Action!

My cousin and I did our first day of filming on Saturday. We decided to start out easy, since we weren’t sure what we were doing, so we set out to film several Austin landmarks for the opening credits. I luckily figured the camera out fairly quickly, and found that all the experience I had picked up from my crew work came in handy. I had picked up many little tidbits about operating Mini-DV cameras, what settings to use, and various other little pointers that had osmosized into my brain. We ended up getting some really great looking shots. I was quite happy.
Then I put out a call for cast and crew on a local E-mail list that is and extremely popular and widespread tool here in Austin. There’s something like 3500 members on it. After being deluged with headshots and resum�s, I started casting. It was weird to be on the other side of that scenario. Normally I’m the one sending in my info and hoping to be called. I also felt a bit bad having to be the bad guy and not being able to use everyone, or deleting someone’s E-mail because they just didn’t have the “look” I was going for in my head. However overall I’m quite enjoying being the captain of the ship and making my very own project as opposed to trying to get onto other people’s projects.
If all goes as planned, we will shoot our first actual scenes this Saturday! This train is a rolling, baby! Let’s just hope I can keep laying the track down in time!