It's The End Of The World!!!

Look at that.

On Monday afternoon it was the end of the world. Buy late Monday
night the role was recast and everything was back on schedule. The
world ended for less than 24 hours.
 
First of all: MYTH! Glad that the crisis was averted! You have to let us know how everything else goes :yes:

BUDGET FOR INDIE FILMS: whatever you can raise IS the budget. You build around that and not dream of what you cannot have. If all you have is a total of $6,000, that IS the budget and you cut out what you cannot pay for.
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I totally agree with you here.

What you're dealing with, when you have lo - or no budget is very simple: to shoot or not to shoot. If $6000 is all you have, then that's all you have. I worked on a production with a little less than half of this amount.

The truth is that when you are an indie/guerilla filmmaker, you are at the mercy of who will volunteer to work with you. People backing out is par for the course, and you figure out how to hang the DP from a tree for your overhead shot.... if he agrees :D On our project, the director had people volunteer all kinds of things that we had no way of paying for, but they wanted to help. The director and I - I was A.D. - thanked them profusely for costumes, vehicles, etc.

One of our priorities was our cast and the director put them up in their home and fed everyone on the cast and crew since we weren't being paid. For us, each production is a learning experience, so we had a lot of volunteers, but we could only do what we could do and everyone knew that upfront. Just because you were volunteering didn't mean you were not professional. So everyone was on time and no one backed out without contacting the director ahead of time with a good excuse. Our film was a group effort that everyone was committed to, we were lucky.


-- spinner :cool:
 
In all of your spare time, you should read the wiki production notes for SALT.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(2010_film)#Production
Then watch it with the director commentary turned on.
Then consider the similarities between what has happened to you and what did happen to them.

Key casting turnover does have negative aspects to it. No argument.
However, it can provide opportunity to uncover alternate outcomes that are simply "different" without necessarily being "lower".



Richy -
Yay, Apophis!
It's the tits, man!
Should be one helluva show on the tuber.
 
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FWIW, Myth, I think I gotta echo PTP's thoughts on pay. When you've got a tight budget, obviously, you need to prioritize, cuz you can't spend money on everything you want.

One of Indietalk's regulars, M1cheal, is active in a community of actors/filmmakers who all volunteer their time on weekend projects with each other, and they are very productive. They have a track-record of working with each other, and the community has been well-established. In their situation, it makes sense to spend what meager budget they have on props, sets, etc., because it has been well-established that the volunteer cast/crew are committed to the project, and are going to show up when they say they will.

But if you don't have that solid network of talent in place, the commitment of your talent is a huge issue. I'd say it's pretty much normal for all near-zero-budget filmmakers to deal with talent that flakes out on the project, at the most inopportune times. With that in mind, if you've got any kind of budget, personally, I would think that talent should be priority #1. To use my own budget as an example, I had $5,000 to spend. $1,000 went to props and random expenditures (gas-money, PB&J sandwhiches), $1,000 went to my lone crew member, and $3,000 went to the lead actors. Of course, each of us producers has to figure out for ourselves what will work best, but I am definitely in the talent-first camp.
 
No, the end of the world won't come from the absence of your lead actress. It won't come in 2012 'cause the Mayans said so (which is apparently a misinterpretation, anyway). No, the end of the world (as we know it) is in 2036 when 2004 MN4 will strike and sterilize the earth. Sorry. Didn't mean to bum your year 2036 out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

Just kidding. In case you can't be bothered to read that, they, the scientists, don't think it very likely to actually hit...for now. Yay!

Sorry to be cheeky. I feel bad for you and hope that it works out. Like others said: take that lemon and make some lemonade. Good luck!
 
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Cracker Funk said:
FWIW, Myth, I think I gotta echo PTP's thoughts on pay. When you've got a tight budget, obviously, you need to prioritize, cuz you can't spend money on everything you want.

One of Indietalk's regulars, M1cheal, is active in a community of actors/filmmakers who all volunteer their time on weekend projects with each other, and they are very productive. They have a track-record of working with each other, and the community has been well-established. In their situation, it makes sense to spend what meager budget they have on props, sets, etc., because it has been well-established that the volunteer cast/crew are committed to the project, and are going to show up when they say they will.

But if you don't have that solid network of talent in place, the commitment of your talent is a huge issue. I'd say it's pretty much normal for all near-zero-budget filmmakers to deal with talent that flakes out on the project, at the most inopportune times. With that in mind, if you've got any kind of budget, personally, I would think that talent should be priority #1. To use my own budget as an example, I had $5,000 to spend. $1,000 went to props and random expenditures (gas-money, PB&J sandwhiches), $1,000 went to my lone crew member, and $3,000 went to the lead actors. Of course, each of us producers has to figure out for ourselves what will work best, but I am definitely in the talent-first camp.
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Most of the budget is going for costumes and accessories for a cast of 20 actors and 2 stunt dummies. I'm covering their meals and local transportation.

It is foolish to spend $2,000 to $3,000 on one person out of a total budget of $6,000 on such a small production when I have to worry about 28 people in the same production. That even has to cover much needed new audio equipment. From what I remember with making a budget for a much bigger budget production, the producers were only entitled to 5% of the budget as their pay. So, suggesting 33% to 50% of the total budget as pay for one individual does not seem right.

What is right is the only way a small production can spend a four digit cash figure on a single individual is with the money from an outside investor. If the same people feel so strongly about spending a four digit figure on single individuals, send me the money as an investor and I will see that the individual gets it. Otherwise, don't tell people how to spend what little they have. Without an investor, the money has to be divided into smaller portions to last for everyone.

While losing this one GREAT lead hurts, she is not the entire production. As I was telling one of my friends who is looking to return to reprise her role in the new production yesterday, we still have some strong new talent for other major roles in the production who will give us great performances. So, there is still some light inside a dark tunnel.
 
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Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC said:
While losing this one GREAT lead hurts, she is not the entire production.
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I suspect many are responding to the title of your thread.

You didn't say, "It hurts but it's not the end of the world."

When you shout to the forum (with three exclamation points) that
the world has ended because of the loss of one GREAT lead, you should
expect people to offer suggestions on what you need to do to get that
GREAT lead back.

No one here is telling you how to spend your money. Everyone is offering
suggestions based on your thread title that it is "The End Of The World!!!"
 
I'm really sorry about this man. Did you overcome this yet? I know I'm kind of behind on everything, I've been out of the loop the past couple days. But I was just wondering if you came up with a solution yet?

One of the actors in my movie dropped out. On the day he was scheduled to shoot. So I ended up playing the character. I almost lost it then too.
 
directorik said:
I suspect many are responding to the title of your thread.



You didn't say, "It hurts but it's not the end of the world."



When you shout to the forum (with three exclamation points) that

the world has ended because of the loss of one GREAT lead, you should

expect people to offer suggestions on what you need to do to get that

GREAT lead back.



No one here is telling you how to spend your money. Everyone is offering

suggestions based on your thread title that it is "The End Of The World!!!"
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I was shocked and heartbroken at first. I'm reading the posts of people here suggesting to make lemonade from lemons. And, I'm getting more willing to give it a shot. I think what you are seeing is I'm looking to take that advice.
That role got refilled the same day. I'm still walking on egg shells for another role where I'm up to my third backup for this other role. If this last actress can't do it, I have to reopen auditions ASAP.
 
Josiah said:
I'm really sorry about this man. Did you overcome this yet? I know I'm kind of behind on everything, I've been out of the loop the past couple days. But I was just wondering if you came up with a solution yet?



One of the actors in my movie dropped out. On the day he was scheduled to shoot. So I ended up playing the character. I almost lost it then too.
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I know how that is. You are not alone. I know a lady producer / director who had to do the same thing when an actress flaked on her.

I had to use my DP in my production a couple of years ago when an actor flaked the day before.

We should see if there are enough Indie producers out there who want to create a flake web site database for producers to do a history check on them as part of their background check. Check the database even before calling them into an audition. The ones who flake often should get no work from any indie producer. Let cast and crew people all know about the database as something they don't want to be on.
 
MDM why not reshedule, try and raise some additional money to pay your main players?

It sounds like they need to commit to a tough training requime as well the shoot itself and I truly believe a little cash goes a long way...

All the very best, Jim.
 
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