Post #12: Script Overhauling

Whew, what a week! On top of the Student Showcase of Films Awards Ceremony on Friday and being constantly busy with the Nuremberg project, "Fragments" suffered a script melt-down. After consulting with Professor Watson, who gave us some much-needed tough love in terms of the state of the script, we decided to devote this week to a complete re-evaluation of the project. I must admit, on Wednesday we almost considered 'starting over,' so to speak, by completely re-writing the script. We decided we needed to take a break and re-convine the following day before we did something impulsive that we'd regret later (such as ripping the script in half and deleting all of the final-draft files.) By Thursday we felt a bit better about having to address the script issues, and after some brief consulting with Zac Weaver we realized that we might not need to change as many things as we thought (thanks Zac!)

Anyways, to make a long story somewhat shorter, we met on Saturday at Starbucks (couldn't take being on campus that many days in a row) and 'fixed' the script. This consisted of adding another layer of narration that should help lead the audience through the film without muddling the concept. I promise, more details will be available once I have time to write about them. For now, the great fix will have to remain ambiguous.

-Stephanie

Post #11: Starting Up Again

Well, we're back from Spring Break and there's lots to do. It's true that we're a little bit behind schedule (about 1 week behind to be exact), but rehearsals should be starting next week, and filming can begin right after that. For now, we've cast four of five main roles, and should be wrapping up the fifth tomorrow afternoon. Here's the partial cast list we have so far:

Mike: Mike Westrich
Jessie: Kayla Golladay
Rob: Talieson Powell
Eva: Gina Coviello

Tomorrow we will make a final decision as to who's playing Late-night Larry, and then we'll start fishing around for the various extras and small roles that are left, as well as securing the remaining locations. Following that we have rehearsals with the cast members who are already cast (hopefully on location) so we can rehearse them. Once the actors are done, Adam, Grant and I will stay behind and practice lighting set-ups, etc. so that actual filming days will run smoother and require less time for set-up. We're still estimating about two shoots per character, with perhaps a third for a certain scene between Rob and Mike. That brings us to a total of 11 filming days that need to occur before mid-April. Yeah, it's a lot of work, but hopefully it will be worth it.

-Stephanie

Post #10: Shortest Post To Date

Spring Break is drawing to a close. Immensely-large, too-huge-to-fathom-without-coffee, tons-of-work ahead.

Ahhhhh!

-Stephanie

Post #9: Casting Continues

 The research paper is done! Just thought I'd throw that out there... :-) Although honestly, it really was a very useful and enlightening experience to have to contact all those industry professionals.
Alright, so pre-production is continuing on schedule. We had a great first casting call on Friday, and met with some wonderful actors. We have a few more appointments on Monday for people who couldn't make the Friday call, and then later this week we will be announcing the cast for "Fragments." Along with the cast announcement, we will post the working copy of the script as well, so stay tuned as we finally unveil the mysterious "plot." That's all for now!

-Stephanie

Post #8: Getting On With The Script

Ok, so it's taking a lot longer than was planned to finish the script; a fact which is beginning to be detrimental to our progress. Casting is scheduled to take place this Friday (yikes!) and we still need to get sides out to prospective 'auditionees'. The polished version of the casting call posters should be going up tomorrow, and hopefully we will have some sort of turn out on Friday.

While progress on the script has been slow, we are finally drawing close to the final draft. (I know I said that last week, but I really mean it this time!) Most of the main segments are finished, barring some final polishing, and once they're done all we need to do is work out some of the transitions and the intro. We are planning another nice long group meeting tomorrow to bash out the script, prepare our speech for Wednesday, contact as many actors as possible, hang up flyers, scout locations, and begin storyboarding. Then we'll have to break so we can each go work on our research papers.

I'll post segments of the script sometime during the next few days...This week is going to be very, very busy.


-Stephanie

Post #7: Website and Facebook Page

Just threw together a website for the project, or as we will be calling it from now on, the short film called "Fragments." The site is up and running, and while it still needs work at least there's something out there that we can direct people to during the casting process. I've also created a Facebook page for the film that we can use to advertise the casting call. It can be found by searching for "Fragments, A Student Film" in the Facebook search bar.

Here's the URL for the website:

http://www.wix.com/svwilliams11/fragments-student-film

-Stephanie

Post #6: Another Short Update

Today Pre-production begins! After an in-class meeting with Professor Simpson, we have begun preparations for casting. Right now we're in the process of working on a flyer to advertise auditions, as well as creating a Facebook page for the film. Adam has volunteered to field calls from actors, which I guess means he will be the casting director (at least he is in charge of taking phone calls and scheduling time slots, etc.) Auditions will be held on Friday, February 25th from 1-5pm. We should begin advertising for auditions sometime this Wednesday, once the script is finished (hopefully). In the interest of efficiency (and so that our actors will have some idea of what we're talking about) we've decided that we need to come up with a working title for the film. This is just so that we don't need to refer to it as "The Senior Seminar Project" anymore, and whatever title we give it now will probably be changed after the final cut (unless we run out of time.) So far, and in keeping with the 'time' theme, the titles I've suggested have been "Fragments" and "STOP." Perhaps a little out there, but it's a placeholder. I'll pitch them to the group tomorrow. I also spent some time this afternoon coming up with a logo for the film that we can use in the Facebook group. I've posted it below (watermarked for copyright purposes).

-Stephanie