Fine Dining was my first short film. It's about a caveman who walks into a fancy Italian restaurant and learns etiquette by watching the other diners. One of the other guests finally notices the caveman and calls the pest control people. The pest guys try to get the caveman to leave but the caveman won't give in without a fight. Some other diners jump up to aid the pest guys. The film ends with a shot of the caveman leaving the restaurant wearing a suit of one of the other diners.
I thought this was an awesome first attempt at a short film. There are obviously things I would do differently if I ever decided to remake it (not likely!). The music was a last minute thing and it's very repetitive and annoying. We did not shoot enough insert shots and cutaways (shots of things other than the actors' faces) so there are a few jump cuts in editing. (A jump cut can be when a person's hand is up in one shot and down in the next.)
Our biggest pain in pre-production was getting a restaurant. We had originally called one place and they said we could use it. In the second to last week of pre-production we called them to set up times and everything. It turns out that the person we originally called was not the manager (though they said they were) so we couldn't use that restaurant. In our last week of pre-production we had to scramble to find a restaurant. I think we called three other restaurants before we found one that would let us film there (Thank you Brick Oven!).
We got everything shot on a Saturday morning in November 2005. When I first showed up on location I got everything that I could set up. The crew started to arrive and a few cast members. Unfortunately, only 3 of the 30+ extras showed up. I knew that some of the extras wouldn't make it but to only have 3! (and those 3 were my family members who were coming to set anyway). In the end though, I think having less people worked out better. Everyone on set knew what was going on and there wasn't a lot of talking.
Editing was a pain because the footage wasn't captured over properly on the computer. Then the computer we were using died so we had to re-capture. That set us back about a week in editing. I had to edit and keep the other crew members on track and working.
In the end, it was a good first attempt and I think the whole crew learned from it.
Thanks. 
Thanks to the whole cast and crew of Fine Dining! Jonathan, Michaela, Patrick, Mom, Dad, Mr. Alex's Dad (sorry I don't know your name!), Mr. McLaughlin, Alex, and Shane.
~Melissa
Director and Writer of Fine Dining
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