Vessel Pre-Production Update! (Patreon)

We‘re getting into the thick of pre-production, finally! The movie is really starting to take shape. We live-streamed the page turn (production table read) last week for our Studio Execs, and for the rest of you, the update is: We have a GREAT crew. They really understand the vision of this movie, and they’re all going to improve the movie beyond even what we imagined while writing it. The resources that everyone has are pretty limited, but everyone is really bought in to making this the best possible version of the movie it can be, and they’re all so talented and hard-working! It’s really humbling.

We’re also in the thick of casting! We’re going out to some recognizable Hollywood-type actors, and also doing an entire casting process right here in Utah for our six main parts (2 of which are already cast, of course.) This is an incredibly exciting part of the process for me, even more than seeing the sets take shape. Watching people actually start to embody, and improve, the characters we’ve been writing for the last 18 months really brings the story to life in a way that’s hard to describe. Like, these people that have been figments of my imagination for years are suddenly flesh and bone and standing in front of me, and interacting with each other! Which also means we’re going to end up re-writing big chunks of dialog, and potentially slightly larger changes than that, now that we get to see who these characters actually are!

I’m right in the middle of shotlisting the entire movie. Which is going through every scene and figuring out every shot I need to tell the story the way I want. Then figuring out which ones I actually need to tell the story, then figuring out how much time we have to shoot the scene, so we can work out (with our 1st Assistant Director) what we actually can shoot when we get to set.

We’re also getting close to a working schedule for the movie, Studio Execs will get to see that full document, everyone else will get an update with a more complete version of this, our tentative schedule:

This week: Casting, budgeting, scheduling, financing.

Nov 1-7: Casting, Design meetings with Art Dept/Wardrobe/Hair&MakeUp, 1st camera tests, more financing.

Nov 8-14: Finalize Casting, Finalize financing (including state incentives,) start work on the house set. Fit in a Cinema Therapy shoot and film 12 episodes of our show somehow.

Nov 15-21: Full prep! Finalize travel arrangements for cast. Get the set camera-ready. Table-Read (probably on Zoom) with full cast. Finalize shooting schedule. 1,000 tiny details and questions answered.

Nov 22-29: Pick up all our rental gear. Get things moved up to the filming location in Ogden (about 70 miles away from my home in Provo.) Last minute panic. Then everybody takes 3 days (and the weekend) off for Thanksgiving!

Nov 30-Dec 18: Shoot The Vessel!!!

Dec 19-End of Time: Sleep.

We’re very close to a final budget for the movie. It’s come in a little higher than we had planned on, but nothing catastrophic. That being said, we’re still talking to investors to cover what we can’t from the crowdfunding campaign, so if any of you know any high-net-worth folks, or if you are high-net-worth folks who would be interested in investing in the movie (this would be an ownership stake in the film, with profit participation! Not a donation like on BackerKit) please DM Alan Seawright here on Patreon, and we can schedule a time to chat. Making movies is expensive, guys.