If you'd like to find out more about BOUND BY BLUE, follow us at: http://www.facebook.com/boundbyblueIn case you've missed them, you can check out PART ONE and PART TWO for the full 'un-movie experience'. Unlike David people rarely want to know why I chose to launch into this venture. Perhaps its because it is generally understood that producers are insane anyway, so the question is quickly muted. However the simple answer is that I was bored. I loved my job as a corporate producer but it was an uncreative nine-to-five position and my level of stress and hyperactivity was slipping well below my optimum level (like I said; Im a producer; slightly nuts and happiest when Im stretched a little thin). So I had no hesitation when David pitched me his unconventional idea. The first un-script was very achievable. Each scene was limited to Richard and one other cast member in a contained location (very French New Wave). Based on this, our initial plan was to keep things small. One sound person, David as DOP/director and myself as, well everyone else on-set. This meant not only easier scheduling, but also access to locations without council permission and all of the fun paperwork. To be honest the concept of extras never entered my mind in these initial stages of planning. Thus we forged ahead with the goal of limiting on-set personnel to four or five. More importantly, to encourage a sense of communal ownership amongst our team we aimed to include everyone in all aspects of the creative process. Actors would not only turn up to set, but would assist in finding other actors, securing locations and developing the story. We were aiming for a community style approach to filmmaking (with equal ownership, workload and control). No doubt this is why I didnt run at the first thought of the workload. I ASSUMED there would be many producers.
And to a large extent this remained true throughout much of the film making process. All of our team, from production people through to our post crew, took on roles well beyond their normal jurisdiction. However we quickly realised that our anticipated on-set dream-team of five was actually a pipe-dream-team. When the feature film buzz began to wear off, our lil crew began to realise just how much we were asking of them. Two nights a week didnt seem like a big commitment until they began blocking it into their diaries. To add to my woes I was bound to our golden rule: working within everyones availability (already you can see that our self-imposed rules of liberation were starting to choke us). Thats when the dream world and reality collided. It didnt take me long to work out that it was going to be impossible to have the one small team for the entire production. I needed a pool of people to draw upon. And it needed to be a deep pool. And then David called and subtly mentioned that the narrative had mushroomed from one story into four!! Wed need more main cast, more supporting actors, more locations and extras; mountains of extras.
So we racked our brains for all of the resources that we had access to. Between David and I we knew a lot of people but not nearly enough to satisfy the hunger of this film-beast. Thats when we decided to outsource and enlisted the help of a local film making college, SAE Institute, or more accurately the help of their wonderful students. A call for volunteers yielded more than 20 production helpers and sound recordists, and it was this enthusiastic cluster of energetic individuals that gave our production the boost it needed to launch head first into production. We now had enough manpower to combat the onslaught of scheduling issues. If youre considering entering into as equally a silly adventure as David and I, then dont underestimate the value of your local film school; fresh into the film world our SAE peeps have been some of our most energetic, generous and talented collaborators, many of whom have continued with us onto our upcoming projects. But enough about logistics, Ill momentarily step aside and allow David to continue with some random rant about casting, in the next episode of The Un-Movie Experience (also known as 'Square Hole, No Pegs').