Roughhouse Rock Short Film

Dominic Vergara, Jack Weidner and I decided to make a short film together. Jack had written a script about a band manager being in charge of a really annoying group of people, so we decided to make our film based on that. Roughhouse Rock is the product.

Pre-Production

We started with revising Jack's script. I headed that operation, and operation it was as I practically rewrote everything past Marc waking up. 

We wrote some story boards so we had a good idea for the beginning shot of Marc tossing and turning in bed before waking up to Kacey's call. Except we scrapped that and put in AFTER Kacey's call. I think it turned out better, honestly.

We got our actors, script and costuming the day after, as well as our locations, so we were ready to film it all on that Saturday.

Production

I worked that Saturday from 10-3 so Jack and Dom had to start without me at 1 pm. When I got to their location however, they said that they were unable to get anything good yet. The camera didn't fit on the tripod we checked out so Dom had to go find one to use and they couldn't find the mic for the boom pole (which I found sitting in Jacks car). I helped Jack get everything rolling, though, and we finished filming that midnight phone call and bedroom scene in about an hour and a half, ending a little before 5 o'clock.

Next was the shot of walking into the studio. Jack Avery and I rolled up to the Dillard parking garage at the Oak Park mall while Dom went to go pick up Quinn. While I was getting the dolly out of the car Jack just went ahead and filmed Avery walking into the building in a really long (almost a minute) tracking shot. It looked good, and the cops showed up, so we called that scene a wrap and headed to our next location.

Jack Avery and I arrived at JCCC at about a quarter 'til 6 o'clock and found a nice spot for our hallway and stairwell fight scenes. We figured out shots and sequencing over the course of about 5 minutes or so and head back to where we parked to wait for Dom and Quinn. They arrived some couple minutes later and we explained what we were shooting to them on the walk back over to the building. We reached it only to find it locked. JCCC closes at 6. We panicked slightly, but luckily there was a different building they kept unlocked. We headed in and the first thing we found was a perfect staircase - better than the one before. We filmed the first part of the fight scene in less than an hour.

Finishing up in the building, we moved onto the ending scene of Marc knocking out both Kacey and Bradley. I played the part of Bradley after our actor bailed. I choreographed the punches like I did the stairwell and we filmed it in about 15 minutes. It was time for our final scene.

It was around 8 when we got to the Iverson's house. We went into their studio (which I prepared the day before) and got to filming as quick as we could. We filmed all the shots with both Marc and Jacob in them first, but then our camera died. Luckily we had a battery charger, and Jack's personal DSLR, so we just kept going, hoping that what we shot with the new camera wasn't to different. We filmed some more, then Jack's camera died. We kept doing this back and forth until eventually we finished with Marc's solo shots at 9:45 pm, concluding our NINE-HOUR shoot for our FIVE MINUTE film.

So Basically

Editing is editing. I did my thing - went ham and all - and turned the film in a day late after a couple days spent in front of my computer at home.

I am pretty happy with how this turned out. Very proud, in fact. I still can't believe we filmed it all in one long day, and I can't FATHOM  how Avery stuck through it ALL with us. 

Shout out to Avery for being a great actor, in more than just the traditional sense. He sacrificed his entire Saturday and kept encouraging us to keep going when we thought we wouldn't get it done.

The only thing I wish I could change was how the music cuts pretty bad at the jacket transition from bedroom to parking garage. That's about it though. 

Very satisfied with the finished product.