filming – Briana Hansen

Energy!

October 2, 2014September 30, 2014 Briana HansenLeave a comment

I’ve talked before about being in shape for my career. Many times.

But when I was filming a short western pilot I wrote a couple weekends ago, I learned first hand exactly why it’s necessary.

You need energy to film action sequences during long, hot days in the desert without air conditioning while wearing heavy and thick outfits. You gotta keep up your energy and enthusiasm. And if you want to do that, you need to go into filming in great shape.

Having only focused on simpler comedy before the western, I didn’t really know the exactly value of being in good shape. But after the three days of filming, I now know. I was lucky to be in decent shape. But if that pilot gets picked up like we hope it will and turned into a series, I’m gonna have to get in great shape before filming. Because we’re gonna be doing even more stunts in even hotter weather wearing even more ridiculous outfits. And I don’t want to be fighting exhaustion the whole time. I wanna be giggling and enjoying every moment of it.

Back to the grind

March 17, 2014March 17, 2014 Briana HansenLeave a comment

For the past couple months, I’ve put a lot of stuff on the back burner in order to focus on finishing the filming and production of my web series, The Other Client List.

We finished filming on Saturday. I couldn’t be more proud, grateful and excited. It’s been an adventure and I’m glad to know it’s really only the start of the adventure.

On Sunday, I let myself sleep in. Then looked at the “To Do” list I’d been putting off…and had a little freakout.

Then once it was over, I stood up (did I mentioned I was curled into a ball on the floor?), took a deep breath, and got to work.I let myself freak out for a minute. It’s ok to sometimes feel overwhelmed. It’s ok to feel frustrated. And it’s ok to be true to whatever your feeling in the moment. I didn’t want to fight the freakout. I just allowed it.

ocl montage 3

I think part of what was overwhelming me was not knowing how much I actually had put off and not knowing how it would all get done. So I just started attacking it step by step. I did some cleaning and organizing. I looked through piles of papers and figured out what goes where and what needs to be addressed. I made some phone calls and sent some emails. I did my taxes. Not all of them, but I figured out what I could get done that day, did it, and have an action plan in place for the final steps to finish them.

I even took a couple hours off midday to laugh with one of my favorite people.

ocl montage 2

Even though there’s still plenty to do in both the web series, my personal goals, and at least eight other major projects I’m workin

g on, I’m ready for it. I want this life. I want a life of projects. Which means I’m ok with having times of being overwhelmed. Because everything is a balance. You just have to give yourself every advantage to learn to handle it. That way it gets easier over time. Just like everything else you practice.

I’m still learning. But at least I got a good practice meltdown and recover session in yesterday. I feel good about that.

So now it’s time to get back to the grind. Bring it.

Coordination Station, Clase

March 13, 2014March 13, 2014 Briana HansenLeave a comment

When I was in high school, one of my spanish teachers would always rhyme things then say “clase.” I think she’d be proud of my little rhyme in this subject line.

She always also said, “Bad news bears, clase. Bad news bears.” And she flailed her hands a lot. And we all had spanish nick-names while in class. Mine was “Chita.” She would say, “Don’t be a cheat-ah, Chita. Get it, clase? No cheat-ah, Chita.” Then she’d giggle profusely.

The more I think about it, maybe there’s a reason my spanish isn’t better…

I’ve mentioned before, I’m currently filming my web series The Other Client List. This past weekend was one of our businest filming weekends yet because we had tons of people and places I needed to coordinate. It was a bit insane. Tons of people came out of the woodwork to help in lots of different capacities.

We got the majority of our major scenes done and put ourselves in a position to essentially be finished filming the series with only one more shoot date this upcoming Saturday.Anyway, I’m not writing to tell you about Sra. Jones. I’m writing to tell you about how fun and magical it is to coordinate a ton of people.

WHOA.

Every little piece has to be in the right place, otherwise the whole project is off. And every single person you see on that screen helped screw in a little bit.This whole process has been an amazing learning experience. I have a new respect for the amount of work and organization and gumption it actually takes to make these projects a reality. I will never again leave a movie theater before the end of credits because very single one of those people was an essential part to the major production.

So screw you if you overlook them. Next time you need help, I hope you’re screwed.

So thank you to the wonderful screwballs who came to help out this weekend.I don’t hope that at all. I just wanted to use “screw” again and it seemed appropriate.

You kept us from being screwed.

…alright. I’ll stop with the “screw” words.

This is becoming pretty screwy.

(giggle giggle giggle)

Making Dreams Come True

February 5, 2014January 30, 2014 Briana Hansen2 Comments

I don’t have a fairy godmother. Because I don’t need one. I’m lucky enough to have amazing people around me who can make magic.

I’ve mentioned a few times I’m currently producing a web series called The Other Client List. This basically came out of the fact that my friend Arye and I had kept in touch from our Groundlings Basic class for several months. One day, we’re sitting at a lunch and mention we should just produce our own work. We should do a web series.

And from that, an exciting partnership and adventure was born.

I spent a couple months writing it. I’d never written screenplay scripts before. I’d always done sketch which is much more lackadaisical in formatting. And easy to fix as you rehearse. But screenplays follow a distinct format because they’re the foundation upon which so many other creative brains are going to build. So I did my best. It’s not perfect… but it’s close. And I certainly learned while doing it. And after a couple months, we had 10 scripts.

Then we were lucky enough to find a creative, focused, hard-working, and hilarious director/DP, Erik Boccio. Who has a great team of people who can help it all become real. We asked for money from friends and family, raised over $4,000 and are currently in the process of filming it every time we can get everyone together.

It’s wonderful. And magical. And I’m learning so so so much. Because this is what I want to do. And the best way to learn how to do it- how to really do it- is just by going for it.

So many extremely talented friends of mine are joining in for roles in the process. And Arye and I are turning out to be quite the complementary team.

And it’s fun. God it’s fun. Did I mention it’s fun? We’re all working our butts off and spending money and time we don’t have… but it is so much friggin’ fun.

And it’s good. It’s going to be so funny. It’s absolutely invigorating to get to see the words I pulled out of nowhere and gave to characters that I made up in my head actually come to life and tell a cohesive (and hilarious) story.

It’s magic. And I’m loving it.

And I’m so grateful to every person who’s helped make it a reality so far. I know it’ll be successful. It’s going to be such a good product- I can’t imagine how it wouldn’t be.