Rallying the Troupes

The next day, I made my pitch at the Round 3 Scary Cow meeting. There were many people there with many interesting ideas for films. After everyone was done making their pitch, we stationed ourselves around the room so whoever was interested in working on our project could sign up to be part of our team. Several people approached me and put names on my sign up list. It wasn't a huge crowd, but it was just enough people with just the right kinds of skills to make the project happen.

Included in the sign ups were Maya Sedgwick, who volunteered to DP. We had worked together the last round in Quarter Life Crisis, on which I was doing acting and he was doing sound. I found it pretty interesting that we would now be working together in such a completely different roles. This is the beauty of Scary Cow. Another person who approached me was Autum Turley, who did film making as well as music and composition. She told me she was also an aspiring music video director. Ken Gulley, an animator and illustrator, also volunteered to do crew in addition to becoming storyboard artist. We needed to start storyboarding right away, so his expertise was much appreciated. It was a very surreal thing to be standing at my station, meeting and greeting my future crew. For the first time ever, Sagar was moving from the realm of the abstract to the concrete. All of a sudden, it was more than just a crazy idea that was swirling around in my head. It was a real thing that would soon be carried out by real people. Somehow, it scared me a great deal. But it was also exhilarating beyond belief.

Soon after, we had our first production meeting. We gathered at my house and ate dinner. I told them the story of what inspired me to do this project. I played them the song, gave them a rough sketch of my production plans, showed them pictures of the dunes, and we all brainstormed ideas. All in all, it was a really great meeting. I liked everybody on the team, and was slowly beginning to realize what an amazing project this could be. There was much work to be done, but already the story felt richer than before. It was an auspicious beginning indeed.