I’ve spent most of this week editing my first short film. How it happened is a story by itself and since you insist…

I was in LA with my manager at a production company office for a meeting. The head of the company, the head of production, my manager, another producer, and yours truly were there to talk about a whole lot of things, not the least of which, for me, was which of my scripts they wanted to option as part of a whole slate they were considering.

It was a good meeting, very loose, very casual, and the head of production (who is no longer there) remarked about one of my smaller slice of life scripts, saying it was not only a great story (thank you) but very visual and did I have any interest in directing.

Here’s where we speak again about dreams you have coming true. My manager was quiet and looked intently at me because I think he was interested in the answer, too. Now, I’ve thought about it many times and imagined what I do as a director, but never been asked by a production company. So I kept my cool, jumped up, and yelled, “Hell Yeah!!”

No, I didn’t. But inside I did. I did say, “Yes, if the opportunity arose for me to direct one of my scripts, I would love the chance to do that.” The head of production smiled and asked if I had a sample of anything I’d directed. The balloon deflated as I thought about what my director’s reel would look like:

1. A cable commercial for a tape that fixes leaky pipes.

2. A short promo film about a teen after school “say no to alcohol” project.

3. Another cable commercial for the leaky pipe people for their new product that fixes holes in camper shells.

Not very impressive. I wouldn’t let me direct traffic with that CV. So I hung my head and said, “I don’t have one really.” and the subject dropped stone cold dead. Wasn’t mentioned again the rest of the meeting.

On the way out, my manager, who as I’ve mentioned before, scares me a little because he has biceps like tree trunks, said something to the effect of “Let’s not talk to anyone about directing again until you have a short film example to show.” And then he told me to write a short and direct it. And do it well.

So once I was home, I began to work on ideas for a short film. The only short films I’d written were two for my friend Tomas for the 48 Hour Film Festival a couple of years in row a while back. But when you have to write a short film in two hours, then start the film production on hour three, they usually aren’t all that good. I’ve rewritten other people’s short films. Consulted on short film scripts. But I’ve never really come up with one that I’d want to direct and use as a sample that fully represented me, both as a writer and a director.

And then… nothing. I mean… nothing. I was as blank as a summer vacation school chalkboard. Then… thank You God, the phone rang. It was my friend Mitch Costanza, who had produced and cast me in a fabulous short he’d written and my other friend Andre Welsh had directed. (It’s called The Process. Find it on the net and watch it, it’s amazing.) Anyway, Mitch wanted to talk about his next short which I had helped him with a few weeks before, working on his story outline.

He was agitated. He’d fired his director (not Andre, who is GREAT) over “creative differences”. I said I knew a bunch of local directors who might be good on short notice. He said, “No. I was thinking you might want to do it.” Heavenly lights shined down on me. Choirs of angels sang. This was the golden chance I had waited for. So I said, “Give me 24 hours.” instead of “YES!!!”. Then I called two very good directors I know in LA and asked them if I was ready to do this on such short notice. Both said, “Idiot. Go do it.”

And it was very short notice. One week’s notice. It was cast. The crew was set. Locations locked down. All I had to do was come in and direct it. Well…

There also was no script. Since Mitch wanted this to be a silent film, almost a cartoon with live people, all he had was the outline we had worked on. The other director’s storyboards were worthless (no wonder they had creative differences).

So I created a shot list, met with the AD, met with the crew, cast a couple of friends who are good actors in roles I added, met with the DP a few times to reiterate that she needed to tell me if the shot I wanted was BAD or didn’t work and to be honest. (She ended up being good at that.) And I decided to trust myself and my creative ability.

Four day shoot. Red Scarlet camera. Zeiss Primes. A crew of 24. All the permits we needed to close the streets and sidewalks in Berkeley and Oakland. Crew was on top of everything. There were no missing props. The wardrobe I’d picked for the actors was there with extra sets. Grip truck was there. Food. About 70 extras over the four days. And me, scared to friggin’ death.

We shot on a steep hill in Petaluma, inside a fancy restaurant, one street in Berkeley, four different blocks of sidewalk in Oakland, inside a townhouse, and in a park in Berkeley. We shot a lot of people riding and crashing on ice blocks down the steep hill, a runaway shopping cart, a snow cone disaster, put our protagonist through the human version of a dog agility run, shot a gratuitous crossdressing scene (size 12 heels are surprisingly easy to find), had an actress get hit multiple times in the face with a cloth napkin, and staged a car stunt.

I put the camera/DP on the ground multiple times, rolling around once on the grass of the steep hill, inside a speeding shopping cart, inside a sno-cone truck, on a rolling wheelchair, had the camera jumping up and down, put it on the top of a ladder, and under a car. I edited each scene in my head as we shot and that helped a LOT.

Exhilarating. Exhausting. Wonderful. I had a ball. By day four I was able to unclench a few muscles and take in the fun of it. I had a great crew and trusted them do their jobs. They did them and it seemed to all work. And a few days afterward, got the whole film on an external drive. Next… on to editing.

STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO.