Film-industry hyphenates: Questions to ask yourself before making your film

Hi, Film-industry hyphenates!

I've said it a thousand times. A good producer is one that asks you the right questions to move things forward. Same with a script consultant. They don't tell you WHAT to do, they ask the right thought provoking questions and allow you, the screenwriter, to improve your story. Luckily, with Lorie, I have both. Here are some questions that Lorie asked me before my pre-pro weekend with my DP, Greg Risley, working on Visible Noise. My hope is that these questions will inspire you the way they inspired me and guide you in our journey to making the important decisions that will shape and enhance the story you tell on camera.

I've edited the email below so that it will make sense when applying it to YOUR story. :)

1) Do you have a vision or through-line for a compositional, pacing, rhythm progression?

2) Is there a visual progression? What is it? Is it static, smoother shots for the earliest segment, progressing to jumpier, grainier shots by the end...? Or, static-to-moving shots...? ECUs to WSs, or WSs to ECUs...? High angles to low angles, or vice versa? Or, are there any tropes from other movies that you might want to work with?

3) What about blocking within the scenes/compositions? Do you want to/plan to play with focus and/or physical obstacles within scenes?

4) Subtextually, what do you want the difference, or dynamic, to be between the characters in the scenes? Will it start off being his or her POV? Or, will the POV always be the audience's, of the "fourth wall?"

Obviously these aren't all the questions you'll ask, but it's a good place to dive in if you're just starting the process of figuring out which visual direction you want to go... and that will be a matter of style, experience, and interpretation of script.

For me, it's important to be able to experiment with shots, angles, and colors with my DP prior to our shoot.

Here's a bit of what we came up with for Visible Noise:

"It looks like a lot of our movie will be handheld, but we will use tracks and other techniques for select shots, as well as different lenses to achieve our mood. Tone wise, we came up with Requiem for a Dream meets The Notebook.

We will also be moving in slow at times, and getting footage for jump cuts where it feels right. The contrast between the two worlds will shift back and forth between our flashbacks (aka romantic, soft, brown/green) that are shot at a slower rate and Story's "real world" that's razor sharp (when on her). Although her world is increasingly out of focus by the time we get to the last scene. We don't reach levelness and clarity again until she has the moment/dialog with Ryan. We decided that this contrast is our visible noise, along with the sounds that will be over-emphasized along the way. We also are choosing a subtle spiral movement that we'll implement into our shots, and occasional tilt shots (dutch angle) to convey a disorienting effect and Story's spiraling.

All of the noises appear louder and more annoying to Story as she spirals. Our idea was that in addition to her phone vibrating while she's lying on the couch in mourning, we'd also hear a LOUD knock at the door. We cut to a mail guy who's knocking normally with the same rhythm to show the difference in our reality's noise and HER reality."

This was also the first time I was able to video the entire film (24 hour film style, without lights/all the actors) prior to shooting to obtain similar shots we wish to get on set. The video also serves as a storyboard, as it's easy to extract still images (thank you, Greg). This prep work is all a matter of personal preference, but having never used a storyboard before, I'm excited to try it. One thing is for sure - it'll never hurt to be over prepared. But the last thing you want your crew to do is WAIT ON YOU if you're not. And my stick figures were a disgrace to stick figures. That's all we'll say about that.

With doing all of this work in pre-production comes a sense of confidence and that's priceless. I highly recommend it, if you have the option. Happy filmmaking!

xo J

What are you working on right now that pushes you to be a better artist?

When we're in between "film thingies" it's easy to feel the weight of the world rest upon our shoulders and question everything we're doing, where we're going, and why we haven't made it there, yet.

Why not be pro-active to alleviate this kind of stress by focusing on what matters?

We're selective in the hairstyles we have, the clothes we wear, animals we keep, flowers we grow, and food we eat. So why shouldn't we be selective in the projects, too (not talking about gigs/jobs we take to make $, necessarily).

Creating haphazardly, or creating just for the sake of having fifty things to do has never appealed to me. I know people whose goals revolve around just that - having so many things in the pipeline, just hoping one of them will be successful. To me, working on projects takes too much of me to do that.

Doesn't it feel so much better to know that everything you're doing is working towards your ultimate goal (even if it seems like it's taking a million years to get there!)? It's actually what keeps me sane most of the time.

This year, one of my production companies, Paranormal Productions, which I'm a co-founder of, decided to make a feature film that we'll enter into the festivals (featuring our group, Aether Paranormal). If we are lucky enough to have our rough cut locked by Dec. 9th, then that baby will be post marked and checked for SXSW. That's actually the easy(er) part! I've never had a film be IN a big festival before, so that's one of my goals!

We're also marching along with Lost In Sunshine, my passion project of several years now. Now, this is one of my ultimate-ultimate goals - to direct a FEATURE I wrote from my heart (with a theme of self discovery). This film is pushing/allowing me to expand my knowledge of film-everything. It's also giving me the opportunity to meet and work with beautiful and talented people, I probably wouldn't know otherwise. Read more about it here: www.lostinsunshine.com

Another love child of mine is my on-going documentary, What I Know For Sure. It's a piece of spiritual cinema that features some really profound dialog from some fascinating human beings. You can watch the TRAILER to get a taste. It is my life's goal to continue to grow, learn and explore as a human, so it fills a special space inside of me, allowing me to incubate its birth while creating it. And that, I believe, makes me a more open artist.

Right now, I'm also in the middle of creating a short film, relevant to Lost In Sunshine, which we hope will serve as sort of a pre-story (one of them) into the lives of Lyn (our lead female protagonist in LIS) and her best friend, Johnny Pott. Even though we're shooting it as a "stand-alone" piece, this project is an extension of our story, and addition to all the blog fiction we're currently embracing with our characters. Hopefully, it will advance our agenda in showing off our collective talents, too - what we're capable of as a (production) team, and myself - as a director.

Meanwhile, I'm continuously trying to navigate through existing material, and create new material I feel will personally advance my agenda as an artist - a screenwriter, and indie director, to be exact.

Don't we owe it to ourselves to be selective this way?

I also call it focusing on what matters.

So, all that "in between" time turns into productive time, assessing the present (instead of worrying!), and creating what will be the future. I feel it's just as critical as any other time. It's our chance to select (aka: focus, meditate, strategically decide, and start to manifest) what we want to do next with our work... our lives.

And let the games begin.

What are you working on right now that pushes you to be a better artist?

Happy (selective) creating!

Jentri answers (Lost In Sunshine) storyboarding question from Chris Savino

More questions? Email me: jentri@lostinsunshine.com

or post them on our LIS blog. :)

Yep, I'm looking at the glass half full, and here's why.

If you've read our LIS blog today, you know that we've pushed our filming of Lost In Sunshine to the fall because we're still securing funding. As heartbreaking as it is for those of us who have worked our asses off to make this a Spring shoot, I'm looking at the glass half full, and here's why.

1) Some key locations that were not solidified sooner, will have plenty of time to be (more) secured, and therefor we'll be able to storyboard them properly.

2) The script was actually written for a fall shoot (over the holiday season) so this will be a more organic fit.

3) As many of you know, distribution models change, and the old one has died. Our business plan was written over a year ago, and although it's still current with the new world mindset, it needs to be re-evaluated/updated to more accurately demonstrate our current POA.

4) We have a chance to reconsider our budget entirely. Should we go ultra low or the 2 million route, and what does that mean as a whole?

5) Some actors that I adore and wanted to consider, before (mis)learning of SAG rules and being fogged by US/foreign sales stuff, may now be able to work with us if we go ultra low (still TBD).

6) If you read Iskra's earlier entry on my blog, you know that equipment we couldn't consider in the Spring, may be a luxury we have to contemplate in the fall.

7) It gives us a chance to build/strengthen relationships with our LIS audience, expand our show, and experiment more with the 5 more months we now have to grow before production officially starts. While there are no guarantees, it certain feels like an advantage to have more true fans before we shoot.

8) Potential investors that have the script, but haven't had time to formally respond to us, now have ample time to figure out how/if they'd like to contribute to the process.

9) Our marketing/distribution team of experts will be attending more festivals this year... which means more opportunities for us to be connected with the right people who might want to aid us in our efforts - again, before we even shoot.

10) As a director, I now have the opportunity to work on more creative projects (i.e., with Paranormal Productions) before directing LIS. That (experience!) is never a bad thing!!

I'm sure I could think of more things, but these are enough to convince me, yet again, that nothing is random. Everything in life has a purpose, and will happen no sooner/later than it's supposed to. I look forward to further understanding the blessings of this hiccup next year.

Thank you, my loving crew members, who've stuck by our side, worked tirelessly to keep up the momentum of our project, and continue to serve as valuable team players on this magnificent journey. We know it's a labor of love, and one day, we hope to make you PROUD!

With love, and appreciation,

Jentri

Director's Statement - LIS

If you're the director/producer & applying for any grants OR you're already making your first feature, you will need a director's statement at some point. Here's a short version of mine to use as an example or maybe inspiration when working on your own....

(this blog has moved -- read the rest here!)