FLM235 - Preparing to make Pulp Fiction

Yes, that's right, Pulp Fiction. These last couple of weeks we have been jumping straight into pre-production for an assignment where we 're-interpret' a famous scene, utilising the exact same script and shot lists as the original. The particular iconic scene we will be creating is none other than the 'Overdose' scene in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. A wonderful scene filled to the brim with intensity, life saving needles, domestic disputes, incredible comedic timing and John Travolta.

It was only a couple of weeks ago when the crew and myself actually came together to start planning this shoot. And in saying that I believe we've done a great job in getting our stuff together to be ready to shoot next week. We have already had multiple crew meetings in which we have had full attendance and planned all of our dates in advance.

I am the working Producer for this little project, although this is not my first time taking on this role. I was previously a Producer/Writer a couple trimesters ago for my short film, Quarantined. Where I was fortunate enough to run into many major problems that I then had to learn how to fix. Making my job on this shoot much easier.

Although, so far we have not run into many problems this trimester, there have only been two inconveniences thus far. The first of which is related to gear bookings, and the other related to actor availability.

After the first week of pre production, we knew what gear we would be using. So I booked it all for our planned dates straight away. Only to find out that SAE would be running a workshop utilising our gear right in the middle of our two shoot days. I overcame this by setting up and planning multiple bookings, to make sure we had everything we needed for the appropriate amount of time. However, now it seems some of this effort has gone to waste which leads on to our next obstacle.

After a 'semi successful' day at auditions we had cast all of our characters for the shoot. However after locking these said actors in for the shoot dates, our lead suddenly revealed he would not be available for our first shoot date.

Now if we had a bit more time I would think I'd normally just recast the part, but unfortunately things weren't that easy as only one out of the five actors auditioning for this particular role actually attended the audition (hence the 'semi successful'). The actor that did attend was talented and very enthusiastic, so I cancelled our first day of shooting and went straight to our backup day that we had planned beforehand. This meant production was pushed back a few days, but after an hour two of urgent texts and emails I was able to sort and confirm everything, putting us back in the fast lane and set to shoot on the 21st with a new backup on the 26th.

Which was extremely fortunate as it turns out that we have planned our production a full week and a half before we were actually meant to. As the date scheduled for our production bible approval was on the 27th. I'm glad we never realised this fact, as it might've meant that we all might have slacked off a bit rather than smashing everything out really fast and efficiently.

There are only a few more aspects of the bible that I need to complete, which includes a proper shooting schedule, call sheets and catering.

I have already prepared a template for the call sheets and filled out all the information needed, so all i'll need to do is integrate the shooting schedule into it. Which means my role is very much taken care of for the moment at this stage in the production. I don't feel like I am very behind at all, I am now mostly just planning contingencies.

However I am still in the process of organising catering as I find that to be one of the most annoying parts of production as I already have a hard time deciding on what to eat for myself, let alone other people. It looks like we will be just cooking ourselves and bringing in snacks etc throughout the day as our location is one of our crew member's own apartment.

We have also already undergone multiple camera tests so far leading up to our production dates. The first was actually done on location, mapping out the area and making sure it was good to go. The second was done in class a few days ago. I felt like the test shoot in class was especially beneficial, as we were able to get through every shot we needed to within class time.

Overall we finished the shoot within 5-6 hours including breaks, and although it wasn't to a very high standard, we still got through all the shots we needed to despite complications. This is great news for me as it means we should be able to finish this scene within one day, with lighting and blocking included. We will be building our set over the weekend and before the shoot day to reduce time spent worrying about set design.

At this stage I feel like the most time to be lost will be with make up and dealing with the syringe prosthetic, but we do have crew on board who have skills in these areas. The main takeaway from this whole test shooting experience was that with correct scheduling and proper direction, we should smash through our 19 shots with time to spare. But as we know with basically every production ever, things never go to plan.. We just need to try and predict and be ready for when that happens.

After this shoot is wrapped next week, I am not at all worried about our post-production process as we have a very experienced editor at our disposal and I have already outsourced audio recordists/mixers to help us out. There's also the fact we will have an extra week for post as we are shooting early.

All in all I think we are going to be prepared for our shoot next week and can produce a product worthy of winning whatever little competition we have going on in class with all the cuts. I believe we as a crew have been working really well so far and I'm already looking forward to the next project which will be a scene of our own choosing.

Written by

Aedan Bruitzman