How Much Is This Going To Cost?

A lot. But all we need at this point is an additional 20K. It is our hope that with all the wealthy people in LA we can find a few kind souls who can invest in our film. Otherwise, it'll be Christine and I borrowing the money from either credit cards or family - no, we can't be that cliche, we have to get people to invest. How hard can it be to find 4 individuals to invest 5K each?

It also seems that things tend to cost either $500 or $2,000. I am grateful for all the favors we've managed to get (a lot). Not to mention the free locations and the discounted locations. We are having a hard time securing a radio station and it looks like we may have to build one. I'm pretty sure that building a radio station will fall in the category of "Things That Cost 2K". We can't afford that so I hope we find a radio station that can let us shoot there for free!

We can't afford to go even $1 over budget.

The other location I'm having a hard time securing is the nice house that Shane & Dustin share. I may have found something but again that falls into the category of "Things That Cost 2K", and most of our locations are requiring that we get 1M in third party property damages (this isn't as expensive as one would think), and Christine and I are of the mind set that you're better safe than sorry.

In order to get the film done in 18 days, we will mostly be shooting with 2 cameras, there are a few 3 day camera days and a club scene with 5 CAMERAS! We are using the Panasonic HVX 200 which is also freaking me out. IT"S TAPELESS!!! The footage gets captured with a P2 card. The footage from each P2 card gets downloaded to a drive. We will back up our footage to two drives and 2 dvds to be on the safe side. I hope I explained all this correctly. Of course the 5 camera day is in the segment I'm directing. I have never worked with such a big camera crew. I was freaking out but my DP put my mind at ease because I only have to deal with her and she'll be in charge of the 5 camera operators and all the people power that comes with that. Besides the HUGE camera crew, there's a pretty big Grip & Electric crew, plus the 3 assistant editors who will be downloading all the footage.

We have yet to find a sound person. Another challenge of the five camera day is going to be the sound. We need to figure out how to synch the sound to all 5 cameras. Maybe it won't be that difficult. The 5 camera day is the day we shoot the club scene. It's a pivotal scene in the film. It's where all the characters come together, like the airport scene in Love Actually. The band is playing at the club (I'm negotiating to try to get The Gig on Melrose). The band's performance will be shot using the playback of the song from a cd but I need to make sure that our sound person and our DP can figure this out on the cheap, no renting of additional expensive equipment. The one day at the club scene is eating up almost 1/2 of the budget allocated to Love Song.

Love Song is the new name of my piece. It used to be Californication, like the RHCP song but I'm sure you've all heard of that Showtime series starring that guy from the X Files! It's actually a pretty good show. I still get annoyed when I see the billboards all over town. I like Love Song, it's the name of Dirty Virgin's single (the band in the film), the song is courtesy of The Fabulous Miss Wendy. I'm using another song called Love Song Yo! by someone I found on myspace, his name is Jason Keeton. Hooray for myspace music. There have been so many changes to my story that it's appropriate that there's a new title to go along with the current version.

Our actors are AMAZING. We have been so privileged to get so many talented people attached to our project (we will announce our full lineup shortly). We had a reading the other night. It was an emotional ride because I saw these characters come alive, and the stories finally felt right. The film felt tight. We will be making some minor changes and then we will be ready to lock the script. This is the first time that Laura (our third director) heard the entire script. We were all very pleased with the results of the reading. I can't say it enough but our cast ROCKS.

The other thing that TOTALLY ROCKS is the fact that as of now our entire crew is made up of WOMEN. I found our DP through one of the job boards of www.moviesbywomen.com. Leah has done so much for us, helping and guiding us along the way, and yes, she laughed her ass off when Christine and I told her we were intending on shooting all 3 stories for 15K (including post).

The best piece of advise I can give a filmmaker is to surround yourself with competent team mates that you respect and get along with. We have worked so hard but we've also had a lot of fun. Our production meetings tend to last a little longer than they should because we get along so well and we always digress into other subjects. It's a good feeling when you are working hard towards something you are passionate about, and it feels even better when you have like minded people at your side.

On Saturday we are meeting with our web designer, we hope to have the website up and running shortly.

Did I mention we still need 20K.

Lucy