Take My Posts Away

Sorry it’s been so long since I posted last. I’ve got a lot to due as far as school goes. Trying to get everything ready for my application to the film program and trying to get decent enough grades as well. And the redesign of the AFA isn’t exactly a fast and easy process. But never the less I keep trucking on with stuff for Freshmen. I’m about two weeks behind in my over all schedule. It doesn’t look like Pre-Production will really start until March 1st. It’s not that big of a deal but the more time I have in pre-production the easier the film will be to produce. Oh well. On Wednesday I got a lot done. I finished the new re-type of the screenplay as well as getting about 60% of the way through the Board. I say re-type as apposed to re-write cause I’m not ready to send this new draft out. I still need to go through it and fix things that I had changed halfway through the re-write, like the plot thing with the Police Aide. But I did finish the re-type of everything I’ve written so far. I’ve got 111 pages. I cut 23 pages from the other draft. It really shows. I’m going to start working on the timeline spread sheet thing to help me lock in my Police Aide plot line before I type it into the screenplay.

I spent the better part of Wednesday, who am I kidding, 8.5 hours of Wednesday in the computer lab at school making the board. I got to page 66 of the current re-write with 165 scenes having 192 break downs. Logically you’d think that I’d have 165 break downs, one per scene. But I’m taking into account that I have to shoot some scenes in two locations or at two different times. So I split them into two, even 3 break down sheets. For example I have a scene where Officer Ashton, while driving down the road, answers a call on his radio. Well the police are never gonna let are actor drive down a road and us get the shots of him driving. So we’ll have to do the interior of the vehicle in the parking lot of the police station most likely. But we need the shot of the cruiser driving down the street. So we’ll have an actual police officer drive the cruiser down the street and get a wide shot. These are two different filming events so I need to break down sheets for both scenes. Another reason I’ve got so many break down sheets are montages. I’ve got a few montages in the film and each part of the montage requires a separate break down sheet. I hope to finish the Schedule by November 17th.

I started looking for the rights to Take My Breath Away by Berlin. I had a great to use the song in a scene. I’m gonna see who has them and how much the rights are gonna crash.

Just a little background on what a break down sheet is: a break down sheet for a scene is what it sounds like. It’s a piece of paper with the following information on it. What scene were shooting, who’s in it, how long it is, where it needs to be filmed, what the location is supposed to be, what props are needed, what costumes are needed, a synopsis of the scene, what page number the scene takes place on, what special effects the scene requires, etc, etc. these are used so to schedule the film shoot. You arrange similar break down sheets together and shoot the scenes all at the same time. Usually these are arranged by location or an actors schedule (if the actors worth it ;))