Director's Journal

A director's insight on the elements of filmmaking and his experiences on the set of One Hand Clapping.

Director’s Journal

Production Journal: Days 13 & 14

Production Journal: Days 13 & 14

Day 13 is the last full day at the Ward house with some great interaction at the breakfast table, car scenes and some night time tension to finish it off. Then Day 14 we move outdoors to a secluded location northwest of Austin which is completely covered with bluebonnets.

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Production Journal: Days 9 & 10

Production Journal: Days 9 & 10

I felt like doing something a little different today as we remember how the next two production days went. Since humor can help smooth things out a bit, I thought I’d shoot out some possible thought bubbles for the cast and crew in these pix. Have fun with it!

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Production Journal: Days 7 & 8

Production Journal: Days 7 & 8

The troops should be refreshed and ready to grind out this next week at a new location. We checked out several houses in the Lockhart area, but instead found a great one right in Hyde Park, a historic area of Austin. Turns out, Byron, a friend of ours and a fellow filmmaker, had the perfect place for our needs.

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Production Journal: Days 5 & 6

Production Journal: Days 5 & 6

Day Five Create a 1959 gas station, populate it with vehicles and people of that era, and then shoot it in a dramatically believable way - that’s the ticket. Oh yeah, that was our goal for the day. Could be a stretch for a low budget indie, but we were game for this...

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Production Journal: Days 3 & 4

Production Journal: Days 3 & 4

Sometimes ‘simplifying’ might mean compromising, which can happen on indie films. Day Three almost didn’t happen for a couple of reasons and Day Four had it’s share of challenges as well. Just normal days on an indie.

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Production Journal:  Days 1 & 2

Production Journal: Days 1 & 2

The day had finally arrived … the first day of production. Yes, this first day is always special, a real high you’d like to ride all the way through production. You can feel, sense, and even at times, see all the potential this film could be.

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Production Journal: Hope Springs Eternal

Production Journal: Hope Springs Eternal

When that day you thought would arrive many times before, and finally does … aahhh, the sweet taste of what the future could bring truly springs forth all the senses in their magnificent splendor. We were finally going to make a movie, a film, a piece of cinema.

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Production Nirvana

Production Nirvana

We did it! Yes, we really did do it!! More than twenty-five years ago I wrote the first draft of ONE HAND CLAPPING. Just last month we finally wrapped production on ONE HAND CLAPPING after a rigorous but inspiring 23-day shoot.

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Best Laid Plans

Best Laid Plans

The film industry, business, and creative world is very complicated and multi-layered in its planning, implementation, and exploitation. I have certainly seen it from many different angles in my long media life.

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What Does It Mean?

What Does It Mean?

So when going to this Monaco festival one does expect to win something, but not always sure what it is. In all fairness to I understand that the Monaco festival does get a quite a number of entries.

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