DUNSDANCE (85 min.) is a feature mock-u-mentary about two groups of filmmaker's videotaping their attempt at getting their film sold and their screenplays distributed at the Sundance film festival. Shot in glorious Digital Video. Find out what it's really like to broke, drunk, desperate, cold, and out of the loop while trying to hawk your half baked indie schwag.
Production Notes
* The script for Dunsdance was written in a two day writing marathon.
* Dunsdance co-producer and actor Anthony Reynolds got his hands on the script while the two were bartending a party at the Herbalife mansion in Bel Air.
* Reynolds promised that he could get the actors to work deferred if McClellan could make the filming part actually happen. A graduate of New York City College Film School, McClellan raised the funds needed to complete the project. The film was written to be shot guerrilla style with it’s improvisational dialog and it’s ease of setup and mobility.
* Dunsdance was shot entirely on Digital Video and edited on a MAC with Final Cut Pro. A Canon XL-1 was used for most of the filming with a SONY TRV900 hadicam as a back up and behind the scenes camera.
* The entire production budget was $30,000 which included the price of all production and editing equipment purchases as well as taking the principle cast and crew out to Park City, Utah for a week of filming on Main Street.
* All of the actors worked deferred pay under the SAG experimental film agreement.
* Most of the crew worked for deferred pay, with very little money given up front.
* One third of the entire production budget was spent on LA city filming permits, production insurance, S.A.G. fees, and handing out grease money for location shooting just in Hollywood.. About $9,000 was pretty much pissed away due to the red tape of shooting a film in Los Angeles.* The first part of filming took place in Los Angeles over one week in the middle of October 2000.
* The cast was flown to Salt Lake City, Utah to resume filming for a week in November.
* The entire production took 2 weeks to film.
* The film crew consisted of about 3 people: McClellan on camera, Tony Reynolds doing slate and sound when he wasn’t in the scene, and whoever else was around to act as a lookout.
* The cast rehearsed the film as a play for two months before shooting a single piece of the actual movie. That insured that shooting would be as fast as possible since the filmmakers never knew when they would be caught and have to move to another location.
Natural light was used for most of the film since there was no money or time to ever set up intricate lighting scenarios. The film was written to be made with as little set up and tear down as possible. Guerrilla filmmaking at it’s best.
* About a quarter of what ended up in the final cut of the film was improvised.*