Independent Filmmaking Hurts Your Entire Body
“Make a movie, entirely on our own? Let’s do it! We’re professionals… we got this.”
Yeah, we had it, but it definitely had us way more. We shot a feature film in 11 and 1/2 days with a cast and crew totaling around 15 (but no more than 8 or 9 people on any given day). Our last day went for 30 hours straight, shooting in two different locations; the exterior of a warehouse and a frozen, cow-pie-peppered field in MurderNeck, UT. Every day was more exciting and exhausting than the one before, but that last one was a fever dream that I don’t think any of us will ever fully recover from.
ELEVEN and ONE-HALF DAYS! We started each day at 5am, shot until 7 or 8pm, made it back by 9 or 10, planned and reviewed for the next day until midnight, then went full Groundhog Day the next morning until principle photography was complete. Holy smokes did everyone hustle- including the actors.
Thankfully, we shot most of those days in the particularly beautiful American Fork Canyon, just above Provo, UT. The whole mountain (they called it a canyon but it seemed pretty mountain-y to me) was gorgeous and usually serene. With the exception of a few bikers, off-roaders, and one gargantuan septic removal truck, it was so quiet! I know what you’re thinking, “septic what-now?” Yes. We shot on National Forest Service property and there were fabulous toilets on-site. Those toilets needed to be cleaned and thankfully we were there for the process!
I won’t tell you WHICH scene, but you may be able to see tears in Aubrey’s & Gabe’s eyes while running on a trail or two because of the hellish stench that was EVERYWHERE. But that was only, like, 4 or 5 hours. No big deal.
The Forest Rangers were lovely, highly accommodating people who were SO supportive and positive during the scarce, few times they came around to check on us. They took note of our extreme efforts to be a GREEN PRODUCTION; packing out absolutely everything that we packed in each day, doing our best to not disturb the flora or fauna, using reusable and recyclable goods when eating the incredible food that was prepared by Ms. Hailey Nebeker each day, etc. Heck, we even made these super cool, recycled aluminum water bottles for each member of the cast and crew to use so plastics could be kept at a minimum- we did our mom’s proud.
In the city (Orem, Downtown Provo, and a few others), our days were slightly more frantic as we seemed to change locations every 2 hours, eventually forcing me and Gabe to split off with different team members to shoot and prep separately. The whole thing was a delightful blur and I’m not 100% sure it didn’t kill us.
With the help of a few, incredibly generous people, Gabe and I were able to make the movie that we had been talking about making, together, for more than 10 years.