With this tutorial, I intend to show the process I use to put a short together from beginning to end. I recently took part in the IndieTalk Script to Screen Challenge. I ended up submitting 2 of the 3 possible scripts available to shoot. Unfortunately, Audio issues took up too much time and I was unable to get "French Onion" completed on time. I did, however, shoot the footage. I'm going to finish the short and illuminate the process as I go. I hope this will serve as a road map for hobbyist filmmakers like myself who are looking for how the process works from beginning to end.

The Script

This Challenge started with a script writing competition. The 3 winning scripts were:

• "Scare Tactics" by Steve Gelder
• "The Stream, The Cave, Jim and Dave" by Niclaus Louis
• "French Onion" by Nicholas Simon Hugh, James Mohammed Woodhouse and Denis Steven Emmerson Logan

The 3rd winning script in the competition is a comedy which looks inside the mind of a man whose friends are making a desperate and pathetic attempt to help their friend get over a long dead relationship.

When we got on set, we had determined that we were going to light it against how comedies are normally lit. We went for a dark chiarascuro with the lighting creating heavy shadows on the faces, not only to show the underlying reverie of the main character (who's been taking film studies courses?... the peanuts are a symbol of Heppech's insecurity), but also because we thought it looked cool.

YAFI sets always have a goal for every production, this one was no different. We were working on ramping up our speed while not letting the production suffer. The challenge was to pick a script from the 3 and shoot it, we shot all 3 instead within 2 weekends (successfully, might I add). This is the last one to be edited.

• All of the events took place in the real world, which made next to no sense to us as the world was then a strange and random place.
• The 3 friends were Heppech's Ego, Id (Elwood) and Super Ego (Benedict)... all inside Heppech's head, the rest was real, the world was still a bit off, but mostly it made Heppech's character seem really pathetic and the audience would have problems associating with him and caring about what happened to him
• The 3 friends could be the real world and the rest was in Heppech's head. We felt this approach would give us the most dynamic (and sensical) way to approach breaking down the script and determining what we were going to do with it.

I'm going to start dumping it back out again as I go:
14 Dec 2008

Without further ado, here is the full rough of the table scenes:
20 Dec 2008

And I've finally gotten around to pulling out the pieces of the cutaway action I'm going to be splicing in there... the Phone calls and the park stuff. I'll be editing these takes together to make the final product.:
25 May 2009 - Park Footage
25 May 2009 - Phone Footage

WOOHOO! I've finished a cut of the whole kebosh last night. I'm going to preview it to some friends that I trust to give honest feedback on it (want to participate? shoot an e-mail with timstamped critiques - minute:second line items and the specific critique of the story flow):
26 May 2008 - French Onion

5 June 2009
Got the "Redline" back from Andy Rose yesterday. This is the process we go through on every edit where one of the team who hasn't been editing watches through and beats the snot out of the edit. This helps us present the story better, since they haven't been staring at the footage while the editing has been going on. Here is that analysis.

French Onion Redline
1. Opening, is there a second more of silent that we can fade into?
2. Can we cut to the first The Woman shot sooner to the cut the scene faster
3. The rhyme slaughter/daughter needs to be tightened up to make the rhyme scan or else the rhyme of the poem is lost
4. The first shot of Gertrude has Olive's voice so we need to change the audio or the video
5. The second shot of Gertrude is out of character and adds nothing to the story
6. The shot of Heppech walking upstairs does not further the story
7. Heppech's line of "you wanted to see me" doesn't need the establishing shot first
8. Good cut to Gertrude when Olive says "we" the second time
9. Good work with the finger to lips scene
10. Adding in foley of the foot stomping might work better
11. When Olive says "Don't think of us as friends... for the next ten minutes we" (hand motion) try a cut to Gertrude. I think either the first shot of Gertrude (see point 4) or the Gertrude-opening-the-refrigerator shot would work well there.
12. Before we cut to the shot of The Woman in the stall we should have Heppech say something to lessen the confusion of the character switch. Even if it is a 10 frame shot of him saying "yeah".
13. Is there a shot of Heppech in bed with a sour look on his face? That would be good after The Woman says "smell fear and hold it up to your face".
14. When Gertrude says "Don't worry Heppy" Olive's sigh posture doesn't match the posture in the next look. It can be taken out (the sigh, maybe move it elsewhere?)
15. The bouncy girl ("I love smelling permanent markers") works really well with Heppech's inner dialogue.
16. When Gertrude makes her big entrance in drag Olive's surprised exclamation is really slow, especially considering that we hear Heppech laugh. Try moving the "Yiach" earlier in audio.
17. Do we have a wide shot of Heppech slapping Gertrude?
18. How about putting in Heppech's "all the pictures... pathetic, drunk" speech in the middle of point 12? That makes the "3 minutes to find it" line have the pressure of being chased.
19. The interspersed shots of Heppech's parents work very well.
20. Personal note: the "talk of the toilets" line always seems completely corny. Yes, I know you didn't write the script.
21. When The Woman says "We don't date cases" can we get a reaction shot of Heppech?
22. Do we have a longer shot of Heppech running away after he puts down the phone? If not it should be removed because it is hard to tell what is going on.
23. The shot of Heppech running in to the right of the park bench and The Woman stalking her prey, also from the left, at her slower pace, really adds interest. Especially since it is a hand-held shot.
24. Is the black fade just after the knife comes out the length you want?
25. Do we have a longer take of Heppech getting slapped? Maybe just a bit more of Heppech before he gets slapped so we can see her hand come in. I don't think we need to see her windup on her mid shot before she hits him.
26. Great lighting on the sensual shot of Gertrude and Olive.
27. Great quadruple ending with Rotunda's poem, the sensual shot, Dad's "French Onion" ad nauseum and the "I love you" double face palm.