Projects, projects, projects

Before I get into my projects I am looking for some advice. I want to try to get a pool of local talent to shoot short films. Something that one weekend a month we get together and just have some fun. I was thinking about going through the local arts council, but I was looking for suggestions from others who are from small areas that are not LA. The village I live in in upstate New York is really small. I do have the possibility for college students, but since summer is coming up in a couple short weeks I will lose that pool for a while. I can try to get high schoolers, but I am worried about the whole parents signing off thing. In my last production we had one such person and that worked really well, but then again I work with her father. Holding an open audition is another thing. Also this whole thing has to be volunteer. I have no funds to pay actors. Any ideas on agreements that can be written up such that if something we shoot makes any money (fat chance of that, but you have to dream) everyone shares? Is that even allowed? I know there is guild minimums for things, but we aren’t guild. Heck, we aren’t even formed yet. I’m probably getting way ahead of myself. Anyway, any advice would be welcome.

As for the writing front I’m trying to figure out how to tweak my main project, Walking the Infinite. Most of it works, but I’m worried about my main characters arc. Before the arc was strong, but the character wasn’t someone you could root for. It wasn’t that he was bad, but he was very very passive. The movie was basically for him to learn about how to be more in control of his own life. It just seemed flat. I changed it around some and now he’s more like an average person, so he’s easier to identify with, which is good. The bad is there is less of an incentive for him to change in the movie. This is important since the movie is Groundhog Day esque. I introduced a different motivation for change, something more subtle, but I’m worried people won’t be able to see it.

Other than that I need to either start something new or dust off a different project from the past and fix it. Maybe today I’ll look through my old stuff and see which may be closest to being ready and hit it hard. I’ll let you know what I did on Monday.