Love, chilly sauce, and cliches

Its funny how things happen.  It’s never where you look.  It always rains on my day off.

Clichés.

Cliches are clichés for a reason.  I’m making a short film, and the ending is a cliché but because of the genre, I can’t think of anyway to not have one at the end.  It’s a love story, so it has to have a happy ending, right?  Well, maybe not, but I wanted to make a nice little film, beginning, middle and end, that will make you smile when you watch it.  But the most important thing about it is that it is based on a real event. 

An old friend of mine, not old as in age, but in a while ago – and a while ago as she’s barking mad – received a text, and she replied.  Fast forward to a year and a half later and they get married, so happy endings do happen.  Where happy endings are rare is when you are in pre production for a short film made with no budget (sorry guys, you have to buy your own tea).

The script was ready, the kit was ready, the locations…..well, that’s another story, but basically everything was ready to roll.  Apart from the actors.  “Yes, I love the script, I really want to do it.”  Me, “When are you available?”

Them, “…………..”

Nothing, I waited, they weren’t being paid after all, so I didn’t want to hassle them too much, but nothing.  I waited, then gently asked again, “Yes, still want to do it.”  But still no available dates.  I got so frustrated I asked an award winning film director for advice, and they provided it.  @VickiFilm provided good advice, namely, replace them.  So now I have a cast, locations and everything

Which is a good thing, as this film is the one I really care about, everything before now was practice, or corporate, this is the one where I really like the script/story.  Basically,  this is really important to me, it’s the one that will show if I can really cut it as a director/filmmaker. 

I’ve worked so hard on everything about it, the shot list, planning camera movements, the look of it.  Everything.  If it doesn’t work, no one can say that I haven’t tried. 

If it doesn’t work, I’m not stopping.  The one after will be even better.

And if that’s a cliché, I’m a monkey’s uncle.