Though it is tempting when you have a project idea to get it out there as soon as possible, pre-production can be an important and trying period in the development of your project. Writer/Producer/Actress and Philanthropist Alexis Fedor took her time developing her upcoming online show, Gray Matters, and learned some big lessons along the way about staying within her budget, keeping her integrity and maintaining her sanity.
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I learned a HUGE lesson during pre-production for my web series Gray Matters, which I hope to carry with me for all future productions I either create or am hired to work on. It was a simple, yet unbelievably powerful lesson that changed the entire production from chaotic to nearly ideal. That lesson was LISTEN TO MY GUT!
I spent seven months developing the idea for my series, which is about a woman with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder who has a fear of germs and color and can only wear gray. I had wanted to develop this character as an actor for a long time, and had thought long and hard about who she was. Her whole world is gray, and driven by the colors she sees around her, which are skewed depending on her mental state. It is a very visually-driven series, so I wanted to find a great director and DP who saw the direction I was moving in and could add to that vision. I met a great female director in May who saw my vision and was excited to pursue it. She knew an amazing DP, and the two of them were excited to pursue this project for its artistic possibilities. She then cast some great actors who I admired and was excited to work with. I thought I was in heaven…
Until pre-production began. My budget for the first four episodes was $3,000.00. In putting together the shot list the director began to create extremely complicated shots that would no doubt look incredible if done right, but were way outside a $3,000.00 range. She started asking if I had more money, and I kept saying no. She kept pushing for me to find more money telling me the episodes deserved it, and she deserved it because of all the time she was putting into making sure they would look great. There was miscommunication about who was discussing dates with the DP, and it began to feel like my project was being manhandled by these women who were taking liberties that there was no room for. I kept telling myself to just get through this, because they were going to help make my series a reality.
Three weeks before we were scheduled to shoot, the director and DP asked me to meet them at a coffee shop. They handed me a spreadsheet that stated a new budget for the series based on their calculations. They wanted me to sign a contract saying that they would shoot the first episode for free, but that it would cost me $1,200.00 (nearly half of my entire budget), and that every episode after that would cost $10,000.00 each, because they would only work with crew members they hired and they needed to get paid their regular rates. The contract stated that if I wanted to go with another production team after the first episode I would have to buy them out for $7,000.00 for their work on the first episode.
I said I’d think about it overnight. I walked away. I tried to think of ways I could still make it work. My stomach was upset. So I did the only thing I knew could make me feel better- I threw a tea party for my girlfriends. We talked about our current projects over tea and cupcakes and I told them my story at hand. I immediately saw in their faces my own decision being reflected back at me. That’s when Kellie said, “the bottom line is that they’re taking away your project. And it’s yours.” The next day I wrote the director and said I would not be moving forward with them. And I felt such and incredible, powerful relief that I believe only comes from taking ownership over what the gut knows is right for us.
I waited in limbo. I wasn’t sure where I would go from there, but I knew I made the right decision and that a better situation would present itself sooner or later. Suffice it to say that within three weeks I had a new director who was just as passionate about my story, and together we found an incredible DP who offered to shoot the first four episodes for free on his own Red camera. I then found a small crew from an NYU connection, and last week we spent five days shooting those four episodes, all for barely over $3,000.00.
Pre-production was a pleasure, a delight, in fact, in working with this team who was organized, focused and professional. I realized that was what I was looking for from the start. And that was exactly what I got, once I listened to my gut.
ALEXIS FEDOR
WRITER/PRODUCER/ACTRESS, GRAY MATTERS
Alexis also applied this lesson to her philanthropic website, Love and Water Designs, an online design contest community where artists compete weekly to see their design on a charity’s tee shirt. The site makes its official launch October 1st. However, over the past year, Alexis has been developing a community through her Love and Water International blog by profiling artists from painters to filmmakers to poets. Click here for Alexis’s popular blog.
