*Welcome! This is the third entry to a weekly series of upcoming posts written about our upcoming web series "Shadows" and different aspects involved in pre-production, production and post production, written by Hussain Al-Khalil*
This past Sunday was our first day or production. It had it high moments and some lows. Overall it was a decent start for us as a team. For some it was the first time we did something this big, including myself. I've only ever filmed short films but not a web series. I've kept my other projects to myself not feeling ready to show them to the world till now. You can call this my thesis film.
The main issue we ran into was time. On a no budget shoot like this time is most valuable. Issues with picking up actors made things hard. If we had a budget or even extra hands on set we'd have someone who's sole purpose was to pick them up and it'd saved a lot of time.
Overall there is much to look forward to. My team behind and in front of the camera has really made me happy and have stood by me through the stressful moments and smiled through the good. Our first day got some kinks out and the actors are really building synergy amongst each other as well as the crew.
We started editing and planning for the next episode. It's work and we run into some tough situations to work around. But a quote from one of my favorite directors Nicolas Winding Refn, "Money is not a creative obstacle, your mind is a creative obstacle." We are really testing that out. Keeping communication is key. We are basically a family now and to keep it together and working the best we must work together and alongside each other. We continue to shoot this weekend and look I will post another article next week.
Throughout the stress you have to take these things as tests for how bad you want it. Feel stressed and you want to quit? You didn't love it hard enough. Life will show you how much you really care for something you think you love to death. I played football and found out how far I'm willing to go to play it. Any dream you have you're gonna chase you're gonna be given tests. Just ask yourself one question: Would you rather put in hard work for something you truly love or work hard doing something else? Anything you want in life is gonna be hard, you gotta dig in and find out how bad you really want it.
If you are interested in helping out in any way or any questions feel free to contact us through email on our contact page and comment section.
Also, big thanks to Michael Hooks and Yasmine! Really helped us out getting our project going!
And now, thanks to Priese we have pictures from set.
And Ramadan Kareem!
