No - the first week was writing. We spent Monday through Thursday cycling ideas before finally deciding on Agoraphobia (working title). Charlie and I each wrote our own versions of the script that night, though most of it was the same idea, and the next day, decided to work with my rough draft. We made revisions over the weekend, and had our final script by Monday.
Monday and Tuesday were spent planning the shoot. We made lists of our props, our sound effects, what we wanted in our actors (for the casting lady, though she moreso just got whoever she could), and finally our shots, which we ordered in the way we'd shoot it.
For the house, Charlie had a cousin who was selling his house, but he didn't live there, so we managed to book the empty house in Flushing, Queens. We took a train up there one of the days (I think Monday) to get an idea of the set (well, Charlie didn't need it, but you know what I mean). Some of the shots were tricky 'cause we needed to make sure the "For Sale" sign couldn't be seen, but luckily, it was off to the side....
On Wednesday, our cast was supposed to come at 9. Thanks to miscommunication, they came at 10. The first day, we needed the man, the woman, and the garage salesman, but the man decided not to show up and to go to an audition instead without even telling us. Luckily, we got a garage salesman (they weren't sure if they'd be able to get one - they had A LOOOOOOOOT of parts to cast, and it was a minor role, so we told them to find other people for other movies first - we're so nice!), so we asked that guy, Kai Chapman, to play the man instead. Then we didn't have a garage salesman. But THEN we found out that Moises Guindi, another student there, wasn't shooting 'til Thursday and had decided to tag along with us for some unknown reason, so we got him to play the garage salesman. (Ironically, the age order which we expected for our cast was reversed....)
So on that first day, we shot the garage sale scene and all the shots with the woman in them, so that those two actors wouldn't need to come on other days. (But they needed to be there on the same day, 'cause they were in a few of the same shots together.) And we informed Kai to come at 9 the next day, and tried to tell the Handsome Man the same.
He didn't get the message, so we wound up waiting for an hour AGAIN. On that second day, we finished all the outdoor scenes, and shots with windows - we didn't want to be screwed if it decided to rain on us the next day.
On the third day, it was just Kai, so we got to start at 9 for once. And we just finished everything on that day, checking over our shot list about three or four times to make sure we hadn't forgotten anything before calling it a wrap.
Charlie and I tended to take a leading role in the process, mainly because Jahbari was just very shy. We kind of had to force out his opinion a lot of the time, but in general, we couldn't have it done it without him - he settled all our many arguments! And we argued A LOT. I think that the difference in ideas was one of the reasons it turned out well, actually - we managed to get the both of best worlds! as opposed to the worst of both worlds.... Or, um, the BEST of BOTH worlds.... You get the point!
So yeah, editing was one huge argument after the next. During shooting, we generally just said, "Let's just shoot both and settle it later!" A lot of the arguments were automatically settled, actually, 'cause some of the shots didn't come out QUITE as they were envisioned.... Particularly the one where Kai's shirt changes mid-scene -
whoops!I forget whether we added in the foley or the music first.... For foley, we made a list of what we needed, and got a LOOOOOT of stuff to choose from. Sometimes we'd just take a section of a clip, sometimes we'd take the whole clip. All the time, we were very careful to match up the foley precisely with the picture - it was difficult, but really paid off. We even got little soundtracks of just general atmospheres for both inside and outside! The noises which you don't realize you're hearing!
For the music, we all went home, jumped on this site with uncopyrighted music, found a bunch that we thought MIGHT work, brought it all in, compared results, and took the ones that worked best for each one. We actually had a lot of music - I think we actually deleted a track during the "Face-off" scene, when he opens the door and then slams it shut. We replaced it with a heartbeat. Just to keep it from getting overloaded with music.
And then.... we were done. All that was left was to name it. And we drew up a blank. I said, "How about Behind Closed Doors?" and they said, "Why not?" and then I later found out that that's the name of some song, thus burying our movie in YouTube. (I typically tell people to search "Behind Closed Doors zinyufish" to limit it down, but they wouldn't know that if I didn't tell them....)
So then we left to play frisbee with the whole gang for our last few hours at SVA, before our work would be presented to the world. Well, our parents, anyway.... And then the world! Well, actually, it was more like our extended families and friend.... And then the world! Or.... you guys!
And now................. THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
