Bonny & Clyde Production Journal

Our second shoot, or first production shoot, had to be cancelled a few weeks back, because one of the cast members was sick. So it has been a long 3 weeks waiting for yesterday to happen, our first real shoot.

We shot the first two chapters and some additional footage to be used elsewhere throughout the series. Unfortunately however, we had thunder and rain for most of the day, meaning at the last minute we had to change the some of the locations to be indoors. Not only that, but we had to wait for the patches of dry, so the audio was clean from raindrops on the roof.

The one big thing we noticed during the shoot, was the difference between traditional directing, based on fixed characters with a fixed script, and directing for an improvised work. The result is the “director” appears to have less opinion, and is less inclined to “direct”. In many cases, where the director would have jumped in, we had to hold back in the name of improvisation. Let the characters do their thing, so long as it satisfies the chapter, character and series arcs.

Two of our characters are going away for a month, so we’ve changed the original plan of releasing in September and filming as we go, to producing half the series up front, and then start releasing episodes in early December.

The web site is coming along, you can check out the place holder at www.bonny-clyde.com. And we should have a trailer up in the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

One of the big problems with improvised dialogue and to a lesser extent improvised blocking, is the amount of footage you need to shoot in order to get a good pool of dialogue to work with while editing. And in order to actually use all the dialogue you want for a particular scene, you need quite a lot of both cutaways and dialogue shot from varying angles.

With B&C, we’ll be shooting each scene several times to get both a backup shot and a large amount of dialogue for us to work with. We’ll then reshoot each scene from various camera angles, as well as a large collection of cutaways, which we can use to really tighten the final dialogue in the final edit.

What we make up for by not having a script, we lose in time to shoot, but its worth it.

Yesterday was our first real shoot, another milestone.

We spent the first hour improvising back stories, so while we already had certain backstory elements that were necessary for the plot, we let the players make up the rest, but through improvisation. They got to actually act out their backstories, which should make them more memorable for them.

We went on to shoot some pre-story arc footage which we were hoping to use later (we’ll see), and finally the roughly 30 seconds of footage that we’d planned to shoot as part of the first episode.

Apart from a fairly scary situation where we had a car with the two front people in balaclavas and the two back people (including myself) with bags over our heads, and the driver deciding to drive into a service (gas) station as a joke, the day went fairly well.

Next weekend we shoot the rest of the first and second episodes, and a whole bunch of stock footage. That’s when the reality of the project should really kick in.

So our first rehearsal was a little shakey, with some people turning up late, and us having to change the structure of the rehearsal around the late arrivals. So it wasn’t exactly the way we would have wished it to happen.

However, it was fairly exciting to see our characters, our nearly one year old precious characters, finally come alive as human beings. Not only did they come alive, but a whole bunch of back story came with them, which was wonderful.

Unfortunately some of them are a little away from what we’d envisioned, but its only the first rehearsal, so you can’t ask for much more than real characters.

We put them into situations which would both teach them about their character traits, and to see what was believable and what was not. We let them invent a lot of their backstory, and it was interesting to see how they tended to invent close to their real life personas, or at least their wishes or thoughts. Scary. After a few corrections, we feel they’re mostly all on track.

In several instances, characters were giving away their background and experience in scenes, which were a lot different to what we’d guided them into, and it was only when we stopped them to change their backstory, that we found out that they’d actually been lying and exaggerating in character, which was awesome. And even more scary.

One of the interesting exercises we did, was to get all the characters in a circle, pretend they’re all strangers, and improvise a therapy session. Therapy or some other similar group environment, like AA, isn’t ideal, because they all share a personal issue or interest, so we decided that they should all go to an improvised traffic school, where none of them have a shared interested or personal problem. It worked well.

This weekend is the second rehearsal for the 3 characters in the first few chapters, and we’re going to shoot a couple of short scenes used in the series opening sequence. We have our characters, we now need to work on the relationship between two of the lead characters.

Several times writing this blog, I’ve given away plot details, and had to go back and delete what I’d written. Its a little annoying at times, because some of the insight we’ve had, can only be explained by giving away some of the character and story arcs. However, I’ve made a decision that if it comes down to the series or the production journal, the series wins. Maybe we’ll publish some of the spoilers when the first series is done. Ooops… did I say first series?

Its been three weeks or so since the last post, but that doesn’t mean we’re standing still. Our first cast rehearsal is this weekend, amongst a whole bunch of other unrelated shows that a lot of us are doing.

We’d originally planned two rehearsals, to flesh out the characters to a certain degree, and then the first shoot, but in a moment of overconfidence, we’re going for some one on one talk throughs with each cast member, then one and a half rehearsals and straight into the shoot.

In the past few weeks, we’ve been scouting for locations and props, as well as tuning the series arc some more, particularly the character arcs, what the characters start and end with, what their journey is, what they learn, what their flaws are.

So, first rehearsal in 3 days, another rehearsal and the first shoot in 10 days. Exciting.

We’ve also all but decided to produce at least 4 episodes before release, so we have some lead time once the series is up and running. We still want to incorporate viewer feedback into the character and story arcs, so we can’t get too far ahead, but enough to be safe in case we have shooting issues.

We’ve started locking in rehearsal and shooting dates for the coming month.

While the characters are mostly written, we do want the actors to tune their characters themselves to a certain degree, but because there’s no script, there’s no need for script rehearsal time. This leaves us with just a couple of rehearsal sessions to jam out what’s left of the characters, and then straight into shooting in mid-August.

We’re in a bit of strange place at the moment, having shot some great footage at the audition, and now waiting until the first shooting day to see how it will eventually look. We have our cast, our story arc, our characters and episode narratives, or what we’re now calling Chapters, to distinguish them from the smaller episodes released on the web, and we’re now just scouting for locations, props and costume.

One of the big problems we’re going to have, which you don’t have in a traditionally scripted production, are lots of continuity issues, and we’re currently working on ways to address this, which I’ll talk about here soon.

As it turned out, we had pretty much a complete cast at the auditions, with several less interested people having other commitments, which made the selection process easier. We’ve now selected our main cast. In fact we had 6 players turn up, so we’ve decided to write in an extra major role so that all six are cast.

When we originally planned the auditions, the idea was not to give away the characters or the plot, and while this probably seems strange not to tell them what they’re auditioning for, we figured it would make them more open to improvise. The night before the auditions, we changed our minds, and decided to give them a full briefing on the story arc, the characters and their relationships. Whether it would have changed things for the better having not told them, we don’t know, but there was a down side to coming clean.

We came up with several scenarios which would not only jam the characters, but more importantly their relationships. These scenarios had little to do with the story arc, but would be fairly typical situations that they’d find themselves in. e.g. running late getting to the airport, and having to pack the car with bags which won’t fit; changing the wheel on a car they’re not familiar with; an interview situation about a fictional book project. Unfortunately in several cases, the players latched onto snippets of information we’d given about the main story arc, and tried to work those character traits and plot points into the improvised scenes, which caused two problems: we weren’t seeing improvisation of characters and relationships, we were seeing them tell and justify a story; and they had embellished in their own minds certain story arc plot points, to a degree that they were basing their improvised characters on traits that were actually wrong.

In the end however, it was a simple matter of tagging in and out players in various roles, until we got a good idea of who worked with who, and who could best take on the character traits we were after.

Although we forgot to mention it, we were very wary of gagging, with a lot of them having short form/Theatresports backgrounds. However perhaps it was the fact that they were outside, in front of a camera, or handling real (not mimed) objects, that there was none throughout the whole session. It was very encouraging and refreshing, because we were afraid it may be a problem for some of them.

The two hour session went like this:

1. Introduction to the auditions, and the schedule for the session.
2. Overview of the state of Internet video, citizen media and guerrilla filmmaking.
3. All player warm up for 15 minutes in the local park, including physical, vocal and group games.
4. Improvised scenes in the street and in the park, with tagging in and out of players in the various roles we’d already decided each was auditioning for. We were concerned that a simple situation may not be enough for them to work with, so we wrote some back story and tasks for them to achieve, just in case. In the end, all we needed was a simple goal for each scene, and to sit back and watch the fun.
5. Closing remarks, including casting process and when to expect a follow up call.

One of the many things we were worried about, was people perhaps not being able to improvise in public. All of them were used to stage performance, but this was new for a lot of them. Fortunately the presence of a camera automatically made them feel comfortable. A useful tip.

All in all, it was a very successful two hours, and we feel we now have a good strong cast for the series.

Next steps are finishing the episode narratives with the new cast in mind, and scheduling the character rehearsals.

With the auditions coming up next Sunday, we spent much of the weekend reviewing the series story arc and individual episodes, double checking for hero’s journey plot points, comedic rising action/risk/tension and character variation and compatability. We also wrote a lot of the character backstories, which won’t be used in the series, but the actors will use to tune their characters.

This gave us a more detailed description of the character and improvisational requirements, and allowed us to put together a final audition running order. It also meant we could remove some of the actors, as some of them are now inappropriate for certain roles. It has also meant we can expand the list of improvisors, to some who we’d not previously considered for roles.

Instead of auditioning the actual final characters, we’ve decided to use a series of improvised scenes which highlight certain relationships between characters and the actors’ improvisational skills. This way we can audition a group of actors at the same time, without giving too much series detail, and thus an advantage, to the first actors to get up and audition. We’re also locked into a group audition, because we don’t actually have a script which individuals may read for us on their own.

We finally set an audition date, 9th July 2006.

I also took a look at Neutrino, an improv group who perform a Harold style improv show, but shoot their improvised scenes to video out in the street, edit in camera, and rush the footage back to the live theatre audience for each beat. A full show of improvised scenes on video in real time. They’ve also done a lot of work on improvised camera technique and blocking.

In the last week we’ve been filling out more of the episode narratives, but going has slowed due to not having cast the major roles yet. Unlike traditional casting to fit a role, we’re picking a cast which works together best, and slightly adapting the characters to suit their improvisation strengths, which we already know pretty well from performing with them for several years.

We’ve been planning the audition process, which has been delayed due to other show rehearsals and work commitments, but we’re assuming at this point the end of June to audition and select the main cast.

The audition will include improvising several of the key scenes in the series, but with alternative narratives so the actors don’t really know what the series is about. This will hopefully keep it fresh when improvised in front of the camera. I know some improvised projects have jammed characters and story lines, and then taken those to the shoot, but we want it to be created spontaneously when the camera is rolling, so once we have the cast, we’ll jam the characters and relationships, but only introduce the scene narratives on the day of the shoot. This is what these guys do best, improvise from nothing, with no going back.