Coffee and Celluloid

Here Piggy, Piggy, Piggy

Posted November 23rd, 2008 at 1:19 pm by C47

The days of Farmer Arable and Wilbur are long gone.

One of the main locations in Undercover is a pig farm, where a Muslim cop goes undercover to find a missing pig.

So, as Producer, I need to find this pig farm. In the process of this hunt I learned about the state of the farming industry and the history of pig farming for the past 20 years (spoiler alert - corporations don’t help).

Normally a trip to Google or seriously thinking about Tallahassee (or whatever city you’re in) will lead to possible locations. A lot of location hunting is thinking abstractly. “Could we make the outside of this modern building look like the town hall for 2050?”

However, pig farms aren’t really listed online and I couldn’t think of any in Tallahassee.

So I had to think further. Pigs = meat, meat = butchers. So I started calling every butcher within 50 miles of Tallahassee. This is where things started to get interesting.

Not only did no one know of any pig farms, but they all got their meat shipped in, some as far away as Kentucky.

I also tried local knowledge. Any conversation I had with someone who’s been in Tallahassee for a while went something like this:

“Hey, how’ve you been?”

“Good, good. Do you know of any pig farms?”

I got a few leads from this strategy, but no farms.

New thought - the fair was in town and they always have those livestock competitions, so I thought there must be pig farmers there, and when there’s pig farmers there’s pig farms.

So I went to the fair, got sent around to a million gates because apparently fairs don’t open until 5, and finally meet up with the owner of the pigs at the fair. Yes, owner, there was only one.

He was super nice but basically explained that corporations have industrialized pig farming into massive 3-story high warehouses where pigs never see the light of day. They’re able to sell the meat at half the price of the traditional farmer, so there really is no way for them to compete, and so there are very few small, private pig farms left.

So just when it seemed we’d all have to learn Maya and build computer animated pigs, someone told me about a butcher a little north in Georgia. I gave them a call, they said they knew of one guy who raised pigs, I gave him a call, and he was total open to us visiting the farm and filming there. Score!

The Director, Director of Photography (DP), and I took a trip up to this farm. It was about an hour and half away, so that’s a minus.

I thought the farm itself was great. There were a few hundred pigs, Terry the Farmer was super nice and I think super excited that someone was interested in what he did.

“No one really cares about agriculture, they think the food just grows in the food store.”

The only downside, especially for Julie the DP, is the barn is mostly outdoors, meaning the light and shadows will be moving all day. For a scene that’s supposed to take place over five minutes, when the light is jumping around from side to side, that can be a problem for continuity.

While the search continues, at least we have a place that could work. Production starts in less than 2 weeks. There’s some work to be done.

This post is part of the Moviccino Producing Series, taking you through the production of a movie from start to finish.

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Location, Location, Location

Posted November 12th, 2008 at 12:11 pm by C47

It’s funny how much I take film slang for granted.

So to start from the beginning, there are six stages in making and releasing a movie: Development, Pre-Production, Production, Post-Production, Distribution, Exhibition.

Usually Development can take the longest - that’s when you’re writing the script, trying to get funding, trying to get Greenlit. When you hear it took a movie 7 years to get made, this is the name for the first 6 years.

Fortunately, the script is just getting tweaked and we have funding. So onto Pre-Production.

There are two main things that need to get done in pre-production: locations and casting.

Location Scouting is when you¹ drive around to potential locations and check them out to see if they would work for the film.

Location scouting is my favorite part. I feel like the authenticity of a film depends on the locations, along with how much work the Production Designer will have to do. A great location can add so much value and production quality to a film.

Scouting is important because it’s obviously necessary to make a sure a location works both aesthetically and logistically instead of having 20 people show up to find out the location doesn’t work.

It all comes down to good planning. The more time you spend planning, the better the production will go (ex: 91 Set-Ups in 3 Days).

So the script has two main locations: a police station and pig farm. The pig farm is proving hard to find and is a story for a future post. For the police station, Iman, the director, just needed an open-office type area.

Since my last film involved cubicles, I’ve seen most of the large office spaces in Tallahassee, and our local newspaper has some of the finest selections. Plus I’ve filmed there twice before, so I know they’re film friendly.

Iman and I went to check it out. The only problem is the side all past film shoots have been on is the Advertising side. This time we were checking out the News Room side, which was a little more high strung.

When you are location scouting, it’s a good idea to take pictures to refer back to when decision making. Every past time I’ve gone scouting I’ve asked if I could take pictures, and everyone has always said yes. So for some reason I took a leap of faith here, plus I had this weird logic that since this is a news room, they must be used to photographers, so no one would mind.

Well, I snapped off one pic before I got asked what I was doing.

“Oh, I’m just taking a picture for reference. We’re location scouting.”

“Location scouting, what is that? I thought you guys were coming in December.”

Yes, I had briefly mentioned some potential dates over the phone, and I guess she thought we were there to film because I had my little digital camera out.

It’s funny, this isn’t the first time someone thought when we showed up to check out a location we were there to film the movie. It also makes me wonder if that means they would be totally fine with a crew just showing up with just a vague, “Hey, we might be stopping by to shoot a film in a few weeks.”

Now that’s a camera

But I think it was this misunderstanding, thinking that we were there to film a movie, that led to the hesitation about taking pictures, because staff was in them and they hadn’t been notified.

So lesson learned, always, always ask before taking pictures. But the location was exactly what Iman wanted, and I think things have smoothed over enough where we can film there. Well, smoothed over enough where I can give them a call back.

This post is part of the Moviccino, taking you through the production of a movie from start to finish.

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’You’ being the Producer and Director and possibly Director of Photography and Production Designer ↩

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Red Eye Flights and Geoffrey Gilmore [5 of 5]

Posted August 2nd, 2008 at 8:01 am by C47

This is the last adventure that involves driving Geoffrey Gilmore (the Director of the Sundance Film Festival) around Tallahassee, Diet Cokes, private jets, The Visitor, tea, a 4 AM flight, and of course, coffee. Part one Part two, Part three, and Part four.

Saturday I got a little taste of the “geography is not a factor” Hollywood life. With the Dean out of commission from the University President’s dinner, I had to drive Geoffrey and Paul to Flightline, a private jet terminal. I didn’t even know Tallahassee was big enough to justify private jets, but I guess the Senators like to arrive in style.

Geoffrey and Paul were going to a film festival near Tampa to see a film Geoffrey’s nephew was screening. Of course IÂ hoped they would ask if I wanted to fill the Dean’s seat, but it didn’t happen.

To burn some time before the flight, we went to the on-campus Starbucks. I know Starbucks is pricey, but I didn’t know it was possible to spend $70. Paul bought some of the CDs at the counter. “I don’t think anyone has ever bought those before,” remarked the Barista. I wouldn’t imagine $20 CDs were a hot sell with college students. They just needed a student to bring someone like Paul in.

I feel like I redeemed myself with conversation talk during this coffee-break (tea for Geoffrey). We talked about the design of the campus and Tallahassee, which isn’t very impressive. No career talk or “what do you want to do” questions.

After coffee, I drove them to the Flightline building. Inside there was no line, no security. Just a sliding door that goes straight to the tarmac. They told me they would call when leaving Tampa, so I was free for the day.

I found ways to keep myself busy, but as the estimated pick-up time approached (11 pm), I kept getting calls from Paul saying they were going to be a little late. One of the advantages of hiring a plane is they wait for you.

They didn’t leave until around 1 AM, so they arrived at 2 AM. But here’s the fun part. Geoffrey’s flight back west left at 6 AM. So after dropping him off, we arranged to meet at 4:30. Going home would just be too tempting for sleep, so I occupied myself at All Saints Cafe, our 24 hour beatnik coffee house.

I did doze off, and woke up at 4:25, just in time to rush over to the hotel. I honestly don’t remember what we talked about on the drive to the airport, but Geoffrey was thankful for all the driving.

Our goodbye was better than the introduction, with a proper handshake and a “I’ll probably see you around” from me. I drove home and crashed, fortunately in that order.

In retrospect, I wonder how I could have used this situation to a career advantage. I just didn’t want to be that guy that pushes a copy of his script or talks about himself every chance he gets. If anything, this experience brought me a lot closer to Paul Cohen.

So no, I didn’t get some mega deal or an ‘in’ into Sundance. But I think I was memorable. I’m the guy that picked Geoffrey Gilmore up from the airport at 2 AM and drove him back at 4.

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The Most Amazing Diet - Direct a Film

Posted July 31st, 2008 at 12:21 am by C47

I can’t remember the last time I’ve had less of an appetite. It’s the stress that’s been getting to me. There was a slight crumbling of the world today.

It wasn’t the actor situation. That worked out, and in fact, they’re awesome. It was the locations; those things I said couldn’t leave Tallahassee. They might not be able to leave, but they can back out.

Just about all the places that had agreed got cold feet when they realized we’d be there for two full days. Something about dealing with kids, running a family, and having a life or something.

So I had to do a quick rewrite and change the finale from a living room to class room. I also had to cut one of my favorite scenes, an SUV abduction.

It’s surreal tomorrow is here. Here’s hoping the world has stabilized.

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