We had a promotional shoot for the Kickstarter on Saturday, with our lead actors, cinematographer, production designers, and some sound. It was like a sneak preview of what our set will be like.
It’s been a good point of reflection for me about how far I’ve come as a filmmaker since we shot the short film of Hal in May 2018. I think my pre-production chops were roughly the same - a lot of my background producing and directing theater directly relates to the coordination and direction of actors and design in pre-production.
But, where in the short I didn’t have a strong sense of my aesthetic, I now know that my stories do best with handheld camera and naturalistic lighting. That won’t be 100% of my films forever, but that is the visual aesthetic that often lifts up the character-based films I’m writing and directing.
The difference in post-production is huge. There’s just no equivalent to post-production in theater; it is an art wholly unique to filmmaking. We shot the promo on Saturday, and I finished it last night (Tuesday). Lowell pointed out that I’ve come a long way as an editor in the time we’ve been working together - literally from not being able to edit at all, to doing at least a decent job on this video. I’ve also been able to assemble a team for color, sound, and score for the video on a tight turnaround, and I feel much more comfortable giving them direction than I did when we made the short.
This promo video has me really excited for the film. We’ve got a great team and just the footage we shot in a half-day on Saturday is really exciting. I can’t wait for people to see it.
8 days to launch of the Kickstarter. We got this.
Yours,
Lane Michael Stanley | September 4, 2019
