And so it begins

It’s been a full week for the Wasteland team. We had three major victories over the weekend:

1. Wrapping our first video shoot, which consisted of two sketches
2. Dance rehearsal for next weekend’s shoot
3. Re-jiggering each of the 7 shows to fit a more modest production schedule

The third item is a bittersweet victory. We had, as of last week, multiple sketches in multiple locations being filmed on every day of every weekend in September, with the promise of still more to do in October.  This is in addition to our weekly rehearsals for the stage material.  As I wrote in a previous entry, I think this ambitious schedule was attainable—but it wasn’t ideal, especially as our cast is swept up in the tide of “major life events” that is always heralded by the coming of the fall.  In our eight-person writer/actor team, we’ve got two people getting married, two people recently engaged, and a person just married.  If I were to also list nonmarital conflicts, the list would merit its own post.  Instead, I can summarize the producers’ decision thusly: our cast needs to be focused, energized, and having fun more than we need to create 150 perfectly-shot comedy gems.

We lost a cast member and some good material, but the show rolls onward, gaining momentum.  This weekend’s shoot, which I can summarize thusly:

was a whole bundle of fun.  As we end the stressful task of writing, revising, and structuring our seven hours of material, the horizon is filled with fun shoots, fun rehearsals, and the more fun task of bringing our work to life (via more work).  I think our decision to cut some of our more excessively complicated material will pay off when we open in two months and the cast is alive enough to do the bits justice.

In related news, I recently had to end my full-time commitment to The Uncommonwealth, a sketch group formed in just January of this year.  The group had a lot of talented writers and performers involved, and we even pumped out a fair amount of material in our first six months.  Unfortunately, as the months flew by, many members of the group (myself included) found themselves spread too thin, and the demands of filming all but the simplest of sketches were too much for us.  We shat out, like, fifty scripts in the first two months, then got bogged down in the logistics of prioritizing and filming everybody’s work for the next six.  There’s some good stuff on TUC’s site, but I’m afraid that might be all she (we) wrote, pending a total recast.  No regrets, no hard feelings, always the option of restarting something in the future.  But for now, The Uncommonwealth‘s primary function in my life is a great learning experience, if not an outright cautionary tale.

The difficulty of managing—or committing to—an ambitious film team is not to be underestimated.  Especially if you are in a community of improvisors, who take for granted the immediate satisfaction and fast turnaround time of weekly shows, weekly bombs, weekly laughs. Film is, honestly, only 10% fun—but the payoffs are more substantial than the disposable, transient giggles in an improv show.  The Wasteland, mercifully, has an end date of December 14^th.  With a solid, clear goal of doing the show in Nov/Dec, our cast and directors and crew are more able to commit—and follow through on—some very demanding shooting schedules.  Much of the post-production work falls on the shoulders of the directors, and our one tech/fx wizard, since we don’t have dedicated editors.  With the helmers editing 24/7 and the cast rehearsing or shooting for 3-6 hours per week, it’s a damn good thing we have a definite open date.

It’s been a tumultuous month.  As this one perpetually-shifting project continues to eat my life, all the other little projects are falling by the wayside.  Uncommonwealth is done, I’m on hiatus from Rondo, my writing is begging to be touched, and I’m only doing one Mainstage show in the foreseeable future….

I just had this cute little metaphor about the coming of autumn coinciding with the falling-off of old commitments, like leaves off a tree or some bullshit.  I’ll be honest—I’m not in a very poetic mood, and I have miles to go before I sleep.