Case Study: The making of Saving You Saving Me

Date: 11 Dec. 2017
Case Study: The Making of Saving You Saving Me

indieactivity: What is your film about?
Tina: Saving You Saving Me is about the story of Amber who is a young woman gripped by despair and thinks her life is pointless. What she doesn’t know, but will soon discover is that she is needed by a secret society of vampires who have discovered that Amber is the key to their survival.

I actually came up with this story about 3 1/2 years ago. This was right after I finished watching ‘Twilight,’ which I know a lot of people know that vampire story, and I was so moved by how the writer – Stephanie Meyer – came about the storyline for the book and how it ended up turning into a movie, well I pretty much loved the whole process.

That’s when I thought to myself, “I want to challenge myself to write my very own vampire feature film.” Back then, I was all for Team Edward, so vampires were definitely my inspiration. Then, I started writing and before I knew it, I had finished my first feature film & I couldn’t be prouder of my accomplishment. I even went on to writing the sequel which I’m definitely excited to film in the very near future.

indieactivity: Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
Tina: On August 30th, 2015 ‘Saving You, Saving Me’ won 3rd place for feature fantasy script in the 2015 Indie Gathering Star Award. When I got the email that I won you can imagine how wide my jaw dropped! Even though that’s the only award I received, I know that it’s only the beginning.

Saving You Saving Me

indieactivity: Dramatic Feature
– Director: The amazing Marc I. Daniels & Tina Jetter!
– Producers: My mother Janet Swaby & also James Berberich who now is a dear friend of mine.
– Budget: Surprisingly for this whole film, the entire budget was only $30,000!
– Financing: Surprisingly for this whole film, the entire budget was only $30,000!
– Production: TJet Productions, who hopefully everyone will end up knowing very soon!
– World Premiere: Right now, it’s still in post-production, but it’ll definitely be shown next year.
– Website: Facebook & Instagram

indieactivity: Give the full official synopsis for your film?
Tina: ‘Saving You, Saving Me’ is about the story of Amber who is a young woman gripped by despair and thinks her life is pointless. What she doesn’t know, but will soon discover is that she is needed by a secret society of vampires who have discovered that Amber is the key to their survival.

indieactivity: Development & Financing?
Tina: As I told you earlier, I came up with the story in my head after seeing the movie ‘Twilight.’ Before I knew it, the screenplay was born (corny expression I know)! After, I wanted to make sure to secure the rights for it, which is exactly what I did! I registered the film shortly after completing the first draft, since you never know nowadays. Now, let em remind you that this was 3 1/2 years ago.

I won’t lie to you, I tried 3 times before making different trailers and putting it on Kickstarter & Indiegogo, hoping that with everyone that I knew on Facebook and in my personal life would give me more than enough to complete my project. The most I ever got was $80. That was enough to possibly buy food for my cast & crew for 1 day. After the last time, which was about a year ago, I decided to give up on doing it altogether. Until, a couple of months ago I kept thinking about it and felt like I failed ‘Saving You, Saving Me’ for not having produced it.

So, I talked about it with my mom and she felt like the timing is right, so we put it on Gofundme, but this time, my mom was (still is) in a better place financially and she agreed that even if we didn’t get enough money from people that she would help out with my project to make sure it got done; she also helped because she saw the potential and knew that it can go very far if it went in the right direction of course.

So, we did get some help from new Facebook friends and some personal friends as well, with that and the help of my mom, ‘Saving You, Saving Me’ production finally kicked off! And I’ve never been happier since it’s not completely filmed and is now just in the editing phase.

Wings Castle and in Brewster, NY

indieactivity: Production?
Tina: Let me tell you, that scheduling was the absolute worst part of this whole production! Luckily, I decided to shoot only on the weekends, since generally speaking, people tend to be free on the weekends, but that didn’t make it any easier. I mean, after casting, I had to make sure that the scenes I put for each day (14 days in total) were for the most part, meant to be in that 1 location, to make life easier, but then after that I had to make sure that the cast and crew would all be available! Don’t get me wrong it was extremely stressful and I probably won’t be handling that ever again, but in the end it was worth it & it worked out overall!

indieactivity: Festival Preparation & Strategy?
Tina: When it comes to festivals, I’m going to look for festivals that’ll center around fiction vampire genre.

indieactivity: The Release?
Tina: As I stated earlier, the project is still being edited but, if all goes well, hopefully the film will be released around January or even late December! Definitely stay tuned!

indieactivity: Advice from the Filmmaker?
Tina: I LOVE this question. I always have a good/bad advice. Let me explain. The bad side is: Whatever it is you want to do, whether it’s to be a part of the entertainment industry or to be a chef or to be a dancer, whatever it is, if it’s not something that you want to do as a career or if it’s something you’re doing just to make money then please, stop and pursue something else that you would like to be doing.

Because I can promise you that no matter what it is, people are going to see that you hate what you’re doing and it’s going to be embarrassing for you and possibly anybody else that was a part of the process and at the end of it, even though it might be learning experience you still wasted everyone’s time. Here’s the good side: If it’s something that you do want to do as a career, where every day when you think about it, it makes you smile and want to get out of bed every morning then you better keep on pursuing it!

Because, believe me, no matter what, you’re going to get haters and people are going to say some cruel stuff to you but just think that if you keep trying hard enough eventually you’ll get that Oscar or dance studio or owning our own restaurant, whatever your goal is, eventually you can get there and then you’ll look back laughing at all the haters because you know dang well they’re still going to be hating while you keep on succeeding. Believe em, it’s a rough journey, I’ve been on this journey since I was 4 and I’m now 22, so I know when time’s can get hard and you can get completely discouraged and want to give up altogether, but you can’t! If it’s what you really want to do, then please don’t give up on your dream. I promise it’ll all be worth it in the end