And so my recap of IMPULSE production continues. This will be a story about making an incredibly ambitious short, raising tens of thousands of dollars in a matter of weeks, locking down a notable actor, and encountering and averting dozens of difficult circumstances throughout production. Again, I may weave in and out of journal format and present day reflection, so please bear with me.
October 2, 2009
Still need the rest of our money. Still need a lot of cast. Still need good weather for our shoot. Still need crew... although I think we found our First Assistant Director. Bryan & I drove up to Iowa City today to meet with Travis Kraus, who is currently the first AD for Collapse, a zombie movie by our friends Prescribed Films. Travis - like many of the Iowans working on the influx of in-state larger-scale motion pictures - has had a crash course in filmmaking within the last year. A lot of the crew for these films came from non-film-related backgrounds with nothing but an interest in the craft. Now they're working pros. Awesome to see such development. Bryan & I also met with Kristen Norwood today and I think we're slowly convincing her to take the role.
October 4, 2009
Crunch time. Christy Sullivan (producer) suggests we need to have 100% of our financial commitment by the end of week to continue. I'm still hopeful as we have some more investor meetings this week.October 9, 2009
Had several great meetings this week, but we're still waiting to hear from some potential investors in order to officially greenlight production. It's frustrating to wait, but there's nothing else we can do. Our entire producing team understands that investing in a short film is a risky endeavor, especially since the return-on-investment doesn't hold the same potential as a feature film. But we've padded our plan with great alternate incentives that hopefully will attract supporters.October 13, 2009 - 9:30 AM
We've secured about 40% of the budget, but we're running out of options to find the rest of it. As suspected, this Iowa tax credit mess has really hurt in-state investing opportunities. And we can't move forward any further with pre-production until we get the remainder of the money... so at this point, we're also losing very very valuable time and we literally can not do anything more to forge ahead at this point. We've decided we absolutely HAVE to pull the trigger by this Thursday the 15th... and that might mean shutting down the project if we don't have our full budget. I dread making that decision.October 13, 2009 - 7:30 PM
This is definitely one of the toughest weeks I've gone through in terms of film production. In the interest of trying everything and anything to make IMPULSE a reality, we've cut $6k from the budget. It took FOREVER and wasn't easy at all. We're very weary about cutting "on screen" costs... we need to make sure that whatever we cut in the budget, it won't affect the production value of the picture.October 15, 2009 - 11:00 AM
As I've said before, there's always the highs and lows during production. In this instance, Bryan & I got some excellent feedback on a video promo pitch that we put together for an entirely separate project. So it looks like even if we don't end up making IMPULSE, we'll get to make this other project... but seriously, we need to make IMPULSE happen. Back to the grind.October 15 - 8:00 PM
The worst possible decision was made.... the film is basically called off. We just had a conference call, where we went over all of the various scenarios. We determined that we can't make this movie for cheap; it's just too ambitious. The worst thing is, we almost have that amount, but we just honestly can't make it happen for less. We have to concede. From the start, Bryan & I wanted to make this a huge project so that it would benefit everyone involved. We didn't want to make a short film with "two guys talking in a room". Now we just feel like beating ourselves up for trying to do something too grand. Also doesn't help that I watched Synecdoche, New York today... it's stunningly brilliant. But ultimately depressing.
October 15 - 10:00 PM
After we finished our conference call, I kept thinking about the rules we initially set for ourselves: "Have the film shot by the end of the year. No matter how intimidating the project becomes, persist." So with that in mind, I called up Christy and we started playing with the budget... "What if we could do the film for XXXXX amount? What if we could find location/prop/car donations, see if our cast and crew would be able to work for X amount?" We were reckless with every line item in the interest of making this project actually have a realistic chance of happening. So after hours of work, we came up with a revised budget... one cut so drastically from our original, but built out of necessity in order to get IMPULSE off the ground. The only way this will work is if our cast & crew is willing to work for less than originally promised. It's another ambitious prospect.October 16, 2009
WE'RE GREENLIT! Here's what went down: 1) We locked our revised budget. 2) We secured the remaining amount of money under the pretense of this budget. 3) We asked all of our department heads if they would be willing to work for cheaper and everyone graciously agreed! It's unbelievable. Without their support, this project would never be happening.October 18, 2009
So I'm still riding on a high, even though we now have a ton of pre-production to finish (yikes, we're shooting in 3 weeks). Today I got to see a number of these Iowa crew members in action, as I visited the set of Collapse. Though somehow - many " thanks" to first AD Travis Kraus - I got wrangled into being a zombie and was smothered in sticky movie blood and dirt up the wazoo.
October 20, 2009
Had a wonderful call with Chris Masterson today to go over the character and all the remaining details. We talked about the beats in the story and all those acting decisions that you hear about on DVD special features. It was a fascinating and inspiring discussion, which makes us even more excited to shoot the film. This call with Chris also confirmed (to Bryan & myself) that we had picked the right actor. Chris totally understands the project, story, and vibe of the film. We also were in touch with a friend and casting director, Kim Busbee, who has tremendously volunteered to help us fill the remaining cast. We can't be happier to have her on board, as we're running short on time but want to make sure our cast is strong as ever. We're also eyeing Des Moines-based actor James Serpento to fill the only other big speaking role of the Business Man. He's fiercely talented and we (may have) written the role with him in mind.October 22, 2009
Celebrated my 25th birthday today. Spent pretty much the entire day prepping the project. I suppose it's quite a birthday present that we get to finally shoot this film.October 25, 2009
Had a brief casting session in West Des Moines today. Met Rylie Behr, who is just an incredible actress... and I think she's only 9?! Kim Busbee said it best, when she mentioned that you can direct Rylie and talk to her as if she's an adult. I think Rylie is a lock for the part of Terry. We also had James Serpento read for the Business Man and wow... he was even better than Bryan & I expected. He's a definite lock for the role.
October 27, 2009
This cast just keeps getting better and better!! We stopped in Iowa City today to do a screen test with Kristen Norwood. There's a lot of times that Bryan or I get a creative idea and it doesn't pan out as much as we had hoped. But every now and then, it does. And in this instance, it surpassed any expectations. Kristen was incredible. She's got the role.
The second half of October is frankly too busy to recall. It consisted of numerous back-and-forth trips to Des Moines, Perry, Iowa City, and Davenport, as well as countless decisions in order to find the right picture cars, bracelets, red coats, fire trucks, and lock down street closures and locations. It's really not that fascinating... nor is it worth the stress to relive it again in this blog.
Last movie Scott watched: Paper Moon (Peter Bogdanovich)
