Thanks for the kind words, and thanks especially to IDOM for the watching!
I will indeed provide some insight here as to how I made it, troubles, etc. First, one caveat regarding what I did & what I can/can't answer. I wrote the screenplay and am "the" producer. I put that in quotes because there's always several producers, but I'm the one who (a) financed it and (b) am ultimately responsible for everything.
The entire project, from when I started the script until the release on iTunes (which is certainly NOT the end of my work), took just under 5 years.
1. Casting: we cast the lead actress (Sarah Wilson) fairly quickly and painlessly. The lead actor (Billy Magnussen) put himself on tape in LA, where he was shooting something else, and sent it to us in NYC (our casting director had cast him in something previously). We knew immediately he was the guy we wanted, but had to convince the other guy's agent to pass. Which fortunately he did. Billy was great in it, and he's really a rising star - he's getting great reviews right now in an off-Broadway play called "Sex With Strangers" and plays Rapunzel's Prince in the upcoming movie version of Into The Woods.
The role that gave us the most headaches was the main character's older sister, which is a critical role. We offered it to several actresses, who accepted and then withdrew. We auditioned easily 200 actresses for that role. It wasn't until about a week before we were about to go into production that we saw Tara Westwood, and my director said immediately - that's her. She was great in the role - and is also the lead & my producing partner in my next feature, Detours. So yeah, she's now a friend as well as a great actress.
Our casting director, Caroline Sinclair, brought in Phyllis Somerville to play Aunt Mary - and if Phyllis weren't the most beautiful and talented 70 year old I've ever made, those critical scenes would have failed miserably. Caroline also brought in Vincent Pastore (best known as Big Pussy on The Sopranos) for a delightful small role as the mayor of the local town.
We had several late inning casting crises: the actor who was lined up to play the older sister's husband (again, a pretty big role) dropped out after the table read, 3 days before we went into production (he was "ill". Fortunately we immediately remembered a guy who had auditioned for another role and offered it to him - he was better than the first guy would have been !
Final casting crisis was in our last week of shooting. We had to change the day that we were shooting a flashback scene, and a kid who we needed couldn't make the new date. I called my casting director, who was on vacation in London, and she had a replacement for me within hours.
2. Locations: Overall people were amazingly generous with allowing us to shoot in homes and businesses. i truly now believe in karma, because several people cited ways that I'd helped them years ago, and said of course I'll help you now. Amazing.
We did have one location fall away at the last minute (necessitating the above-mentioned re-schedule). That necessitated some FAST footwork, but again the replacements turned out to be better than the original.
3. Sound - This is indeed the weakest point, and there are several things that contributed to that. First, we lost our production sound guy to another project that had been on hiatus and went back into production. Second guy got very sick and had to drop out. July & August, when we shot, are prime time for shooting in NYC, so everyone was booked by the time we needed to replace again.
In post-production, we made the mistake of hiring someone whose expertise is music not film. He did his best, but by the time he was done it wasn't where it should be, but there was no money left to re-do it.
When I said in my original post that iTunes wouldn't have happened without Nick Soares, I mean that especially re sound. He went through the movie shot by shot and tweaked a lot of the sound. I'm not knowledgeable about sound so I don't know what he did, but he got us through QC, finally. He also - with my agreement - deleted a scene with an un-fixable echo.
4. My director, Laura Thies, did an amazing job - I can't say enough positive things about her. She had directed several of my shorts, and came on board when I had only a very short, early version of the script. She's great with actors, and she made several scenes much better than what I had written
My favorite example of that is what I call the "sisters fight" scene (you'll have to watch it to know exactly what it is). I'll just say that I wrote it to be seated at a kitchen table, and she made it outdoors & dynamic, without changing a word.
5. My favorite scene overall is probably the bakery scene (again, watch for yourself!). I truly think this scene would stand on its own as a short.
I'll do my best to answer questions, except that the only thing I'll say about the budget is that it was under $1 mil .
