Snake is a short psychological thriller brought to you by OxBlood Films. The story follows Anthony Conroy, a young businessman who has suspicions about his wife and closest friend. As Tony develops a deep paranoia, he questions morality and the limitations of his being, with dangerous conclusions.
This film is currently in pre-production. Casting calls can be found at StarNow (Casting no. 480644) and on Mandy.com. To apply directly for cast or crew positions email OxBlood Films on the address below; please include a headshot/showreel, contact information and details of your previous experience. Contact us at OxBloodFilms@gmail.com.
Directed by Lauren Bowman. Co-written by Lauren Bowman and Sasha Klein.
So about a week ago, we cast for our four main characters: Tony, Claire, James and Louise. Today we met with them for the first time in Soho, London, to sign the legals and talk script and costume, and to do an all important photoshoot for on-screen photographs.
It is safe to say they are all wonderful people and I am very happy to be working with them! I (at least) enjoyed myself and I think our production manager Cat was pleased I managed to hold a conversation without being too awkward.
Like this photo of the cast attempting some star jumps together.
The film has cost a total of just under £300 so far, still inside our planned budget, with just two weeks until we start filming. I'd say that's fabtastic!
Let's hope this glorious weather holds for production!
On my "To Do" list that's as long as my arm, I forgot to mention casting, which is well underway now. We've got a pretty good idea of who we'd like to play a couple of our characters; I'm not saying more than that. Video auditions were a good choice because we're scraping at every last penny to get this production moving and additional trips down the motorway to audition in London near the set location are an unwelcome expense. I'd use the format again, for sure.
A lot and not much have happened at the same time since I last wrote. Risk assessment sheets are mocked up, insurance has been checked out (and I'm going with 'unnecessary expense' for the time being), the draft storyboard is almost finished, and the shot list is started. There are some piles of costumes forming. I've discussed on set catering and equipment hire with the necessary people. We've got a reliable AD now, and he's got sound, lighting, and editing guys he's talking to. I'm talking to a DoP - fingers crossed. But there's still so much to do and time is running away with us already. We've planned our shoot dates with a little leeway each side but apart from the nine days we've got available, everyone else is committed to something else on one date or another. Except me, so I'm carrying the weight of a lot of these necessities.
There might be some concept art to show off next week. The rest is classified for now.
That's it, anyway. Just a short update. Until next time!
I've spent the morning blocking the first 11 scenes of Snake in incomprehensible doodles onto a copy of the script (by morning, I mean 'since I woke up at 12', because jet lag from LA is biting at me) and I think the most profound understanding I've come to working on this project so far is just how much time and energy and planning goes into making video.
This is not, by a long shot, the most complex thing I've ever planned to make. Back in February the OxBlood team were working on a web series called Strange. This series was originally called 24 hours and took place in 24 scenes in under five minutes. By the time it had become it's second incarnation, People are Strange, it was a four episode series involving multiple retakes of exactly the same scene from the perspective of four characters, and totaled a potential forty minutes. Needless to say, Strange was ambitious. We still have a lot of footage, and I hope that we can put bits of it together into short comedy clips someday. Mel, our production manager, put a teaser together just for the hell of it:
It really captures the spirit of the idea, but not the story, and unfortunately I think that's my fault. My impatient shooting schedule demanded we have all four episodes filmed in just 36 hours. We all had commitments, and we were filming in an utterly destroyed version of our own home, strewn apart for the sake of set design. We couldn't use the fridge at all, lest we break continuity, nor wash up, and I couldn't even sleep in my own bed. The first day we began filming at 6am, and took our breaks systematically so filming never stopped even when principal team members were having lunch. We intended to carry on filming through the night, but had to stop at 2am, when everyone was almost in tears from exhaustion.
I read Digital Filmmaker magazine, which is a brand new British publication (only 6 issues!) and this month's copy has a section on micro-budget filmmaking, which is technically what we do. It states (page 28) that "Making a film is tough... You need to keep this in mind and make sure you schedule regular breaks... This isn't wasting time, it's giving you a better chance at keeping morale up and having a cast and crew who will still be up for working when it's late/wet/cold/snowing and all the rest of it."
If only we'd had this advice back when. They do say you learn from your mistakes.
For Strange, we had a fifty page script, four actors, myself and Mel. All the actors stood in as crew when they weren't on camera (three of them being OXB team members), which is a mistake I won't be making again, because I can see how emotionally draining this must be. We had a vague shooting schedule (scenes 10 - 20 between 6am and 2pm) and a storyboard of the first scene only, a laptop computer with sound recording software on it, and my trusty Canon 60D. That was it. Considering how limited that is, I think we did exceptionally well.
But this time, I'm not giving in to laziness, hence the hours of scene blocking. Seeing as we'll be working with more than just ourselves this time, I know I can't get away with making it up as I go along. Blocking, shot list, storyboard, costume management (for Strange we had them in a bag-for-life which we kept moving around the house), and an intensely detailed schedule of what we're shooting, when we're stopping to eat, and where everyone should be are an absolute must. I spoke to Cat, our art director, yesterday and asked her to draw up some costume concept designs so we have something to show the actors when we talk about their characters.
It is still micro-budget - we're already masters of using what we have and what we know to struggle through. Cat is a graphic designer who has studied everything from Fine Art to 3D Animation. Anthony is a musician who composes and remixes electronic music, and he does all our sound recording. Sasha is an actress, with a deep love for making costumes from scratch and an obsession with watching make-up tutorials on YouTube - no surprises what she does. Mel is a writer and video editor who loves taking notes and keeping track of time and details more than you loved your first pet. She can be loud and domineering and is really good at shouting down the phone. She's irreplaceable.
Me? Eh. I'm pretty sure I have some sort of mental disorder where I see everything in pictures. I open my mouth and fictional garbage comes out that the others have to shape into something that resembles a story we could actually film. I see the world much better through the rectangular confines of the lens on a camera or a cinema screen; it might be the only way I can comprehend it. I'm sure there are other cinematographers who would say the exact same thing, that any other creative headcase could have the same team behind them that I do and make just as beautiful images as I want to make, but OxBlood Films is a tight unit and I think what we have between us that makes working together so special is an innate trust and mutual vision. You can't buy that.
Back on topic. There is so much to do, it's hard to imagine this project coming together as planned. As soon as I'm back at OXB HQ, auditioning can begin, and once our cast has been finalized, dates can be set, and I have a huge "To Do by shooting" list that frightens the hell out of me:
Risk assessment
Contracts
Insurance
Shot list
Blocking
Storyboards
Mood boards
Concept art
Costumes
Props
Special effects
Hiring additional crew
On set catering
Arranging and agreeing transportation
Equipment hire/purchase
Read-throughs
Rehearsal
And I'm sure, many more I haven't thought of yet. Not to mention making sure everyone has time off work to film the damn thing. After shooting, there's editing and ADR and reshoots and arranging showing it and all that. I think that, by October, if it's completed, I'll be laid out on the floor feeling like I deserve all the awards in the world. Which I don't, obviously. People do this every day.
So I think the conclusion I've come to here, is that this is a very draining and intense process to go through with a team that you can count on one hand. And every bit of it is worth it. This career choice beats all and I wouldn't want to do anything else. Here's to hoping this all goes well, because this really is the first step to never having to do anything else, after all.
We've got a couple of casting call listings dotted around the internet. There's one on Mandy.com which can be found at here. This site should be free to apply to.
There's another at StarNow, which can be found at here. I don't know if everyone can apply for this because Sasha went through the process to see how easy it was and couldn't get as far as submitting a headshot. We've got some good applications on there, though. There was a bit of a mix up with StarNow shutting down our first listing. Apparently suggesting some nudity might be required and that there are scenes including sex and violence sounds too much like we're making a hardcore porno. Someone complained about it, painfully. StarNow were good about it, but all I could think of was just how many films show characters in underwear, and how many have tasteful sex scenes where you see nothing dirty. Why would someone assume? But hey, whatever makes them happy.
It's all sorted now. Plus, we have permission to use our location as long as there aren't too many strange people wandering around that we don't know very well. Which seems fair.
We're casting for the main characters at the moment, although it's more like taking a gander at who we might be able to get, because I have to wait to talk to the OxBlood team before I can start contacting any hopefuls. If you're an actor or actress who can play a character between 25 and 35, take a look. Who knows, maybe you'll be perfect for it.
Snake has been in pre-production for eight days. It has been an intense eight days! The idea of this project is to take it from conception to release in just three months; I am hoping to see Snake premiering by the end of October, just in time for Halloween. If everything goes the way I hope it will, the premiere will be 2pm at the Phoenix Cinema in London, on the 26th of October, with the after party at the Old White Lion across the road. If being the operative word.
This tight schedule has already caused issues; all of the principal OxBlood team are away at some point during these three months. Still, eight days isn't bad for taking a concept through scripting and drafting, choosing a location, taking preliminary location shots, and beginning the casting process. We've even got a bunch of new kit on its merry way.
I'm hoping to have auditions done within the next two weeks, then costume fitting, and finally arrange shooting around everyone's plans. I reckon the rest of the OXB team are going to have a fit when I explain my ambitious plans. But the director will have what the director wants!
