Now that we had a story, it was time to start developing it.

First, we optioned the script from Nick Turner for one year. That simply means we paid for the “option” to buy it if we found it was a story worthy of production. You pay an amount that legally holds the script for a set amount of time. The owner can’t sell it to someone else. The contract also guarantees that we can purchase it at a future date.

In August, we hired a Line Producer (Nikki Nanos) to help us breakdown the script. That’s where you go through each scene and create a little strip with information about that scene. Then, you arrange them based on shooting schedules. This is tediious and time-consuming, especially since Nick and I (Russ) kept doing rewrites while she was breaking down the script. That’s like trying to hit a moving target. (I think Nikki was about ready to hit me, but I kept moving.)

After the long and tedious process, you have your schedule in the form of a Production Board.

This step of the process was really important, because now we had a number of shooting days, and the entire schedule revolves around these shooting days. Through the production boards, we also have our locations defined and our cast members defined. It’s a very good process.