HOW I GOT TO MAKE MY FIRST MOVIE

I was thrilled when I was first approached by producers Mike Wojciechowski & Frank McEnulty to make a movie based on one of my books. They had recently started an innovative on-line film studio called I Made a Movie, and I'd always felt as if my stories were cinematic and several people had written me and told me they felt the same. But once the excitement began to evolve into anticipation, I began to get anxious about how the movie would actually turn out. I'd spent countless hours bringing my stories to life and not only did the story have to make sense in context of the film, but since the books were part of a series, the movie needed to make sense within the context of all of my books. Especially since the third book in the series hadn't even been published yet, I was nervous about handing over my characters to someone that simply couldn't know it all since everything hadn't even been written yet. And I'd heard horror stories from many people about how translating a book into a movie is so difficult that very few ever got it right both from the author's perspective as well as the readers'.

The producers set up a meeting with me and an experienced director and we spent a lot of time brainstorming ideas how to translate my books to film. He even seemed to be open to letting me have input on the screenplay which I knew wasn't common in Hollywood. So I took the ball and wrote a first draft of the screenplay myself, even though I didn't have experience and many of my friends who did, warned me that it was nearly impossible for a novelist to write an effective film script because they were so inherently different. Surprisingly the director and the producers seemed pleased with the initial draft of the script and agreed to base the film on my screenplay.

However, just as I was about to sign the deal and hand over the script to the director, another wave of anxiety hit me. I began to worry about the execution of the film itself, and what choices would be made. How would the characters that I've lived with for years come to life? What would they look like? What would their houses look like? How would they talk?

Everybody has a different process when writing novels, and my process is unique as well. I am usually given the entire story as a gift that appears in my mind fully formed. Then the writing process centers around replaying the story in my mind, one scene at a time so I can "remember" what has been given to me and write it down. In other words, the movie is already in my head, and in some ways the books themselves are simply detailed transcriptions of the movies I've already seen. So how could I be sure that the director had seen the same movie as me?

When my anxiety finally eclipsed my intellect, I regretfully called the producers and declined their generous offer and apologized for wasting so much of their time. And after I explained why I needed to pass, a very unexpected thing happened. One of the producers said, "You seem to have a strong idea of what you want. Why don't you direct it?" Naturally my ego screamed a resounding Yes, but my brain took over and said that I would need to think about it. Over the years, I'd actually been exposed to many of the production techniques used in film: from my career in video games to my work within the music industry with platinum level artists. I actually knew quite a bit about all of the pieces of making a movie, but I hadn't ever been responsible for putting it all together into a cohesive film. But I did know that it was a lot of work and although I had many of the skills that were required, there was a lot of experience that I didn't have.

I immediately contacted all of my friends and associates and asked for their advice. And almost uniformly they were split based on what their own experience was. If they had been involved in making movies before they would tell I would be stupid to try and direct the movie myself, and if they had no experience at all, they would tell me that I should definitely give it a try. I knew they were both right and ultimately I decided to give it a shot. I knew that I would give it my all, and even if it failed miserably, it would ultimately be my own vision and would have its own artistic integrity. So after a few weeks of deliberation, I called the producers back and told them I'd do it.

 
PRE-PRODUCTION

Once I had decided to direct the movie myself, I immediately revisited the screenplay. I decided it was best to start with the first book in the series, Summer's Path, although the story presented some unusual problems. The book follows the main character during a remarkable transition into the body of a puppy in order to escape the pain of a fatal disease, and continues from his perspective after he was a dog and an angel took over his previous body. Naturally this premise would be difficult to pull off well in film, especially since nearly half of the book explores what it's like for a human to live inside the body of a dog.

I ultimately began to reframe the story to be more about the wife who didn't know what was happening to her husband. What was she going through? All she knew is her husband was acting much different and was completely unaware of the transition into a puppy, and that the person who she thought was her husband was actually the angel. The story became less of a metaphysical exploration of soul transitions, and more about how a relationship is impacted by loss. It excited me to be able to tell another perspective of the story in addition to solving many logistical problems.

By the time I was done, nearly half of the screenplay was new and although it was still loosely based on the book, enough was different that I decided to change the name to clarify that it was different from the novel. I called it Walk-In which I felt was a strong name and gave a hint about what the main turning point in the story was.

Once the screenplay was done, I needed to think about the reality of where it was best to film the movie. I wanted it to be shot in southern Oregon where I lived (and the story is based), but the producers thought it was more practical to be shot in Los Angeles where they were based and the film industry resides. They explained they had access to many more people there and would allow our small budget to go further by pulling in favors from various crew members.

I knew my work was cut out for me to be able to convince them to make a movie in a small mountain town that wasn't known for film production, but a few of my friends had made movies in Ashland, and I was convinced that it was possible. I also felt it was absolutely necessary for me to live in the same town I was filming in for my first film, so I could spend as much time as necessary to make sure locations, etc. were perfect. And with my new baby boy just over eighteen months old, I knew it wouldn't be practical to relocate for the duration of the project.

I started with the location scouting since that was my premise of why it needed to be shot in southern Oregon. It didn't take long to confirm that my hunch was correct--that the natural beauty of the Rogue Valley would be a perfect backdrop for the movie. But what I was extremely surprised about, was how supportive the local community was about helping make my film a reality.

The next step was figuring out who was going to be the crew to make this all happen locally. I was able to confirm that many of the people I needed currently lived in the area, but I wasn't able to find a DP (Director of Photography) that lived in southern Oregon that had the artistic style I was looking for. Fortunately I discovered an up and coming cinematographer in Portland, Oregon named Ryan E. Walters that was very compatible artistically with my vision. Fortunately, he also owned the same camera that I was hoping to use (a RED One HD camera), and more importantly he was available for the budget that I had during the time I wanted to film. I also met a local Line Producer named Gary Kout that was confident in finding the rest of the crew I needed locally.

Once we had a strategy for securing the rest of the crew, it was time to find the actors that would play the various roles. I was surprised that I needed to hire over 20 actors as I deliberately tried to keep the cast small when writing the screenplay. But even the three second scenes that were required to keep the story moving required another actor and the role needed to be filled by a qualified actor. Fortunately, I Made a Movie had access to a large community of actors via their website, but many of them lived very far away from southern Oregon and we didn't have the budget for travel and lodging for the entire cast. So I found a casting director that was familiar with the local acting community that is anchored by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and asked him to coordinate a casting call to augment the talent we were finding on-line. Between the local casting session and the actors we were finding on-line, I was overwhelmed by the choices I had. There was so much talent that I was in the fortunate position of simply focusing on who was right for the part. Some decisions were extremely difficult because of how many great options I had to choose between, and others were perfectly obvious because the actor was exactly what I'd had in mind.

By this time I had a strong strategy for filming in southern Oregon and presented it to the producers who decided to give it a shot. It must have been unnerving for them trusting a first time director with a location hundreds of miles from them, but to their credit, they were very supportive through the entire process and gave me the go ahead and their full support.

The next step was to get the cinematographer to visit so we could storyboard the entire movie using photographs, so when the entire cast and crew was waiting for us on set, we would know exactly what each shot would be before production actually began. It also was important so we would know what equipment we needed and we could sort out all the logistical issues when there was still enough time to deal with it. Ryan came down for a week which was about half the time that I'd wanted but it was still enough to go through most of the major scenes and locations. We ended up asking two helpful interns (Alyssa Smith and Kyle Biddle) to act as stand-ins for the hundreds of photographs we took on Ryan's iPhone. We used an iPhone because of the amazing app called Artemus that not only framed the photo in the correct aspect ratio for the movie, but also had simulations of every lens we could possibly want so we would know not only how we wanted the composition to be framed, but what lens we would need to make it happen.

Once the storyboards were complete, Line Producer Gary Kout led the charge to "break down" the script into all the various scenes and locations and embark on the complex job of scheduling the production. We ended up with over 100 different scenes to shoot and an average of 5 shots per scene which meant we needed to schedule over 500 different shots over the period of 5 weeks. Many independent films try to shoot an entire movie in 3 weeks or less, but I felt it was important to be able to take our time and really concentrate on each shot. But even with the additional time, we still needed to shoot 100 shots a week which meant that completely thinking out how much time to schedule each shot for the benefit of efficiency and how that balanced with getting the best performances out of each of the actors was pretty involved. Not to mention that by now we had over 50 people's schedules (with several locations), we had to balance with cast & crew and making it work was quite difficult. Fortunately, Gary's experience came through in spades and although we had to make a few compromises along the way, it all came together quite well.

Time was flying by and before I knew it there was only one week before shooting and the crew began to assemble for our final week of pre-production. We started by going to each of the locations with the key crew members (called the "Tech Scout") and discussing in depth how exactly we would shoot each scene with camera, lighting, rigging and if there were any special equipment or safety issues we needed to keep in mind. The reality of the complexity of filming began to come into focus and I learned a lot during the Tech Scout about what is was physically going to take to bring this movie to life. I also began to work with the amazingly talented crew that Gary had assembled that included Jackson Rowe (First Assistant Director), Bill Rowe (Second Assistant Director), Errin Connors (Gaffer), Eric Bixler (Key Grip), Wendy Temple (Intern Coordinator), and Willie Nemeth (Rigger). It didn't take long that I realized I was in good hands as I saw everything start to take shape.

During that last week, I also began to get barraged with hundreds of questions about every single detail of what the camera would see. Bill Rowe led the charge as "Art Department" and would use his vast knowledge and charm to extract hundreds of pieces of information from me during the last few days before we began filming. Our conversations would go something like this:

     Bill - On page 37 of the script, it says that Suzanne gets into her car.
     Me - Uh-huh.
     Bill - Does she take out her keys?
     Me - Oh yeah, that's a good point. Yes, she does.
     Bill - How many keys are on the key chain?
     Me - Hmmm. I guess five. That seems about right.
     Bill - Is there a key fob?
     Me - Definitely. Suzanne would definitely have a key fob.
     Bill - What does it look like?

Needless to say, with only a few days left before filming, Bill was a very busy boy running around trying to track down every single thing that we had talked about. It was remarkable how he was able to take something that I imagined and find it and bring it to the set.

And finally, with only one day left before we began filming, we set up all the equipment in our first location and had a camera test. I met the rest of the crew including Jerry Turner (First Assistant Camera), Danielle Eddington (Camera Apprentice), Jim Chambers (Data Manager), and reconnected with Kent Romney (Sound Engineer). We also brought in Danforth Comins (the lead male actor playing Don/Robert) and our talented makeup artist Jakey Hicks, and proceeded to dial in the makeup, lighting and camera settings to get the look that I had in mind. Once again I was impressed with how everyone was used to bringing imagination into reality and within a few short hours we got it exactly how I wanted and we all went home for the weekend to prepare for the first day of shooting the following Monday.

 
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To be continued... (Part Two coming soon)