I have 2 weeks of college left, and am feeling super sentimental so I thought it would be nice to share some of the songs that helped me through school aka prevented me from dropping out! "Music is the strongest form of magic" โค๏ธ
#5) ๐ง๐ฎ๐ธ๐ฒ ๐ ๐ฒ ๐ง๐ผ ๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ง๐ผ๐ฝ
So my senior year; it's stressful and more work than I could have imagined. I am putting on the biggest production that I've ever taken on; the most cast, the most crew, the most days, the most equipment, the most stress!
As you remember, it started off with crowdfunding. $6,000 is a LOT to raise. But we wanted this movie done right, and thanks to all of our amazing backers, we got to 102% of our goal! Now came the tedious planning. Auditions, rehearsals, shotlists, production meetings, greenlight meetings, writing & rewriting...
There were minimal snaffoos with equipment, one snaffoo with cast where a woman dropped 10 days before the shoot, and the biggest obstacle of all: FilmLA.
They made it as hard as they possibly could for this film to be made. From demanding proof of purchase for U-Haul insurance (when it hadn't been bought yet because we hadn't rented the uhaul yet?? Shoutout Danny @ Uhaul for making it work out) Then, despite talent in police uniforms being OUT of public view, they told us we had to have (and pay) an off-duty policer officer to monitor our activity on set (which was my own house). I had to spend so much time on the phone with them re-iterating all the rules that I was sticking to and how we didn't need that. I had to spend countless hours driving to and from Tujunga to do a "Student Monitor" where I was paying FilmLA to get people in the filming area's signatures. Read that again. I was PAYING FilmLA for ME to walk around Tujunga in the dead heat collecting signatures from the surrounding area, get yelled at by residents who thought we were another huge multi-millions film crew, and still not even be guaranteed the ability to film at the convenience store location I had already paid $1,400 to shoot at. Oh, and they needed all the signatures by Friday, didn't matter if I was a student and I had 4 hr class blocks & no time to be driving back & forth from Tujunga (which they suggested "going back to 5 or 6 times")
To avoid having to do the same in Northridge, I had to shorten my filming hours, but thanks to my great 1st & 2nd AD we wrapped early! (but prior I still had to distribute notices to every residence within 500ft... we live on a block so there's like 6987456875634873568767645)
As if this wasn't enough to give a young filmmaker a heart attack about FilmLA finding some trivial little thing to stop their big thesis film, my college gave them the insurance & the number, for some reason they couldn't find it and kept emailing me that they didn't have it. Then, since we rented a U-Haul for equipment, they demand we resend all the insurance papers, but with the auto-insurance as well.
These people were giving me mental breakdowns every single day. Nevermind having to plan and gear up as a director, but as one of the producers, my attention had to be on getting the rights to film it in the first place SO many times. The only time I was not engaged in a battle with FilmLA was on my birthday when I was in an escape room with my roommates. That was the only time I didn't think about it. Finally, with help from the insurance guy from our school, FilmLA was finally satisfied with everything. We went on to shoot all 4 days with permits, insurance & every little thing ready to go.
The whole time this was happening, it was HELL. The only thing that made me feel better was thinking how badass this film was gonna turn out. "Take Me To The Top" was the song I used to visualize us out there, on the CBS Lot, on all the other sets, kicking ass and getting it filmed. I can't say much more than it just helped me move past all the troubles and problems they were giving us and just made me think about finally getting to it. It was a wild ride, I'm relieved it's over but it was one of the most exhilarating times ever and the most ambitious thing I've ever done!! Thank you to this song and to everyone who helped the film come to be! It's coming soon!! Putting finishing touches
izzy806
tangentwithtanner
gummygunk
prguitarman
blakekathryn
