It all began quite some time ago. Ever since grade 11 high school, film is always been a dream for me. But I never used to have any equipment.
Luckily in filmmaking there is always one thing you can do with no equipment or crew, and that’s writing. So I wrote. I wrote tens and tens of stories and scripts in genres like action, comedy, thriller, and more.
So when a recent acquaintance of mine (whose passion is also film) Bob, approached me and asked me if I wanted to collaborate and make a short film with him, my answer was something along the lines of “F*** Yeah!”.
We spent a couple weeks going over Bob’s scripts and mine. We were trying to pick the best one that we could most realistically make. And we found one.
It was one of mine.
Pre Production began as we prepared and scheduled for the shoot. There were only two characters in the story. A lead male, and a supporting female. So with only two parts to cast we were able to spend our time on it.
We were able to get actually quite a few auditions, despite the fact we can afford to pay the actors. I mean there was free pizza but that’s about it.
In the end we cast an amazingly talented girl Jenny as a supporting female. And for the lead male we ended up casting Bob’s friend, Jonathan.
Now here comes the part of the story where I get the most enthusiastic.
One day in a meeting with Bob at Starbucks, Bob mentions that his uncle is a freelance D.O.P. (director of photography/cinematographer), and has a camera he be willing to loan us for our shoot.
So a few days later we meet with Bob’s uncle and lo and behold, Bob failed to mention that the camera was a Red Epic. A $20,000 camera, that’s been used on movies like Elysium, the great Gatsby, and Transformers. I was ecstatic.
So with the camera crew and script ready, we began the shoot. The plan was eight straight days of shooting up in the Squamish forests. The first three days of shooting went by very well, we were even a whole scene ahead of schedule.
But then the dreaded fourth day. In the morning I realized that Jonathan wasn't being quite as social as he was usually. I minded my own business and just assumed he was in a quiet mood.
We start shooting and right off of the bat Jonathan starts reacting negatively to me in Bob’s direction. It was then when I realized he wasn't just in a quiet mood, he was in a very bad mood.
Bob took him aside to talk to him, and he came back everything seemed like it had been sorted out.
We finished the first half of the day shoot, and went on break for lunch. And when lunch was over and we all returned to set, Jonathan was nowhere to be found.
To save myself the pain of talking about this part of the story, I'll keep it simple and short. At some point Jonathan had decided he didn't want to do this short film anymore. So instead of telling us how he felt, he waited out for four days. At the end of the four days decided he would leave.
We tried our hardest to contact him and bring him back to the shoot, but we were completely ignored. The next week we got a letter from his lawyer, telling us we were prohibited from using any of the footage with Jonathan in it. Which was all of it.
With that the production stopped dead in its tracks right in the middle of shooting. Although we were very disappointed in the death of our production, it was overall a great learning experience. For me, being able to operate a $20,000 camera was the most fun I've ever had.
And rest assured, this film will be made one day. Just not with Jonathan.
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