It all started with an idea. Wait, it actually started with a lack of time and money. Those hurdles provided inspiration for the concept that came to fruition the weekend of February 21 and 22. After weeks of postponement due to rain, the shoot came and went with plenty of unforeseen problems. Luckily, we had a crew of fantastic, upbeat, go-getters who were all more than willing to come up with inventive solutions. Now, our rag-tag team of production people are definitely not the most experienced people to have on set - but they really want to be there - and for no pay, that's really the best you can ask for. The first challenge came well before the shoot - the building of the set. Unfortunately I could not lend a hand as much as I wanted, but it all came together beautifully.
I wrangled equipment from no less than 4 separate sources to get everything I wanted/thought I might need for this shoot. Camera from Stas, mini high rollers, c-stands, sandbags and shiny boards from Robin, tripod, Arri kit, lavs and boom from Peter, and a 12x silk, doorway dolly, and field monitors from Wooden Nickel (thankfully, the only stuff we had to pay for).
Remembering my time on Mr. Wrinkles, I tried my best to keep the lighting as natural-looking as possible. I had some tungsten Arris, but they were only used to accent what was already a more than adequate light source (the sun behind a sky of clouds).
I threw one backlight on "Martin" (who sat in one spot through most of the film) and a silver flex fill for...well, fill. Since "Jay" was all over the place throughout the film, I just put up this array of Arris to add to the sunlight and tried to keep shadows/glare off the set.
The first day was the hardest. We originally planned to start shooting at 8am. Of course, that didn't happen. First we had trouble putting up the silk (none of us had ever put one together before). Then we had trouble placing the silk where it would be of use. Eventually, we got all of our ducks in a row - largely thanks to Garrett and Brandon's tireless efforts to give me what I wanted - and the shooting commenced. Around noon no matter how high we raised the silk off the ground, there was no blocking that midday sun (and unfortunately we did not get heads for the stands that allowed for rotation of the silk). Our solution: put it on the roof.
The entire first day was devoted to shooting the entire piece in a wide shot. Once we had tackled that behemoth, the rest seemed like a breeze by comparison. The second day's to do list went by so quickly, we found ourselves trying to think of more shots to pass the time. This is where the dolly came in.
Even with no track and very little space to maneuver, the dolly gave us some beautiful shots.
So that's it in a nutshell. We're doing re-shoots this weekend (March 15). We need to re-do the very beginning of the film because everyone was a bit distracted when we originally shot it (audio issues, silk issues, first shot of the day issues). Shouldn't be longer than half a day. Courtney (the writer/producer) is anxious to get myself and Cory (the director) in a room for some post-shoot interviews so I'm looking forward to that (never been interviewed before).
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