Today is our first day of shooting our feature film. It’s been a long journey and we are very excited to begin. We’ve assembled a great crew and awesome cast. We’re going to be shooting some office scenes today with Mark Teich We decided to start the week with days that we are not acting in so we can just be directors and get used to it.
Pictured below are Kasi and Charles (1st AD).
Laila vets actors
Remember how the character of Becky Connor on Roseanne was played by Lecy Goranson and then inexplicably replaced by Sarah Chalke without so much as a mention. Remember how that made you feel? Well, we’re not going to do that to you. Here at Gone Doggy Gone, we are going to tell you what happened to the cast that originally was to play three of our lead characters, so you can understand why they are on the Indiegogo video we produced back in September of 2012, but not appearing in our movie. Allison Summers who was to play Jill moved to Atlanta to pursue a different career and became unavailable to us. Kim Kenny (Kat) also got another job that conflicted with the amount of days we would need her and Matt Lowe (Dan) moved on to pursue other interests in the time that lapsed in acquiring our funding. While we are sad to see our friends in comedy go, we understand that this is the nature of independent film. People come and go when funding isn’t in place for a lengthy duration.
We are now auditioning actors to fill those roles as well as day players. It has been awesome witnessing all of the talent there is out there and we look forward to working with some amazing actors.
Nala, The Australian Shepherd, who we featured on our website a month ago has been found! Such great news.
People often ask us what the inspiration is behind our film, Gone Doggy Gone. Well, let me tell you. I had a dog walker named Jill who considered Laila to be one of her best friends. She would come and pick her up and then at the end of the day would report that she had smuggled her into the grocery store, taken her to the movies, to visit her friends and even to her waxing appointments. She also began to return Laila later and later, because she was having so much fun with her. And I began to worry. One day, I expressed this concern to Brandon and he said, “What if Jill just kept your dog”?… I really considered that and so did he and an idea was born. What if… someone kidnapped your dog?
The Inspiration for ‘Gone Doggy Gone’ from Buzzworm on Vimeo.
Found this poster all over Pacific Palisades. $5000 reward if you can find this dog.
StudentFilmmakers.com picked up our press release on our project. 🙂 http://www.studentfilmmakers.com/news/Filmmakers_First_Full-Length_Feature.shtml
They have a very cool website for filmmakers. They offer the latest news, classes, books, dvds, how-to articles and a FREE DIGI copy of their latest magazine. Worth checking out.
I cannot help but compare my recent introduction to surfing to my current experience in Independent feature filmmaking. When Brandon and I mused about the possibilities of producing the feature we wrote, I told myself that this time I would sit back, be creative, direct the film, act in it, but NOT be involved in the mind numbing, brain splitting, production end of things. I’d done it before for a short film, ‘A Woman Reported‘ (Sundance 2004) and it was rewarding, I could do it, but this time I was going to just be an “artist”. I pictured myself mussing up my hair over endless cups of coffee, making script changes, worrying over character choices, but never scheduling, budgeting, number crunching. NEVER AGAIN is what I said. Ha! As the weeks closed in and no lowly paid “passionate about the project” producer showed their face, Brandon and I realized that if we wanted to go forward with the film, we’d have to buck up and take up the reigns.
Which brings me to the surfing. Being an athletic person, I sort of pictured myself paddling out into the great blue yonder and effortlessly taking smooth waves toward white sandy beaches. Wrong. It’s more like paddle, paddle, gasp, paddle, paddle, Holy Shits a huge freaking wave is cooommiiiing— Oh, I’m on top of it and I might be fine…nope glugluglgluglgluglgug. Oh my God I’m alive! And back we go again in case it’s not so bad next time. That’s how the producing hit us. We had no idea how to use any of the programs (Movie Magic Scheduling, Budgeting) but people were asking us questions like, “what’s your budget”? and “if I give you money, what’s my investment”? Also, actors we respect were reading the script and loving it and asking what their time committment was going to be. Just as we learned one thing, we’d realize we’d scheduled it wrong and have to start over. It was exhausting and more than one nervous breakdown was had, but we are both wholeheartedly thankful that we were shoved into the swell and forced to learn the hard way, because only through drowning do we understand what we are getting ourselves into and truly appreciate the ride.
We’ve been looking for a stuffed Yorkie to double for our star. This is close, but a little too Chewbacca. Thanks Donna!
Our video is complete, the perks are all setup and we’ll be launching mid-day Monday. Can’t Wait!
