My life be like...

It's good, that's for sure. I lost sight of it all the time, but yep, there it is when I bother myself to actually look.

I filmed a MOVIE this past weekend. Yes, my friends. It was an honest-to-goodness short film. How do you differ between a home movie and our awesomeness of a film? Regard the list:

• We had a camera that's actually HD and not crappy and uses little tapes
• We had a boom (a BOOM, I tell you!) and external sound equipment which sounds SO nice
• We hired actors (we didn't pay them, but they weren't just, say, my mom) and they actually came
• We didn't know the actors before they came (except one, but that was a change in plans--more on that later)
• I bought lunch for my workers and did not send them home to get lunch, or tell them to bring lunch
• We had an actual location, not just my house
• I was working with a director! AAAAH!

And on the list goes! It was such an experience, and I never want to forget it. I usually get so stressed out about these things. I even forget to breathe properly (if you want to reference an old post of mine) and hyperventilate. This time it was different. I think it was because I had an awesome, most splendid director who has been a part of/worked on the crew of what I define as REAL films before. She was so helpful, and I'd like to think we helped each other, too.

Filming was crazy, of course. The actor we hired (whom we didn't know) came to location, found the doors locked (she was supposed to call us to have us let her in, cause we were there) and turned around and went home. This would be fine, except for she lived an hour away. We didn't have a cell phone number with which to contact her, and by the time we did the runaround through my director's mom to get it, she was 45 minutes away. And she couldn't come back.

MAJOR setback! We had location and an actor for this ONE DAY. Our other actor wasn't coming. Solution? Get your friend who was supposed to do continuity for the day to play the part! Crazy lines memorization and lots of frenzy ensues.

It worked out well, though, and the director and I were really surprised at HOW well. It was one of those instances where we were basically, "God, this is yours. We give it to you; it'll work out the way you want it to."

I loved filming, every minute. Being a producer this time around was great. Five hours filming for a five minute film was great. And doing post production this week? That is and will be great too.

I'd love prayers anyhow, though! This is a big business, it is, it is!

-Tina, Producer extraordinaire! :D