Hello IndyMogulers,

As some of you know I’m making a short film called “TUB”. It’s my last short film for Columbia University’s graduate film program. And may just be my last short film before moving into features. I’ve been trying to make the thing for several years now, but every time I got close to doing it, something happened. IE. Funding didn’t come through, we didn’t have enough resources, etc. I’ll spare you the whole story. But, a lot of it can be learned at: TubMovie.com. You can also join our facebook group here.

What's TUB about, exactly?
It's just your typical film about a guy who can't commit to his girlfriend...
Who then jerks off in the shower.
And accidentally impregnates his tub.

Duh!

Anyways, I had mentioned that I would start doing production blogs on the making of “TUB” way back in January. So, here’s my first stab at it. If you guys like this sort of thing and want me to do regular updates, let me know! I'm going to try and approach this as honestly and as nut-and-bolts as possible. Because I know you indymogulers enjoy that sort of thing.

We shoot April 17-20

3/15/09
Cheryl Gross is our concept artist for TUB. She's the person responsible for designing what this mutated TUB baby will look like. I had first seen her work on Lee Rubenstein's excellent site: EatSleepDraw.com. She's an awesome person and I knew instantly upon meeting her that she got this movie. I later found out that she teaches illustration at Pratt. And just happened to have taught Lee, who just so happens to be doing some website design work for TUB. It's all in the family!

Anyways, today me and Cheryl met with Jeremy Selenfriend of MonsterInMyCloset.com. Jeremy is the man responsible for bringing Cheryl's concept art to life. (Ie. Jeremy is our puppet builder). I had been looking for the perfect FX person for several weeks to do this and I'm glad I found Jeremy. His work speaks for itself and he was able to work with our limited budget. Which was very nice of him.

Above: The door to Jeremy's awesome FX studio in Jersey.

The meeting went great, I had went through the script with a red pen and marked out each Baby/FX moment and we talked about what combination of puppetry would work for each scene. One of the things I'm REALLY geeked out about is that not only is the baby going to be a silicon puppet, but we're also going to have a larger, slightly mechanical baby head for closeup work. With eyes that blink mechanically! Wowie Kazowie and I excited about that!

Anyways, Cheryl had drawn up several more angles of the Baby design I liked and handed them off to Jeremy to do the sculpt. We all shook hands and headed home. I never thought I'd see the day. The baby for Tub is being made as we speak.

Below: Jeremy and Cheryl ham it up with two Baby Dolls. The one to the right is something I bought at Walmart just to show FX people how big the puppet should be. The little foam pink guy is something Jeremy rigged up to show us the height he's thinking about.

3/16/09
I'm stressed out. We're over budget. I'm maxed out on all my student loans. I need a couple thousand dollars. Sadly texted my friend Matt about it. He told me:
"Tub's gonna be amazing dude. It's your time. So just do it. Don't think. Just do. Keep your chin up. It's just money. What you're making is worth more than money."
Matt's a good guy.

3/17/09
Talked with my financial aid dept at school. Apparently, I can take out one more loan. Trying not to think of the massive debt I'm incurring as per Matt's advice.
I'm definitely betting the farm on "TUB". Despite it being low budget by film school standards (especially something this FX driven), I've never ever had a budget or a crew like this before. I've never had a producer like Kim Jackson before. Geez, I think we're making a real movie here.

3/18/09
Every Wednesday, me, Kim, Meghan Mahoney (our Unit Production Manager) and Daisy Edwards (Art Director) meet up and discuss pre-production issues.
This week: The bathroom set. The majority of the film takes place in a bathroom and because we want full control over how we shoot (for puppetry reasons and camera reasons) we're actually building an entire bathroom set on a stage at Columbia University.

Intense.

Found a great guy to do the job. Justin Mulcahy. Me and Daisy met with him last week and he was really game for the project and loved the script. One of the unfortunate things about this project is that we can't pay people what they're worth. Justin, like everyone else on this production, was okay with taking a cut in the pay rate because of the...well, uniqueness of this project. (I hope?!)

Anyways, we're scheduling another wave of auditions for the Girlfriend in the film (Emily) this Saturday. Eric Levy, our lead actor, will be there to read with them. Last time we held auditions it went really well. It was the first time I ever heard anyone speak a line of dialogue from Tub and it all seemed to work! It went so well that I decided to rewrite part of the script to include a little bit more of the girlfriend character. There's a pivotal scene at the end of the film with her and I wanted to make sure we earned it.

Amy Gossels, a mutual friend of Kim and I is helping us out this Saturday. She's a casting director and is hooking us up with some actresses. Auditions are going to be fun.

3/20/09
I'm about to meet up with Daisy at the library at 42nd street. We're going to go through a bunch of architecture books and figure out what we want our lead character's apartment to look like. As well as the bathroom etc. We both agreed that going on the internet and google imaging photos of apartments and bathrooms felt really lame and that it'd be a lot more exciting to do it the old fashion way and sit with some books and hammer it out. The architecture reading room looks pretty cool:

Tonight, I meet up with legendary director of photography (in my mind) Matt Sanchez. I think the guy's the best kept secret in Hollywood, folks. I'm glad he's on my side. He told me earlier this week that he's been watching a lot of Cronenberg. That got me very excited. There's definitely a bit of Cronenberg in TUB (As a side note, I think Cronenberg is one of the most underrated filmmakers of all time and should be held in the same esteem as the greats.)

He told me I should rent: A Zed & Two Noughts. I started watching it the other day, but passed out because I haven't had much sleep lately. The opening credits/music is absolutely stunning and I can see why Matt likes this so much. Hopefully, I'll get to finish the rest today. Anyways, I'm going to meet up with Matt tonight to talk TUB stuff. Then, tomorrow is long day of auditions with Eric. Sunday? I'm not sure what I'm doing. I'm sure it will involve TUB.

Parting Shots
As stressful as some of this is, I feel really good about TUB. I feel like everyone I'm working with is ready to take things to the next level. This film combines elements of horror, comedy, and drama that I've never done before. It's going to be challenging, but I feel poised. With film school graduation looming in May, I can't help but feel like my whole life has led me to this very moment.

It's been a long time coming.
Time to knock it out of the park.

Above: A snapshot of a TUB folder on my desktop. The first draft was written on 10-23-06. I remember getting the germ of the idea back in the summer of '06.