Credits:
Director: Laura Somers
Director
of Photography: Erik Forssell
Cindy: Heather Dudenbostel
Prince: Michael Lanham
Chauffeurs: Gustaf Saige, Mark Wenzel, Steven Bartlett
Why
this script/concept? How does it reflect your vision as a commercial director?
I
thought this was a really cute concept. I’d
love an opportunity to reject a gorgeous prince on my doorstep. Plus, I’ve always been a fan of the What
Happens in Vegas spots, and so I wanted one of my own. I also chose this spec because it had high
production value opportunity, but was something I could shoot in a day.
It
reflects my vision as a commercial director because I love to do offbeat, character
driven stories with humor. I love
working with actors probably the most out of the whole process, so I usually
choose scripts that are performance heavy. I am also always looking for opportunities to
tell women’s stories.
What
was the casting process like?
For
this spot I turned to a couple of casting websites: Now Casting and Breakdown
Express. I was looking for some very
specific types – “Cindy” needed to be pretty and wholesome and the “Prince”
needed to be a drop dead gorgeous model type.
I held auditions at Space Station Casting and found the Prince and chauffeurs
quickly. With Cindy I had to do two or
three rounds to find the right person.
How
did you search for/lock a location?
I
always try to find locations first before I schedule a shoot, that way it I’m
not under any pressure to lock something down and take just anything. If you get the right location, that can do a
lot of your art department work for you, and most importantly, up production
value. Since I didn’t have any
connections to an upper middle class American looking house in the suburbs, I
went through a lot of different avenues to find one: craigslist, location managers in all the
surrounding cities, until I finally found a location manager who works with
indie filmmakers – Tony Ware. He was
able to get me a nice looking house in the West Adams district. This is a really important neighborhood for low
budget projects, because these are old historical homes that transport you
outside of Los Angeles, much like Hancock Park does, but go for a lot less. Making specs on a shoestring budget is a must
for me since I’m trying to build a reel.
How
did you select your DP, crew?
Erik
Forssell is my favorite DP, and we’ve worked on numerous projects together
since 2005. His motto is to keep
everything simple. He knows how to make
something look gorgeous with minimal equipment – and that’s really helpful when
we’re trying to shoot these specs in a short amount of time.
Erik
teaches cinematography at a community college and he often brings along his
students to work on our no budget projects because it affords them an
opportunity to learn how a set works.
Erik’s an excellent, patient teacher and I’m always impressed with how
well his students take to their jobs.
How
did shooting go? Any challenges?
Oh
man, this was a shoot that really tested my sanity. It wasn’t so much the actual shooting day,
but more like the day before the shoot.
The script called for some luxury vehicles in the background – I had
reserved three vehicles a month in advance to pick up the day before the
shoot. When I called the car companies
to confirm, I learned that one of the vehicles had been wrecked by the previous
renter, and the car was undriveable. I
have to mention here that for some reason, Luxury Range Rovers are very popular
rentals, and White Luxury Range Rovers are nearly impossible to find. And of course this is the car that had been
wrecked, and to me, nothing else would do!
So Dan and I scrambled to find another one. He happened to have a friend
of a friend with one who loaned it to us for the day. Problem solved. An hour later, I got a call from the other
luxury vehicle rental company and they told me that the previous renter refused
to return the vehicle that I had rented, and there was nothing they could
do. So I was out another luxury suv,
again! After another gut wrenching
scramble, and with a lot of luck, I found a guy on craigslist with two matching
luxury SUVs who rented them to me, in my budget range (but not without a LOT of
haggling)!
Fortunately,
the shooting day itself went off without a hitch, and we all had a great time!
Tell
us about editing and finishing.
I
did about ten edit passes on this spec before Dan and I decided that the story
just wasn’t working. The beautiful thing
about editing is that you don’t have to throw in the towel when that happens,
you just find another way to move the pieces around. I passed it onto another editor to do a cut
for a fresh eye. We shared our cut with
our trusted friends and got some great feedback and were able to look at the
story in a different way, which brought us to the cut that exists now. I think I ended up doing about 20-30
different cuts, it took forever, and
was at times extremely frustrating, but sometimes you just have to keep
tinkering with a piece. There’s always a
way to make it work, provided you have a lot of patience and enough footage to
move around.
In retrospect,
is there anything you would have done differently?
I would have done a lot of things
differently, but that would have included a bigger budget, and sometimes you
just don’t have that luxury. So you have
to make do, if you want to make it at all.
I’m just glad we survived J
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