How do you guys manage to find time to shoot features?

B

Boxing Fanatix

Member
I know many of you people on this forum work full-time so I was wondering. How do you guys find time to shoot features or even shorts for that matter?

I'm working three-four days a week, but I manage to find time to work on my writing, directing, acting, etc. But I would like to know how you guys manage your time.

It would be great to know, thanks.
 
For my first feature I took two weeks vacation time. That worked well. I don't like "weekend filmmaking". Not that it can't be done, but it's not for me. My last feature and my current one: I'm now unemployed =) I'm a full time filmmaker. aka starving artist. lol
 
I'm shooting on weekends. Its not for everyone (see el director above) but it does have its perks. It means I have a week to prepare for every shoot beforehand, and sometimes when people are letting you use stuff for free.. having that extra time to make sure its a go is good. I'd rather shoot consecutive, but we all have dayjobs and until we can quit our jobs and make money doing this.. we have to do it this way.
 
I am prepping a feature now, and my day gig allows me to roll over and then purchase PTO year to year, besides the accrued PTO through the year. I had a good bit of PTO to roll over this year, and purchased the standard 40 hours (the limit). We will be shooting latter this year so I will have accrued another two weeks by then. I will just take the time off, with pay, to shoot my flick straight thru.

During the prep, pre-pro, and post production, I am going to have to just work it in and forgo sleep for about nine months to a year. What worries me is that I have been doing some OK business shooting local event stuff and doing the feature is gonna cut into that cash. I know, it is what I want to do... but a bucks a buck. I kept the day, non-filmmaking gig, so that I could put anything I make doing video production back into gearing up for my fictional narrative pursuits. I know that I am going about this in a round about way, but if I had to be making my nut by filmmaking alone, I don't think that I could take the risk to cut loose for a year and do a guerrilla feature. Personal finance can get complicated in this game.

I don't know how filmmakers who don't do anything else except work on their low budget features make ends meet.
 
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You will find people who shoot many different ways...weekends...taking vacation from their day jobs and shooting straight through. I prefer the weekends, because it allows me to view my dailies and plan out what I need to reshoot or to cover...and it allows me to get the shots I need. Last thing I want is the clock tickign and I compromise my shoot because we ran out of time. You will rarely meet your shooting schedule when you first start out. For experienced shooters with plenty of time the straight-through approach is great. If you don't shoot all the time then take it slow and easy. I also think it depends on the type of script you are shooting. My first feature was a script that took place over a one-day time period...so I had to be very careful to match exterior lighting...which can be a pain no matter when you shoot. Interiors make it easier to shoot, but you have to work the lighting. Limit the number of characters. I can tell you all the horror stories of working the weekend shooting schedule. I try and shoot a character's scenes over a short period ot time. So character A gets all their shots first, then work character B...then if A & B have scenes together you work those. The reason is that I had a guy show up with his head shaved after we had shot a ton of footage. So then I had to wait another 2 months for his hair to grow back. Be ready for all kinds of things to happen. ...and always buy two of each wardrobe if you can afford it and hold onto them...do not let the actors take them home. One girl had her car broken into and somone stole her clothes. Go figure. Things will go wrong...count on it...plan for it. Shoot it!
 
One other thing to think about. I would rather buy the equipment than rent it. That way there is no rush. I buy it, use it, rent it, write it off, then sell it.
 
We just finished up our 5th feature and I work 5 days week. I get off at 130pm so I schedule my weekday shoots to begin at 3:00pm and we try to wrap by 11:00pm when ever possible.

Usually I shoot Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat, and every other Sunday. Sometimes locations can only be booked in the AM and when that happens I just work half a day or at night and go right to set. Luckily My boss is involved with my company so I get all the freedom I want. It is strange, He is my boss at my 9-5 and I am his boss on set.
 
Richard, you have it wired man. That is the greatest setup. Filmmmaking is like working out...the more you do it the better you get at it and the better you understand how much shooting you can accomplish in a day. One of the hardest parts to figure out is scheduling your shoot. Most filmmakers think they can get more done in a day than they can and once you get behind the pressure starts to build. Plan conservatively and make sure you get every shot you need for editing. Don't compromise.
 
In my case, I shoot mostly weekends when doing a feature but also nights. We schedule day shoots on the weekends and night shoots during weeknights so that we can accomplish more than the average "weekend warrior" schedule.

The key, is to schedule as aggressively as possible and despite doing the nights & weekends to get all the shooting days done as quickly as possible.

My first feature we shot 10 straight days and then did 1 pick-up day 2 weeks later. Now, that was a crazy 10 page a day schedule that was meticulously planned and an extremely limited location show.

My latest feature (www.battle-movie.com) we shot 21 days over a 7 week period. Most weekends and many weeknights in between.

Finding time isn't really as hard as it might seem. It's corralling all the resources into the schedule you set that is the challenge. Especially coordinating working actors schedules and working crew schedules around their more lucrative gigs. But it's really just a matter of disciplined planning and the will to handle a full time job on top of a day job.

I work on shorts and take writing assignments when not working on features, it's a full time perpetual motion. It's just you have a block (the regular work-week) of time that you have to plan around.

I can't stress enough the importance of prep though...there are few things worse than a project that never gets completed. It can wear on you as a filmmaker when you're not finishing and I believe it hurts your chances of attracting the collaborators you need for future projects if you allow projects to linger unfinished too long.

-Martin
 
after 10pm and weekends...if this is the career you want, you need to put in at least 40 hous a week beyond your day job...

Stan The Man
 
Hmm

Hmm

Well I have a company that does corporate work, and I can set my own hours or do whatever I please really with that, so it's difficult fitting in that corporate work with my feature film pre-production but it has been doable. It has just meant A LOT of nights where I sleep only 4-5 hours :( The weekends are a time to catch up on paperwork, corporate work, and sleep!

When I go into production though I'm turning over the ship to my sales lady completely, she can deal with my editor if necessary or hold things down until I'm done because when I'm directing I don't want to hear one thing about anything else besides my film. I won't be doing anything but sleeping, eating, going to the bathroom, and directing. That's how it should be, your focus should not be divided or the results will be less than ideal.
 
Richard J. Johnson said:
We just finished up our 5th feature and I work 5 days week. I get off at 130pm so I schedule my weekday shoots to begin at 3:00pm and we try to wrap by 11:00pm when ever possible.

Usually I shoot Mon, Wed, Fri, Sat, and every other Sunday. Sometimes locations can only be booked in the AM and when that happens I just work half a day or at night and go right to set. Luckily My boss is involved with my company so I get all the freedom I want. It is strange, He is my boss at my 9-5 and I am his boss on set.
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No doubt, you got it wired. Let me ask, with that schedule, how many shooting days does one of your features take? How many pages a day to you get in? Any other logistic details would be great to know. Way to go.
 
We're about to shoot a feature in 12 days, but a few "soft" days outside of the schedule with a skeleton crew, almost like B-unit but with our main actors just a tiny crew.

It's going to be insane. I'm really worried about one location specifically because it's seriously too much to cram into one day, but I guess we'll figure it out.
 
David G. Smith said:
No doubt, you got it wired. Let me ask, with that schedule, how many shooting days does one of your features take? How many pages a day to you get in? Any other logistic details would be great to know. Way to go.
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It usually takes us between 30 and 60 shooting days to get it all done. depending on the genre. We grind really hard on the weekends usually 16 hour days. Not really sure about the page count. I never looked at it like that. We try to get at least 2 scenes complete during the weekdays and 6 scenes done over the weekend.

All of the scripts I have done have been 90 pages or so.

We run a really small crew as well, there are only 5 of us. Boom op, AD, B-Cam operator, myself and one grip.

If we have one location with multiple scenes we really try to shoot those in one day. wardrobe becomes a pain in the A$$ but spread sheets are what saves us.

It's not really the ideal way to shoot a feature film and sometimes the quality does suffer a bit but we are still learning and with each one we pick up more people and get better. We have sold all of them to distribution companies except for 2 and 1 of those never got finished.

We just love to shoot and we can't stop. Hell, it's one of the only things I'm pretty good at. That and Yo-Yo tricks.:Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
Richard J. Johnson said:
It usually takes us between 30 and 60 shooting days to get it all done. depending on the genre. We grind really hard on the weekends usually 16 hour days. Not really sure about the page count.
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16 Hour days and still up to 60 shooting days for a 90 page script? That seems long depending on the material.

Hollywood shoots about 60 days but an indie usually shoots faster than that.

Are you breaking down the scripts and doing a traditional schedule?

We had 21 shoot days for our feature last fall at 12 major locations (a few of these subdivided like the college campus). This doesn't included 4 days of second unit but it was roughly 95 pages for an average of 4 1/2 pages a day.

We planned for that exactly during pre-production and under-estimated the Second Unit needs.

However, we shot mostly 10 hour days on the weekends and 7 - 8 on weeknights.

It took about 2 1/2 Months to get all the shoot days in for scheduling but otherwise the production went pretty efficiently.

We had a small crew but we've worked together a lot so are well-adjusted to each other. Crew: Director, Gaffer, Boom/Soundmixer, AD, Make-up/Wardrobe, and 2 extra producers (one usually doing the Sound)...at times we had a few extra hands on the set but mostly we had this set-up.

-M

p.s. and did I mention the FREE mixtape available at the website yet today? :) www.battle-movie.com
 
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I think our crew is about 30. If it weren't, we wouldn't be able to do a 12-day shoot probably. Not to say I'm not still concerned, it's a challenge, but we'll make it work.

The actors just need to have their lines down and they have to know everything inside and out, otherwise we won't get the number of good takes that I want. It's going to be tough enough to get enough coverage with a 12-day shoot, but it will happen provided that the cast is on point. It's an excellent cast, though, I'm excited.
 
Richard J. Johnson said:
It usually takes us between 30 and 60 shooting days to get it all done. depending on the genre. We grind really hard on the weekends usually 16 hour days. Not really sure about the page count. I never looked at it like that. We try to get at least 2 scenes complete during the weekdays and 6 scenes done over the weekend.

All of the scripts I have done have been 90 pages or so.

We run a really small crew as well, there are only 5 of us. Boom op, AD, B-Cam operator, myself and one grip.

If we have one location with multiple scenes we really try to shoot those in one day. wardrobe becomes a pain in the A$$ but spread sheets are what saves us.

It's not really the ideal way to shoot a feature film and sometimes the quality does suffer a bit but we are still learning and with each one we pick up more people and get better. We have sold all of them to distribution companies except for 2 and 1 of those never got finished.

We just love to shoot and we can't stop. Hell, it's one of the only things I'm pretty good at. That and Yo-Yo tricks.:Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
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Thanks, that sounds good I have seen some of your stuff on Vimeo and it looks really good. Keep up the good work.
 
David G. Smith said:
Thanks, that sounds good I have seen some of your stuff on Vimeo and it looks really good. Keep up the good work.
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I've seen it too and definitely am impressed by not only the work (it keeps improving) but the fact that you have a track record in getting it done.

We're hoping to catch up to your # of projects at some point. The post production is taking the longest on our current project. But we hope to be back out soon trying to keep up :)

-M
 
JonathanLB said:
I think our crew is about 30. If it weren't, we wouldn't be able to do a 12-day shoot probably. Not to say I'm not still concerned, it's a challenge, but we'll make it work.

The actors just need to have their lines down and they have to know everything inside and out, otherwise we won't get the number of good takes that I want. It's going to be tough enough to get enough coverage with a 12-day shoot, but it will happen provided that the cast is on point. It's an excellent cast, though, I'm excited.
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Wow, that's a huge crew but it'll definitely make life easier in some respects.

It's definitely doable, especially if the actors get on point. I did an 11 day feature shoot a few years ago (Behind the Nine available on Netflix) with 17 principal actors and we rehearsed the heck out of it and it worked out just fine in terms of shooting it in 11 days.

-M
 
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