The Unattainable - A New Series

"Man approaches the unattainable truth through a succession of errors"
-Aldous Huxley

These pages have been blank for a longer period since I restarted the blog a while back because I am currently, once again, line producing a feature.

The changed world of indie films is not a pleasant one for line producers. While digital has made filmmaking cheaper, it has not changed the fact that certain costs - food, gas, tolls, vehicles, etc - are inevitable and have not gone away. Additionally, I refuse to do a movie with unpaid interns in paid positions. There is a place for interns, where they can learn and move up and you can utilize them in places you cannot afford to hire. That should not be your key grip, or, for that matter, set PAs.

The combination of good scripts being unable to raise the proper amount of money, bad scripts being done for silly figures, and scripts being shot in a range I am unwilling to work on, I have turned down more work than I have taken the last few years, making my living mostly preparing budgets and breakdowns and doing shorts.

This all changed when I got a call from producers who had just been greenlit for a film on the SAG MODIFIED LOW budget. As I consider budgets proprietary, and I also have an NDA, I will not and will never discuss budget publicly. It's low, but not so low as to fall into that bottomless pit known as "guerilla filmmaking."

Needless to say, about the only moment I have not been working the past four weeks - we started shooting yesterday and were in prep until that point - have been the few hours when I sleep. Not being a martyr. The same can and should be said for my producers and the director, all of whom have been great partners and, just as important, incredibly good human beings.

Not always easy to say about the people you are working along  side.

I will catch you up on prep, and then do a day-by-day diary. Unlike my long, winding posts on the past, the present will fly by, a brief thought here or there to let you know how it's going.

Those posts will start tomorrow - hope they give a little insight into what a line producer thinks and does