Realizing My Dream

Despite the time it had taken, I was finally at the end of the class requirements for my degree. I wasn’t really concerned about getting an official degree although, in hindsight, I see what an asset that would be now. But my goal at the time was to just get experience. Regent funded some films, the biggest of which were two, thirty-minute summer films each year. My goal was to direct one of those.

To get that privilege, one had to do well in smaller class projects and serve as crew on other people’s films. I had done all that over the years and had built a small portfolio. Now it came time for me to apply to direct a summer film. As I had been around for so long, I had good rapport with the faculty who were to make the decision and I got the green light.

There was also a competition for the scripts to be used for the summer films. The one chosen for me was written by one of the MFA students. It was called “Go Tell Mama”, partly based on a true story that happened to the writer about a white guy who ran over a black family’s dog and the fallout that ensues. It was a good script and I was looking forward to making the film.

Part of the challenge of making summer films was getting crew. Although it was good experience, it didn’t count for school credits. Summer was also a time when people needed to make money. Nevertheless, a crew was assembled, albeit with some challenges.

First-year students typically didn’t get to direct a summer film. You had to put in your time helping others and getting experience before you got that privilege. But this year, the best prospect they had for the other summer film was a first-year student. Although she hadn’t worked in film specifically, she had some good professional and life experience. She was also a little older than most of the other students and had a very dynamic and personable nature.

She shot her film after mine and since there was a limited pool of students to crew them, there were some students who worked on both. The DP (director of photography) is a very crucial member of the crew. The guy who was DPing my film was a great guy. He was good at it and also very personable. The problem was that he was also working on the other film as the 1st AD (first assistant director). That is also a very important position, which requires a very significant time commitment, including during pre-production.

It seemed to me (due in large part to the other director’s outgoing personality in contrast to my more introverted one) that the other summer film was the one to be on. There was a buzz about it that seemed to suck some of the energy out of mine. They were ramping up as we were shooting so it seemed like some of my crew were beginning to focus her film to the detriment of mine. My DP didn’t seem to be making as much of an effort on my film as I would have liked because he was distracted.

I also had some issues with my producer. I already some relationship with this student as she had used one of my daughters as an actor in one of her class projects. She had actually already graduated by the time we started my film so she was also somewhat distracted. She was also in a relationship with a guy that was competing for her time and she was considering moving. So she also wasn’t fully engaged in the task at hand.

The shoot took about 2 ½ weeks and about a week in, we suddenly seemed to have very little money left. It didn’t seem that we had spent near our budget yet but I couldn’t do some things I would have liked to do due to the financial constraints. Later, it was discovered that the producer had included one too many zeros on the food line item. So instead of the item being budgeted for say $1000, it was budgeted for $10,000. And when entire budget is $25,000, that’s a pretty damaging mistake. It was costly not just financially but particularly in production value.

Also had some issues with actors. Actors are one of, if not the most crucial aspects of a film. My lead actor was great. I had used him before in a class project and I was very happy that he was onboard. The role of Mama was also very important. While she did not have a lot of screen time, the character was one of the cruxes to the film. So the casting had to be right.

As part of the script competition, the writer had brought in people to do a read-through and had cast a large, imposing woman as Mama as he envisioned the role. I had not been at the read-through but the characterization was right. She was supposed to be intimidating. The writer had also used this woman’s husband as the father in the film, who was also imposing. I tried to get them both but communication with them proved difficult. Even when I did get in contact with them, they turned out to be unreliable.

Before we started production, the executive producer (who was the professor in charge of my film) told me that I could bring in an actor from New York if I needed to. But because of my shortage of crew and my schedule (I still had to work at my regular job during pre-production), it would have been hard to get all that organized.

There were a couple of people who were actually part of the crew who had some acting experience and I started to consider them. The person who was doing our catering was a short, black woman so we started to think about going for laughs with the build up of rising tension about this terrifying Mama juxtaposed against her unintimidating stature when she is finally revealed on camera. The other crew member was a muscular black guy whom we cast as the father. I cast a few inexperienced local kids for the other roles. 

We didn’t have a location manager so it fell to me. I actually enjoyed scouring the countryside for places to shoot. As with any film, unexpected things came up. We had a major crisis right before we started shooting. We had been moving along with trying to get permission to shoot on a back-country road when all of a sudden we found out that there was an insurmountable obstacle. Our executive producer came through in the nick of time by finding an unused road location in the back lot of a local production company.

After that, the shoot went fairly smoothly. For the most part, everyone pitched in well and we had good camaraderie. I was finally getting to do what I had been aiming and planning for and working towards for so many years and it was a thrill. I appreciated getting the opportunity that not too many people got to experience. 

And then it was back to my regular job. It’s not that I didn’t like my regular job. I appreciated the opportunity it afforded to provide for my family. But to me, it was just a job. I thought that maybe, once I finished school, if I didn’t get into film, I could find a way to turn my job into something that I enjoyed more, like a travelling producer. In the meantime, it was just a job to me. But that sentiment does not go over well at a place that bills itself as a ministry. If you ever find yourself working for such an organization and you feel that your job is just a job but still want to work there, I would advise you not to say those words out loud…particularly to your boss.