Part II.

Over the past five months, Ive worked on a short film of my own. The film has been both a creative foray into the filmmaking process, as well as an exercise in collaboration. When I first began the pre-production process of coming up with a concept for, outlining, and writing my film, I felt as if I was drowning in the complexity of the project. I had made a couple of short videos with my brother, but none of our amateur home videos had been based off of a script - we had ad-libbed the dialogue and improvised the plot. Thinking up a concept for the film was, in all honesty, one of the most difficult parts of producing my film. While I consider my self a fairly creative person, it was difficult to think up an original and enticing idea. I decided to search for some help. Initially, I turned to Blake Snyders best selling book on screenwriting, Save The Cat. While Snyders book proved to be a fantastic resource for my actual scriptwriting, it did not help out in thinking of a concept. After trying Snyders book, I decided to turn to Kelsey Fox, a friend of mine who is well versed in writing for theater. Fox was my first collaborator on this project. We had previously talked about writing and filming a short film together, but unfortunately, the project had never happened. I figured, however, this was the perfect opportunity for us to work together, and it would be an invaluable learning experience for me as a writer. Fox and I met a few times over a month long period to discuss concepts. After much discussion, we came up with two concepts that would work well as a short film. After coming up with the ideas, I

wrote brief outlines for each film, and we discussed character development and plot structure. Finally, we settled on the story we thought was stronger, and I drafted a more detailed outline and went on to writing the screenplay. Collaborating with a seasoned writer like Fox was crucial to the success of my project. Fox, who has a comedic background in theater, helped me think about situations that would be subtly comedic as well as emotionally gripping and combine the two into a film that would captivate audiences. After working with Fox on establishing the concept for the film, I wrote the screenplay on my own. While it would have been a great experience writing with a partner, I felt it would be a learning experience for me to write the script on my own. I also felt I could finish the screenplay much faster if I wrote it by myself. I started the script at the end of January, and finished a third draft by the first week of March. It was not until my third draft that I really started to feel like I had something I was proud of. The first two drafts were full of extraneous details and weak scenes that did not add to the plot. To help me weed out scenes that were not beneficial or necessary to the plot, I turned to my next collaborator and good friend, Emmett McCleary. McCleary read draft one and draft two of the script and provided me with useful notes about what he enjoyed, what he thought was realistic, and most importantly, what he felt should be changed or take out. McCleary helped me get rid of almost a third of the script. I went from 18 pages in my first draft to 13 pages in what would become my final draft. I felt it was really important to get a fresh set of eyes to look at my script. It was also important that I had someone read my work and not hold back any criticism. Thats why I turned to McCleary. He was honest with all of his criticism, and while it was

criticism, it was highly constructive. He highlighted what parts of the dialogue I had written seemed unnatural, and what parts of the plot made no sense. After polishing my drafts, I started looking for actors. My film called for two lead actors and an array of supporting actors. One of the lead parts was written for my sister, and she agreed to play the part even before I wrote the script. Casting my male lead was a little more difficult. I approached a few friends with my script, and all were interested in being in the film, but scheduling constraints impeded their ability to participate. Finally, I showed Dan Minihan the script, and he loved it and agreed to play the part. It would only be fair to call Minihan my next collaborator. He helped me refine much of the dialogue, and really brought the film to life with his portrayal of my main character. Minihan really was instrumental in the production process, and because of his help with both refining the script and assisting with production duties during principle photography, Minihan is receiving a producers credit on my film. My next collaborator was Drew Gately. Gately and I have known eachother since elementary school, and Gately has always been fascinated with film and television. I knew going into the project that it would be necessary to have help on the technical side of filming, and I knew Gately, who is very involved in TV production at school, would be the perfect person to turn to. Gately was instrumental in the filming process. He brought some gear an extra tripod and a dolly- to the shoots, and he held the boom microphone for every scene. Most importantly, however, Gately helped me set up my shots and was determined to help facilitate the transition from script to screen. Gately and I shot the film over a few weeks. We spent two full weekends shooting during April, and an extra fifth day was added in the beginning of May to capture a few

extraneous shots and to do some re-shoots. After filming, I began the tedious process of editing. Editing was the most challenging, but also the most rewarding process of producing my film. While editing, you really start to see what the film looks like. You go from a bunch of short clips to a fleshed out film like thing. However, the challenge of editing is that you can cut a film in so many ways, so you have to work in an almost trial and error type fashion. Editing was the only stage of production when I really did not collaborate with anyone. Instead, I spent an enormous amount of time in my room sitting in front of my computer and cutting the film. After editing, I started looking for music. Originally, my goal was to have only original music in the film. However, after beginning the editing process, I realized I did not have enough time to find someone to score the film, especially because I knew I would be editing up until I released my film. To find music for my film, I again collaborated with McCleary. McCleary has an extensive knowledge of music, and he was able to give me many suggestions about what songs would fit where in my film. His help was enormous during the entire production process, and while Im not going to give him a producer credit, he will definitely get a special thanks during the credits. Producing this short film has been an insane and intense experience. Coming in, I knew that my project was ambitious, so the amount of work I had to do was not surprising to me.