Bucky

January 05, 2018
A Winning Scipt
In early 2007. a little under four years before losing her mind with grief over the loss of her labrador Champ, a now-former friend of mine and I had been working towards producing a number of short subject films for an upcoming local film festival, which turned out to be a scam; they were trying to acquire free content for a new web channel or such.
The shorts' time restriction per short was to be three minutes (of story content), with an end-credits allowance of an additional thirty seconds where applicable. My former friend wrote a few of the shorts, her then-friend Heather (one of the first of many reliable friends she would discard, myself being the last), written a few, and I have written a few scripts as well.
I brought on board my friend Tad Atkinson, to be director at least for one of my scripts (two of which were accepted by the group for us to make), and he not only volunteered to help on other projects, Tad brought along (to my slight surprise), Rich Owen, who initially had indicated little interest in assisting in any of our projects.
Rich usually was also frequently quite funny, with a biting satiric wit. Rich was interested in working with and/or directing most of the scripts, and for my dark-humoured thriller Daddy's Girl, Rich provided us with a director of photography and location. Along with Man-Away, which Rich did direct, I'd submitted to the group a few other scripts, one being Bucky, a dark-humoured comedy about a seemingly sentient badger hand-puppet. Sadly, despite the short being an easy shoot, a bottle-show (e.g., one location), only two characters (and a voice), they did not select it to be me.
Ironically, this was not A Bad Thing; my former friend demonstrated in both Man-Away and Daddy's Girl, that she is not the talented actress she believed. Plus, Rich shifted an aspect of the character which, albeit closer to what my friend eventually would become in her own life, was incorrect for the character. Were I to have the funds, I really want to remake both of them.
Years later my longtime friend Michael Beardsley introduced me to We Make Movies, (aka WMM), a Hollywood based film maker collective or creative actors, writers, directors, et al.
Once comfortable with the group, and its twice monthly public table-read nights, I submitted many of my short scripts, to the apparent (based on results). delight of the membership. Pretty much every script of mine table-read (by WMM members), was enjoyed tremendously. The only exception was one in which the actors uncharacteristically phoned in their "performances," missing the comic timing (and most of the script's point). But other than that one anamoly, my scripts have been tremendously enjoyed.
In 2017 they had a script competition, to which I should have submitted, but did not. The scripts were read anonomously, meaning the voting membership did not know who wrote which, though as many of the scripts had previously been table-read, many people could deduce the authors, though while I recognized some previously read scripts, I did not connect to Who Wrote What, and voted which I enjoyed most.
The single winner, the last script standing, as it were, received a budget of $5000 to make the film, which he did.
When the second annual competition was announced in mid 2018, they had changed it a bit, as who doesn't like something that works so well changed to some way different? Instead of a single winner receiving a $5000 budget, there would be four winning Finalists, each receiving $1500 each for their project, a fine budget if each project was to be made only with hand-held iPhones, and available light and sound.
I decided to submit Bucky, and it was selected by the board of directors to be one of the many semi-Finalists. I asked Michael Beardsley to play the young man and the talented Victoria Ippolito to play the girl. Unlike the regular table-reads, for the script competition the author could be allowed to be one of the character readers, so I read the voice of Bucky. When it was read for the very first time, I risked Bucky played by a talented actress, who also voiced Bucky, and did it... not quite the way I'd written/envisioned it. So with the competition, I read for Bucky, which the audience found far funnier.
The script won as a semi-Finalist, and so we knew in a month we'd be doing it again. Michael made the brilliant suggestion that instead of Just Sitting There and reading from the pages, that we three actually rehearse and do it off book, like one of the group's Up On Your Feet nights (in which actors, and even writers performing, bring in scenes and perform them off book like a super short one act play).
Victoria offered her home, a wonderful house not far from where I'd been living (since my aforemented former-friend completely snapped and discarded me from her life). During our rehearsal, we discussed and agreed her home would make a good Location for the shoot, if it were to win. Fortunately her roommates were all fellow actors so they had no issue with it, and the place had even been used for a number of various video projects.

October 25, and into November, December, 2017
We have a winner... well, four of them anyway...
At the late October 2018 Finalist night, of the nine scripts being read, we were the only one to do it life as a performance and... (thanks to another Michael suggestion), we had Bucky. Not only did we win, Michael deduced we got the Most Votes of all the scripts.
Now that we could Make It, we needed a crew. We didn't want this slip shod. Cinematographer Bruce Birnnaum was recommended; he agreed to meet with me and Michael, and we had lunch at the Van Nuys Airport bar, as its restaurant was closed for the day... before 3pm. Bruce was clearly our man, and I did my best not to seem a complete dunderhead to him. Eventually we also decided that, as the film is set at the end of a couple's date, that it be filmed at night, mostly as Bruce "isn't a morning person"... I had to concur, my only being a morning person on the day or an audition or a booked shoot.
Bruce took a discount on his normal daily rate, and recruited two people with whom he'd worked before for Key Positions, also at highly discounted rates from their normal day rates.
Michael and I later learned that the LumaForge editing and post-production suites, would not be As Available to winners, let alone members, as WMM menbers had been led to believe. In fact, I would learn that using their facilities would cost $500, for the competition winners, a third of each winners' projects' budgets (and that regular film makers who would want to use the equipment would have to pay $1200 or more). Fortunately Michael is an experienced editor, and would handle post production.
Michael became the project producer when my avoiding perjury on government forms went unappreciated.

January 2018
Progress
I created a @bucky_film Twitter account, as well as submitting the project, cast and what crew we already had, to imdb, the latter of which was being extremely slow in making the entry accessable.
While we were able to acquire volunteers to help when we had a Shooting Date, we were still struggling to find a good sound person.
One of the Terms and Conditions of the Win was to perform the short as an On Your Feet night. The fact we had done so as our "read" for the Finals was "not the same," so we scheduled it for the January 17th slot. Bruce attended, and video taped the evening: the performance and the audience feedback/Q&A afterward. (If we make a Professional DVD version, [as opposed to film festival submission DVDs, which are Just The Movie], that could be one of its Bonus Features.)

Winter 2018
Winning was the easy part
Michael suggested as a Director of Photography (DP), WMM member Bruce Birnbaum, who doesn't always attend events, but he works on various projects.
With WMM not exactly saying "Here you go" and providing the $1500, and there being a slight issue with my having knowledge of law, what it is, what it isn't, and how it works and how often it's misappled, I asked Michael if he'd assume the reins of producer, which he accepted.
Michael and I met with Bruce, who had some amazing thoughts on the script, a copy with which he'd been provided. He agreed to reduced his normal daily rate to $400, the amount I guessed he would suggest. Bruce also recommended a camera crew he knew and with whom he'd previously worked, and negotiated their reducing their daily rates. Eventually we had a crew, and managed to stay within budget. With the other winners, I met with two of the main board members to go over our respective budgets.
One of the bigger stumbling blocks was SAG-AFTRA itself. Both William Joseph Hill and Robert DiTillio, each with whom I worked with the USC Greenwald's Amazing Garden Tonic student film, are fellow WMM members. William works at HBO doing payrole for Game of Thrones of all things, hence his having more knowledge of the Industry than many. He concurred that SAG loathes the idea of people such as ourselves creating our own content, as SAG doesn't get a slice of that pie.
Michael had brought aboard the Bucky project Michael Russnow, who goes into full bulldog mode when it comes to dealing with SAG's obstinance.
Eventually we were Green Lit, and set Saturday March 24th as our shoot date.
We did "have to" fulfil one requirement for winning: performing the short for one of WMM's Up On Your Feet nights. I clarified at the budget meeting that requirement as we'd literally done that As the Finals Night. As it had not been done As an Up On Your Feet Bight, we had to do it; my cast was fine with it, so we met up for another run through, even taking advantage of blocking it within the room, and re-performened it. Thankfully it was still well received, and Bruce attended, and he video recorded the performance, as well as its feedback afterward.
One of the comments we got was someone indicated being able "to watch a hundred" of such Bucky-starred shorts. I pointed out that a) there would be a post credits tag that deliberately was not included with the perrormance and, b) my brain was already running Bucky 2 scenarios in my head...

Saturday March 10, 2018
Camera run through
We arramged for an evening to meet up at Victoria's for Bruce and his cameraman Jorge to go through the scene to get an idea of how best to shoot it. they'll be using two cameras, so we cut be cutting in half the time it'd take to do second set-ups.

Saturday March 24, 2018
Shoot night
With the last of their requested information, including but not limited to, proof the script is copyrighted, a few days before our shoot date, SAG-AFTRA finally gave the go-ahead, providing Bucky the production ID # 00462390.
The day before, Michael and I spoke on the phone, making sure everything seemed to be in place. We even realized my friend Shannon Glasgow was back from the east coast, to do a voice over for the ending credits that leads to a post-credits stinger clip. We contacted her and she agreed to be able to come up to do her lines.
Slight miscommunication breakdown; had she simply come, her lines could have been done before we really got going. Mike later would arrange for her to come by Wednesday to record her lines.
The equipment was up and ready to go as it got dark, then Something Went Wrong. About 97% of the short was to be filmed on a steadicam-like gimble, which relied on the focus being done wirelessly, and for some reason, the wireless aspect refused to work. This meant all the creative moving shots could not be done, at least not as planned, and some were set up "backwards:" moving in to "soft focused" shots to reach the In Focus mark.
The night became a massive challenge. There was no way to reschedule the shoot; we were already overbudget (not by much, but by some). We had to go with What We Had.
Thankfully Bruce and Jorge were awesome and were able to get some great footage. Michael and Victoria were on point that the majority of takes per set-up were one to three. Even then, we went well into the night. Had the equipment functioned as expected, we might have been done by 1am or so. As it was, we made it Right To The Edge of the SAG eight hour mark.
On my Instagram account I posted two sets of photos taken during the evening: here, then early the next morning. after we'd wrapped.
It came so tight, the post-credits stinger gag I wanted to included almost "had to" get cut, but I eliminated the first aspect (a whip pan from a turning-off TV), to the couch, so now it's Just The Couch aspect of the bit.
After everything was packed up, and Victoria's home returning to its original state, I got a ride home, literally arriving shortly after my alarm would wake me up to handle animal-feeding "chores."

Wednesday March 28 2018
Elizabeth Scott
Shannon and Mike and I arranged for a meet up at his place at which to record her Tv Newsreporter lines, for over the end credits. I'd printed out the Absolutely Updated lines by now-named word-play character Elizabeth Scott, a la Shannon Glasgow: Elizabeth not only for my mother and niece's middle names, but actress Shannon Elizabeth, and Scott for Glascow (as well as a surname within my family).
After a few takes we got a version with which all three of us were satisfied, taking the project officially into Post Production, as Mike prepared to begin piecing together the footage. He would have to utiliize We Makes Movies' LumaForge facility, as his own computer cannot handle the frame rate, and Mike has a far superior system to my computer (though seriously, who doesn't...?).

Shannon Glasgow at Michael's, to ADR her lines

In Other News:
Fellow We Make Movies member (and "ironically" named) Jeffrey Gold, had offered writing music for the short.
First time I'd met Jeffrey I'd already had a script or two having been read at WMM. One night I did not have a script, Jeffrey did, and when Aubrey called out his name, for a second I thought she'd said My name. We are still amused at our similar sounding names, considering the affable Jeffrey towers over me lika pro football player.
Previous to Jeffrey, I'd already had two unsolicited requests to do music, albeit most likely hoping to get a paid gig out of it. One contacted me directly, acquiring my info via ImdbPro, the other actually emailing my agent, who forwarded to me the email. I politely replied to them both, referencing our Being In Talks with a member of our group who'd be doing it for copy/credit. One of the two appreciated my getting back to them, the other did not.
Each of those composters' work was like indi-film white noise; nothing onto which to grab as with composters as Murray Gold or John Williams types, who can create a specific Theme melody for a film and/or character so when you hear it on its own, you Know the film and/or character to which the music refers.
I communicated with Jeffrey about the project, and would discuss it with him when we'd meet at the next WMM event.

Sunday 01 April 2018
Newsletter
Michael Beardsley does a monthly newsletter listing what acting-career stuff on which he'd worked during the previous month. For April he led with Bucky...

Sunday 05 March / Wednesday 06 March 2019
Catching up
Bucky got a music score, for which we waited probably longer than we could have. Our composer, John Mickevich, was fortunately very embarrassed at his lateness completing the project, so provided it at no cost. I liked what he did; it had a frothy feel to it, and relying heavily on strings, gave it a sitcom like feel here and there, as well as an earwig aspect. While technically it's not exactly a "Bucky's Theme" therein, the music itself does get stuck in ne's brain.
Once the music was laid down I went over to Mike's on 21 December 2018, and on the winter solstice the film was officially Complete. We even did a li'l gag I'd wanted to do: recording my voice doing a li'l "dun dah DAH...!" music for over the We Make Movies logo. Mike had me do a Series, meaning several. I did four, and he transferred it onto his editing platform. The first one was a No, the second (as well as the fourth). was a Maybe, the third was spot-on.
Then something happened.
With each playback, Mike moved to the side the audio samples. As a goof, he overlaid two of the tracks, creating a weird musical harmony of sorts. As we laughed, we had to hear how overlaying all four samples would sound.
It sounded both cool and funny enough we went with my quartet of vocalizations, and placed it over the logo,
A few weeks later we had it screened at We Make Movies's "What's Next" night, tp great aclaim.
I'd been between work for some time. Fortunately my Januaryh 2018 shot Southwes Airlines commercial, while still not airing, was still providing its principal cast with Holding Fee checks. I also was cast as a comical college'esque Professor in a Lil Pump music video, Be Like Me.
With almost what could be considered "spare" funds, I went over as to what film festivals to which I could afford to submit.
Of the ten to which I submitted, the first taking place would be in London, but that festival never indicated accepting or denying the short. The date they had with which to Notify film makers was moved from 21 February to 04 March... despite the fact that festival was to run from 01-05 March/ This would mean not notifying filmmakers until the second day of the festival itself...!
Patrick Duncan had recommended using a Promotion aspect. For $20 FilmFreeway majorly promotes five projects foa day. I received numerous notifications from festivals, two of which waived submission fees (e.g., the most affordable). One of the festivals was the Golden State Film Festival, to which I did submit at a 50% discount.
On Sunday the 4th of March, I got a call from the festival, and Peter Greene and I had a pleasant chat about Bucky: the inspiration for the film, et al. He then declared the film was an Official Selection for the festival. As they were still scheduling what film was to screen when, I would be notified as to that date.
I was sent an email that provided additional information, particularly on DCP (Digital Cinema Package) Format that the festival utilizes. I forwarded the information to Michael, and thankfully he was aware of it, I did a little research and yeah, it was indeed way over my head.
Wedneday night at We Make Movies script night, I announced the news.