The victim was found in a deep, unfilled grave in a cornfield about twenty miles northeast of Baltimore. But she was cool with that.  It’s day one of the Rows Beta shoot – a short being produced in anticipation of the feature film production next summer.

Day one of any shoot is bound to be somewhat snafu.  I messed up some shots with bad camera settings (learning a new HDV camera) but hey, even the big movies with lots of dough to throw around screw things up. Otherwise, our shoot went splendidly. Our crew (including several excellent Loyola University students) performed like pros. And, in keeping with indie filmmaking tradition, we had bad food at lunch break.

This weekend was a kind of boot camp for testing out new equipment and new people.  We also did some set dressing and pre-rigging in the Ghost House (see COAMF 08/05/10).  On Sunday afternoon principle cast members Rose and Greta (thank you, Stonehenge XI) arrived for some rehearsals. They were awesome.

All of this is in preparation for the coming weekend’s shoot. We’ll have more crew, more actors, more gear, and more things that can potentially go wrong.  The Mad Filmmaker wages his internal war against anxiety. Will Joe from L.A. make it in time?  Will the Glide Cam work? Whose car will break down? Will it be 100 degrees out, or pouring down rain?  Can we block the wireless frequencies from opening garage doors in the neighboring subdivision? Will the lights explode the breakers in the Ghost House? Will the cops chase us off the road? Will people hate me?

In filmmaking, every decision involves a hedge against a small problem that can cost you a bigger problem, like the proverbial horseshoe nail that lost the war. Lack of a two-dollar battery at the wrong moment could cost you a magic moment, or a thousand bucks, or ten thousand. This is one of the reasons big movies cost so much. Small movies face the same problem, they just can’t throw money at it. So they throw time, if they’ve got it.

Filmmaking lore is full of aphorisms. “You can have it fast and good and expensive, or you can have it slow and good and cheap, but you can’t have it fast and good and cheap,” which is an elaboration on the pithier, “you want it good, or you want it now?” Another filmmaking truism is that if something goes wrong and you have to re-shoot, you can never recreate the magic, or energy, or whatever you want to call it, of the original moment you missed.  We’ll see.

— david warfield