How long should a scene take to shoot in this case...

H

harmonica44

For my next short, that I have gotten a couple of people interested in so far, and counting hopefully, it's a 15 page script, all in one location. However, this makes it a tough shoot, cause I can only have the location for about 4 hours a week, and I have to make it match enough each shooting, as well as keeping the actors looking the same.

I am wondering how long do you think I could shoot it, if I work fast, perhaps. Like since it's all one scene, all in a real time like setting, I could see how long the actors can carry it for until the next time. Like since a page is roughly a minute of shooting, since this is all one scene, I might be able to get a master shot of the whole movie in 15 minutes about, after rehearsals, and do a couple of more takes of it. There are of course a couple of little scenes, but the majority of the script is one scene.

Then I would do all the other shots, but since it's all one big long scene, rather than multiple little scenes, it's a different work approach for me, for sure. What do you think?
 
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Depends. I'll say this, most indie filmmakers think it takes longer than it does. Maybe because they are a one man crew, or because they do more than necessary, or because there's a lot of trial and error. But I've been on location in LA with TV shows like Southland and other procedurals where they'd go on Yucca street, do some quick plastering of the street with garbage and fake art and graffiti, put up massive lights, film the scene, and they were out in 3-4 hours 5 hours tops.
 
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TinselTown said:
Depends. I'll say this, most indie filmmakers think it takes longer than it does. Maybe because they are a one man crew, or because they do more than necessary, or because there's a lot of trial and error. But I've been on location in LA with TV shows like Southland and other procedurals where they'd go on Yucca street, do some quick plastering of the street with garbage and fake art and graffiti, put up massive lights, film the scene, and they were out in 3-4 hours 5 hours tops.
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The big difference between a well oiled machine and trial and error indeed.
 
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harmonica44 said:
Speaking of projects I have shot, I did post recent draft of the video I was hired to do by a company, in the screening room forum.
Click to expand...

I was very happy to see that! The more work you actually post, not only the better you get, but the more help you will receive here because it is being put to use. ;)
 
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Oh okay, thanks a lot for the help :). I have another project, which was just a make up tutorial, which I can post later on sometime, once I am done some other stuff.

I am having trouble writing script stories that are only suppose to be one or two pages long to shoot. Would it be possible to try to get convince a cast and crew, to only shoot once scene in a story for practice? Cause I got longer scripts, that need more time to develop their stories, but if I could just take a scene that is just a couple of pages, and shoot a scene as a test, that would be nice.

But since it's just one scene, and not a full story, with a beginning, middle and end, would it be very difficult to get other aspiring cast and crew interested in doing it?
 
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