Sleep is a commodity that's very hard to get when you're doing an independent film. Typically, I have to get up at 5:00am to leave by 5:30am to get to set by 6:00am. Then we shoot until around 8:00pm and convince Spencer our DP to allow us to shoot until around 10:00pm or 11:00pm to catch up on stuff we missed the first weekend when it rained on our parade (more on Spencer later). Then we finish shooting and by the time we finish breaking down and drive back to my house, it's around 12:30 or 1:30am. Then JW, my AD, insists we have a meeting to talk over what we're shooting the next morning. So we get to bed around 2:30 or 3:30am and when the alarm goes off again at 5:00 it feels like a cruel joke. Usually I keep dreaming right through the alarm incorporating it into whatever crazy dream I'm having. Then I feel pain and nausea for about an hour and by 6:30am or so I'm fine. Throughout the day I then hit highs and lows where sometimes I feel tired and others I feel like I can stay up all night. Unfortunately, I usually feel like I can stay up all night when it's bedtime and I can actually, finally sleep. But I'm surviving.
To get back to Spencer, he's a very considerate DP when it comes to the grip, gaffer, ACs and best boy (the people he considers "his crew"). What I mean by that is usually, once 8:00pm comes, the crew is still ready to continue filming. But we always have to consult Spencer who constantly insists on maintaining union hours which he points out are devised to protect the limits of human endurance. Even though everyone in the business can tell you stories of working 18 hour days for days on end at one time or another and surviving it, he is telling the truth (in fact, you usually work those 18hours cursing every minute of it). So even though for my own film I am finally willing to work those kind of hours, I'm not going to push anyone else because I know what it's like to work like that abd hate the people responsible for it. BUT usually everyone else wants to keep on shooting once it's night to get the damn film over with. Everyone but Spencer and (according to him) "his crew." So we usually approach Spencer (JW, me and Jason Hildebrandt, the star/Assoc. Producer of the film) and ask him how late we can go. We usually bargain him down to something which he then has to approach the members of "his crew" with one by one so as not to pressure any one of them with a group mentality. Usually we give him a later shoot date the following morning for a few extra hours that night.
But I'm loving it all. We're shooting at the house of someone I grew up with long ago. After writing a script based on his house, he and his wife and children have offered us his house for three weeks to get the film made. I don't think they fully understood what it means to allow a film crew to come shoot at your house, but they've been nothing short of excellent hosts. Beyond having the perfect location to shoot my film, with the most scenic pig-pen I could ask for, they have offered help in every step of production (they know where to get anything we need in the area, they offer us anything they own as a prop, and they can get us an extra hand for cast or crew on a moments notice), they have not hindered any crew members work even when it required set decorating their master bedroom or turning their electric box into a maze of cables, and have been patient, supportive and understanding in our endeavor. I couldn't ask for more from them. I just hope it lasts and they don't finally freak out and decide they've had enough of our insane invasion of their lives.
Well I gotta go again. I hope these journal entries are painting a picture for you all as to what making a movie is actually like. To sum up the experience of making a film I'd have to say it's a beautiful ballet of negotiation that eventually leads one from a crazy business endeavor to a final outcome of pure art. It's a bittersweet, heaven&hell experience that's like nothing else I can imagine. I love every step of the way.