I’ve been thinking about scheduling, and how as an independent filmmaker who can’t pay people very much, if at all, scheduling can be one of those mountains that can seem unclimbable.
It’s pretty unreasonable to ask people to take two weeks off of work in order to make a movie that might not go anywhere. That’s not something that most people can really do, so another solution must be decided upon.
Christopher Nolan’s first feature Following was filmed over a number of weekends in small increments. This would work great if everyone is located in the same area, everyone has jobs in which their weekends are the same days, and the actors and locations agree to maintain their “looks” for a prolonged period of time.
A more extreme version of this structure would be David Lynch’s Eraserhead, filmed over a period of five-years. Jack Nance had to maintain his unique hairdo for the entire period of time. They filmed when they had the money, and halted production when they didn’t.
Slightly different would be Richard Linklater’s Boyhood. The film was shot over a twelve-year period, but rather than being told in a condensed period of time the story takes place over the twelve-year period. This makes the changes in the actors and locations okay.
The filmmaker Noam Kroll shot a film in 2023 in a number of small increments throughout the year. It was something like: three-days in March, three-days in June, four-days in September, and three-days in December. I think this is intresting on a number of levels.
One, you get to play with all four seasons. If you write a story that specifically takes place in different sections of the year, shooting in these little increments can work really well.
Two, it’s basically four separate three-day weekends. If you space them out enough, I think asking for time off from work in this fashion is fairly reasonable and much more doable — and perhaps far less exhausting — than one mega-production week.
Of course, by spacing out production so much you do run the risk of losing interest. In my experience, if a project takes too much of a lull its chances of continuing are significantly diminished.
So there are risks to prolonged production, but filmmaking is a risky business anyway.
I do find these unique production structures interesting, so I’ll be on the lookout for more. It could be fun to implement them as rules for your writing, as ways to influence stories.