Scheduling a feature.

[Martay]

Instead of asking how long it will take to shoot we should be saying it will take as long as it takes to get every shot we need to make a great film.

Definitely. I just wrapped an 18 day shoot for my latest feature "Battle" and it dragged out longer (not shoot days, we had that pegged and even consolidated and saved 1 day) than we had hoped in order to insure we got the right locations and the right access to those locations to get what we needed...so in essence pre-production for certain shoot days was still going on after we had began the production.

We did not (as far as I know) leave a shot on the docket that we didn't get and we didn't overwork cast and crew...no days went over 12 hours...most went 8 to 9 only.

Now, whether the film will be great or not remains to be seen, but we definitely got what we planned to get and it's all because of patience and preparation on our part.

-M

 

[Kess]

Congrats Martin. You've given yourself the best chance for success by getting what you needed without compromising. You stated another great point about not overworking everybody...it gets ugly in the wee hours when people are rushing to get finished. Nothing worse on the set than shouting matches and even a few fisticuffs!