I’m not really sure what I expected from the screening but I think I had pictured 50 guys sitting on folding chairs and sharing a few pizzas. Instead, we had a sold out event with over 800 people in the audience.

First of all, it's not a premiere, it's a "first screening." More on that later.
 
We finally cut together a trailer and got it up on YouTube. Cutting a trailer for a movie like this seemed almost impossible. It's at times a slow, quiet, and subtle movie. It's funny, too, but there aren't any car chases, or explosions, or obvious and classic "trailer moments," to really sell the film.
 

What can you say about Doug Jones? He’s a hard one to capture in just a few words, but if I had to choose just one I think it would be “sincere.” I think it would be easy for an actor to come work with a few pros and a bunch of college kids and roll their eyes every time something went wrong because of it, but I don’t think I ever once caught Dougie in a bad mood. Instead, he was encouraging, thoughtful, and just damn fun to be around (as the embedded YouTube video can prove).

The script is always important to the success of a movie. That’s pretty dang obvious. But for a movie like ours, you could argue that the script becomes even more important because it has to open doors for you. If you’re going to coax actors to come to Muncie, Indiana and work for low pay, they’re going to want a great role in a great movie in return. Our screenwriter, David Hamilton, gave us just that kind of script.

Case Study – My Name is Jerry Day #5, July 19, 2008.

First of all, let’s take a look at the one-liner. Two company moves, a moving car, and 8 3/8 pages. If you look at the estimated time, you’ll see we expect to be SHOOTING for 10.5 hours, which leaves 90 minutes for set up, lunch, strike, and two company moves. Excellent.

Flannery O’Connor once said, “A good film crew is hard to find.” Or maybe it was a good man.

But the point is, you’re going to need a good crew if you want a good movie. Being a producer is being part friend, part general, part babysitter, part politician and part boss. You’re going to hear it when the crew is tired. You’re going to hear it when the food sucks. You’re going to hear it if there’s a personality conflict. You’re going to hear it when you hit overtime.

I can say without too much exaggeration that Erectile Dysfunction is partially responsible for the production of My Name is Jerry.

Ball State doesn’t yet have a film school. But they do have impressive digital production facilities and equipment, made possible by a 2005 Lilly Endowment grant from Eli Lilly and Company, the makers of Cialis. (The company is based in Indianapolis and the endowment is one of the world’s largest philanthropic foundations).

The American critic and writer Randolph Bourne once said “he who mounts a wild elephant goes where the wild elephant goes.”

I’m not really sure which independent film Bourne was working on in the late 1800’s, but they must have had a pretty low budget. 

We’re approaching New Year’s Eve, the perfect time for looking back. As I look back on 2008, I can’t help but wonder how I wound up producing a feature film, and how I survived it. This post is the first in a series of production diaries that will seek to answer both of those questions. In the first edition, I’ll give you a little background on our film, and hints/tips from a first time producer.