I came up with a concept for the script. I envisioned a couple at a table. They lean forward while talking. She bumps a spoon to the floor with her elbow. He smiles and bends over to pick it up. A man trips while hurrying to get past him. The man who trips is a criminal. The man at the table is a super-hero who fights crime without realizing it's happening.

M. Night's "Unbreakable" hadn't come out yet, so I thought I had an original idea...DOH! I pondered the implications of a super hero who didn't know he was one. Seemed to me that I would try to strive for normalcy, attempt to escape the responsibility of the consequences. I would consider it a curse. From there I had a character arc for the main character. I wrote up a treatment for a love story based on this arc. It looked mostly like an outline based on the 3 act play structure (proven):

• Act 1 - Introduce characters, hint at plot
• Act 2 - Move toward the conflict
• Act 3 - Resolve the conflict, wrap up

I filled in the pertinent bits in this outline from the one character's arc, and added the rest of the love story around it. The super-heroness of it was just random events happening. There was no dialog, just plot points. I gave this to a friend to read who has a degree in English. These people are good to know if you want to write stuff.

I spent some of my high school years being a deadline editor for the school newspaper. This was an unofficial/uncredited position that allowed me to be in the newspaper homeroom. In this position, I was responsible for making late/missed deadline articles fit for human consumption. I had a red pen and was quite brutal with it. After that year, I never again took criticism personally. If I were to be that brutal to people's ideas, I could never again take it personally if I was criticized, that would be hypocritical. So as I gave the treatment to my friend, I expected that it would be ripped apart. Instead he said, "It would be neater if she was a serial killer."

I knew at that point I could write a great script. The only setback would be my follow-through on large writing projects. I tend to get into them and then become disinterested. I needed a plan. I needed a good plan... I needed a writer.

I have another friend who loves to write fiction. I asked if he'd have a go at it. He had never written a script and would enjoy the challenge. He accepted. I had him over for a discussion of the treatment and my ruminations on fate. We ended up with a story about the inevitability of fate.

The most important thing to writing any story is to get the thing on paper/in the computer. Just type it up, write it down...whatever it takes. Don't concern yourself with the quality to begin with, that can always be provided through editing. The hardest two words to type in a story is "The End". Get there as fast as possible, edit it after. Then be prepared for the red ink. Use alot of it. Remember that editing is a good thing. The stone cutter should not be offended when a sculptor chips away at his masterpiece. The stone cutter knows that without his work, the sculptor would continue whitling chains from wood to sell at the craft bazaar.

I called in all the folks I know who would be interested in being in a movie. Started considering who had the right personalities/looks for the parts we had come up with. I quickly realized we had written more parts than I knew people who would be interested. I found people to be the main cast first, then went on to the supporting cast. For the two main male characters, I went with 2 of my friends who have a snappy rapport. Much of the dialog between these two is written based on their real-life banter.

My DP and I went on a location scout w/ my little JVC camcorder to see if there were any cool places to shoot this thing. From the outset, the coffee shop "Liquid Assets" was written into the script. Luckily for us, the owner was excited to hear that we wanted to make an independent film in his store (thank you in the credits of course). The flower shop next door was interested as well. We made sure to assure them that we would only have a couple of people there and wouldn't be there for that long. We will adhere to that promise as well to make sure they are happy to help us out.

Given the locations we chose (our homes and others), I determined how many would need permission. Some indy film folks tell people starting out not to get permission under the guise of "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission." I don't subscribe to this at all. If you want to shoot in a location that requires permission, ask nicely. Make sure you mention that you are an independant, low/no budget filmmaker. Have a treatment along for them to read. Be excited to explain your project to them. I found that our city didn't require a film permit, but one of my locations was potentially quite expensive. I asked what the boundaries were for the park (the part they charge by the hour for) and found that our locations were outside those boundaries. One of them was out by only 10 feet, but that's 10 feet of free.

We can't bring weapons into the park, so we're going to hide our assailants hand in one of the scenes and cut in an insert of a hand with a weapon at the back of a jacket shot somewhere else. This lets us do an attack in the park without bringing weapons in. We are doing the same thing with a car accident where we show the two cars together with no background showing and cutting that into a sequence of a car accident in which we never see the cars hit (or stop for that matter).

So we have all free locations and permission to shoot there. I took stills of the locations to story board with and to use to design the look and feel. I've noted east and west on the outdoor locations for reference when designing the lighting. My writer and I discussed the locations and adjusted the script accordingly.

I started storyboarding some of the stuff with stick people to give my DP an idea of the framing I'm looking for. I scanned in the storyboards and read a page of the script. I then used iMovie to put the appropriate storyboards over the dialog. This allowed me to determine if any of the shots could use some camera movement (ken burns effect). I think most of the shots can be static.

Capturing Sound

I spent money on good microphones. If I were only using them on this shoot, these would be reported on the budget. But they are things I wanted anyway. I have a shotgun mic that is a budget one < $50. Radio Shack has great hand held mics for cheap. The Archer brand microphones used to be top of the line Shure mics that they purchased the rights for several years back. The parts are cheaper that go into them, but the engineering is sound. You will get good ADR and foley using these mics. Remember to record 3-5 mins of silent room noise at your locations.

I spent the money to get a good camera as well. You don't have to. If the story is good, people will forgive bad picture. Sound is more important, but a good story is tantamount. If you get people reading your script who don't want to put it down, you should make that film!

Lighting

I went to Sears and got 5 Halogen work lights on clearance for $10 a piece. These are 150/300/500 watt units. I'm trying to use the 500 watt as lightly as possible as I've already burnt out 2 bulbs (lamps) with a limited number of hours on them (5 or 6 total). I'm using cheap boom microphone stands to clip stuff: gauze for in front of the lights (silks); Pieces of large white foamcore form the craft store to redirect the light (bounce cards); clamp on reflector lights with flood lamps for accent lighting (kickers); black material to block light (flags).

I've found that I can do most of my lighting with a key light @ 300 watts 45 degrees to the side and 45 degrees up, a bounce card to use as fill on the other side (move it around until is looks good) and a rim light or kicker in the back to separate the subject from the background. In the exteriors I have to play around yet. I'm assuming it'll be just a matter of replacing the key with the sun and using bounce cards/flags to fill the other side of the face. If the sun is high enough that the camera can't see it, I will use that as the rim light and then bounce/flag for key and fill. No lights means no generator, no generator means decent sound on the shoot.

Camera Boom

I'll be building a small boom for getting some neat dynamic (big hollywood looking) shots...it ended up costing about < $10. I'll post pictures when I'm done (some of it is scrap wood).

Steadicam

I've found that your tripod makes a wonderful steadicam rig. With the legs short, you can grab the tripod just below the handle in a loose ring made with your thumb and forefinger (gimbal) to disconnect the camera from your body movement. Now walk with it as if it were a full cup of hot coffee. This will get you a pretty good steadicam-like shot for free. Gently moving the handle to tip the camera for framing will make your shots look like you know what you're doing. Keep the corrective movements small

Dolly Shot

I'll also be buying a large flatbed gardening cart with pneumatic tires as a dolly. By letting a little bit of the air out of the tires, you will smooth out the ride and reduce the camera shake from it. Big tires are better in this case. This is about $60.

Progressive vs. Interlaced

Remember that horizontal motion is quite visible in digital video unless you're recording in progressive/frame mode. You will see an effect at the edges of objects that looks like the teeth of a comb. This is a dead giveaway that you are shooting digital video. It is also distracting, so keep the movement in the frame to a minimum. Most of your shots will be locked down shots anyway, so you shouldn't have too much of a problem with this. Locked shots look more professional with light cameras than moving shots do. Mostly due to the mass difference between film cameras and digital camcorders.

Soft Focus

To "Hollywood" up your shoot, here is a trick. Get a neutral density filter for your camera, it should just screw onto the front. This opens up the aperature (think the iris of your eye) which makes it easier to get the background to blur. Get right up to your subject. This will force you to focus nearer which will start to blur the background.

You can get quite an extreme blur by zooming in. I was able to get my JVC Camcorder to have a < 1" focus using a telephoto lens, zoomed in, neutral density and close to subject. My thumbprint took up the entire frame...the sides of my thumb were out of focus! This is with an $800 camera.

Keep in mind though that this is only used for focusing the audience eye on a subject or minimizing distraction in the background. Most of your shots will be wide shots (zoomed out). This minimizes camera shake and makes focusing easy.

Framing

Think of an imaginary tic-tac-toe board on your view finder. Keep your subjects off the center square unless you have a specific reason to center them. They should be looking/moving into the open part of the frame. Two people talking to one another across editing cuts should be on opposite sides of the frame looking toward each other if the two images were overlaid. This is comfortable to the audience.

Night shots

We will be shooting some day for night (shoot at day, but color it blue, bump the brightness down and raise the contrast in the editing software). This makes lighting easier on set as you can use the sun rather than expensive lighting that would again require a generator.