Planning “Ava”: How To Start A Feature Film
Assets at the bottom of the article include access to the Google Drive folder containing all scheduling material for Mockingbird.
Filmmaking is a team sport.
No matter how singular the vision or powerful the producer, the film still needs to be physically assembled by a team of people. In a Low-Budget scenario, that team will be small, but potent, with each individual link in this small chain becoming more important.
The very first step in planning a short film or feature film, is to find people that are talented and hungry, then bringing them together with a neat story idea.
Part 1: Assembling A Core Team
The essential roles.
The Actors
The talent available in local playhouses and theaters at any one time is almost unbelievable. While working as a photographer for my own local theater, I ran into several actors who would go on to appear in Mockingbird, and also met the lead for Ava.
The actors are the ones whose stake is most visible on a film: they are literally the face of the movie. While the director might get a big credit on the front, it’s the actors faces on the posters, in the trailers, and in the final film. The process of casting an actor is enough for it’s own blog post and then some, so suffice to say that getting to know your actors as people becomes invaluable when on set and directing them as actors.
The Audio Director
The audio director role is a catch-all term for the person or people who will be in charge of the audio of the film. More than 50% of the work and final impact of your film will come from them.
Maybe this person and the director will be the same, but in my case I’ve found someone way better than me to handle the audio of my films from capture to the final mix.
When I first met Austin Harak, we were working at a fast food restaurant, and had bonded over a mutual love of Halo, a game series renowned (among other things) for it’s musical and audio quality.
Austin had studied music throughout his life, and had even gone to college for it for a brief time. He had a lot of theoretical and practical knowledge, but hadn’t yet found a consistent outlet for that talent and knowledge to be utilized.
Prior to and through to Abigail, then later on Mockingbird, we learned (the hard way) a workflow that works for us as a team, and allows us to do our best work together.
On top of his musical talent, he’s also an audio engineer, earning him the title of Audio Director on all MRM projects.
Austin is the person who will oversee the complete aural experience of Ava, doing most of the hard work personally.
“The Gopher”
The crew on a typical MRM production rarely exceeds three people. I usually serve as Director and DP, while either Austin or my brother will operate the boom and monitor audio on set, with a third person, if they exist, acting as the Gopher.
The Gophers’ job is running all over God’s creation to find water bottles, lens caps, snack bars, markers, or anything else we might need. They are the unsung heroes of a set who can save SO much time in the long run by being there.
The Director & DP
This section is about me, so I’ll keep it brief. As the Director, it’s my job to shepherd the workday, and every individual on set, to make sure we’re all headed in the same direction on a proper timeframe.
As DP, it’s my job to make sure the shots chosen are all at once impactful, relevant to the emotion of the characters, and visually consistent.
Note: All of these jobs represent the leaders of their respective disciplines, but of course several of these roles can be performed by the same person as needed (consolidating the Audio Director role by attaching the audio recorder to the camera and mounting microphones with stands, etc).
Also remember, food and coffee are the fuel on every set, doubly so on a unpaid job. It’s important that there is always coffee either ready or being brewed, with food available promptly at meal time.
Part 2: Scheduling A Film
We’re just going to skip to the point where you have a script that’s ready to be shot, for brevity’s sake.
Refining The Script: The “Can I Shoot It Tomorrow” Test
When working on a low-budget set, the biggest obstacle is time, followed closely by locations. In order to help both, it becomes very useful to set a script in a reduced number of locales from the beginning, or begin to consolidate locations early.
When breaking down a script, list the number of locations within (easily done with FadeIn, which is free) and start identifying where consolidation can begin.
Note: It’s usually best to do this AFTER writing has at least mostly been completed, as the switching of hats from Writer to Producer will be a profound shift in your viewpoint.
For example, there is a scene in Ava that was scripted as taking place in the bleachers of a high school. Following both the year+ pandemic, and the inherent problems with filming on a real high school campus, that scene was relocated (with minimal rewriting) to another location that is immediately accessible.
This is an example of a mentality I use when planning films. The question “Can I shoot it tomorrow?” is applied to every location, stunt, prop, etc.
If the answer is either “yes”, or “yes, but I’ve got to get some stuff from Wal-Mart first”, then we move on to the next problem.
If the answer is “No”, then we either need to find the solution or adjust the problem so that answer becomes a “yes”, whether that solution is relocating a scene, consolidating multiple characters into a single composite, or giving different characters different dialogues.
The reason I say you should switch into a “Producer” mindset for this process, is because ideally a Producers job is to remove as many obstacles as possible to a smooth shoot day when it comes. By running the script against this test, you make sure your script is as manageable as possible, and the challenges on the page aren’t from the location or any practical concerns.
Actually Scheduling The Film
Does your lead actor have a job in a restaurant? Does that mother character have a dentist appointment the week of shooting? Is there a family vacation scheduled for the second week of production?
I try to find the answers to all of these questions and more, write them in a Google Doc which is easily accessible from any of my devices, and schedule around it.
On Mockingbird, I had an actress that was available after 3pm on Wednesdays and Fridays, before 5pm every other day.
Another actor was free only on Friday, anytime before 6pm.
Another was available Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays all day, with a busy night Thursday.
That script was built on one-on-one conversations, rather than multiple characters, and Mackenzie who played the lead was available all day every day of the shoot, so I based the scheduling of that film on each character.
All of Delilah’s scenes were shot in the same day, same with Frank, and same with Sam at the very start and very end of the film, with all of the Charlie scenes being shot in a single night.
The actors only needed to worry about a single day, rather than multiple, and I can focus all my attention as Director on one set of problems at a time.
For Ava, the titular character is our audience POV, meaning everything is scheduled around the lead actresses availability. We are planning to shoot in July, so if a certain actor is only available until 3pm, and another has two graduations to get to on a certain Saturday, I punch all of those variables in to make sure that if those two actors are needed in a scene together, it’s able to be done.
The film also takes place over the course of a year, which is a whole separate set of variables for me.
Part 3: On Set Process
As far prior to filming as possible, I like to have a sit-down (or Zoom) conversation with each of my actors individually, learning about how they respond to direction, what their requirements are for certain scenes, and in general just how they will be to spend multiple hours a day with.
Once that job is done, I switch my hats from Producer to Director: I’ll read and reread the script from as neutral a perspective as possible, and start figuring out what I want from each scene, and how to get that across properly for each of the actors I’ve interviewed and gotten to know for several months prior to production.
Before production start, I like to have at least a day to run rehearsals, read throughs, and vet ideas the actors may have in a space that isn’t as time-constrained as on the day, while still encouraging actors to voice ideas and try things on the day.
I like to keep things focused on set, and I rarely exceed 5 takes, but the key to that is that every time we do a “take”, it’s the ENTIRE scene. The take itself is sometimes more than ten minutes long.
When we go to another set up, unless it’s a special case, we’re running the scene again from the top at least twice, then at least twice again for every set up. This takes a physical amount of time out of our day, but it allows the actors, most of which are theater actors, to sink into the scene in a way that’s not easy to do on film sets with “action” and “cut” being called so frequently.
Once I’ve gotten a take or series of takes I feel confident with, and time permitting, I’ll confer with the actors and sound.
If they feel good, we move on, and if they want to do another or try something unique, we’ll do that.
Lessons Learned: Retrospective On Abigail and Mockingbird
When we shot Abigail, I was a few months shy of my 20th birthday. I had planned extremely roughly, with a general idea of “we’ll do these scenes on these days”, and nothing more.
When it came time to do Abigail, I was 22, and having seen the bottlenecks on Abigail, went into detail. You can view all scheduling materials here, but suffice to say that I compiled the availability of my actors, locations, and crew, and used those to plan the final schedule.
On Ava, I’ll be taking a similar approach to Mockingbird, as well as scheduling scenes out explicitly for wardrobe and hair needs. More on that as it happens on this blog.
MATERIALS
Google Drive: Mockingbird Scheduling Documents