The sun is setting. The sun is setting fast-- and we're about to go into magic hour (the time between sunset and darkness, when there's no sun but still light)-- and we're still two shots away from getting to that shot-we-absolutely-must-get-tonight. Our "money-shot".

Needless to say, we're freaking the f*ck out.

We've already been running an hour late today, both our camera and our monitor battery ran out, and since we're in the middle of the desert, being able to continually charge anything has been a huge hassle. And when you're running a lo-to-no budget production, a generator or a runner to find a place to charge things is even more impossible. We've run 600 ft of extension cord from a nearby house, so we're powering everything, but we're worried we could blow a fuse at any second. We're yelling at each other, screaming to get the final shot, freaking out because we're positive that we're absolutely screwed and will be unable to make the stupid movie.

"We can do this," our DP (Director of Photography) says, 50 min later. We've gotten two mediocre-takes of the shot we need. Our director seems less optimistic.

"No, we can't!" he yells back, about to tell everyone to pack up. "Magic Hour's about to end. We might as well try and get the shot tomorrow."

"No, no, dude. I'm not joking, Look!"

We all run over to the now-powered up adapter, and look over. Somehow, we've managed to have our actor completely silhouetted in sunset, half-purple, half-orange. The half-moon is just coming into focus, and it looks, honestly, like a photoshopped image.

Our director takes a second, studies the shot, and then yells "Go! Shoot now! Go!"

Suddenly everyone springs into action. Ten-seconds later, we're recording one of the prettiest shots I've ever seen. We did it. I have no idea how, but we managed to make a freakin' movie.

Ah, the ebb and flow of independent film.

What happens to film school kids after film school? Everyone assumes that their degree is useless, and that you don't need any education to make a movie. That anyone with the right connections can make it. While connections help, what most people don't realize is that making a movie is one of the most technically-intense things you can do.

Everyone seems to think that movie-making is glamourous, easy, standing in front of the camera while people get their make-up done. And the really nice movie sets might have a sense of ease sometimes, but the ones that I've worked on are always having their crazy, chaotic, super-intense moments. Producing a movie of ANY budget, far from being simple or easy, is gritty, intense, full of disasters, and--often times-- falling apart 24/7.

Now, combine this with the fact that you've only got a few thousand dollars (which sounds like alot, I know, but your location is $300 (a steal, by the way) and your lights are $400, not to mention food, the camera, and anything else you might need), a crew of 12 (meaning everyone is doing at least 2 jobs), 3 days, and the cops have already been called twice because people in the middle-of-nowhere town you're shooting thought they saw a "scary man with a gun" on the property (it was a violin). You've got to have the math and money knowledge to stretch that budget, the calm and leadership skills to manage all the fires you have to put out, and you better hope your crew is able to understand angles and physics to make that light and camera work together.

Yeah, I'd say that's one giant clusterf*ck.

But what else are you gonna do? You get out of school, and there's no job waiting for you, and they don't hire just anyone for "movie director". Everyone (especially your parents) expects you to put that useless degree to use and become famous, dammit. So when you ask them for $1000 bucks to make a little short you've had in your head so that you can try and make your own fortune, you get a lot of people laughing at you.

But I'll tell you right now, it's all worth it when you've got seven people who were just yelling their heads off at each other, scrunched around a 9in. monitor, smiling their heads off, clapping each other on the back for the sheer awesomeness of what they just created, of this single second of life that they just captured. They may be absolutely covered in dust and ants, sore from running everywhere all day, but who the hell cares? We just made a movie. A bunch of twenty-somethings with "useless degrees" and no money just got together and made a freaking movie. Yeah, we know, it's not law school.

But it's still pretty damn awesome.

Picture Courtesy of No Parentheses Production of "Devil Blues". Thanks, Guys!