Shooting rampage, part 2

Part 2.

After Jermaine left, we all had lunch - which lasted a little longer than normal, but as usual, Mike kicked my ass up and we were heading to our second location before 3. We got to my friend's house, which was doubling as two houses (I'll explain later) in the film, and started to immediately set up for the fourth scene in the film.

We took a piece of wall and built a mock window in it, just to make things look cooler (and hell, did it ever). We came under the problem of the real windows letting in waay too much light and creating a ton of overexposure. There wasn't much we could do about it, so Mike and I agreed to tighten up the shots whenever we could (which gave us mixed results. For the most part, we avoided the window in shots and went with our fake one, which was easy to control. We did the living room scene first; basically just a quick conversation between Lyndon and JC (the two characters) and some movement. It took us a few hours, during that time which Jen, the actress who was going to play Bryce showed up. We met briefly, but I was in the middle of planning shots so unfortunately, I basically sent her off to my makup artist a little later after she watched what I was doing.

We finished the living room scenes, and jumped outside for a few quick shots at the entranceways. Those went without a hitch. We headed back inside, the light starting to die, and an entire kitchen scene to film, including one very difficult shot that pans back and forth during a conversation. It was a key shot, so we couldn't just cut it out; plus, I'd got the inspiration from an unlikely source. (Watching a video on someone else's portable DVD player while on the train.) That particular shot took 10 takes - the most of any take, and about 4 or 5 were usable, but alas; we are all perfectionists, so we did it over and over.

The problem? Well, we'll probably have to do it all again, because the contuinity likely won't match up with the other shots. It's a kick in the pants, but there's not much I can do about it. Unless of course, in post I was willing to go through every frame and manually edit the background, which I: don't know how to do, and: don't really want to go through over 1000 frames and individually edit.

When it was all said and done, we were out of there around 8:30PM, totalling about 6 hours on the spot. We all piled in and headed for my house; in anything, we were all going to relax after we got a few more shots.

And that, will be explained later (along with everything else I've mentioned).

The fake window in action.
The real window whiting eveything out, during a cool shot.
Setting up some reflection for the shot.
A view from the other end of the fake window.
Me (centre) talking to Ben (Lyndon, R) and Conor (JC, L).
A hell of a difficult tracking shot in action.
The outdoor scene.
And yes, we did fool around sometimes.

-Mark.

Shooting rampage, part 1

My silence just before the shoot has to be apologized for - I would have blogged, and I wanted to blog, but I simply didn't have the opportunity to. The Thursday before the shoot I ran out and bought 400 dollars worth of food for the shoot, and took out 150 for other expenses. On Friday, I did the last minute setups and checks for the film, which revealed a missing XLR cable for the mic. That was solved with a simple email, and we got back in the saddle.

Little did I know, Thursday night was the last sleep I'd get. I woke up at 7AM Friday, October 13th, and didn't get back to sleep until 1AM Sunday, October 15th. The Saturday was simply killer for me.

The day started off pretty shitty, to be honest. I had to work a midnight and get off at 2:30AM, which was perfect for me to head out and make a three hour drive to Toronto to pick up two actors and bring them back in time for an 8:30 shoot. Needless to say, I quit my job that night.

I drove up there, piling as much chocolate and sugar into my system as possible on the way. Lucky me; I got to my first pickup early, and parked in a Tim Horton's and sat there and just relaxed for 30 minutes. I got my first guy in perfect time; I'd met him already, so we just chatted on the way. I got the second actor right when I said I would, which was more coincidence than skill. He jumped in, and we headed off to London to make cinema magic.

I pulled into London 30 seconds after my DoP brought most of my crew to the location. We all piled out and met; and after they had coffee (I drank a juice, I think), we set out for the first location shooting with one actor and a few of the crew. Of course, the weather was all over the place and the air was colder than frozen shit, so as frequent as we could we threw a jacket on my lead, Ben (who was playing Lyndon). The traffic was annoying, and the sun came in and out, leaving us out there for an hour on 6 shots, which at least came together really nicely after our patience. Freezing our nads off, we all hurried back to location two.

After a quick talk with my DoP on the shots in the kitchen, we set up the shots at the door and started to film. It was freezing as hell; the wind whipped so hard some times that I could feel my blood slowing down. The sun danced in and out, ruining shots just before we could take them. Eventually, we got inside, which brought in the most interesting shot; a tracking shot of Ben and Jermaine (playing Dustin, the first friend) entering the house. We kept losing light from the side window, so we set up a redhead light out there - course with the wind, we needed a way to sandbag it (weigh it down). This is a poorman's production, so I ghetto-rigged it up and got my cat's food bag, duct taped the hole closed, and viola! Weight. We also needed to smooth out the running line of the camera, since it was on tiles with grooves - so I grabbed my dog's blanket and we taped it to the floor - bam: Ghettotrack.

We only got three shots in of the kitchen before Jermaine had to head out for another audition. No worries; we had a whole other house to go to that he wasn't in. But we were getting hungry; by this time, it was 12:00, and we were 9 shots in... out of about 90. We had about 41 more on that day to do, so we needed to get moving on it. The weather hated us; the shots weren't easy, and the location had switched from what was on the storyboard, so we had to pull some together out of the blue.

But I'll get at that in part two. For now, here's some production stills.

My DOP (Centre) and I (left) discussing a shot

My three male actors (Ben, L, Jermaine, C, Conor, R) and my makeup artist (Monika, L) relaxing while we set up

Myself with my crew outside, Ben (L), Mike (C), Me, Cory (R)

The ghettotrack carpet for the camera

The cat food sandbag (with duct tape!) on the redlight light stand

The shot in action between Dustin and Lyndon

More later.

-Mark

Closing time

I know it's been awhile since I last blogged; however, this last week for me has been basically filmstuff mixed in with playoff baseball on TV. I've grabbed a spare minute here between classes - and for the first time, I'm trying some "remote" blogging, as I appear to be in a small, forgotten garden on campus that's somehow found great wireless support.

It's peaceful here, the greenery around me kind of a throwback to a simpler time - this place is a little haven where everyone just seems to pass by without notice, and those who do stay tend to ignore each other - in other words, it's a great place for me to blog, because nobody will bother me while I do.

Last week I held some auditions for Wake Up. I ended up travelling all the way to Burlington to hold the auditions, thinking nobodhy would want to come to London - well it turns out, that nobody really wanted to come to Burlington, either. I got a grand total of two people show up over the course of the 5 hours I sat there.. two people out of the 35 that expressed interest, two people willing to audition for a film they all seemed to think was a great premise.

But not all bad came from it. Both were auditioning for different roles, and one of the guys had clearly practiced the lines, cause he nailed the part without any difficulty - and yesterday, I offered him the lead role, which he accepted. The other auditioner was a girl, who did a good job with the character, but I've held off giving the part for now because I'm still waiting on a video audition another girl has sent in the mail. I should get it today, and from there I can make the final decision. I feel obligated to give them both a part - but unfortunately, I know it's not so. In the words of Highlander, there can be only one. The problem I'm faced with is choosing a girl that put the effort to come to audition, or the girl that mentally fits the image I had of the lead female. I know the former will put a good performance in on set - and that's important to me - but also it's not exactly a complicated role, so perhaps the performance isn't the biggest of deals - at least not with words. The latter will fit the part physically, which helps big time,but I have no idea on her acting skills. See my dilemma? I don't want to sell myself out before I even start in the industry (even on this "crude" level) and pick the better looking, less-talented girl. Not that either of them are eyesores. But I have to wait, and hopefully the second audition solves it all.

However, I was faced with the problem of the other two roles to fill. Nobody came, so nobody could get the part, correct? Well incidentally, the girl sending me her audition via the mail actually gave me the best idea to solve that problem- and I emailed everyone that hadn't shown up, letting them know I still had two roles available and would "accept video auditions now". I made the timeline clear, giving them until today to get the tape in to me.

I got two responses from it. The first was a guy saying he wanted to send a reel, which I accepted. The second was another actor, saying.. get this, he was willing to drive out to my location to audition. That made less sense to me, considering how I was closer and he didn't show up, but now he wanted to drive twice as far? Whatever, I said it was fine.

He emailed me back yesterday telling me he was on his way - course, I was in class at this time so I had to scramble to get home for the audition. He showed up at my doorstep, telling me "how far the drive was", which I agreed again with, and auditioned. I gave him the part of the first friend right after the audition, not just out of necessity, but because he was actually good for the role.

I have three of the four roles covered for sure, as of this blogging. I still needed a makeup artist, though.

And that in itself is another story. I asked around some film classmates about one, and got two addresses - I emailed both and got no response, so I started asking again. Another classmate gave me another one, who I fired off and she responded right away. Long story short, I chose her, and have a meeting tomorrow with her. In many ways, it's thrilling. But then I got another email from one of the original two I emailed saying she was on board - it's a shame, but I had to shut her down (and offer her the job i n a future production, just to keep my doors open).

And now I'm a week away from shooting, still looking for the final role, still figuring all the little details out, and still one crew meeting away (but at least I've finalized the crew now, too).

In one week, this all gets done. My leadership will determine if it sucks or if it goes smoothly.

And now if you'll excuse me, I've got a test to write (that I didn't study for, opting instead to blog).

-Mark