I hate spending money.
I pretend to love it, but secretly, I really, really don’t.
This shopping, though, is necessary. It’s all the equipment and props needed for our next short, The Last Regret.
Pre-production on this short is taking forever. It was supposed to be done already. Not pre-production, the entire short. Between moving to Ft. Lauderdale, running from Hurricane Wilma and, let’s say, “waiting for funds to be available”, it’s taking a lot longer than it should be.
As a nice glimpse into some of the pre-production work for this short, here’s my shopping list.
- 24 Carrots
- 8 Red Candles (long stick)
- 2 wooden salad bowls
- Fixings for 4 salads
- Kitchen knife
- Briefcase
- Prop gun (BB gun?)
- Trashcan
- 3 JVC Pro MiniDV cassettes
- Audio-Technica AT4073a microphone
- Shock mount for AT4073a
- Wind cut for AT4073a
- Dry erase production slate
- Dry erase markers
- Gaffer tape
Looking over the list, I suppose I’m going to need to budget myself. The props themselves shouldn’t be more than $100. The tapes will be $30. The microphone is around $600, the shock mount is another $50 and the wind cut is $50-100. Let’s lock the budget at $1200, give everybody points and no money on the front end, and that leaves us with enough money to shoot for 2-3 days while being able to feed the cast and crew.
We talked about shopping. I’m on a roll, here. Let’s go into the whole pre-production smatter.
Locations.
Location scouting is a real pain in the ass. Once you’ve done it a couple times, your brain is permanently fixed in that mode. Everywhere you go becomes a potential location for a shot. As far as this script goes, I know a couple places in Ft. Lauderdale that will be great. Locations aren’t a big deal.
Permits. In a city like this, you need a permit to film. You don’t want to deal with the hassle of getting thrown off of your location. I’ve already got the number to call to secure a filming permit. It also adds an aire of legitimacy to your production — the city publishes a list of productions that are permitted to shoot, the locations they are allowed in, and the length of time they are permitted to shoot for. Any would-be cast or crew that are suspect of your project can see that you have secured the proper permits.
On to camera mountings and equipment.
There’s a dolly shot in this. We need a dolly, a dolly operator, and a grip who can wrangle the equipment. We’ve got a hook-up for all of that, though, so it’s no big deal. As far as tripods go, we need a bigger and more sturdy one. That’s not in the budget. If we can’t borrow or steal one, that won’t happen.
Lighting. Ugh. I don’t want to talk about lighting right now.
Casting is going to take place soon. All of this needs to be ready to go by the time we finish casting, or at least planned somewhat, so a no-shit schedule can be given to whoever gets cast.
What a bitch.
Don’t cha just love it! If you need a caterer just yell!
Woo! Goin all out for this one. It’s hard to break from BI mentality, since nothing there gets so well planned out. That 600 mic, why is it so necessary? And the script must have updated? 4 salads?