I didn’t realize how difficult it was to fully finance the production of a film.
My road started to become bumpy to say the least. My friend, a producer of the project, accepted a job offer in the states and he had to go. He was still willing to help me with perfecting the proposals via emails.
Another friend that I had not seen for quite a while since high school came back to the island and he was just as inspired and very much interested in helping me with the project.
So our passion project started, two films became three to include his short film.
We started our rounds in handing out the neat proposals which included a list of the film festivals we wanted to join, a newspaper review of my first short film, the scripts of the three shorts, and a DVD of three short commercials I worked on. These should give them a feel of what I could do and more.
Unfortunately, the road continued its bumpy path. We were incredibly optimistic in getting the approval of different offices, but only two were similarly inspired by the Marianas Film Project.
One of them helped us find a grant and eventually became part of the Marianas Film Project as our line producer.
My partner and I thought that maybe if we publicized the project, there would be more public interest. So we gave interviews to newspapers and radio stations, including one from Australia, but there were still no responses.
With no funding whatsoever, we turned to the next best thing: our resources.
Luckily, I know some people whom I have worked with. They saw my passion and they completely believed in the screenplays. They provided top-notch cameras, audio equipment, lights, and an amazing crew willing to go into the deep end of filmmaking madness.
The Marianas Film Project started with the easiest of the three films: “One Fine Day,” which has a quiet, indie atmosphere and is character-driven — a little bit of “Juno,” “The Squid and the Whale,” and “Up in the Air,” all of which are Academy Award winners.
I’m not saying that we are doing great right now. We still have difficulties. Because of no funding for insurance, we aren’t able to attain a film permit to shoot in various locations on Saipan. And it would be nice to still have the funding — whatever we can get, we will be happy. But we are working on what we have and everyone is doing it for free.
We have people inspired in studying cinematography, audio, film editing and music composing.
I’m not going to sell myself cheap, and I won’t stop till I get to where I want to go, and it’s a pretty high mountain to tell you the truth.
Currently, the principle photography for “One Fine Day” is close to finish, even without the full shots that we were not able to shoot. Afterward, we plan on splitting the team. I will work with the editors and music composers and edit “One Fine Day,” and then the other half will start on pre-production for the action/comedy film “Extra” and then “Thy Nigh Is Mine Own.”
We are all hoping that the projects will be fully done by the end of August so we can premiere them here as well as on Guam.
The project hopefully will meet all the deadlines for the international film festivals which we plan to join.
This could be the start of an awesome tradition where young and old filmmakers (of whatever age) can come together next year and start their own film projects and showcase them.
I’m telling you, dreams are hard to let go, and that is why I’m not ever letting go of mine.
