During my concert promotion days of yore, it was a relatively simple matter of hiring a quality production crew to work with you for one day to put on a single show. From set up to tear down, I always had experienced people working away, ensuring me of having a smooth show production-wise, regardless of whether I was presenting big concert events like Beatle Ringo Starr or The Beach Boys, or smaller ones like Rockapella.
That was then. This is now.
Prepping to shoot a feature length indie movie involves working side by side for many weeks with your key department heads to hire a great crew and secure equipment to make the film and create a work-flow that helps everyone do their very best when principal photography commences and for when post-production kicks into gear. On any given day we'll have 30 or more people on the set for 21-25 days in the heat of a Sarasota summer all working together to create "Beautiful Noise" followed by weeks of editing and scoring the movie. From production coordinators to makeup/hair stylists; from sound mixers to the cinematographer's camera team; from catering and lodging needs to wardrobe; from assistant directors to casting extras; from special effects and editing to stunt people and production design; from the Cast to the art director and prop master; and that's before we start talking about producing a Soundtrack with 21 great songs! It's a small army of dedicated people dealing with every detail of every sequence of every scene in the screenplay. Pre-production is a daunting task, given the logistics involved, and one I could not do without the help of incredible people like co-producers Alex Rotella & Victoria Rowett and my co-music producers Mo Kateraee and Roger Hughes, who are all Sarasota-based professionals. As it happens, the Suncoast is populated with film and music pros who choose to live in our tropical paradise, but who are forced to travel to out-of-state locations to work in the movie biz. Our film enables them to work their craft here in their hometown and, along with other film productions who will hopefully follow our lead and start making movies here on a consistent basis, generates an economic stimulus of sorts for the community.
My Team is going out of their way to hire production crew members and actors who reside locally, and I'm certain that they will all do a terrific job. And in addition to the experienced crew joining our troupe, we have talented, up and coming filmmakers who are top students at the Ringling Digital Film School and the State College of Florida who have been asked to work on the film and earn their first real-world film production credits. It all makes for an upbeat, energetic vibe on the set - which is so important when you're working with a low budget and a tight shooting schedule. There's little room for error or delays, so a happy crew led by an organized and efficient team of producers gives us all a chance to focus on creating the magic you'll hopefully see on a theatre screen near you.
The Mission is to (a) turn great Stories I write or acquire from other sources into entertaining Movies; and (b) produce each film here in Sarasota and the surrounding area with the same loyal group of professional filmmakers who believed in our dream and who were with us from the beginning.
We're off to a great start.
Steve
