How to Produce a Movie

POSTED BY Mike Wallach, 01 November 2007

So, this is my first time blogging other than the few times I dabbled with that Xanga thing. Is that even around still? OK, apparently it is. Losers.

So, my name is Mike Wallach, but everyone just calls me “Wally.” I go to the School of Visual Arts in New York City and live locally on 10th street and 3rd Ave. I’m one of the new interns at Next New Networks, working primarily with the folks at Indy Mogul. For the first time in 2 years of interning at other places, this is the first time I actually look forward to coming into the office. Eric, Justin, Steve, and everyone here is fun, energetic, and give off really good vibes.

Anyway, onto my Blog:

Since I’m a second year directing major, I’ve been pretty busy the past few weeks being, you know, a filmmaker. My partner/cinematographer, Anthony DeRose, just got a Sony HDV camera with a Redrock Lens Adapter. So, I was pretty excited to shoot my first class project of the new school year on it.

The assignment was simple. Murder in 8 Shots. Silent. You were allowed to add sound/effects, but no dialogue. Easy enough. I had my script and shot list all ready to go with images of the best damn murder in 8 shots ever made.

For anyone that thinks making movies is easy, you’re in for a rude awakening. This was a 30 second short that turned into a daytime nightmare

Script, check. Studio, check. Crew, check. Actor…damn.

Saturday rolled around and my actor bailed on me. So I scrambled to find another person because I promised I wouldn’t act in my own movies anymore. Turned out my friend Retsu was shooting in the studio next to me and was using my friend Frank, who is a very talented actor. I asked "Rets" if we could share Frank and he said sure. From then on, it just wasn’t my day.

So my partner Anthony took an hour or so to light. Then he spent another 30 minutes getting it just right. We started to shoot and decided to get the hardest shot, which was the last one, out of the way first. Basically, this was supposed to happen: a stalker walks into an alley, only to find that the girl he was pursuing isn't there. He steps off-frame, leaving just his shadow on the wall. The girl’s shadow appears behind his shadow and holds the silhouette of a gun to the back of his head and fires. Pan down to the floor where the Stalker lays dead on the floor, and the girl walks into frame. Totally badass, right? Well, sometimes crap happens, and you don’t get what seemed to make so much sense in your head.

Anthony misunderstood what I wanted from the lighting. Plus the blood squirting effect I was going for didn’t work because the wall was too dark of a color for the blood to show. Also, Anthony’s Lens Adapter was making things difficult, so I couldn’t get any of the shots I wanted. Retsu came and asked to use Frank, and said he’d only be an hour. So I gave my crew a lunch break, while Anthony and I got everything set. Turned out that Rets was having problems too, so he ended up taking maybe 3 or 4 hours. My crew got angry with me, we were sitting around doing nothing for maybe 2 hours, until finally I let them go, leaving just me and Anthony. We had the studio until 7PM. It was 6PM when we got Frank back. Huzzah. We blew through the shoot, finishing in 45 minutes flat.

So, what should have been an hour shoot somehow turned into an 8-hour day. Being a producer is hard. Don’t tell yourself otherwise. You need to be able to think on your feet, make judgments quickly and efficiently, and be able to manage everyone around you. You HAVE to be able to improvise. The best rule of production… always have a plan B, C, and D.

So, that’s my first blog. You can check out how my Murder in 8 shots came out on my website: www.throwdownentertainment.net as well as my other videos. Let me know what ya’ll think.

-Mike Wallach a.k.a “Wally”