By the time I started planning the pre-production process, I had some book knowledge about making a short film. I learned two most critical things to make a good film: good acting and good audio. Fortunately, I had a cinematographer, Sambaran Chatterjee, who I met through a local filmmaker and he was interested and willing to be on my team. From his connection with high recommendation, I was introduced to Nicholas Decker, the sound mixer. When I emailed him to introduce my project to him, he was familiar with the Japanese martial art, kendo, so he was somewhat interested. He was busy and was not easy to get a hold of at first. But, I finally talked to him on the phone. He told me he had worked with many indie filmmakers as a non-paid crew member to help out, but he couldn’t commit to scheduling shooting with another low budget film like mine because he would not compromise paid jobs for a free job. Very understandable. I had committed to paying all actors and crew members, though it wouldn’t be very much. But, still, I could not dare to ask actors and collaborators to work for me for free. At the end of our conversation, I thought I managed to convince him to be on the team. However, I could tell that Nick still had some doubt. He said to me, “Well, that’s a bold move [for someone like you who had no experience in filmmaking. Do you really know what you are doing?].” Yeah, he was darn right. But, at the same time, I didn’t have enough time left or money to go to a film school.
This very beginning of my pre-production phase reminds me of when I was getting ready to leave my home country, Japan, and move to America. Back then, the easiest way to move to the US was to get a student visa and go to college. I attended a free presentation by a so-called study-abroad expert lady. She spent several years in the US and completed her education. She said, “when you go to college for a degree in America, you have to have at least $50,000 in your bank account even before you leave. Otherwise, forget it, you will never be successful.” I was twenty seven years old and considered “an old woman who gave up on finding a husband.” This was in the 90’s and that’s how it was in Japan. I barely had $10,000 in my bank account that I saved from working for my parents’ small print shop, living in their house, and eating most meals at home for a few years. $50,000? By the time I’d have saved that much money, I’d be even a super old woman! My contrary personality, as my mother always put it, came out. I decided to take off with just that $10,000 and see how far I could go. I left home just like that. Once I arrived in the middle of the Arizona desert to attend a small community college, I did everything to complete a nursing school. I worked in the college cafeteria (for five dollars an hour! But they gave me leftovers), I did housesitting, babysitting, and dogsitting for people, and anything I could do to make money for school tuition. Once I was in the nursing school, I worked as a nursing assistant in a nursing home and worked for a few elderly people privately. I even went to the college’s administration office and asked them to make an exception for me to apply and receive a small grant (I was on a student visa, so I was not qualified for any of their student funds). And, I did receive a few hundred dollars and was also able to make payments for the last semester’s tuition. Perseverance won! By the way, I also had to study hard to pass all the tests to graduate before taking the state board licensing test and I did.
Okay, I digressed.
So, now I had the DP and audio mixer. Before I posted my project announcement, I had to have a plan for funding. It seemed that there was only one option for me; crowdfunding. Learning how to proceed with a crowdfunding campaign took me a good amount of time. Previously, I had seen GoFundMe where a few of my friends posted their campaign more for medical expense needs. They wrote their story, situation, and what they needed and people would donate. That’s pretty much all of my knowledge about crowdfunding and I thought my case would be similar. Seed&Spark was nothing like that. It was serious work. It was similar to writing a grant, but more intense in an artistic sense.
The campaign launching date was set (in my mind), so I finally posted my announcement to a few local filmmakers’ networking social media sites. I received good responses from interested creators and actors. Once we formed a good team and casting, and still the crowdfunding campaign going, most of my tasks were as a producer and I had very little time to prepare for directing. I was lucky to have found Astra who helped me a lot as an assistant producer/assistant director with pre-production and production phases.
The beginning went well. In fact, it went so well for the first-timer and things started happening fast, so I had no excuse to change my mind and quit at that point. I gave myself enough time to prepare for the shoot, four months. And I’m glad I did.
The second announcement and casting call flyer.
And I found Sailor!
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🥳