Being prepared is the secret to low budget filmmaking and I am a stickler for prep work. If you have laid down the groundwork for a shoot and not left it all to the last minute, then you’re going to have a much smoother shoot.
Here are some of the things we did before we even started filming ‘Go With Him’.
Rehearsals
One of the main points of being prepared, as opposed to logistics, is making sure the actors are comfortable with the script, their performances and being on camera.
It is very hard to overlook the actors before, during and after filming. We made the effort to build in rehearsal time for the actors so that we could make sure that all of the performances and the jokes (it is a romantic comedy) worked at the time they were supposed to.
As a DOP this gave me the great advantage of working out shots, focal lengths, lenses, distances all on location (I’ll get to that in a bit). This for me is far better than previz software or stick figures on a storyboard (I can’t draw at all) to work everything we need for the shoot itself.
I used this technique in my last short film ‘I Did’. While we didn’t rehearse on location, I applied the same principle when planning out the shots and the beats.
The Cast
Casting ‘Go With Him’ was probably the easiest part of the whole production. From the start, Chris (Writer & Director) and I both knew that we wanted to work with Josh and Pippa again (both of whom were in ‘I Did’). Chris wrote Jim’s character just for him. I had seen Jim in Chris’ play ‘Someone Somewhere Smiled’ where he was brilliant and Richard was cast not long after that after a blinding read-through.
Location
As the film was set at a wedding, we knew we wanted it to be a pleasant outdoor setting. Somewhere where the couple could be having their intimate wedding photos taken in the evening.
I searched around for wedding venues that were local to the cast (technically I was the only traveller so it makes sense to build your film around the location of the majority of your cast and crew).
We completely changed our perspective of wedding venues when we held one of the rehearsals at Jim’s house. He had a huge garden which ran very deep. It could easily double as a great outdoor wedding venue. With the lens choices and the shots I knew we needed, this was going to be perfect.
Production Design and Costumes
The wedding theme presented us with a number of challenges. Namely, where to get a wedding dress from?
After searching for second hand/rental dresses (and purchasing one – which was a mistake) the answer came from really close to home. In fact, it came from my wife. We still had her wedding dress from our own wedding (we are trying to find a location to do a trash the dress shoot) so it was waiting to be used again.
As well as the dress we also had a matching veil, bouquet, groom’s pin – the works.
For Josh and Jim, they had to be in suits (its a wedding) but they should be in opposite colours (to represent the clear choice Pippa has to make). Richard as the wedding photographer would be in a half suit with a waistcoat (I’ve worn this particular set up for wedding photography myself). Richard brought along an old Canon 300D which added a huge amount of production value to his character – who doesn’t love an old film camera!
Finding Crew
Indie film flourishes with a collaborative crew. My efforts to find a crew were almost a complete failure. Apart from Ellie who came on at the last minute to do hair and makeup, it was just me on the day working both camera and sound.
I should say at this point that this didn’t phase me at all. I do this on a day-to-day basis in my day job. It meant I was running around a little bit more and what I really wanted to was someone to do some BTS of the shoot but we can’t have it all.
Read more about ‘Go With Him’ in my next blog: Go With Him – Production.
Thanks for reading and I’ll see you on the next blog.
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