House

We've been searching for weeks for the perfect house...we needed one that looked like a house in a small town and was one of those ranch-style homes that was built shortly after World War II. It had to have a detached garage and a basement. A big kitchen was a plus. It had to be empty and it had to be in a relatively quiet neighborhood. And it had to fit within the confines of our budget. We saw a lot of houses that kind of worked, but whenever the realtor or homeowner heard we were big-time filmmakers (ha!), they suddenly needed $2,000 for a month's rental on their house that has sat unoccupied for the last six months. Frankly, the movie could not move forward without a house.

So anyway, Mona (she's one of MaryLee's army of Producer's Assistants) drove by her grandparents' old house and saw it was for sale. A few days later, we have our house! How cool is it that we will be shooting in one of our team's grandparents' old house? Very.

I'll post a picture as soon as I download from my camera.

Paddy

Elliot and Finnegan's Zebra Adventure

So far the highlight of this whole process happened last night. After printing up some revised pages (blue pages for those of you who might be keeping track of such things), Elliot - my five year-old son - said he wanted to write a script. I asked him what he wanted to write it about and he said 'zebras.' So, with very little help from Dad, he told me what to write and and together we wrote a 2 1/2 page script called, "Elliot and Finnegan's Zebra Adventure." Three of our actors were coming to my house to rehearse and they read the script out loud for Elliot, who noticed that Jack ad-libbed a line. A great moment for Elliot and me, to be sure.

I'm still trying to figure out how to post the script on this site, though I'm sure Elliot already knows how to do it.

Oh, and we had a really great rehearsal, too.

Paddy

Our first table read

Although we haven't finished casting for Jimmy Said, we did bring some of our actors together on Sunday morning. It's been a couple of months since we've really worked on the script as we've been casting, securing locations, raising money, assembling our crew and all the other essentials needed to make a movie. All that other stuff feels, at times, like, well, work. The table read was a much needed shot in our creative arms and has really re-energized the team. It was great hearing the words from many of the actors you'll be seeing on the big screen...so we have officially started the process of bringing the characters to life. This is the fun part and doesn't in the least feel like, well, you know.

Paddy

Snow Day!

Saturday, April 18th, was to be our first 'official' get-together for the bulk of our cast (I'll post more on the casting process later). We scheduled the first table read of the script for 9:00 a.m., but, as is tradition in Colorado, a very heavy Spring storm dropped at least a foot of snow on us on the night before. I'm sure it will all melt away by Tuesday. We've rescheduled the read for Sunday, but unfortunately, a few of our actors are unavailable.

Now originally, Jimmy Said was to begin principal photography back in March, but we decided to wait until April because we were worried about the potential for bad weather during our weekend shoots. As it turns out, the weather in March was perfect! The shoot was moved again until May due to scheduling conflicts with some of the crew and a few of the actors. This has turned out to be a blessing because the weather on most weekends in April have been dreadul. 

Ah the vagaries of indie filmmaking!

Paddy

Welcome!

On behalf of the entire Jimmy Said production team, I'd like to say 'welcome' to our production blog. We're kind of new to this whole 'blogging' thing, but we're sure we'll catch on soon enough. 

We'll be posting updates on the pre-production process (casting, location scouting, crew meetings, rehearsals, etc.), as well as comments during the shoot, the post-production phase and our efforts to market Jimmy Said to movie distributors. You'll also get to know the people involved in making our movie.

For those of you who don't know, Jimmy Said is an independently-produced feature-length motion picture about a couple of small town crooks who steal a lot more than they bargained for. It's a suspense-thriller with a ton of dark (and often inappropriate) humor.

We're assembling an 'all-star' cast and crew from Denver's amazing filmmaking talent. Principal photography is scheduled to begin in May of 2009.

Anyway, we're glad you're checking in with us and we look forward to producing a kick-ass movie in every sense of the word.

Thanks!

Patrick 'Paddy' Sheridan

writer/director/producer