The Life of an Independent Filmmaker

Despite what one might assume, being a film producer is not a glamorous job. Actually, I should qualify that statement by saying that being an independent film producer is not glamorous. In Hollywood, producers have assistants to fetch them Chai Mocha lattes and make their phone calls. In the indie world, producers are the people who work 24 hours a day slaving away on their projects.

I recently produced and directed my first feature film. From the end of 2009 to the beginning of 2011, it was a non-stop job. The first step was writing the thing and, unfortunately, the only training I'd ever received in screenplay-writing had been perusing a screenplay-writing book at Barnes & Noble. But I had the Internet at my disposal, filled with the accumulated wealth of knowledge of every website for screenplay-writing tips! I figured I could manage on my own.

At the end of three days' time, I had a 95-page, semi-properly formatted screenplay — but a writer, no matter how talented (or self-assured), should never assume that something is perfect in its first draft.  So, I reached out online asking for assistance in editing and formatting. I couldn't offer people money, so I offered credit and backend remuneration —the usual indie deal. I received a fair amount of condescending responses from “professionals," who told me that I shouldn't be posting such things because no one would be willing to help me for free. But lo and behold, I received over 50 responses.

After finding two talented helpers who polished the script and fixed my formatting errors, I spent six months in pre-production, planning every detail of the shoot. That included finding and securing (and sometimes paying for) locations, holding auditions and interviews, hiring a cast and crew, sending out constant emails to make sure everyone was on the same page, creating a schedule, and ultimately, during shooting, making sure those cast and crew members were exactly where they were supposed to be, at the exact time they were supposed to be there. Oh, and did I mention that my family and I were paying for nearly everything ourselves?

If this all sounds like insanity, that's because it was.

During production, I would wake up two or three hours before the call time to make sure everything was ready for the day. I would prep my equipment and prepare food, then pick my actors up at the train station. We would film for a few hours and break for lunch, during which time my sole job was to prepare for the afternoon shoot. At the end of the day I'd clean up, watch the rushes, transfer the footage onto my computer to ensure we had room on our camera's SD cards to film the next day and oftentimes go so far as to edit the scenes we'd shot.

In post-production, we encountered many problems and it was my responsibility to ensure that no matter what obstacles we faced, the movie got done. I hired people to help with visual effects, sound and music, and began the submitting to film festivals. Finally, on Nov. 30th, 2010, I had a complete movie in my hands. And I was more proud of it than I can say.

Since then, we've faced our fair share of rejections, but we've also gotten into seven festivals, including the prestigious Boston International Film Festival and the upcoming New Hope Film Festival in Pennsylvania.  The next step is North American distribution —perhaps a video-on-demand or a cable network release — and I have high hopes that something truly great will come of this.

When you are a producer, your movie is your child. It's my job to watch over and protect my child and to always act in its best interest — even when that means firing someone or backing out of a business deal. But now it's my job to accompany that child on an adventure across the country to numerous — dare I say it? — glamorous film festivals. It was a crazy 14 months, but it was so, so worth it in the end.

So, what's next for this particular producer?  Though "Director's Cut" is a tough act to follow, next week I begin an even more ambitious project: creating a trailer for a fantasy/sci-fi feature film. It has garnered much attention, and my plan is to present the trailer to people in the industry in the hopes of getting major studio funding for the full-length film.  Below is a link to our informational/fundraiser page, and it's my plan to keep a production journal while filming.  I'll post blog updates here, talk about my experiences and adventures on set, and try not to deter the next generation of hopefuls from becoming indie producers.

http://www.indiegogo.com/Funding-for-the-Indie-Project-Draconis-Olim