First Day of Shooting!

Well, first day of shooting is completed.  I did not know it was possible to be so sore just from standing around telling people what to do for 12 hours.  In what I'm sure is a totally unrelated coincidence all of the crew guys were skinny...perhaps I should look into that.

I think the footage we got is fantastic - the lighting is dark and hard and moody just like I envisioned.  The actors nailed their parts. 

We started in the room of a seedy motel and our crew had to build a huge cave in order to block out the sun going into the windows but still leave room to put our own lights there. 

We ended up tearing apart both rooms we rented in order to switch beds and then use all the linens to help block light. The other room was for staging, but it wasn't exactly a relaxing environment either.

Inside the room it was hot and steamy and had too many people, but we got into a rhythm pretty quickly and ended up doing 21 setups in about 4 hours.










From there we moved to the convenience store and started getting exteriors.  Our contact there Josh was awesome - he kept the place open for us to go inside and cool off as well as buy much needed drinks and supplies.  He even got into one of the shots as an extra.

The crew again was super fast, laying out dolly track and lighting both inside and outside the store in short order and we started making up some of the time we lost earlier in the day.  We ended up two hours over, but we did get all our shots.  I guess it's also not a real film shoot unless the police show up, but Josh was able to convince him we had the owner's permission and I had an email from a city employee saying that as long as we were not interfering with the public we didn't need a permit.  The email actually said "It is my understanding you don't need a permit" but fortunately he didn't make me show it to him.

I'm still trying to figure out a decent way to link to facebook albums (stupid facebook), but here are some pics from set taken by out lead actor: http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=2063690&id=1327537405  and our Hair and Makeup person: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=lf#!/album.php?aid=174012&id=720763699.

This week is more prep, finalizing a restaurant location and then the marathon 3 days of shooting over the weekend.

Some Preliminary FX Stuff

With just over a week to go before shooting we're almost there.  Still lots of things to take care of but it's achievable.

I just got these videos in from Tim our FX guru and wanted to post them since they look pretty cool.  These will be combined with greenscreen work putting actors and props into the alley.

1st 3D Test                                                            3D Test w/ Movement

Alley Test - new alley                                             Test 4

Quick Crew update

We've got our Assistant Camera and Gaffer secured for the entire shoot.  Having continuity among the camera and electric leads ought to be very beneficial to the project.  We have queries out for some grips and assistant gaffers that should be locked down soon.  I need to start gathering PA's and other enthusiastic but inexperienced volunteers because we're pretty much out of budget for any paid positions.  However, we believe that as long as our department heads know what they're doing we'll be just fine.

Still on the list - we need a script supervisor and I'd very much like to get someone that knows about film make-up and hair.  Our FX Supervisor will also be looking for a helper with his on set work.  Wardrobe is starting to come together as are the props and set decoration.  The goal is to knock all that off our list by the end of next weekend so that final week will be putting out the unanticipated fires.

T minus Three Weeks (ish) and Counting

We had rehearsal for the motel room scene on Saturday and it went really well.  This scene more than any other I felt was important to rehearse before we all got on set with lights and people and money.  I decided to go to the actual motel location and I think that was a good decision.  For one thing we found out that the room is Extremely dark.  For another, I learned that some rooms are larger than others and have different furniture configurations so I'll need to be more specific when we reserve the final shooting one.

Having never actually directed a rehearsal before it took a bit to figure out what we should actually be doing, but fortunately everyone is still pretending I'm in charge so they all just keep doing what I tell them.  The scene itself it pretty intense so it was great to not only figure out the shots and blocking but also get the awkwardness out of the way.  I'm trying to cut together something from the rehearsal footage but considering how dark it was and how poorly I shot it I don't know how helpful it will be.  I think we'll probably end up shooting the whole scene about ten different ways so that my paranoia about sufficient coverage will be sated.  So few other scenes in the film will allow that kind of freedom so I'm going to take advantage of it.

I'm going out Wednesday with the DP and FX Supervisor to visit the locations and determine power/gear needs.  That should also allow me to finalize the schedule as well once the DP tells me the times I'm assuming aren't absurd.

Also on Saturday we had a production meeting and my Production Designer is actually making concrete progress on...designing the production.  We're collecting props and wardrobe bits - hopefully all that will be done in the next two weeks.  We're also making progress on collecting crew people, but that is going slowly.  I guess I'll need to start yelling at people soon on that front.

Sorry this post is so boring, I wish I had pictures or something, but I don't know how much of that we'll have until we actually start shooting.