A funny thing about making films, it’s all about location! I’ve come to realize that without a location it doesn’t matter how many actors, equipment, and crew members there are, if there’s no place to shoot, then there’s no shoot! Well, fortunately Angel knows people who know people, and today we went to visit a café owner to see if his café would be a good fit for our LittleLoca project. (The picture above is a test shot to see how the scene might be framed. I hope Angel doesn’t see this picture, she’ll kill me if she knows I used it).

The owner of the café was very cordial. He permitted us to move tables, shoot photos and he even turned the music off so we could get a gauge on the noise level in the café, which was still very noisy from exhaust fans, clanking dishes and people chatter. We talked with the owner for twenty minutes before he mentioned a fee of $200. Well, Angel and I admitted that the price was a bargain, considering that we were going to close down a section of the café for an afternoon. However, as Angel and I talked, we began to consider that we should bring in an audio professional to assist us so we could shoot the scene quickly, which brought the cost up to almost a $1,000! Again, it’s not much money if you have a budget. The trouble is we don’t have a budget.

When we began this project our plan was to show this film in segments on YouTube where production value is done on the cheap! (This by the way was in the works before the LonelyGirl15 revelation came out…just some trivia for the YouTubers). However, as we started to tell friends about our film with Stevie, the news traveled around until it reached the founders of “The Other Venice Film Festival”. As it turned out, one of the festival’s directors was familiar with LittleLoca and asked us to submit the film for the next festival. I believe my response was, “What? Wow, …what? Are you sure?” Then I fell to the floor having just realized that our small Internet film had just been called up to the big screen.

Needless to say the pressure was on. Angel and I wondered how we would shoot a film with no budget and little resources. Our answer was to shoot it guerilla style! Shoot it fast, free and creatively. In case you don’t know our meaning of the word “creatively”, it means beg, barrow and steal whatever is necessary to get the job done. If you read my first entry then you know that Angel and I are extremely experienced in being very “creative”. Well, after leaving the Café we realized that paying for a location and hiring an audio professional goes against shooting guerilla style, and after all, rules are rules. At this moment, we are rewriting the café scene to an outdoor scene that will cost us little to nothing, exactly within our budget.

I guess the real estate people are right. It’s all about location, location and location, and if the first location doesn’t work out there’s always another one just around the corner. I’ve also realized that having limited funds doesn’t mean that our project is undoable it just means we have to be more creative.

More about the story to come…stay tuned,
Paul m