Getting High
By Stephen Townsend
Part 1a | 1
b | 1c | 1d
Part 2a | 2b | 2c | 2d
Part 3a | 3b | 3c | 3d

In June of 2000 I began putting flyers up at local schools, coffeehouses and churches calling for both cast and crew. Initially I had planned to produce the film entirely by myself so I knew I had my work cut out for me. First I had to use my USC production skills to breakdown the script so out came the colored highlighters. Then I created the breakdown sheets followed by a preliminary shooting schedule. I couldn't afford Movie Magic or one of those cool programs so I created the schedule in Excel and this worked out fine. The most important crewmember for me to find was a good DP. I wanted someone who I got along with and shared a similar if not better vision for the look of the film than I had.

After coming to a lot of dead ends, mostly due to my budget, I received a demo reel from an AFI DP who seemed promising. I sent him an email that contained a link to an online version of my script and very shortly after I got an email back from him saying that he was interested. After a lengthy phone conversation (mostly to make sure he was on the up and up) we met for lunch at LaMonica's in Westwood. We were immediately on the same page with regards to how to approach the film but it wasn't until our next lunch that I discovered that Carlos Jackson was known to most MTV viewers as "Los" from the popular show Road Rules. The bottom line was that we were both big fans of Spike Lee and making things work with you've got.

Continue

Production photos - coming soon
Storyboards - coming soon
Wrap Party photos - coming soon

 

2001 Copyright D.M. P.