FEATURE: The Old Livingston House - A Family Adventure Comedy

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pirate40

Well-known member
We have been in pre production for just over one year now on our low budget family adventure comedy. I have written four self published novels that have been fairly successful on a local level. After several attempts to turn one into a movie, I decided to do it myself.

I have studied, bought equipment, practiced, held casting, found locations, and practiced some more over the past year. Much of my research and education has been right here on DVXuser, so before I go any further, I would like to offer my thanks to each and every member who post here because I am sure you have helped me in one way or another.

I have been posting updates ever since we began with casting in July 09, on my website, and now that we have our first day of shooting coming up this Wednesday I thought some of you may find our project of some interest.

www.jefferylamb.com

We will continue to update the site, and things should start getting interesting.
 
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Day one of shooting

Day one of shooting

Day one in the can. It was a long day but thanks to the help of my talented cast and crew, we got a lot done. After looking over some of our footage last night I am finding out what worked and what didn't. Surprisingly we got most of the things right. Lighting looked good, sound was good, acting was very good and everyone seems to have a good experience.

We chose to shoot at one of our easier locations to begin with. It is the home of the 16 year old male in our movie. At this location we mainly just have him and his father, so it made sense to start out there. We had shots in the bedroom, office, and kitchen. Some of the shots in the bedroom were missed, and we didn't finish in the kitchen. The office turned out really nice, but after looking at the footage, I feel I need a long shot of the father at the desk before we go into medium shots as the young man enters.

We are shooting again on Friday at the same location and should be able to pick up anything missed. Plus we will have some scenes in the kitchen and on the porch with our 16 year old female. I have also arranged for Georgia's (a seven year old English Bulldog who likes to lay around) owner to bring her to the set for some shots on the porch. Hopefully she will lay still while we all run around her. I will post how that goes later.
 
Day 2

Day 2

On Friday we shot at our first location again, and once again everything went very well. My main concern was with Georgia the bulldog. I have heard the saying "Never work with kids or animals" and on my second day of being a film maker I would be shooting a scene with a bulldog. It took a little time to get her to settle down, but after about twenty minutes we were able to get our shots, and she never messed up on her lines. Well worth the wait.

Another newspaper showed up to interview the cast and crew and here is the links to both articles.

http://www.thevillagesdailysun.com/articles/2010/01/24/news/news03.txt

http://www.dailycommercial.com/localnews/story/012210film
 
Thanks Gilbert for the kind words. I know a year is a long time but we started out not knowing how to work a camera. A lot of hours were put into setting up scenes in out living room and back yard to figure out what we were doing. Also changing my novel into a screen play, and a thousand other details. Should I do a second movie I believe we could cut pre production time considerably.
 
Screen Grabs

Screen Grabs

Finished day 3. Here are some screen grabs from my first location.
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The first image looks like you need a simple reflector to direct light onto your talents face and highlight her and something to reduce the light on the basket, she looks lost in the picture. The second image again needs light on the talents face to highlight him, I look at the image and am only drawn to the bowl of oranges and the unnatural shadows he is casting which I assume is not your intent with this shot? Hope you dont mind constructive critisism?
 
Thanks Steve,

We did have some shadow issues and had to re shoot one scene. I think lighting the mans face is a good idea also and I will keep that in mind in the future.
 
We have a few days off before shooting at our next location on Saturday. After putting together the first half of our production schedule it looks like we will be shooting about 35 days. Our next location is a small one and I hope to get it all in one day. We only have two actors at this location. The third location is also a one day shoot with two actors. After that we go full bore with more cast members.

We have one established actor, who was in Bad Boys II, Ace Venture Pet Detective, Twenty bucks, Running Cool, and did some television in the 90s.
We are hoping to have established a good working flow by the time we get into his scenes.

We are working with a cast of 17, crew of 6 and budget of $20,000.
 
Day 4

Day 4

We shot day four at our second location (Summer's house) on Saturday. We had some lighting issues at our first location, while I don't believe we have solved all of our problems, I do believe we are on the right track.

Our acting has been great, as a first time director I am finding that picking the right cast may have been the best decision I have made so far. I don't see how this could be accomplished without experienced actors. Even minor experience seems to pay off.

Also one of our actors has directed over 100 plays and I have made him my assistant director. Another wise decision.

I am very new to film making but if I could give advice to anyone that is a few steps behind me. It would be look for talented people to work with and half the battle is won.

Monday we will be building a set in the garage of our next location, and we are shooting one scene on the front steps of a church on Wednesday.
 
We really are low buget

We really are low buget

Last Saturday I felt like I was on top of the world. We had a great day shooting, our actors were fantastic. The small crew was working together like a well oiled machine, and we stayed right on schedule. It was every thing a first time director could ask for.

Tuesday and Wednesday I was at our next location building a fake wall, hanging drywall, mudding the seams and painting it. This is when it hit me, how low buget we are. The weird part was, as I stood there covered in drywall mud and paint, is that I really wouldn't want it any other way.

Hope this movie thing works out, because I'm a pretty crappy carpenter.
 
Our last two days of shooting has been the best yet. This week we will have the most cast member at one time on the set and I am looking forward to it. Saturday will be our first day with our most experienced actor and I think I am ready, heck I've been a director now for about three weeks.

We did our first dolly shots this week and two out of the three came out very nice. We are using DIY dollies and the results are good. Weather has played with our schedule a bit, and we have fallen a little short of our shot list on a couple of days. I think it is better to call it a day when it feels things are getting rushed. We have some free days lined up where we can have cast and crew available, but did not schedule any shots, in case we fell behind. I think this is a good idea for other beginning film makers.
 
Glad to see this is coming along. I'm in the same boat as you being fairly new to the game, but so far so good.. everything has gone really smooth. DIY dollies are the best.
 
Azmyth

Azmyth

Yeah, the dollies were great. I built a skateboard and PVC track one for outside and made some brackets on a wheelchair to hold my tripod that we are using inside. The reason we had problems with one shot is because I set it up under some pine trees, the pine needles killed us. Lesson learned to take along a rake or something to place the track on. We also have a DIY 12' jib that I was hoping to use for the first time last week but it was kind of cold and our actress is dressed in a T shirt and shorts. It was in the high 50s, that's freezing here in Florida.

I've been keeping up to date on the "Exit 101" thread. Look like things are going good. It does seem like we are in the exact same spot film making wise, at the exact time. We will have to trade DVD's sometime down the road, when we finish.
Maybe I'll meet you at "Exit 101" near "The Old Livingston House," lol.
 
Bad day

Bad day

Holy sh%#! Oh sorry, we are doing a family comedy.

Holy Cow! We shot again on Wednesday and had a heck of a time. We had three scenes planned out. One kind of tough one with some action and two simpler ones with just dialog between two actors.

I began with the action scene, it was not a super hard scene, but a little more advanced then some of the other stuff we have done. Summer had to back Cory over some buckets of paint and he falls down. Surprisingly it went really well. The second scene was no problem either. But we just could not get the third one. I don't know why but we were just off somehow.

After I got home I laid out marks on the dining room floor and went over it with my wife {the producer} a few time and I believe we won''t have the same problem.

Another lesson learned, sometimes the easy ones aren't as easy as you would expect, and with a good cast the hard ones may not be as bad as you expect.
 
Back On Track

Back On Track

After a difficult day of shooting, we went back at it on Saturday and things went great. The set is a odd place to be, because even with everything planned out, you still never know what may happen. Also looking at the monitor can give you a very odd feeling. When you see something happen on that little screen that is better then you ever hopped for, chills run down your spine. Surprisingly it happens often. I never quite got the term "Movie Magic" but I do now.

One of our actresses quit this week, luckily we had not shot anything with her yet, but now I have to move the woman playing the part of Summers mother into the part of Screw Loose Sue. So I will have to re-shoot about three hours that we had shot of the mother when I get a replacement.
It is an inconvenience but I think we will be better off for it. The woman who quit was a great actress, but didn't seem very exited about our project. I was worried about her creating a negative atmosphere on the set and now I don't have to worry about that.

On Saturday the young man playing Cory brought a football with him and we had a touch football game as we were wrapping up for the day. It was probably the two worse teams in the history of the game, but we all had a great time.

I have imposed a new rule on the set that we always have a football, or a frisbee, something to keep things fun. We are making a good little movie and when it comes down to shouting "Action" we are all about getting the best take we can. Although there is a lot of clowning around between takes. We are having a great time on this adventure and I plan to do all I can to keep things fun. I believe this will result in a better finale product.
 
Shot again on Saturday and had a very strange day. I was by no means at the top of my game and was just having a rotten time. Nothing seemed to go as planned. My production assistant took over the camera and the assistant director got the actors rehearsed and hitting there marks as I wondered around like I was lost. This along with a couple of great actors who stepped up to the plate when they saw I was having a bad day, makes you realize how great of people I'm working with. The scenes shot turned out very good.

We auditioned two ladies on location to play the part of Summer's mother. Both were talented but we all felt Beth had a better look for the part of a mom.

Our next day of shooting will be Wednesday and it is not looking like an easy day. This will be our first time shooting at two different locations on the same day.
 
Action Shots

Action Shots

We have two more days in the book, and today was a very action packed day.
In one scene our teenage female lead chases a big ol' biker out the door with a crowbar, after she swings it at his head and buries it into the wall. Then our teen male lead busts out the headlights on the other bikers truck.

I had bought a pair of headlights at a junk yard and put them on the truck, and a fake 4X8 wall was constructed for the crowbar in the wall shot. I scored the back of the wall to make it easier on "Summer" but she didn't really need it. (That girl can swing a crowbar)

We really got some terrific shots and no one got hurt. Today was the day I was worried about. Also the bikers pull up in their truck and pull Summer off of her bicycle. That went fine also, we even got a tire screech as they came to a stop.

Next weekend we will be moving to a new location, (the bikers house) and hope that things continue to go as well as they have so far.

We have started a facebook page and have uploaded a behind the scene camera angle of the crowbar in the wall shot. If you are on facebook just search Old Livingston House.
 
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