JUMP Supports Local Indie Filmmakers
A testimonial by Brady Love:
There’s nothing more exciting for a young filmmaker than making your first short film.
I'm not talking about the kind of short film that you shoot on your iphone with a couple of friends, cut it together and call it a day. I'm talking about big projects, real productions with full large crews. Over at Boise State University a wonderful program called the Short Film Lab (SFL) Helps this dream happen for a select few students each year. BSU goes through a whole year-long process effectively spread across 4 semesters where 3 scripts are written and then produced by students at the university. This year I was one of the lucky individuals who was able to write, pitch, and fight for my story to be selected. All that was a long stressful process but going into detail on that isn't why I'm writing today. I'm writing this post about JUMP because they were one of if not the biggest savior of the film.
The title of the movie is Who’s Gonna Save Steve? And once we got into preproduction on the movie (~ about 4 months in) we had a limited amount of time to make sure everything was set and ready to go. Despite my crew being all the people I've become close with over my time in college, and despite them literally being the most talented filmmakers I know, we had a lot of problems to solve. Touch ups on the script, casting, costumes, etc… But the hardest part about making a film in Boise in my opinion, is getting locations. Since the state of Idaho doesn't exactly have a film industry set-up locally, it's incredibly hard to get the proper paperwork or assistance needed to get Locations (among other things) “Legally”. So about two months out from our shooting dates in late May a sense of worry began to seep in for me and the crew. For the film we needed a park and a parking garage for a couple scenes. In the city of boise (because there’s no film industry) when you ask the local parking garages if you can use them, you will be politely rejected, it has nothing to do with drama or dislike of filmmaking, it’s simply because Boise doesn't know what to say to questions like that quite yet. Despite filmmaking being around for over a hundred years and widely popular globally, it’s still in its infancy for Boise. People don't know how to work with film crews yet and vice versa, but that's very close to changing because the local Filmmaking community has gotten so massive over just the last two years there’s no wonder why a lot of films are being made here regardless. I digress about Idaho and the slow adaptation of filmmaking in the Boise area. Because despite those hurdles JUMP came in to save us.
There was a worrisome morning for us, all of the parks and parking garages were refusing to respond to our requests, I learned some of that was due to BSU having a really strange email system, but eventually me and my crew had to put our heads together and come up with a place that could host the parking garage and park scenes. And then someone in the meeting said the words “what about JUMP?” It took me a second to process but I realized quickly JUMP had everything we were looking for. Not only does JUMP have a parking garage and a park area on the first floor, it also is simply an iconic Building to the Boise skyline and the idea of shooting there would play into themes we have in the film that “Boise is a character.” So that day I emailed JUMP and got a quick reply back from the wonderful Paul Johnson. Paul let me know he is heavily involved with the Film side of JUMP and helps run the Dreamweaver Collective. I had no idea JUMP was this invested in filmmaking until then; it was almost like a collaboration waiting to happen. After having a few pleasant meetings with Paul and the everyone at JUMP, we found a day that worked for us to shoot our scenes, all out of genuine care from JUMP.
Since this post is for JUMP’s blog afterall I feel like it would be fitting to show off the things we were working on that day, and how we were able to make the place a real set.
We all arrived around 9:00 AM from what I remember, and it happened to be our first day of shooting. If you don't know much about a shooting day for a film or television show in the US, all you have to know is we usually work 12-14 hour days. Barbaric I know, but that’s just what ends up being the most efficient for us. Our wrap time for that day was at about 9:00 PM and we had to be done at that time because if it got too dark, our last scene wouldn't make any sense continuity wise. The first scene of the day was a shot of the main character Steve as he looks over the city. He’s supposed to be a local superhero for Boise but there’s no powers in the real world, and the help people need is often different than he expects, sorta inspired by the rain city superhero movement in Seattle if you’re familiar. Here’s a picture of the team setting up for that first shot.
I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture but one of the most stressful parts of any shoot is getting the first shot done. There’s something so intimidating about that first one, I think it boils down to the belief that we have spent nine months in pre-production, and if anything is going to fail, it’s now. If the shoot is going to get shut down it’s often before the first shot, and finally you don't really know if any of the movie will turn out until you get that first shot. We got it though and It ended up being a great start to the day.
After this short scene we moved down to the JUMP courtyard for the park scene. Without spoiling too much the titular character Steve gets harassed by some punks because he simply is dressed ridiculous. This part was somewhat challenging because the heat of the day was immense and we had a lot of equipment to stage in this area. In this picture you can see we have some dolly tracks for a walking shot.
And then in this next picture you can see how the scene has moved to a stairwell in JUMP with the whole crew. I wanna add, for people who don't know, it takes about 20 minutes to set up a shot, and then extra time to get a couple takes of said shot. On days like this we often only have 25 minutes to get and set-up, and on a scheduled day where we have some 20+ shots you have to move quickly yet precisely to avoid mistakes.
Finally I wanna share the scene we grabbed at the tippy top of JUMP’s parking garage. This scene is important for a few reasons, firstly it's the scene I poured my heart into as a writer, it says a lot in the context of the film and ends things where I want them to be. Secondly, since it’s that important to the story it is that important to the crew. Everyone on set wants to be doing their best work for this scene, that means; the Director of Photography, camera team, sound team, gaffers, grips, and everyone else who is just as equally important, were absolutely locked in for this scene. And to put a little more pressure on us my Director of Photography, the incredibly talented Mason Lykken pitched the idea we should shoot at golden hour (looks stunning on camera essentially and the lighting is all natural), and this was something that would be challenging for us, because golden hour really only lasts for under an hour and we had some 4+ shots to still get. We ran into a hiccup for the first 30 minutes as well, the setup we wanted to use looked off in that space and time so we put our heads together and thunk. After a moment we realized a setup that would work and we started doing the scene. It’s nerve wracking as the director in a moment like this because almost all the work you do on set is work with actors, you don't really “boss people around” it’s a common misconception that comes with the saying “director gets final say” for the most part I spent 9 months sharing my vision so I didn't need to do any of that on set, people just already knew where to be and what to do. But I digress, this stuff is nerve wracking for me because if an actor has a performance I don't like or is messing up their lines, it's my role on set to solve those problems. In a case like this I was worried we would run into a slip-up because everyone was nervous, but the two lead actors in the movie tackled the material with a sense of grace that was simply inhuman. Amazing work. Here’s a picture of our setup on that last scene.
I want to wrap this up with some nice words. Despite this post being on JUMP’s own site I can assure you nobody from JUMP asked me to say such nice things, just to write a blog about the experience. Their kindness and collaboration warmed my heart so much I can't help but give it back the only way I can, so thank you. If anyone is interested in film in the Boise area there’s also a few things I wanna leave you with. The Idaho filmmakers Facebook has a lot of options for film work if you check it every now and then. If you have a movie you want to make, let people know there, because they will help you. A lot of the industry is just doing something, you have to stop waiting. IFS, Dreamweaver Collective, and BSU film are the 3 places to go if you’re very serious about filmmaking. Dreamweaver especially makes a ton of films all year, at industry standard quality. If we stay creative and stay together as a community we might even be able to get a local film incentive for the state going, meaning we can make bigger and better things all in this area.
