I just shot a short film

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I’ll post more about the short film when we finish editing it, but just wanted to post up a couple of pictures. As a little back story, I’m working with a group at my theater, WCT, to create monthly short videos. Sometimes they go well. Sometimes they don’t. This would be an example of the latter. I got to the location and was the first one there. The person who was supposed to star ended up not showing up due to a hangover. Worse, he was the one with keys to the law firm where we were supposed to shoot.

We had the lighting equipment, camera, sound stuff, and people (well, there were only 4 of us - but still) for the day, and couldn’t not shoot. We ended up shooting instead at Marc’s apartment.

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My responsibility was supposed to be holding the boom mic. But when the main guy didn’t show up, I got the lead. Which meant on the car ride from the original shoot to my house (where I changed into a suit, and shaved from massive side burns with a lot of scruff to a uniform beard) to Marc’s apartment I was supposed to learn my lines.

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I imagine someone who’s been acting on a regular basis would have no problem with this. It was all of 6 pages of fairly simple dialogue. But line memorization is not my strong suit, to put it lightly, so instead, I spent the time between takes memorizing the last two lines.

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I’m sure the next shoot will go better. And who knows? This might even still turn out.

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But I wouldn’t bet on it.

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I’m looking forward to the next shoot where we’ll probably be doing my own script.

Worst case scenario? We use this as a benchmark from which we drastically improve.

Expect a guest post from Elaine when this thing is done - for the real story of the sweat and tears that went behind this.

YoutubeJeremy Shuback