making a film: aaaaahhh

so as i mentioned, i have cast the entire film. both the leads are cast, the costumes are (almost) completely procured, and almost all the props are in place. however, there are a couple caveats. namely, one of our lead actresses is only in town until february--i don't yet know when in february--the woman whose house we're supposed to be filming in is really ill at the moment, and we're really only going to be filming on weekends. maggie, who's kind of my co-director, works on sundays so that gives us about six full days to film the entire movie.
i've made a filming schedule which would be very crunched but would technically get most everything done in four weeks before the one lead goes back to college, and then we can film the scenes that don't involve her afterwards, but that's a huge crunch and doesn't allow for any scheduling conflicts, and i am so stressed. if this works it'll be a massive time suck and not give anyone any time. i have no idea how long it'll take to film any of these scenes. i don't know if it's possible. i want this to work so, so badly but there's so many moving pieces and i have no idea how to make them all fit together. earlier, when i was putting together my schedule, i felt wonderful about it, but between my notoriously low energy reserves in terms of doing things and the possibility that the other lead actors don't have as much time in their schedule as i do, what if this doesn't work out? i almost don't want to do it, for fear that it'll fall apart, and i feel like i'm surrouned by two voices: one belonging to my mother, telling me that i can't reasonably expect to get this done if i don't shape up and start managing my stress productively, and one belonging to maggie telling me that it'll work out and i've got to try and usually i'm very good at finding out what's rational but i feel so swamped by the entire thing that i don't know what to do. the filming schedule only works if we incorporate a day of shooting during the week and evening. i have no idea when the outdoor nighttime scenes will happen, or if my plan to just block out windows for the nighttime indoor scenes will work--i don't know how anything is going to happen and i'm really worried. 

i...this is just what's going on right now in terms of hazel's house. it only seemed fair to include the highs and lows of trying to make a movie under these conditions so... here's a low. 
 

Fiona Ella

VT

YWP Alumni

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