"In The Can"

Friends, let me tell you a thing about my experience writing, directing and acting in a film. First of all, if you intend to go down the road I did - that is, rent some equipment on the cheap for a weekend, get your friends to star in it as well as occupy several jobs for which an entire crew is usually required - then be prepared for a severe lack of sleep and/or food of any nutritional value. Secondly, in pre-production, prepare. Once you've prepared, prepare some more. Allow yourself to be ready for every single scenario known to man - if winged monkeys carrying laser guided flame throwers were to invade your set, you'll be ready for it - as you are bound to forget something that will end up being vital to the telling of your story. Trying to minimize these instances, in my personal experience at least, is the key to a smooth guerilla production. Preparing includes more than just knowing your lines by the way. As a director, you really do need to analyse every word of that script, checking for shots you want at various points, reactions you want to see from the actors involved and any props that will be needed throughout. I'm sure there's a whole host of other things to remember but I forgot them.

I, of course, failed with all of these points, which is why I give them to you now. However, lucky as I was, a tremendous amount of help from a truly exceptional group of people was afforded to me and we ended up getting most everything I wanted, in one way or another. I cannot thank everyone involved, or indeed praise them highly, enough. They all have big futures so I felt pretty lucky to get them early and at a discounted friend rate.

Day one of the shoot was by all accounts pretty disastarous. I got off work late, made it to the rental place just in the nick of time, then hot-footed it across the traffic strewn roads of LA to my apartment where we proceeded to shoot for the rest of the evening. Two things I hadn't considered: One - next door's dog barking through every f**king take. Two - the temperature in my already baking apartment rising to miserable levels when "movie lights" were thrown into the mix. This is not conducive to good acting or a pleasurable experience for anyone involved. Suffice to say, after we wrapped (at about 2.30am I might add) I was not feeling particularly confident and slept barely a wink for fear I was making the next "The Room".

Day two was much more successful. I had an epiphany in the night and got back to what I wanted to achieve with this piece in the first place - keep the camerawork simple and let the acting do the talking. Thus we did that and got some great footage. We even managed to turn my mate Stas' apartment into a waiting room, which was far more difficult and pat-on-the-back-worthy than it sounds, trust me. Plus we finished on time, which I was also proud of. However, I still didn't sleep as it is just simply impossible to do so under these conditions.

Day three went better than I could have hoped. We managed to turn Taylor's back garden into an organic cafe, which again as before, is bloody hard work! After running around like blue-arsed flies all day and night, we decided (to the sound of a collective groan) to re-shoot everything (yep...everything!) from the Day 1 shoot that evening. Thus we did not finish filming until 2.30am once again. Did I care? Did I f**k? Every second of it was an absolute pleasure...for me at least. For everyone else you'd have to ask them.

Driving back up the 405 at 3 in the morning, I can't begin to describe the feeling of exhaustion, elation and pride at having achieved something I had been secretly aspiring to since as far back as I can remember. Now of course comes the headache of editing the hours of footage, syncing up the sound, re-shooting anything we might have missed (which going by my track record will be plenty) and generally making it not shit, for want of a better phrase. That's all part of the fun though isn't it?

Salutations,

John.