Filmmaking / Directing : Wearing different hats during production by Vital Butinar

I'd say don't beat yourself up about it. You made a movie!! That right there is an accomplishment and you didn't let the lack of crew deter you. If you missed things that are vital to the story, think about how you can get what you need. I'd say move forward - next time, make sure you've done as much prep as you can and have at least one person who can help keep track of the day to day shooting. As a director if you have a separate DP, go over all the shots needed in prep - then the DP can help making sure the coverage is all gotten. Even the cast can help. If those couple people were your hats too, then bravo. Prep as much as possible for the next one!

Thank you Xochi Blymyer! It's not that I'm beating myself up, I'm just reflecting for next time and at the same time you're right.

In fact I just finished watching the second rough cut yesterday evening and it's coming along great! Of course there's still a lot of work to be done, but we're not missing anything, the pacing is good, the acting is great, the arcs are great and everything works as a movie should. So full steam ahead with post.

I actually did a lot of prep and did have a DP, my partner and together we went through everything did the scrip breakdown, storyboard, created a shot list. Then I created schedules and organized everything.

I would have just like to have someone who would have helped me in the pre production so that I didn't have to do everything myself because I could have focused more on the things that I wanted to. But what can you do, right! Next time!

Sounds like it went really well and you now know the help you'd like for the next one. Congrats.

Xochi Blymyer yeah it went well. I actually wrote two blogs on the subject the first one on the pre-production and the second one on the production side.

https://www.stage32.com/blog/making-our-first-no-budget-feature-the-pure-vortex-journey-begins-part-1-4187

https://www.stage32.com/blog/making-our-first-no-budget-feature-the-pure...

—

It was the 9th century.

One evening, a massive comet (or perhaps a large asteroid) suddenly hurtled from the sky, striking a high mountain peak on Earth and coming to a halt. As a result of this collision, sunlight ceased to reach many kingdoms on Earth. Dense darkness enveloped everything. There was no distinction between day and night—only darkness prevailed everywhere.

But this comet brought not only darkness, but also terrifying and gigantic dragon-like creatures that descended upon the Earth. These monsters began to kill and devour all living beings, including humans. Panic and chaos spread across the land.

Terrified by the dragons' atrocities, all creatures on Earth fled in all directions to save their lives. Civilizations crumbled, and life teetered on the brink of annihilation.

At this time, King Bhoramdev and Queen Nagmati, the most powerful rulers of a large kingdom, were engaged in deep meditation inside a cave for many years, following the instructions of their family guru, Bhadra Dev Nag. The king and queen belonged to the Phani Nag dynasty, a lineage connected to ancient and mysterious powers.

King Bhoramdev possessed a miraculous philosopher's stone, while Queen Nagmati possessed a wondrous and divine Nagmani (serpent jewel), whose powers offered hope of stopping this impending destruction.

—

This great calamity struck while the king and queen were immersed in their yogic meditation.

The kingdom's family guru, Bhadra Dev Nag, was very wise.

After making all the necessary arrangements for the kingdom's safety, Guru Bhadra Dev Nag, along with his fellow sages, devised a plan to control the dragons and overcome this problem. With the help of healthy, unmarried young men and women from various friendly states, the king and queen are awakened from their yoga and meditation, so that their spiritual minds can be drawn towards physicality through sexual activity, enabling them to successfully operate King Bhoramdev's Paras Yantra and Queen Nagmati's Nagmani Yantra and liberate the land from the tyranny of the dragon.

To awaken the king and queen, who are immersed in yoga and meditation, five thousand young men and women engage in continuous sexual activity throughout the night. The king and queen also participate in this activity, causing their minds to shift from spirituality to physicality.

—

For six months, night after night, King Bhoramdev, along with Queen Nagmati and the young men and women, wages a fierce battle against the dragon. But the dragon, using the blue mark on its forehead, harnesses darkness as its power and becomes even more powerful.

When all the yantras fail, King Bhoramdev and Queen Nagmati request their family guru, Bhadra Dev Nag, to use the ultimate weapon to kill the dragon. Guru Bhadra Dev Nag grants permission and unleashes "Raksha" onto the battlefield.

Guru Bhadra Dev Nag, along with his associates, had created "Raksha" by combining the DNA of the extraterrestrial dragon with the DNA of other powerful creatures of Earth, keeping its creation a complete secret during the king and queen's awakening. Raksha is kept in a vast palace.

This vast palace is situated inside a massive reservoir filled with water and rises above the water when needed. It is built according to special architectural principles.

"Raksha" is so enormous that elephants only reach up to its knees.

King Bhoramdev rides on Raksha's back and, with the help of the Paras Mani Yantra and the Nagmani Yantra, incinerates the extraterrestrial dragon's blue mark, thus slaying the dragons. But then the dragons return from that comet.

The headmaster Bhadra Deva instructs Naga "Raksha" to use all his strength to push the comet away with his hands.

Then "Raksha" does as instructed, and the comet moves away from the Earth.

However, along with two or four large pieces of the comet, four dragons also fall onto the huge palace situated on the water, causing the foundation of the palace to break, and the four dragons are also buried under the debris of the massive palace.

Now the question is—

Will the palace be retrieved from under the water?

And will the dragons also manage to come out alive???

I haven’t directed myself Vital, but I just wanted to pop in to say congratulations on getting to the finish line. I think you can always look back and look at ways that you can improve, but you should be really proud of getting through Production! Can’t wait to see the finished product!

I am jumping into deep water here with an inquiry.

I have written and am producing an animated/live-action musical, The MicroCosmic Cartoon Show. It is in development with another producer who loves the project.

He has offered the director's position to several well seasoned directors who have expressed some interest in attaching to the project. However, no one has agreed to be the director, as yet. It is a mid-budget movie with deep spiritual overtones.

I thought, why not present it to the directors in Stage 32 to see if it sparks someone with the talent, experience, ability, and ambition to take on such a project?

Are you a director who can incorporate animation, original music, and a live action narrative woven together into a far-reaching story of inner transformation?

If you have a track record and experience in these modalities, listen and watch the promo-material I have on the website:

www.premaroseproductions.com

All inquiries will be vetted. Can you excel in this venture?

Hey Amanda Toney, thank you and yeah you're right. Well the good news is that I now already have a really good rough cut that I'm actually happy with and can finish even if I'm not able to cut more out of it. At the same time we were able to cut a really cool teaser that will be going out soon. I'm happy because I sat through the entire cut and even though my intention was to find problems and mistakes I realized that I was watching the movie, even though I know the story.

Why limit the human capacity and abilities anyhow Vital Butinar ! You connect more to the workforce when you demonstrate the knowledge of doing projects at various levels as an example, you are well aware and knowledgeable of the many "practicals".

It commands more respect and admiration!

Vital, first things first, congratulations, that was a feat! It's the first of many.

Have just been through the exact same scenario, couldn't relate more. Having to wear so many hats spreads you too thin, (it was the hardest production challenge I've ever faced, especially considering the schedule, shot a two hour movie in 9 days..) Swore I'd never do it again, LOL.(Now that I've recovered, I'd do it all over again.)

There were several places I fell down on the job. It's tough to keep your head in the directing game when you're worried about ordering food for everyone, and what costumes aren't working. And those are just a few of the necessary distractions. But it was a priceless education. Even though it wasn't the movie I would have made if I'd been able to focus on only directing, it fed my passion for storytelling. Like several people have said, we both did it, we made features. The next one for each of us will be that much better for it, so here's to the future of our storytelling! And again, bravo!!

Hey Susan Thornton congratulations to you too! That's great and you're right, I agree with you. But like I've said before that I must be crazy because I actually enjoyed every moment. I do think that I'd like to focus on directing more, but I had enough prep to know that I've got really good shots. Actually I just finished a really nice rough cut with all the scenes, that I'll be able to cut down to a really nice and good movie in the end. We even just cut a supper nice teaser yesterday. So I'd do it all again tomorrow if I had the chance and I hope I do get to do another feature soon.

Congrats Vital on getting your project to post! I did a very similar thing so I can completely relate to you and Susan. We had to actually go back to another state to film again because I grossly underestimated the time it would take to film. Wore a lot of hats and spread myself way too thin and even missed some things, but that is what we do in the independent film making world. From a producers standpoint, I had a meeting with my director and we made a list of everything we felt we did, the good, the bad and the ugly and try to learn from that for the next time. I am also sure all the "rules" will change for my next film especially since I am going from feature length documentary to fiction based post apocalyptic but its onward and forward with this and another project and what we do as creatives. I also relate with your discussion with Susan Thornton because I also enjoyed every moment and I get up every morning invigorated and excited. There is really nothing quite like filmmaking! I guess if I miss some things and wake up excited to start my day it's a trade off I am willing to take. Congrats again, hope this helps!

Your focus was split because it had to be to get the film made. The best part is that post-production is where you get to fully step back into the director's role and shape the story you captured. Be kind to yourself, focus on the great moments you did get, and build from there.I'd also love to rescommend this great blog about the post production process! https://www.stage32.com/blog/living-in-the-cloud-a-game-changer-for-post...

Congratulations Bill Booz! That's great that you were able to shoot your project, I hope reshooting some stuff wasn't too traumatic. I was fortunate because I was able to estimate the schedules quiet accurately and was very luck to be able to mostly stick to the timeline. Yeah doing a feature film is really exhilarating and I must say that I love it and I hope that I'm able to make many more in the future. But first I need to finish the one that I started and it's on a good track. It's funny because just two days ago a young lady, a friends daughter was visiting and asking my help with the post production of her first short as a school project. A couple of weeks ago she was asking my advice on how to shoot it. So I really believe that as great as cinema has been up until now, there's so many more stories to be shown.

Thank you Sam Rivera! I agree, like I said at the beginning of production I said that after we start I'd do everything to finish shooting and if that meant that I had to make food myself and do the lighting, record sound, shoot and whatever else to finish, I'll do that. Thankfully I had some really cool and great people around me that did a lot. And yeah post is great and I love that I'm able to do a lot of it myself and in conjunction with Leya my partner, who was also the cinematographer.

I've read that blog, thank you!

Congratulations Vital on completing your feature! It's a huge achievement, and the experience will be invaluable. I've followed your journey through your blogs and other posts and have learned a massive amount about film making from you. Nothing is lost or wasted... it will all make for a better experience next time! Congratulations again.

Thank you Ingrid Wren very much. I'll be glad to share even more.

This sounds incredibly familiar — and honestly, finishing the film at all while wearing that many hats is already a huge achievement.

From my experience, yes, spreading yourself thin can mean missing small moments on set — but I also think this is a micro-budget rite of passage. You learn very quickly where your attention actually needs to live next time.

The upside is that now, in post, you’ll probably see the film with sharper instincts because you know exactly what it cost to get each moment on screen. Be gentle with yourself — finishing is the real win.

Curious: now that you’re in post, are there places where you’re finding creative solutions that actually came from that chaos?

Thank you Charmane Wedderburn. Well I did spread myself a little thin and I do realize that I had missed a couple of things during production because of that, but thankfully nothing major because I was really, really well prepared. My DP and partner Leya kept telling me that I was crazy because I knew all the shots form the shotlist of the top of my head and knew the descriptions what needed to happen and even the dialogs without even peaking at the shotlist itself.

As for post I was pretty confident when we wrapped up that we had all the needed material to peace together a film, so now that a pretty good rough cut has been cut I'm happy. Of course we had to creatively do a couple of edits since mixed in with the grate professional cast we also had some non actors who played a roll and I wasn't expecting their performance to be fantastic, so with them we did a few more takes and a couple of backup shots. Which worked out great.

In fact we were just able to cut together a fantastic teaser which will be out in the next week or so, that I'm really happy with because it's a nice teaser and shows me what the look for some of the scenes could be in the grade. Can't wait, but it's still a long way away.

Cherish each creative moment!

Vital, that level of preparation really shows — knowing the shots, intent, and dialogue that deeply is no small thing. It sounds like you trusted your prep and your collaborators, which is half the battle on a micro-budget. Congrats on the teaser too — that first glimpse of the film’s DNA in post is such a powerful moment.