Short Film Script Proposal

My short-film script is going to be a mocumentary about the making of a feature film. The original idea came about having watched the DVD extras on a copy of the film ‘Superbad’ (2007) which include a featurette called ‘Everyone hates Michael Cera’. It’s a faked documentary about how hard it was to work with the famously easy going and lovable Michael Cera. Each member of the cast and crew, including Cera is interviewed about the filming process and what it has been like to work together, and whilst all other members of the team complain about how annoying Cera is, he talks about how well he gets on with everyone. These interviews are then inter-cut with examples of situations in which Cera acts inappropriately or forces his way into a conversation between other cast members.

Apologies for the terrible quality of video:

I thought it would be interesting to take a similar idea and go in a different direction with it. My short film script will be shot in the style of a mini featurette that you might find on DVD extras but will be about the overall difficulties of making a film, rather than the behaviour of one specific character. Made up of interviews with cast and crew members, and intercut with scenes set either shooting on location or during rehearsals.

Shooting Day 2

Everyone on the team was expecting the second day of shooting to be a lot less stressful than the first, and in a lot of ways we were right. Almost all of the scenes that we had to shoot on the Sunday were set in Lydias house which meant that we were out of the rain. There were however, a couple of exteriors of houses that we needed for continuity, as well as one scene which was shoot on a street very near both mine and Lydias houses.
Though the shoot was easier on Sunday it was also a lot longer, we started at about 11am and finished shooting a party scene at about 9.30pm. One of the main challenges of the day was filming In Lydias room, mainly because almost all of the crew had to fit behind the camera in order to not be seen in the shot, and as this room was where we did most of our shooting there were several times where a crew members foot or hand would be in shot and we'd have to do it again. But after a while we got used to the situation and perfected the art of hiding from the camera and being silent.
Probably the most enjoyable part of the final day of shooting was the fact that the final scenes we shot were set in a party, so we had to bring in our friends as extras and provide them with music and drinks in order to get the atmosphere we needed for the scenes. Though we used far more takes to film these scenes as there were more people to keep track of, they turned out looking pretty convincing and it meant that filming ended on a very positive note.
Lydia and Alex are now in charge of the edit, but hopefully everyone will have an opportunity to get involved, luckily everyone has a similar idea of what the film will look like post-production so the editing process shouldn't be too stressful.

Shooting Day 1

The first day of shooting was a lot more stressful than anyone anticipated. We threw ourselves in at the deep end but not filming on Friday night (not everyone was available) which meant that there was a lot to do on Saturday, all of which had to be shot in town. We started at about 8.30am because we needed to shoot main high streets but not be surrounded by people. The first scene that needed shooting was a montage scene of our main character shopping, this proved difficult to achieve because, though we knew the types of shots we wanted, we weren't sure of the right location. However, after a few attempts at shooting in different locations we started to get usable footage.
Another problems we were battling all day was the weather, not only was the rain a problem in terms of continuity between shots, but also in terms of keeping all the equipment dry and undamaged. Fortunately there were enough of us there to keep track of everything and constantly hold umbrellas over Adam and the camera. Despite this, and a few issues with sound at the beginning, we got into a rhythm with the filming and everyone knew what they were expected to do. We took a break just before filming the new scene 7 but there were some decisions that needed to be made. I thought that it would be easy enough to shoot the rewritten version of the scene as everyone knew it and we didn't have a market to film in. However Lydia (our director) knew of a market that wasn't far away which she thought would be perfect for the original scene so, having got their permission, we shot there instead.
Luckily everything worked out and we ended up getting everything filmed that we needed for the day, but we did wrap earlier than expected. I think that the rain spurred us on.

Pre-Shoot Drama

Having finalised a script and shot-list Mark (our producer) emailed me a copy of the shedual and asked me to fill it out as I had more of an idea about the working shot-list and where we would need to be as well as for how long. I’d never written a shooting schedule before and had no idea how long each scene would take to finish so the final copy that I emailed out to everyone was more of a guideline rather than a definitive schedule. However on the Friday before filming, Mark called me to say that he’d gone to Green Park Station (one of our filming locations) to reconfirm that it was possible to shoot there, and let them know what time we’d be there. The owners of Green Park station had changed their minds about allowing us to shoot there which left us with a massive problem, scene 7, one of the most important scenes in the short film was all set in a market, and now we didn’t have one. It being the night before filming was due to start, I decided that our only option was to rewrite scene 7 completely and set it in a different place. Which I then did, I also extended the scene because there were some concerns that the film wasn’t going to be long enough. I managed the get in touch with everyone and let them know about the new scene and emailed everyone a copy, so by Saturday morning everyone was prepared.