TECHNICALLY SPEAKING
 

USTH:  What was the pre-production process like for Chick ?  How long did it take you to go from the idea stage to the shooting stage?
KS:  You weren't kidding when you said you had a lot of questions. :)

USTH: <laughs> Yeah, US Townhall is not for the heavily ADD-affected among us.  We're really trying to reverse that trend of everything in the media being brief and depthless.
KS: Well as I said, the story first manifested as a feature film called Guerilla Girls.  I'd say the idea of Chick existed for four years before we finally shot.  It was very dark for a long time, and even though friends who read early drafts told me to shoot it [that way], my gut told me it needed some lightness to it before it was ready.  That kind of freaked me out because I couldn't find the humor in the piece even though I knew it needed that so I had to wait until it appeared.  It showed up about six months before we shot and when it showed up, I immediately knew waiting for it was the right decision.
Pre-production was pretty involved.  I'd say it was six to eight months of prep simply because we were dealing with a very low budget and some pretty ambitious ideas like our lead character jumping off a building.

USTH:  How long does it take you to shoot a typical episode of Chick ?
KS:  Our fully produced episodes take a lot longer than the video blogs that make up the middle part of season one.  Our produced shoot was three days. But we got kicked out of one of our locations which meant we needed to schedule a pick-up shoot.  Since we were going to have to shoot again anyways, I decided to reshoot some other sequences from our first shoot and do an additional two days.  So five full days for the seven produced episodes.  The video blogs usually take an average of three to four hours to shoot. It really depends on what's going on in a particular episode.

USTH:  How long is the post-production process and what are the different steps involved in getting the raw footage to become a completed episode?
KS:  Again, post-production on the fully produced episodes took a lot longer.  With a colorist, sound designer, some visual effects shots and a composer involved, all the elements took some time to get together.  The video blogs are just me doing everything, with an occasional piece of music needed from someone, so I have gotten it down to pumping out post production on a video blog episode to two or three days.

USTH:  What are some of the difficulties you've encountered producing Chick ?
KS:  I'd say the biggest difficulty is the lack of financial backing.  Everyone volunteered their time to this project which means oftentimes, we are put on the back burner when people need to fulfill other commitments in their life.  It also means I often wear way more hats than I'd like to which is exhausting at times.  Other than that, this has been one of the best productions I've been a part of.

USTH:  What are some of the things that have been easier than you've expected with this project?
KS:  Even though I am often fighting exhaustion, I'm amazed at how often I feel guidance coming from higher forces around this project.  Everything we've needed has shown up in one way or another right on time.
The thing I was most shocked about was how great a crew we managed to put together.  I didn't know many of the people who volunteered their time and talent, and everyone on the set was a dream.  It immediately felt like a family.  It's rare when that happens so I felt blessed to have created that for our shoot.

USTH:  Do you have to go through a lengthy process to get permissions to shoot in the locations you choose or do you do any guerilla-style filmmaking where you just shoot when the coast is clear?
KS:  I'd say it's about half and half.  When we're in full production, I prefer to get permission because the costs are higher if we get kicked out.  But we did steal some locations we couldn't afford to get permits for etc.  The video blogs are all guerilla-style filmmaking.  Because the HD camera I'm shooting with for the video blogs is so small I very rarely attract attention unless I'm dressed as Fantastica <laughs>.  We had the police show up at almost every location we were at during our pick up shoot but Kimberly [Huie, Chick's producer and production designer as mentioned above] often managed to work her magic, and we never got kicked out of anywhere.

USTH:  What kind of software and hardware go into the production of Chick ?  What specific software programs do you use to edit and add effects to the video?
KS:  I don't know what Justin our vfx guy uses.  I edit the show on a PC using Sony Vegas editing software.  I shoot the video blogs with a Genius G-Shot HD 520 Camera.  On our full production shoot we used a Panasonic HVX-200 camera.

USTH:  How difficult is it to do the sequences where you appear as two people in the same scene?  How long does that take to shoot and what are the technical aspects involved?
KS:  That was an experiment simply because it was an idea I came up with and then needed to figure out how to realize the idea.  Even since shooting and editing that episode I've learned a better way to do that effect.  So as with many things in Chick, I learn while doing.  That scene took two days to shoot simply because the first time I shot it I didn't time things out properly.  When I started editing the footage I realized each character I was playing wasn't incorporating silent moments into their dialogue for the other person to talk.  I kept the first version of that episode which was a mess and may post it at some point as a behind-the-scenes video.  I think it's cool to see the process and how things often start out a mess before everything comes together and you get the final product.  The hardest part about the shoot was that I'm doing it by myself.  So I'm trying to set the shot and figure out where each character is going to be in the frame by running back and forth to the camera and looking at my footage before setting things.  The other main thing is that once I set the camera I have to lock it down meaning it can't move at all or the effect won't work.  So I have the time of one battery life to get everything I need because once I take that camera off the tripod I have to reshoot everything.  Aaah, the pressure.