January 2025. One of the main reasons was our budget was too low to take time off work to write, so we had to work our day jobs while developing the series. But I knew we had to make this show in the winter as the industry is slower, and equipment houses etc. are more able to help us indie filmmakers out. (I learned this tip in film school.) Filmmaking in the winter is not ideal, but thankfully for us the weather kind of cooperated and we didn't have to contend with snow storms during production. We wrote most of the show to take place inside since we knew we would be filming in January. It's always interesting how different a project can end up being from the initial concept, but having an exact budget helps guide you and I often enjoy working in parameters.
In some ways jumping to long-form was really natural for me. A lot of the producing steps are the same. The biggest learning moment was deciding to incorporate and then working with a lawyer and insurance companies to make sure our business was absolutely legit and professional. This is something I've always wanted to do, as I really enjoy the business side of filmmaking, but I was very grateful to have a co-creator alongside me as we figured it out.
In terms of directing it was a bit more exciting as there is so much to think about when doing episodic content and we were filming different episodes within the same days. Fortunately we had an amazing cast who came prepared and made our jobs a lot easier. It also helped I was co-directing so we were able to bring different skill-sets to the table. We were also very lucky because we were producing this project as well, but we had an amazing location manager and PA who helped deflect some of the producing issues and bring them up at better times. That way when we were in directing mode we could stay focused on the scenes. But I would say I don't recommend producing if you can help it. My directing prep suffered leading up to the shoot as I was literally coordinating and doing producing things from 8am to 11pm. But as you probably know, having a producer is not always available to use emerging creators, so like any good punk kid, I DIY! In the future I would probably bring on a production coordinator.
I would say in terms of directing, coverage was something that challenged us the most. Finding ways to cover scenes efficiently but still get what we needed is a true skill. That's where two visions can be challenging as you need to be perfectly aligned to make sure you aren't wasting time on set discussing coverage. Luckily my collaborator and I are both strong collaborators and gave each other room to take the lead on scenes we had the strongest visions for.
I could say a lot about what went into the making of our show, but it really came down to collaborators. We were very lucky to have established relationships with key crew members who joined the project. We had an extremely bare-bones crew and even had some volunteers because of how tight our budget was. Every single person on set pulled a ton of weight and constantly astonished me with their commitment. I honestly cannot thank my crew enough for what they did. Filmmaking is truly magical in the way so many people come together and respect each other in order to make a film come to life.
The words I've treasured most from crew on other projects I've produced, is that my sets have a calm and positive energy. There's nothing I hate more than a tense and shouty set, so I work hard to ensure my crew doesn't end up in those environments. I was really grateful to this crew for helping makes sure our sets stayed positive. We only had 10 days to make 80mins of content. Initally we aimed for 10h days, but we ended up averaging about 12h days which can still be long when so many people are doing multiple jobs. Obviously days were not always perfect, but I think even while many of us were very sleep deprived everyone handled themselves in an amazing and professional capacity.
Right now we are in post-production on our show, and I'm eagerly awaiting an assembly cut. I'm sure we will make lots of discoveries in post, and I can't wait to keep learning from this project. I'm very grateful to everyone who made it happen, and I can't wait to share it with the world!
I love talking indie film, and if you have any questions about our process I'm always happy to chat. Thanks for reading and until next time...
Peace!
-J
Comments