Cuddle Buddies: A Short Film Case Study Part 2 - Fundraising & Pre-Production

The Second part in a series of articles on how I made my short film Cuddle Buddies as writer, director and producer, from the writing phase all the way through post-production and beyond.

Previous Installment:

Cuddle Buddies: A Short Film Case Study Part 1 - The Script

The Short Film

Here’s a link to the completed film, which serves as a great reference and context for all of the posts and discussion to follow.

Here is a link to the first article in this series. I highly recommend checking that out first since it serves a logical progression and context for this second part.

What is Cuddle Buddies?

Cuddle Buddies is a narrative dramatic short film that is independently produced and character driven. The logline is as follows: Cuddle Buddies tells the story of Lucy, a single mother who works as a professional cuddler in order to support her young daughter and to alleviate the loneliness not only in her clients, but also in herself.

I wrote, directed, edited, produced & colored this film and it very much was a labor of love in the truest sense of the word.

Why a Case Study?

The process of creating this film and seeing it through from the idea phase to the physical production and completion was an extremely difficult process and journey, and there were a slew of pitfalls I only wish I had known before embarking on the making of this film.

I fully realize that filmmaking is very much an art that requires you to learn and make mistakes as you do it, and the doing of it will always be the most essential ingredient and teacher. But if I can shed some light on some things I learned along the way, even if just to function as an educational tool and save any aspiring filmmakers working on upcoming projects, especially short films, the heartache of additional stress in the pre-production and production phases, then I have achieved my goal in documenting the entire production process through this case study.

OK so with that setup, let’s get into the second part of this series, which focuses on the fundraising for the budget of the short film and the pre-production process of planning out the shoot for the film.

After The Script…

The first article in this series concluded with the completion of the final shooting script, draft #19, that we entered into production with. This next installment picks up with the financing, development and pre-production process of taking that script into physical production or “principal photography.”

NOTE: Even after we started the fundraising and pre-production phase, we continued to revise earlier drafts of the script up until the day before production began. Only then did we have draft #19 to start shooting with. Certain pre-production elements necessitated certain script elements to change based off our actual locations, actors cast, schedule, etc. More on that to come later.

Prior to entering production, we started the in-depth pre-production and financing process about two to three months in advance of shooting. There were a few key crew members and elements that we already had set in place; people such as Brennan Miller, our cinematographer, Sam Costello, our post sound designer and Jean Franzblau, our professional cuddling consultant and on-set intimacy coordinator.

Some More Notes On Development

One of the first things I do, even while I am still writing the script, is to generate as many ideas for inspiration for the project as possible. This could include documents with my brainstorming notes, character notes, outline ideas, photos, sounds and really anything that helps me start to pin down the tone and the visual look of the project.

I always extensively collect all of the images through research that I can and eventually this all comes together into what becomes the outline of the script before it’s written, along with having a stockpile of images and descriptions that I can share with my cinematographer, production designer, and every other collaborator on the film, to have a shared common visual language.

For some examples of these very early development documents I assembled, check out this folder HERE.

Creating a Look Book

During the early pre-production days as the script was still being refined, I wanted to create a look book document to really help us sell the tone and visual style of the film on paper. This resembled a pretty standard pitch package document, complete with a synopsis, photos, quotes and any other references to really show what the tone of the film was.

I took some photos of my friend Sara, who is an actress, laying against a pillow to have some original imagery to insert into the package.

Afterward I sourced various quotes, some taken from poems and then also found photos for character inspirations, and stills from other films that really carried a similar tone.

After assembling a very rough version of what should be in the packet, I contracted a good friend and excellent designer, Kathryn Buckingham to work her magic and create the aesthetic of the look book. She did an absolutely stellar job and the look book we created is one of the things I am most proud of. This also truly helped us as a pitching tool to help with the financing and marketing. To see our full look book, you can find it HERE.

Breaking Down the Script

In early April of 2019 we were about three months away from entering production on the short film and it was around that time we put together our first iteration of the budget. Brennan, our DP, created a Google Sheets spreadsheet, complete with auto-calculating formulas and totals and sub-totals and a top sheet for easy reference. For a viewing copy of what the final budget looked like, see here. Note that this is the final production budget that is not complete with post-production costs. It was very different prior to production and was ever changing as we went along, like any project budget.

We filled in as much of the numbers as we could and we had a ballpark idea of what our final budget number would be; somewhere in the $12-15K range based off the production needs in the script. Part of the art of budgeting is prior experience shooting other projects and being around different scales of productions, prior vendor costs, insurance costs, crew rates, etc. And part of it is asking and sharing the going rates for crew, supplies, etc around town. You pick up pretty quickly what to expect for each line item on a budget.

Estimating numbers for every line item, we immediately started to get a picture of where we might need to scale back and also how much minimum we would need to fundraise in order to pull it off properly at a high caliber. We figured out the absolute lowest we could do it for and I knew anything below $10K would dictate cutting major story elements, which I was determined not to do.

I genuinely believe some old fashioned stubbornness is essential in filmmaking to make the best version of your project. This is what pushed me to wait years until we had a much higher budget than we could have shot it for. I’ve never regretted the decision for a second. I think sometimes you have to believe you will get the proper money, locations, actors, etc. before you actually do get those things to bring them about. I do believe the power of manifestation can often do wonders for you. I also fully believe that any project worth doing, is worth doing right. Even if it’s the path of most resistance. The work always shows.

Fundraising Through Crowdsource Funding: Using Seed & Spark

The next major step was fundraising. I had had prior positive experiences with the crowdfunding platform Seed & Spark and elected to use them as the platform for the home of our crowdsource campaign. Like any other crowdfunding website like Kickstarter, etc. you create a page that lists all of the details of your project, crew members, and the donor perks for supporters of the campaign. All of the research I did on crowdfunding suggested that a 30 day campaign, projects under $50K and a great teaser video to put onto the page, along with a solid social media and email marketing campaign were the keys to a successful campaign.

I could write an entire article on crowdfunding and what I learned, but suffice it to say, I wrote out a script for our crowdsource teaser video and filmed it with our DP Brennan, our intimacy coordinator Jean, our producer Patterson who was attached at the time and an actress named Susie Gallagher.

We shot macro close-ups of Susie in and around bed sheets and edited it alongside interviews of our crew members describing the project and what we needed the funds for. For our campaign page complete with the teaser video, you can visit the page here.

I think the strength of our teaser video did a lot for us in terms of donations and legitimizing the project and the narrative. After the page and donor perks had been assembled, I launched an Instagram Page and Facebook page to help promote the project. I ran these pages and posted every single day leading up to the campaign launch, during the 30 days of the campaign and beyond production into post-production. In hindsight, I highly recommend hiring or bringing on a marketing person whose sole job is to run the campaign. It will relieve you of a ton of stress to focus on pre-production, but also most likely allow you to get even more engagement and donations. The money they can help raise will pay for their work itself.

On the 1st of May we officially launched our crowdfunding campaign and for the entire month of May, the campaign was live. Every day I made posts on the accounts, sent emails out to a list, told everyone I could and entered salesman mode. During that period, no plug was too shameless.

Very fortunately, some friends and family and even a total stranger donated what made up nearly all of the money we needed. At the very end I confess that I donated a little extra from my own pocket to ensure we hit at least 80% of our budget and get the green light we needed to access the funds. We had raised about $12K and were now ready to spend the money.

Pre-Production

The entire month of June was devoted to pre-production. At the time, I was freelancing on production gigs and I turned down virtually every single gig I got asked to work during June and July so I could solely focus on pre-production and planning. It was certainly a financial risk, but such is the reality of making time to pursue the dream.

I undertook the majority of the producing duties, with some help from a co-producer, AJ Vargas, that I brought on to assist with some of the planning, logistics and to oversee all of the paperwork especially once we got into production.

Casting

We had decided early on to be a SAG Signatory production, meaning that we planned to use SAG actors and therefore needed to file all of the necessary paperwork and follow the pay-scale minimum guidelines and payroll, health and welfare requirements for every actor. One thing to note for any indie filmmakers on a tight budget is that going SAG means adding a lot more expenses into your budget. It also means you have to be very strict about filling out time cards (Exhibit G’s), taking proper breaks, submitting the paperwork and getting approval before and after production. It’s something you need to jump on months and months before you shoot.

For extremely tight budgets, I don’t recommend going SAG.

We ended up doing the SAG SPA (Short Project Agreement) signatory, which at the time guaranteed $125 minimum for 8 hours and time a half for any hour after that and double overtime after 12 hours. Health and welfare are tacked onto that day rate for each actor and there needed to be Worker’s Compensation insurance included by the production and the payment run through a payroll company. Again, more expensive and time consuming.

The most thrilling aspect of Pre-Production for me was casting. I enlisted the help of a good friend, Katie Anne Moy, who is a powerhouse producer, actress and casting director to help cast this film. We utilized the Actors Access Breakdown Services virtual web portal and sent a series of script sides that I handpicked for each character, along with a project description and the pay rates onto the breakdown and sent it out to the wide world of actors to access.

Within a few weeks we had literally thousands of virtual submissions that Katie Anne narrowed down to about fifteen actors for each role, with the exception of the six year old daughter Marina, which required a separate casting call and auditions for.

After narrowing down the virtual auditions to about 3 actors for each role, AJ, Katie Anne and I all held an in person audition at Space Station Studios in Hollywood. It was absolutely wonderful to meet these actors in person and to hear them deliver the lines I had deliberated over for years on the page.

I truly mean this when I say that casting this film was extremely difficult, because we had some incredible actors to choose from in the callbacks. They all brought such interesting and unique takes on the role.

I always try to give as much time in the audition room as possible with each actor and give them different directions to try to see how well they take the direction, but also how collaborative and workable they are. Essentially I want to see how much they can let go of what they have prepared and truly just be in the moment.

I got to meet just about every actor we ended up casting in the film: Kaitlyn Clare as Lucy, Chris Ferrer playing James, Neiko Neal playing Jeffrey and Kristina Pesic playing Fiona. The other roles were Janine Oda (Kylie) who we cast virtually, and Lorelei Olivia Mote who we cast as the six year old Marina.

I was the lucky one in this scenario since all of these actors are fantastically talented and professional.

When it came down to picking our Lucy, Kaitlyn not only embodied many of the physical attributes I envisioned as I wrote the script, but she completely nailed the soothing voice of a professional cuddler and the calm and patient demeanor of an experienced professional in a session. I often tell actors who ask what I look for in auditions and self tapes: “take your time”. Kaitlyn really took her time and invited me in, especially during her self tape.

I made sure to meet with every actor in person, one on one, to discuss the character but also introduce myself and learn about their acting style and get more comfortable being around them. This ended up saving a tremendous amount of time on the shoot days, which were already tight on time.

Casting Marina

After casting these five main roles, we had one more essential role to cast: Marina, the six year old daughter of Lucy and a main character in the film. This presented the biggest casting challenge and source of anxiety for me since we needed to find a little girl who could be convincing as Kaitlyn’s daughter, but also handle the amount of lines and takes and the shooting hours we had set for our schedule.

Katie Anne set up another virtual set of self tape auditions that she narrowed down to about 15 young girls around the ages of 6-8 years old. From there I selected about 5 young girls to come in and audition in person for callbacks at the same studio.

Perhaps one of the most magical moments of the casting process was witnessing Lorelei’s audition with Kaitlyn, who graciously volunteered to read in person alongside all of the young actresses who auditioned that day. The physical resemblance certainly looked believable on camera, but at the end of the audition, Kaitlyn told us that Lorelei was the only actress to look directly at her and talk to her as if they were in a real conversation. Lorelei was also exceptionally well behaved and knew all of her lines without stumbling once. Pretty quickly we all knew that we had our Marina and had completed casting of the film.

Locations

With the film finally cast, our next major decisions to make were the locations, which would dictate a range of decisions about our camera angles, production design needs, and generating a shooting schedule for each day.

The crucial element was to pick at least one location that could double as multiple bedrooms, since a lot of the film takes place in various beds during the client cuddle sessions, as well as Marina and Lucy’s cuddle scenes.

We also knew that with our budget and schedule, we could not afford to have any company moves during any of our shoot days. Wherever we started the day we would also have to end at.

AJ and I had already calculated that we could afford to shoot for three consecutive days, which allowed us to change locations between shoot days, as long as it was not during a shoot day.

Our Production Designer Jess Rock, our DP Brennan and I created a large list on a Google document of potential locations for both the cuddle client bedrooms and Lucy’s apartment and bedroom.

I created a Pinterest mood board that I generated with a stockpile of exposed brick lofts, which I always knew I wanted to be the style of for Lucy’s apartment. Pinterest is my go-to source for inspiration and references for production design, wardrobe, makeup, color palette and cinematography influences that I can easily share with my department heads, who can also add to it. It all generates a very good visual feel and inspires other new ideas to formulate in the design and planning phases.

The client bedrooms were a little more loose, but Jess and I discussed a lot of different color options and set decorations that really brought in character and storytelling into every decision for theirs.

After assembling a large list of possible locations utilizing the Peerspace and Giggster websites, Jess and Brennan and I narrowed down our list to about ten different location options and arranged a series of location scouts to go tour the potential locations. It goes without saying, but it is absolutely essential to view locations in person, since it allows you to ask all of the questions from the owner and assess how suited to the production’s needs it can be as far as electricity, bathrooms, noise, etc, are concerned.

Over a series of about two weeks, we visited various locations all over Los Angeles and met a variety of wonderful location hosts and saw many different spaces that we tried to envision as Lucy’s space or the clients’ respective rooms. We saw some options that offered many different standing sets within the same space, and some were unfortunately just out of budget to acquire.

Eventually we landed on a house in Van Nuys, that was a real and functional house, to act as the set for the two client cuddle session scenes for Fiona and Jeffrey. For the first part of our day, we would be shooting in part of the living room and in a bedroom for Jeffrey and then after lunch we would be finishing the day shooting in a different section of the house and separate bedroom for Fiona’s cuddle session with Lucy.

The house was big enough to support all of our needs and had ample parking and the hosts were lovely. Perhaps the only downside was that the house was near the Van Nuys airport so every so often we would have to “Hold for plane” for our sound recording. A good lesson to never shoot near an airport if you can help it. You will be spending multiple takes waiting for the sound to clear all day.

For the last two days of our shoot, we found a pretty spacious industrial style open loft with exposed brick in a warehouse a little outside of downtown Los Angeles. It perfectly fit the brick loft style I saw for Lucy’s apartment and the main thing we had to do was create separation between spaces and “partition” off certain sections of the loft to feel like it had distinctive rooms.

We also created a makeshift bed for Lucy on the floor and even created an overhanging canopy style bed in a different section of the loft for the opening scene with Lucy and Kylie cuddling. I love that you would never know this is the same space when you watch the film.

The other great thing about the loft is there was a bathroom and kitchen and we utilized a lot of the empty space to create our own living room within the loft for a scene with Lucy and Marina on the floor and then we also made use of the kitchen for a slow motion shot within the montage section for variety. The location had a freight elevator, as well as great natural window lighting and we even made it look like night time even when it was daytime for certain scenes. The space was tall enough to fit the JL Fisher Camera Crane we had for the overhead shots of the bed. Our host Riccardo was also very accommodating to all of our needs.

For more detailed descriptions of how we set dressed each location and utilized the spaces to their potential for our shooting needs, please check out the future installment in this series, Part 3 which covers the Production phase of the film. You can also check out Jess’s concept designs of each character’s space HERE.

Thankfully through Peerspace, the website covered virtually all of the permit and insurance requirements for both locations, which also saved us some money within our budget as well. Both spaces were just about in line with the upper limits of our location budget, so we pulled the trigger on setting the shoot dates and booking the locations.

Now that we had our locations decided, it was a lot easier to start finalizing our shot list, along with figuring out the lighting plan and grip and electric needs, and breaking down the shooting schedule by location, scene and actor. It was now time to build the crack team to pull it off.

Assembling The Crew

The great part about living and shooting in Los Angeles is the easy access to an abundance of trades people to fill out a production crew, especially for specialty roles and departments.

Due to the nature of the script, there were no specific scenes that qualified as “stunts” and no visual effects that we needed to account for on the shooting days as far as green-screen or ¹clean plates were concerned.

What this meant was that we mostly needed a standard crew to account for most of the standard departments on a shoot: camera, assistant directors, actors, sound, art department, hair and makeup, wardrobe, and production assistants.

The other specialty roles we needed for this particular project were a studio teacher, a required role whenever any actors under the age of 18 are on set, along with at least one parent.

In addition, we had Jean (our resident professional cuddler and consultant) act as our on set intimacy coordinator to help navigate the more intimate cuddling scenes and advocate for the comfortability of our actors during the cuddle session scenes. This was a major benefit to everyone.

Sourcing the Crew

Once we knew what all of the roles were that needed to be filled, we calculated how much budget we had to pay the crew and then established what rates we could afford for every position. The budget is HERE for reference.

The next step was to source the crew and lock in our department heads and their staff below them.

I’ve generally found, as a producer and director, that it is extremely helpful and appreciated to check with your department heads about the people that they recommend hiring, since they typically always know people they like and trust to do the work.

We had already established some of our department heads earlier in the process, even as I was still refining the script and financing. Brennan was already attached as Director of Photography and he knew exactly who he wanted to use as his 1st and 2nd camera assistants and knew where to find a solid Grip and Electric truck rental through the ShareGrid equipment website that also provided a key grip as well.

Through a few more recommendations, he sourced his entire grip and electric team within what we could afford in our budget. This included a ²gaffer and some ³grips.

The rest of the crew was mostly sourced through word of mouth recommendations and by reaching out to people through email, instagram, texts and calls.

Tffy DeJesus was our hair and makeup person and she actually emailed me first and after setting up a call, we agreed on the project and the budget and necessary materials needed.

Jess Rock was our production designer and a fellow coworker at the time recommended her to me. We met and agreed on the vision of the production design and the budget limitations.

Typically with all of the crew I talked with to assess if they would be a good fit, I would go through the synopsis of the plot and explain the vision I had for the film and also share what budget we had and the future hopes for where I wanted the film to go.

A true passion, knowledge and vision for a film is a very helpful way to get crew on board and to also potentially get them for a rate that might be more workable for your budget. At the end of the day, I’ve found it helpful to say what you can afford and leave it at that. If they won’t budge for it, it’s no harm no foul, but probably time to look elsewhere for the position.

Part of the beauty of using crew for the first time who end up being stellar is that now you have a running list of go-to crew that you can utilize for the next projects, which only makes this process go even faster on subsequent shoots.

We created a spreadsheet of all of the crew positions complete with their role, phone number and emails for easy access to contact. (We’ve hidden the contact info here for privacy purposes). Every time I start a new film, I reference this list first as a starting point for great crew.

I also want to take a moment to emphasize how truly important every single position on a production crew is. I truly mean this when I say that crews work damn hard and through incredibly long shoot days with hardly the amount of visible credit that actors, directors, writers and producers get on a daily basis.

That is not to diminish those other roles, but to spotlight some of the hardest working people I’ve ever come across. Speaking from prior experience working on these crews, it can be thankless and exhausting and I want to thank every crew member who has worked with me and that I will get to work with in the future. These projects are not possible without the work you do, so thank you.

The department head positions are always filled earlier in pre-production and as you go along you fill in more and more of the other positions closer to the shoot. About two weeks out from our first day of production we finally had all of our crew positions filled.

It was now time to lock in all of our equipment rentals and purchases for the shoot.

Hair and Makeup Purchases

Among the early conversations I had with Tffy, our Hair and Makeup head, was about what accessories and hairstyles each of the characters was going to have in the film. This was possibly one of my favorite discussions during the pre-production phase, since it became a fun game to mix and match different accessories for the characters. A lot of it came down to accessories that friends and people I knew in real life were sporting around that time.

Things like septum piercings, types of tattoos and hairstyles, all took influence from thinking about people I knew in real life, who reminded me of these characters; much like how the writing process goes in regards to character development.

After multiple discussions, Tffy and I settled on the accessories and she put together an Amazon shopping cart of earrings, rings, fake piercings, fake tattoos, bracelets, etc that I purchased for the actors to wear on set.

We also settled on the clothing options, hairstyles and makeup aesthetic for each character and utilized the actors’ wardrobes to save costs on clothing purchases.

These hair and makeup decisions were all made keeping in mind the various elements of the narrative and also by what headspace each character was in at each particular moment in the story, depending on what scene was shot on which day, in shooting out of story order for our schedule.

Equipment Rentals: Camera & Jib

Brennan, our DP, and I had met when we both worked at the Panavision Hollywood camera rental house a few years prior. The very first conversations about the film started there on the prep floor between prepping other camera packages to go out the door.

Through refining the visual language and having the ability to test out some of the different lens options in house, we were able to experiment with different visuals and pair the lenses with an array of filters and custom optic tunings that only Panavision offered. This proved to be a major asset to the production and for a few additional reasons as well.

Brennan and I had initially settled on this lens series known as the Leica Leitz, which allowed for very close focus macro photography for close up work on the actors faces. Essentially, it allowed us to get the lens even closer to the subject without losing its ability to retain full focus of the subject in frame. Perfect for what we were shooting. We also paired it with a specific set of diffusion filters to make the skin tones more pleasing, and a specific set of in-optic tuning that also gave the image a nice quality to the skin tones and warmness of the color temperature. These were all descriptions on the brief I gave Brennan for how I wanted the film to look.

Another major perk of working at Panavision is that after a year of working there, employees can access up to four different free camera packages from Panavision, while also being able to ride on their unusually high insurance requirement.

By the time we were prepping the shoot, both Brennan and I no longer worked at Panavision, but our 2nd AC SarahMay Griffin kindly offered to use one of their employee packages so that we could use the Panavision camera package completely free. This was a major cost saving maneuver for our budget and to SarahMay, I am eternally grateful.

We ended up having to opt for the Panavision Spherical Super Speed lens set since the Leitz lenses were unavailable on a different rental that weekend. Nonetheless we still were happy to have Panavision glass at all, which we paired with an Alexa Classic camera and a 19-90 Prime Compact Zoom lens for a few shots. More on the camera and lens specifications, aspect ratio and finishing details in the third and fourth installments in this article series that cover Production and Post-Production, respectively.

Though our camera package was free and we only had to schedule the pick up and drop off logistics, we still needed to rent the camera jib (essentially a crane) from JL Fisher, along with a doorway dolly and a few materials from Home Depot to support the dolly moves.

Once all of the rentals were set in place and locked in for our pick up and drop off dates, we made sure my insurance could cover all equipment rentals, which thankfully it did.

One other note is that we made sure to include a detailed plan to pick up and drop off all of the equipment by the specified dates and times to make sure we didn’t get charged overage. What this also meant was that to save money, I did virtually all of the pickups and drop offs myself the days before and after the shoot. Though if you can help it, I don’t recommend doing this as the director and producer.

At this point, about a week out from production, all equipment rentals were booked and ready for the shoot.

The Cast Details: SAG Documents & Studio Teacher

Since we were a SAG (Screen Actors Guild) signatory production following the Short Project agreement, there were some necessary documents we had to prepare that needed to be brought and filled out on the set by each actor.

AJ, my co-producer, graciously handled all of the paperwork for this on set and ensured that every actor filled out their time cards (Exhibit G’s) each day and signed off on all of their hours worked.

Eventually this needed to be sent and processed through a payroll company that would send out the checks to each actor following the shoot, which also included their pension, health and welfare fees that were tacked onto each actors’s established standard day rate per the Short Project Agreement guidelines. SAG requires that you use a payroll company to pay your actors. Going SAG means adding additional costs to your budget, and there’s no way around it.

The other major factor that was required, since we had a minor on set with Lorelei being six years old and playing Marina, was a permit to employ a minor and a studio teacher to be on set any of the days we had Lorelei. In addition, per California child labor laws, a production must carry Worker’s Compensation insurance in the event that anyone, especially the child, gets injured during the shoot. Thankfully our payroll company, NPR, that we used to pay the actors came with worker’s comp as a part of their services for processing our payroll.

I made sure to get the permit to employ a minor from the Van Nuys labor office about a month in advance and we provided a certificate of worker’s compensation there that our payroll company sent us.

We also got a word of mouth recommendation about a wonderful service named Stella Pacific Management, that provided us an excellent studio teacher on the two shoot days that we had Lorelei on set.

All of the necessary SAG, minor and cast documents were ready and set in place for the shoot.

Last Minute Details

Production and Pre-Production are ever-changing by nature and the pre-production phase usually extends until virtually the day before the first shot is ever recorded. That is certainly how it went for this production as well.

The very last week of Pre-Production included making the smallest revisions to the script, mainly focusing on minute details such as dialogue changes and action description changes that didn’t have any drastic story impacts. We didn’t want to impact all of the logistics we had already put in place; this was really more of me being a perfectionist before we rolled a single frame.

AJ also recommended us a great craft service person named Sean Turtle, who was very affordable and dropped off breakfast and lunch each day to our shoot for our start of the day and our lunch break meals.

Everything was in place and ready for the actual shoot. In the week leading up to the shoot, we also built and finalized our shooting schedule and sent out call sheets and info to everyone on the crew, which I’ll cover in more detail in the next article in this series, which covers the Production phase of Cuddle Buddies.

In Conclusion

The two essential ingredients of Pre-Production are preparedness and adaptability.

To recap, the major steps we took for the Pre-Production are as follows:

1. Develop Your Creative Ideas: While you write the script and as you finish it, stockpile and refine all of your creative ideas and references and share them with crew.

2. Create a Look Book: Assemble the tonal influences into a single document to help pitch the idea.

3. Break Down Your Script & Create a Budget: Break down every element in your script and assemble a budget, knowing that it will continuously change.

4. Crowdsource Fundraise and Market Your Film: Launch your campaign and find the money to have a budget.

5. Start Pre-Production: Start assembling the master plan with your budget as a guide and bring on a good producer, or prepare to do it and learn yourself!

6. Cast Your Film: Hold casting calls and audition and select the right actors for your parts.

7. Assemble the Crew: Find department heads and use them to help staff up your film. Word of mouth and social media can be your friend in this. Pick people who are good but who you want to be around.

8. Pick Locations: Location scout and pick the right locations that will adequately serve your production’s logistical needs and aesthetic.

9. Secure Any Equipment Rentals and Purchases: Book your equipment, camera package, etc and set pickup and return days and a plan to pick up and drop off the gear.

10. Make Sure You Are Prepared: Especially if you are producing or directing, review your script and every detail and nuance in every scene you plan to shoot on your first shoot day. Especially the blocking!

Check out the next installment, Part 3 on Production Below:

Footnotes Below:

1. “Clean Plate” - A camera angle that is often captured a second time without any actors or objects in frame, that a visual effects artists uses to help composite a visual effect into a shot that might require someone or something disappearing or leaving frame, etc.

2. Gaffer - The right hand of the cinematographer who’s sole responsibility is to help decide the lighting decisions and which fixtures to use and where to place them and shape them.

3. Grip - The “handy people” on a set. They are led by the “Key Grip”, and they help rig lights, equipment, tarps, camera support, etc. on a set.