Good luck over the weekend L.A. friends!

The most depressing thing about making strictly low to no budget films is the inability to license music/songs.

Everyday I wake up and think, I need to write something great, so somebody REALLY wants it, so they want it enough to let me have creative control, so I can actually use some fucking great songs.

That’s the daily plan. Write pages. Try and make it great. One day…temp songs are actually available!

DON’T FORGET ABOUT THIS

NATURE’S TRIPOD

BIG day today. Thanks to everybody who came out and played. It was a lot of fun. Rob Carpenter went above and beyond, but that’s pretty standard for RC. Thanks Rob!

Tomorrow is another monumental day. I should be opening the “scriptment” to see what’s coming, but I’m loading and logging footage.

The stuff from yesterday is funny. Holy shit. Dan Richardson is back in Andrew Norman form with a vengeance.

Everybody is committed to this thing in a big way, and it shows.

We’re on DAY EIGHTEEN. If we had any money, this would probably be the last day of shooting, but, because we’re paying for everything on credit cards and credit lines with no real outside assistance, it’s DAY EIGHTEEN of TWENTY-NINE!

I’ve never been this broke, in the world, in the history of my life, but I had this idea and it needed to be shot immediately. It was the right call. This becomes more and more apparent with easy passing day.

Thanks to Glen Schaefer for the great article in Sunday’s Province!

Tomorrow it’s Andrew, Sven, and Casey, and then…the party.

Making a film this way is similar to the process of writing fiction or songs. There’s also a certain element of theatre at play, but the big difference is, rather than “one night only,” we’re capturing that energy for playback (over and over) at 24 frames per second. I’m approaching this film, as I did WHEN LIFE WAS GOOD, in a naturalistic documentary style. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s comedy or drama, I imagine I will always be interested in this style of filmmaking.

I still love long elegant cinemascopic takes and wides, and I’m sure the next film will be different, but, for now, making a film this way, with these great people, is the best medicine.

My friend Rob (Leickner) and I were convinced that a somewhat (or largely) improvised filmmaking method might be freeing and possible (WELL before I made WHEN LIFE WAS GOOD in 2007). I find that working from a very detailed scriptment filled with a lot of dialogue and situational stuff (as well as the plot elements) offers much more freedom than a more skeletal outline (ala WHEN LIFE WAS GOOD). With this new film, I’m able to go farther “off the grid,” because the grid is so much stronger.

Looking forward to tomorrow!

LESLI BROWNLEE is ALISON

On my way to set. Just finished loading the footage from last night (it’s 9:30am). The batteries are half-charged.

CRAZY DAYS!

Will post more later tonight.