Pre-Production Blues

By, Duncan Coe

I’m tired, I’m cold, and I’m anxious.

I’ve been on set for weeks, it snowed last Thursday more than it ever has in Central Texas, and we’ve got a ton of work to do on this movie.

While I was checking my emails yesterday there was a serene moment that swept over me as I saw not one but three separate emails from local vendors agreeing to donate product to our production at no cost. These were the first donations we’d received (outside of the crowdfunding campaign) and it was a humbling moment. The generosity of strangers baffles me, but it’s through that generosity that this project is going to be finished.... so long as the immense volume of work that needs to get done is miraculously finished in time.

Just like the past three months, the past three weeks have been a whirlwind. The most daunting task right now is trying to tackle the work that needs to be done in order to shoot next month. What doesn’t help is the amount of work Elena and myself have been putting in as stand-ins on a TV show that is filming in town. This isn’t the most glorious work, but that extra cash is being cycled right into our own production budget so that we can get closer to our finance goals. However, being on set means we aren’t at our computers sending out the critical communications and paperwork that’s going to make this film possible. That’s definitely the most stressful aspect of pre-production, finding the time and resources and people willing to do the inglorious tasks.

Nonetheless, production is moving on. We officially changed our start date for the first time. In order to shoot during a crucial full moon period at the end of next month we needed to move production back one week. If everything goes according to plan we’ll be shooting January 14th-February 3rd.

The question that gets me all twisted up is when people ask about post-production. Who’s editing? Who’s doing sound? Who’s doing your music? Well, at the moment… me. And while I know I can do it, it would be a hell of a relief if we could lock in some people to take on those jobs now.

I have to keep telling myself that by this time in two months I’ll have an entire film shot. And that’s pretty cool.