Work continues on our big short film, The Lost Fortune of Oliver Brody. Here’s the key updates since last week and what I’ve learned from them:
- Several significant changes to the script
- Developed a plan for financing the film through sponsors
- Found an interior cave set just outside of LA
- Found lots of California locations that could work for some of the exteriors
- Found our first sponsor!
Financing
Instead of relying on 1 major sponsor, we’ve decided to split up the sponsorship into 3 tiers, offering some more affordable options to companies who are interested but not ready to bet the farm. I put all the information into a one-page document, and “soft-launched” it to two contacts. One is reviewing it with their team, and the other has agreed to sponsor!
I’m feeling confident that we’ll be able to raise our full budget once I send the pitch out wider. But right now, finances aren’t the priority.
The priorities are the script and the locations.
Re-Writes
To split up our work, my co-writer/producer Chris has taken the lead on re-writes. He noticed a big-picture issue right away – with all the supernatural elements and lore at play, we’d lost sight of the emotional core of the story. He made changes to the beginning and end that bring it back to that human element of what the character is struggling with, and I loved it.
And then yesterday, I was surprised to see he sent another version of the script with more significant changes. On this one we had some disagreements. I could see the problem in the script his new draft was addressing, but I didn’t agree on the fixes.
I think we were both suffering from tunnel vision. When something is in the script from the very beginning, it’s easy to assume that it HAS to be there. But after a lot of discussion and continuously trying to “zoom out” on the story, we finally realized that this major set piece of the story was actually hurting the narrative.
By simply eliminating it from the script, and moving a couple of key moments from it to another scene, we not only simplified the production and lowered our budget, but it looks like we solved multiple story problems that had been nagging us for weeks.
Still, it was bittersweet. I’m sad to lose a scene I’d fallen in love with, but it’s a thrill knowing how much better the story will flow.
I think we’re very close to locking in the structure of the script. From there, we’ll hone in on the characters, dialogue, tone, and all the other little details that make it sing.
Locations
After doing more research I’ve found plenty of beautiful river locations in California, which would be ideal. If it’s driving distance and we can save the cost of airfare for the team, we can put more money on screen.
Plus some of these options are in film-friendly counties who go out of their way to help with finding locations, getting permits, etc.
I also found an option for our most difficult location – an cave interior – in a standing set that’s very convenient to Los Angeles. Unfortunately it’s also very expensive. Even if they’re extremely flexible with negotiating the price of the actual set rental, we’re probably looking at $5k for one day of shooting after all the red-tape involved.
This seems like a poor investment. After the script updates, the cave interior is less prominent in the script. And I’m actually starting to prefer the idea of shooting in a real cave anyway…
Fortunately I just learned that a friend-of-a-friend works for a company that scouts/manages film locations. Hoping to get him on board ASAP for some help narrowing down our search.
Once we have our locations decided – things will get really fun as we start scouting, shot listing, doing camera tests, and creating creatures!
I’ll keep you all posted both here, and on YouTube.
Shameless Plug
Today’s video breaks down my favorite gear and gadgets of the past year, with some laughs along the way.
Favorites this week:
🎙️ Podcast: The Lonely Island & Seth Meyer’s Podcast
Gonna be an old hipster here and say I’ve been following The Lonely Island since before they were on SNL, back in the Channel 101 days before YouTube. In this podcast they break down pretty much all of their SNL Digital Shorts. Fun fact – They didn’t come up with the concept for their classic, Dick In A Box, until Thursday night. Very impressive that they made the whole song & video, cut it, and got it to air in just 2 sleepless days.
💬 Quote: “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” – Truman Capote
That’s it for this week.
Let’s make some movies.
-Kent
🎓 Film School for the Real World
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