Shooting Day 1 (Part Two)
/11:00pm. I had to tell all the actors to go home. If I kept them I'd have to pay them overtime and serve them another meal, and I don't have any more money. We didn't finish the movie. And nothing for the day is usable. I tell everyone they did a great job.
Then I sit down with the producers.
It gets worse
Me: Alright fine. So we're going to pay $11,000 to our actors for rehearsal days. How about the shooting days? We already paid them that money, right?
Producers: No.
Me: What? What happened to the $17,000 we set aside for that last week?
Producers [in various equivalents]: We don't know where it went. We spent it.
Me: When were you planning on dealing with this? We have actors on set and we haven't paid them anything?? What happened to our budget?
Producers: "..."
Me: How much money do we need to pay the actors?
Producers: We don't know. But we were supposed to pay them by today.
At this moment, one of my team members boils over, yells at me, and runs away. I tell Chuck, "What's she so upset about? I'm the one who's going bankrupt." Chuck chuckles.
It gets even worse
3:00 am. Back and forth with Anthony on the phone. After a lot of math and detective work we figure we owe the actors $28,712.28. I need to come up with this money by tomorrow to keep my actors on set.