The stress of filming..does it wear you down?

"And for a first, no-budget, no-crew pic, 12-hour days are nothing"

I should have added that I work my Normal job 8 hours prior to.
12 Hour days on set are 20 or more working hours for me.


"Just because it's on Blockbuster's shelves, that doesn't mean that the film is a) any good, or b) that it was sold, or c) that the filmmaker made a penny. Many of those films up there are actually PAYING blockbuster to carry them. It's called a "service deal", LionsGate is well known for service deals. Instead of the distributory buying the film off you and keeping all the profits, you instead HIRE the distributor to distribute the film, and you keep a bigger share of any potential profits. But it's money out of your pocket to do it that way."

This i did not know. Thank you.

I still have so much to learn and I am getting it together thanks to threads like this. And belive me I am no whiner, I get enough of that from my crazy ass children. I know the value of hard work, been doing it since I started working. I am just glad to know that stress is a part of film making and how you handle it is what counts. once the "film" is done I will post it so I can see what is good and bad about it.
 
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Anything worth doing is hard. It's just a question of whether the satisfaction outweighs the price you pay. And, you never know that until you do it.

Congrats on jumping in to the deep end, and staying above water. :thumbsup:
 
Just my $0.02 cents. I shot what will be a 40 minute short last September in 7 straight days, shooting on average 12 hours. Taking from that experience, I think I would shoot slowly over a longer time period (days off and weekends). Reason being, if you are the producer/director/writer/guy that takes out the garbage (because try telling you cousing the PA to do that), it's so hard to control the creative aspects. You do get drained and you get sloppy. I am planning on shooting a feature starting next summer and lasting over a year. Sounds crazy, but when you write it yourself you can structure it with this in mind... my story will take place over a year so changes in appearance or season will make sense. I am incredilbly inspired by Killer of Sheep (http://www.killerofsheep.com/about.html), which was done over a year. The other good thing is you can roughly edit as you go and let the film develop more naturally.
 
The longer you go, the more you risk losing people -- to other opportunities, to disinterest, to life -- moving to other cities, pregnancies, all sorts of stuff . . . especially if you're not paying anyone. And if you ARE paying them, stretching it out will cost a fortune.

You may be able to make it work, but the deck is stacked against you.
 
Watch The Great American Movie, and you'll feel much better. That dude spent 7 years of his life putting that film together, with just his mom and friend helping to do everything including cutting the negatives together on a flat bed. In the end, it was pretty crappy, but he did it, and filled the local playhouse to watch it.
 
markyf said:
Reason being, if you are the producer/director/writer/guy that takes out the garbage (because try telling you cousing the PA to do that), it's so hard to control the creative aspects. You do get drained and you get sloppy. .
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That's another pitfall that hasn't come up yet in this thread. Do whatever you can to NOT do that. Any one of those disciplines takes a lifetime to master (except the garbage-taker-outer...that one just takes a few years), so if you are working on anything that you want to go somewhere (i.e. commercial viability, critical note), pick a discipline and get other, experienced crew to do the other jobs. Worst case, be the writer/director. But never direct and DP, and never direct and be the primary producer.

I know people have done it, but for every one that succeeds, there are a million that fail. Respect and understand each craft enough to understand that dividing your duties diminishes your attention to a debilitating degree. It's not a question of whether you can do it, but whether the project deserves someone working full time on each of those jobs. If the answer is no, you are (IMHO) playing games.

If you have the stamina to shoot over a year or two, channel that stamina into spending that time amassing the resources to do it well. THEN shoot it.
 
I blame Rodriguez. Well, maybe not him personally, but the IDEA of him. He was the one-in-a-million, but a lot of people sure seem to be convinced that he's the rule rather than the exception. After all, Rodriguez did it, so everyone can, right?

No.
 
Exactly. THey forget that he had been shooting for years, and the stars aligned perfectly for him to get that break.

I'm not slamming the guy, since he is living what many of us aspire to. But I always wonder how much better his films would be if he didn't do everything.
 
All good points. If I could do last summer all over again, I would spend much more time directing and less time producing, but the fact is that until you have some sort of track record, no one is going to be as committed as you. So you will end up doing much more than you can... that is the nature of the beast, I think. Probably the best 7 days of my life, though. I don't know if I agree with above. Doing against all odds is what will make it interesting. The more you try and control it, the more flat it will be. Another film that was done 'whenever possible', FUBAR (http://www.fubar-themovie.com/content/high/trailers/winmedia/01_wmv.html)!
 
Jim Brennan said:
Exactly. THey forget that he had been shooting for years, and the stars aligned perfectly for him to get that break.

I'm not slamming the guy, since he is living what many of us aspire to. But I always wonder how much better his films would be if he didn't do everything.
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I totally agree. Rodriguez is talented and the fact that he does everything is astonishing to me. But he still had to have the knowledge, vision and most importantly the skill to pull it off. Any independent Film director should want to achieve his level of success but not all want to edit, score, DP, etc., etc. I think his films would suffer if he did less. Only because Now I'm used to his style and If that changes I worry that I would notice. There are not too many like him and He is the exception to the rule. Ron Howard gets 10 million per picture as only the director, I would be happy with that, and feel damn good to let some one else do the score.
 
I really sympathize with filthrich. Filmmaking is truly an art that can be described as 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. Yes, the best films have both. But most are just exercises in perseverence. If you look at the first films of many successful filmmakers, they're really not very good at all. Filmmaking is incredibly taxing. Trying to fill all the roles (editor, director, producer, composer, etc.) is usually part of doing a first film, however. And it will take a toll. You might not feel like you can make it. But it's not for the faint of heart, and if you persevere then you ARE a filmmaker (no matter what anyone says about the flaws in the final result). If you keep making them, then you're a successful filmmaker in my book. But I don't know many people who can keep making them. And then a few who do break through to that echelon where people give them enough money to pay everyone else to do a lot of heavy lifting. Until then...you'll feel like dying. I know I always do. Just think how much you'll have learned for the next time...if there is a next time.
 
sean90291 said:
I really sympathize with filthrich. Filmmaking is truly an art that can be described as 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. Yes, the best films have both. But most are just exercises in perseverence. If you look at the first films of many successful filmmakers, they're really not very good at all. Filmmaking is incredibly taxing. Trying to fill all the roles (editor, director, producer, composer, etc.) is usually part of doing a first film, however. And it will take a toll. You might not feel like you can make it. But it's not for the faint of heart, and if you persevere then you ARE a filmmaker (no matter what anyone says about the flaws in the final result). If you keep making them, then you're a successful filmmaker in my book. But I don't know many people who can keep making them. And then a few who do break through to that echelon where people give them enough money to pay everyone else to do a lot of heavy lifting. Until then...you'll feel like dying. I know I always do. Just think how much you'll have learned for the next time...if there is a next time.
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This has just been taped to my Refrigerator.
 
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