“Aduri” the Movie: Two Perspectives

ravptor | Movies | May 14, 2008 at 11:40 am

[Editor Note] : George Mao, the producer of Aduri, which stars our very own Striker sent this post.

The Producer

Introduction

In the Summer of 2006, I joined a project called “Aduri”. Chances are that you haven’t heard about Aduri, since it is an independently funded project, so I’ll start with a little background information.

Aduri is a feature length film written, funded, and directed by a group of film enthusiasts from the East Coast. I won’t go into detail about the film itself; you can visit the website at http://www.adurithemovie.com for a preview & trailer. Instead, I am the Producer on the project and I wanted to share some of my experiences in Pre Production and Production, as well as some lessons learned.

Pre-production began in the Summer of 2006 when my close friend Riyadh Mahmood (Executive Producer, Director) and I met Fahd Habeeb (Executive Producer) in a local Starbucks. We were extremely excited to get the project rolling. At the time, we had no idea what we were getting into and how much work was going to be involved

We discussed various things such as the size of the crew we needed, the funding we had available, and other logistical details.

Preproduction

I’ll skip some of the boring financials and head right into the interesting part of preproduction: Auditions.

In order to accomplish our auditions, we rented a conference room in a local Holiday Inn. We ran auditions from 8 AM to 4 PM on a Saturday. The amount of response we received from interested Actors & Actresses was amazing. Our auditions ran about 10 minutes long per person and we literally ran the entire 8 hours we were there, with the exception of a ½ hour lunch break.

Production

During Production, we actually encountered quite a few challenges. From my perspective, I was primarily responsible for managing the shooting schedule. I quickly realized that the most difficult task a producer faces is the management of crew & cast schedules. The entire filming schedule took place over the course of about 4 months. Almost every single weekend was utilized in one way or another. Our crew basically devoted that 4 months almost entirely to the Aduri project. We were on set or location scouting every single weekend. At the time, I was also taking a class for Graduate school … so I basically had no life outside of Aduri, work and school!

One of the most frustrating issues was Mother Nature. Unfortunately with an independent film, we lacked the funding to build indoor sets and were not able to get total control over the environment. I remember quite a few times we had an outdoor scene scheduled and we ended up waiting 2 or 3 hours just for the rain to clear out. It’s just something that we had totally no control over. In the end, we were able to film all of our scenes, but it did require a bit of rescheduling … and a lot of patience.

Lessons Learned & Advice

All in all, the entire project ran for about 11 months from Auditions to the end of Production. It was an extremely valuable and rewarding experience. I learned how to manage a project with 30+ people on board. I learned how to budget our costs and I learned what a film Producer really does J

My advice to anyone who is interested in getting involved in Film, is that you really need to be ready to devote yourself to the field. You have to be ready to sacrifice time and work hard. Get involved with other people in the field and try to network as much as possible.

If you would like to learn more about Aduri or Filming in general, please send your questions to us at: adurithemovie@gmail.com

Aduri premieres on May 16^th, 2008 in the Washington DC area. Please visit us on the web (http://www.adurithemovie.com) for details about the premiere and don’t forget to see the movie!

George Mao

Aduri Producer

http://www.adurithemovie.com

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The Actor

Introduction

I had heard about this audition for a movie called “Aduri” and I gave it a shot and got the role, funny, isn’t it? It’s actually not. Aduri is an independent film, and I was glad to be a part of it. I was just gaining experience and it is one of the first independent films that I have been a lead in. I was excited to get the role and began to start memorizing the script. At the actual audition, it was interesting, I saw a high school friend of mine, who is George! It was a complete co-incidence, it goes to show you that it is a small world after all.

Production

Okay, wow. Everything was going smooth…for a while at least. Then some mishaps happened, which is always a possibility with an independent film, because of funds and other fun stuff. Some people wanted to drop out, I’m not going to name any names, so hey no problem, got to do what you have to do. That slowed down the process a lot by pushing the schedule back and forth, until it was convenient for everyone else. Then there was that wonderful moment at the state park, where the nice Sheriffs got involved…because a park ranger called and said there were a lot of suspicious people? Right…. During filming the cast and crew got close and it was a good experience. The mornings were hectic on the weekends, some of us liked to go out the night before and suffer the next morning. I didn’t complain much, just about the mornings a little, other than that, I stuck through it, until the end. Some of the shooting days got pushed back due to weather and some cast conflicts, all in all it was a good experience. Meeting most of the cast and getting to work with them was great. Everyone was good at doing what they did and I am proud of this project, I was happy to be on board.

Lessons Learned & Advice

Don’t go out until five o’clock in the morning the night before your eight o’clock call time the next day. Don’t call the director at two o’clock in the morning saying you’ll be running a little late, if you don’t have those problems, then great! Other than that, it’s really important to have a lot of patience with independent projects, because a lot of things are out of your power; weather, other cast members conflicts, Sheriffs, and location lockdowns. It’s important to be able to work under these pressures for the sake of the film and the craft, because the way that we feel, or our ego, is not as important as the message and craft of filmmaking. All being said, it was a good experience and would do it all again. My advice is to keep finding projects like these and immerse yourself in them and gain as much experience from them as you can. Also, devote yourself to the craft, and continue to grow as an actor.

Kawan Karadaghi

Actor, Aduri

Stay tuned for Part Deux, where you will be watching the Trailer