“Love Noted” is a film adaptation of a short stand up I did at a friend’s wedding. The story went through a few drafts, and development. Once that was completed, production was a bomb…

…the following are a few lessons that came out of that day:

• When “actors” aren’t paid, and you want their commitment to help you out…have them sign a contract for them to say that they will be there at least a week in advance. Follow up a few days later, and a day before. People have a tendency to forget.
• It’s a good idea to give people a gift as a token of appreciation for helping you out. Take them out for lunch or dinner.
• If you can, keep filming to a weekend when working with students, and non-professionals. During the week they have lives of their own.
• Let people know that the production start time as 1.5 hrs before the actual time — or — start right after one of the daily prayers, that way everyone shows up for salah, and then you can start right after that.
• Don’t be afraid to ask other to be backups for current “actors”. As them to bring their friends if they can to help behind the scenes.

Filming for “Free Parking” has been postponed until further notice. While filming there were things we didn’t consider, thus resulting us into filming at another time. Some things to note if you want to do a production on campus:

• Do NOT schedule any filming within a month of finals.
• When having an all volunteer team, unless working with you carries some prestige…expect some people to not show up.
• Take the weather into account.

Maybe working in smaller groups of people would make it easier since coordinating around different people’s class schedules wont be as difficult.

“Free Parking” is a short that needs a campus parking lot that doesn’t have any parking. When finals are finished, the lot is empty, making it difficult to have the setting we wanted.

Perhaps for the future, we can adjust the storyline and setting to fit in a mall. That way we have weekends to film without a problem.