The Year of Archetype: Day 19

I guess it's appropriate that I've recently marathon'd Lost, given Archetype itself has fractured and turned into a bunch of little puzzle pieces. Nothing amiss or whatnot; just the usual slog of pre-production and, now, the massive coordination of everyone's schedules and the expected reconfiguration based on who is available when.

As I've mentioned to a bunch of people and have probably referenced on this here blog, I oftentimes have to step back and remember the most important thing isn't my shot list, or my schedule, but the story. In a commentary on one of the Ocean movies, Steven Soderbergh mentioned that, when he's wearing several hats during production (namely, serving as cinematographer in addition to directing), he tries to ground himself by reading the script once a week.

Unfortunately, it's something like that that reminds me I'm not paying anyone, that this project isn't the only thing going on in these people's lives, and that one of the greatest obstacles is my own laziness pulling me down. It turns me into an overt apologist when I'm doing something like today, in which the Day 1 call time is between 7-8 a.m. on a Saturday. At least we'll wrap shortly after lunch which, as producer-director-treasurer, is perpetually On Me and will undoubtedly be the greatest production expense. (Not that I'm complaining. It's really the least I can do.)

It's weird when I have to mentally remember making my student film Framework in trying to remember what it's like working with a cast and crew. That was my most robust production, in terms of people involved and, well, money spent on food. Transmissions, obviously, had its own filmmaking lessons that directly translate to Arc, but doing something alone is different than having to coordinate the same thing with five different people. Baby steps, really, given two projects from now I'll potentially have scenes with extras numbering in the hundreds. But that's far-future, and right now, I need to concern myself with the near-future of getting everyone together and making sure they're with me on wanting to tell a story as best as possible.