I remember when I was a kid a friend and me had a lot of Star Wars figures and wanted to make a Star Wars based sci-fi stop motion film. Of course that never happened but I guess, somewhere in the back of my mind, the desire to make a film stayed dormant.
It wasn’t for a couple of years ago that I seriously started thinking about making a film again. I had an idea and wrote the first draft for a screenplay. I rewrote it several times and the story evolved. The total process took more than a year and when I thought the script was good enough I started looking for people to help me realise the project.
It was hard finding the right people, especially actors. It didn’t help either that I needed an old man for one of the roles in the film and the main location was in a park… When I had finally found the actors and set a date for rehearsals, one of the actors had a conflicting schedule and had to quit the project. A short while after that I had a bike accident and couldn’t use my arm for 4 months and I had to wait for the weather to get better again as at that time it was almost winter and too cold for shooting outside.
At the beginning of this year, recovered from the accident, I reread the script and didn’t like some of the essential dialogue. So another rewrite was needed. I tried a couple of versions but didn’t really get it the way I wanted.
I decided to let the project rest for a while.
Last month, I had another idea for a short film. It was inspired by the description of an opening scene I had jotted down in my “notebook of ideas”, a little notebook I use for writing down ideas for scenes or whole films so I do not forget them.
This time, I wrote the script in a couple of days. It’s a short mystery/sci-fi movie, about 4-5 minutes long. Think Twilight Zone.
The story is situated in a single room, so no weather dependencies this time. I asked some friends and colleagues if they wanted to help make the film. Most of them are into movies and I had a nice crew and an actor available pretty quickly.
I also found a potential location and will do some test shoots there soon. We set the shooting day for the end of October.
So now I have two months to work out the shot list and story board, do tests for a visual effects shot, built a specific set piece, do a lighting test on location, plan rehearsals and a lot more…
To be continued!