The Making of 'A Princess Story'
Alright, it's about time I posted something new. Yes, Mad, I'm okay, thanks for the concern. As some of you may know, I just finished the semester. I've been finding it hard the last few weeks to find the energy to write something. I've seen a few good movies I will be posting about soon, but for some reason just couldn't muster the energy to form my thoughts into coherent sentences. So instead of discussing a movie I've seen, I will talk about one that I made.
The process began last September when we had to begin writing scripts and forming pre-production plans. I had an idea in my head of something I wanted to do for about a year. I even saw a scene in my head, so it was very easy to write the script. I wanted to do some type of commentary on how women, especially, think of marriage as 'the event where my life really begins'. I am divorced, so obviously that didn't go so well for me. I'm still friends with my ex, as we share two children, but it really was hell. Don't get me wrong, the first uh, two to four months were okay.....it was just the other five years that really sucked. One of the editors who watched my project described it as a cautionary tale, and a lot of my projects are. I'm the oldie in my class and I feel some sort of obligation to warn other women not to jump into marriage or put aside their hopes, dreams and careers because of a man, because if it doesn't work out you have to start all over from scratch. And if he's anything like my ex, he won't give two shits that you have nothing. I see too many great women making the same mistake that I did.
As for the fairy tale element, I came up with that because my daughter LOVES the Disney Princess 'crap' (I call it crap). I believe those old Disney cartoon fairy tales (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty) teach women to believe that life doesn't begin to get happy until they get Prince Charming to marry them. I also noticed that none of these princesses had any female friends. They were mostly left alone in the forest talking to their little bird and mousie friends. I believe these fairy tales also pit women against each other because the only other women in the princesses' lives are their step mothers who try to get rid of them because they are jealous of their beauty. Which is pretty screwed up, no? So it was basically killing two birds with one stone, warning women of the danger of depending on marriage to make them happy and pointing out the toxicity of those old fairy tale stories.
Script was done and I began casting. I had the woman I cast as Sleeping Beauty in my head as the idea was forming and asked Brittany to play her before I even began writing the script. She is naturally very comedic and Sleeping Beauty had all the best lines. I told her in rehearsal to be sort of like Sam from Sex and the City, only not SO Sam. I ended up casting another woman from one of my classes. I studied Jemma in cinematography class for a few weeks before I approached her to play Cinderella. She was hesitant at first, but I explained to her that she embodied the qualities I saw in Cinderella's character. She's naturally bubbly, naturally friendly and I saw Cinderella as the welcome wagon of the group. Prince Charming was next. As I was discussing my project with other people on a different shoot I was working on, about three people said the same thing..."Mike Selinger would be perfect for that part." However, Mike and I played telephone tag and couldn't coordinate a time to meet, so I cast him just based on what other people had told me and on his headshot. Snow White was more difficult. I couldn't find the right person until Lana, my cinematographer, sent me Jamie Stephenson's headshot and resume and said I think she might be right for Snow White. I just had to take one look at her headshot and that was it, I had my Snow White. Fortunately for me, she loved the script and made time in her busy schedule to shoot this. That just left Rapunzel. I saw her as Sleeping Beauty's sidekick and she was the counterpoint to Sleeping Beauty's anti-marriage stance (just because I wanted to show that I'm not 'anti-marriage', just anti-marriage with jerky, selfish men). It was kind of superficial actually. I had three brunettes and needed a blonde. I was in art class wondering where I was going to find Rapunzel and saw her sitting three rows in front me. I approached her and asked her if she wanted to act in a student film, and despite having no previous experience, she agreed to be in it. She had a great look and looked like a princess to me. Good thing she worked out.
I found some great locations in the city at the old University buildings, the Conservatory and Darke Hall and in the grand, palacial looking Hotel Saskatchewan. All my locations were very good at letting me shoot there, even despite having to shell out a hundred bucks for the meeting room at Hotel Saskatchewan (hey, at least I didn't have to dress the place or buy props). We had only two days of shooting. The first day went off without a hitch and we actually finished at the time I said we'd be done and that almost never happens. The women gave me a lot of gold that I didn't even end up using, as they improvised a ton of stuff not in the script for me. The second day was more problematic as there was a ton of traffic and three vending machines we were unable to unplug (we unplugged as many as we could). Also, I wasn't anticipating as many lighting set ups as we had, so we went about three hours past when I said we'd be done. Thank you Mike and Jamie for staying that long.
Lana and Chris were my crew, because I've worked with them on a project last year and they rock. Lana pointed out that it's better to have laid back, cool people you get along with on set as it makes it much easier. It was fun to shoot and I spent a lot of time editing. I'm not fan of last minute, marathon sessions, so I spent three months picking away at it, little by little. It helped getting feedback from other people in class about what to change, because other people can see your stuff with a fresh eye and without favoritism. We also had editors Heather Malek and Wanda Schmockel watch our stuff and give us feedback.
The screening went very well. People responded very well to it and I was surprised at the stuff that did get laughs and the stuff that didn't get laughs. So from the beginning of September to the end of April was a very long road. I feel weird that it's over, because I've lived with this project for so long. I'm so worn out now, but I'm already thinking about what I'm going to do next. One of my instructors once said that film is the most masochistic art form there is. I would have to heartily agree. But, there isn't anything else in the world I'd rather be doing.
More ramblings to come....promise!
The process began last September when we had to begin writing scripts and forming pre-production plans. I had an idea in my head of something I wanted to do for about a year. I even saw a scene in my head, so it was very easy to write the script. I wanted to do some type of commentary on how women, especially, think of marriage as 'the event where my life really begins'. I am divorced, so obviously that didn't go so well for me. I'm still friends with my ex, as we share two children, but it really was hell. Don't get me wrong, the first uh, two to four months were okay.....it was just the other five years that really sucked. One of the editors who watched my project described it as a cautionary tale, and a lot of my projects are. I'm the oldie in my class and I feel some sort of obligation to warn other women not to jump into marriage or put aside their hopes, dreams and careers because of a man, because if it doesn't work out you have to start all over from scratch. And if he's anything like my ex, he won't give two shits that you have nothing. I see too many great women making the same mistake that I did.
As for the fairy tale element, I came up with that because my daughter LOVES the Disney Princess 'crap' (I call it crap). I believe those old Disney cartoon fairy tales (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty) teach women to believe that life doesn't begin to get happy until they get Prince Charming to marry them. I also noticed that none of these princesses had any female friends. They were mostly left alone in the forest talking to their little bird and mousie friends. I believe these fairy tales also pit women against each other because the only other women in the princesses' lives are their step mothers who try to get rid of them because they are jealous of their beauty. Which is pretty screwed up, no? So it was basically killing two birds with one stone, warning women of the danger of depending on marriage to make them happy and pointing out the toxicity of those old fairy tale stories.
Script was done and I began casting. I had the woman I cast as Sleeping Beauty in my head as the idea was forming and asked Brittany to play her before I even began writing the script. She is naturally very comedic and Sleeping Beauty had all the best lines. I told her in rehearsal to be sort of like Sam from Sex and the City, only not SO Sam. I ended up casting another woman from one of my classes. I studied Jemma in cinematography class for a few weeks before I approached her to play Cinderella. She was hesitant at first, but I explained to her that she embodied the qualities I saw in Cinderella's character. She's naturally bubbly, naturally friendly and I saw Cinderella as the welcome wagon of the group. Prince Charming was next. As I was discussing my project with other people on a different shoot I was working on, about three people said the same thing..."Mike Selinger would be perfect for that part." However, Mike and I played telephone tag and couldn't coordinate a time to meet, so I cast him just based on what other people had told me and on his headshot. Snow White was more difficult. I couldn't find the right person until Lana, my cinematographer, sent me Jamie Stephenson's headshot and resume and said I think she might be right for Snow White. I just had to take one look at her headshot and that was it, I had my Snow White. Fortunately for me, she loved the script and made time in her busy schedule to shoot this. That just left Rapunzel. I saw her as Sleeping Beauty's sidekick and she was the counterpoint to Sleeping Beauty's anti-marriage stance (just because I wanted to show that I'm not 'anti-marriage', just anti-marriage with jerky, selfish men). It was kind of superficial actually. I had three brunettes and needed a blonde. I was in art class wondering where I was going to find Rapunzel and saw her sitting three rows in front me. I approached her and asked her if she wanted to act in a student film, and despite having no previous experience, she agreed to be in it. She had a great look and looked like a princess to me. Good thing she worked out.
I found some great locations in the city at the old University buildings, the Conservatory and Darke Hall and in the grand, palacial looking Hotel Saskatchewan. All my locations were very good at letting me shoot there, even despite having to shell out a hundred bucks for the meeting room at Hotel Saskatchewan (hey, at least I didn't have to dress the place or buy props). We had only two days of shooting. The first day went off without a hitch and we actually finished at the time I said we'd be done and that almost never happens. The women gave me a lot of gold that I didn't even end up using, as they improvised a ton of stuff not in the script for me. The second day was more problematic as there was a ton of traffic and three vending machines we were unable to unplug (we unplugged as many as we could). Also, I wasn't anticipating as many lighting set ups as we had, so we went about three hours past when I said we'd be done. Thank you Mike and Jamie for staying that long.
Lana and Chris were my crew, because I've worked with them on a project last year and they rock. Lana pointed out that it's better to have laid back, cool people you get along with on set as it makes it much easier. It was fun to shoot and I spent a lot of time editing. I'm not fan of last minute, marathon sessions, so I spent three months picking away at it, little by little. It helped getting feedback from other people in class about what to change, because other people can see your stuff with a fresh eye and without favoritism. We also had editors Heather Malek and Wanda Schmockel watch our stuff and give us feedback.
The screening went very well. People responded very well to it and I was surprised at the stuff that did get laughs and the stuff that didn't get laughs. So from the beginning of September to the end of April was a very long road. I feel weird that it's over, because I've lived with this project for so long. I'm so worn out now, but I'm already thinking about what I'm going to do next. One of my instructors once said that film is the most masochistic art form there is. I would have to heartily agree. But, there isn't anything else in the world I'd rather be doing.
More ramblings to come....promise!
Labels: making of, princess story
posted by trudyrox at 9:32 AM
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