Staying True To Your Vision

I have so many things to blog about; I promise to catch up soon. I wanted to share my excitement with you all. I’ve been watching the footage and it looks amazing. Matt, Brian and the rest of the crew did a great job and the cast was phenomenal. I am so blessed, grateful and thankful that the images I’m looking at belong to the film I set out to make.

In my journey making this film I’ve learned so much, I’ve had both good and bad experiences. The most frustrating thing I’ve gone through was watching the footage I shot last November and just saying “What the F*ck”. I shot scenes that shared the same locations as Christine’s and Laura’s, I’m glad I did not shoot anything else because the images I was looking at were not what I envisioned. That footage will end up on the deleted section of the DVD. It’s not to say that the footage wasn’t shot well (with the exception of the frame rate issue) the footage looks good but it’s not my vision. Ultimately, I hold myself responsible because I was the director, I should have said something.

The most powerful lesson I learned is that when you see something that’s not going the way you envisioned it, speak up. Once that day is over you most likely won’t be able to go back to that location. The same goes for the people you are working with; if someone is not working out, or if someone does not deliver or make good on what they said they were going to do, it’s ok to fire them.

Fast forward 7 months later and I love every frame we shot. Matthew (Matt) Boyd the cinematographer never questioned what I wanted but he came with suggestions that improved my vision. We work well together, we like a lot of the same music and that helped. We never watched movies for references but we listened to a lot of music, I explained my vision of what I wanted through songs, particularly The Fabulous Miss Wendy’s (because she’s pretty much letting me use all her songs). I would tell Matt, this song will go on this scene and we would start from there.

As I watched the footage, I laughed and almost shed a tear – I tried to contain myself because I did not want my mascara and eyeliner to run (I went to a networking event so I had to get dolled up and I did not want raccoon eyes). The clip that almost made me cry was of Shane and Dustin walking on the beach at sunset, they were shot in a beautiful silhouette against the Santa Monica Mountains as the sun was setting. I remember when we shot that scene, so many things were going through my mind, particularly the hundreds of hikes I’ve taken on those mountains thinking about that very moment. I remember saying Thank You God. Shooting it was magical but watching it back was indescribable. I LOVED IT. I was so excited I could have burst.

The mistake I made the last time was that I watched a lot of films with Leah (the other dp). I’m sure that works for other people but in retrospect, that didn’t work for me and maybe that’s why I didn’t feel that the November footage was my vision.

As a filmmaker you need to figure out what works for you and what works for your particular project.

The next film I shoot with Matt may have us watching some shows on The Food Network because the story deals with food or maybe I’ll take a cooking class, who knows.

Stay true to your vision and figure out a way to get it; that usually starts with a kick ass team who can bring it!

xoxo,
Lucy