I set the dates for shooting for May 14 - 19 and we booked a location in Slane, just outside of Drogheda, a great location! Perfect. Just what I was hoping for and access all areas, which is even better. Now it seems those dates wont work for some people involved. So it's a case of delaying or recasting. Neither of which I want to do.
There are pros and cons to delaying. Pros: more time to find money, more time on the script, more time to rehearse. Cons: I might lose other people, DOP included, I might lose certain big favours and I might even lose the chance to shoot it here entirely!
Every time I think I'm there, something happens to knock me back down. I do believe the film will come together and we will shoot... but when keeps getting called into question, and indeed - where?
A friend and colleague recently suggested shooting in the states. It's a possibility I suppose, a last resort if everything here falls through. I have as many, if not more, friends and film contacts there as I do here. It's an option. One I may end up exploring if this keeps getting delayed.
On Monday I will know more, I have several meetings all day that may determine my final decision. They will involve funding possibilities and availability of all involved. So we may still be shooting in May, we may push it to September, we may say bye bye Ireland, hello LA.
What's so hard is that this is a no-budget film, so everyone is generously working for free. But that also means anything that pays takes precedence. It was stated at the start, by everyone involved, so it's not unexpected... just, annoying! I wish I could make it a paying gig, pay everyone there rate and just get on with it, shoot it and get it out there. Maybe until I do make it a paying gig it will remain a dangling carrot, I don't know.
I hope someday to get out of the indies. Just because I'd like the get paid! And I'd like to pay people. It's not that I don't think people are worth it, of course I do! It's one part of it I hate the most, but I also believe the work should be allowed exist. I believe scripts call out to be made. They arrive, as a twinkle in their father's eye and we must then carry them to birth and do the best job we can as parents. And sometimes parents aren't rich. Sometimes they're on the dole and just doing the best they can!
It's trying at the best of times. There is a lot of time spent wondering if any of this is truly worth it. I guess I think it is, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it, or maybe I'm doing because I don't know what else to do?! I don't know anymore. I just keeping moving forward, head down, one foot in front of the other in the hope that one day I'll look up and realise I've arrived. Until that day I have to keep begging and hoping and sucking it up.
So Monday! I will know more then. I will have answers and a direction of one sort or another.
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