So a bunch of us arrived late Thursday night to NY at a sketchy motel. We had to jam about 9 people into two small rooms. We had to do this because Vinny was not with us, so we couldn’t spend the night at his house.
We got about 4 hrs of sleep and had to get up at the crack of 5am and pack up in 15min to head over to Vin’s for the sunrise.
Once we arrived at the house we started to set the tent up for the sunrise scene. Everything was all set up until we realized a key wardrobe item had not been brought up. Our wardrobe person was not on set because she was coming up later in the day. This article of clothing was not only needed to keep continuity between scenes, it was a key motif in the movie. I knew we had to have the particular hoodie for Bobby to wear in the sunrise scene for aesthetic reasons, so we all panicked.
So we thought quick on our feet and sent Brianne out to Wal-Mart. Luckily she was able to find a maroon hoodie that closely resembled the one we had been using.
We shot the scene and it looked great.
Soon after we finished the scene Greg Nutcher arrived on set to finish some of his scenes for the movie. There was a little bit of a scheduling conflict between him and Brianne, and we found out he was only available to shoot that day. So we had to change our plans around slightly to accommodate him, but in the end it worked out fine.
We shot that day and once we were done shooting everyone took a break, except of course, myself Jess and Bobby. We had to rehearse for a few hours to get ready for the next mornings shoot.
That night we also found out that we would not be allowed to shoot at the diner we had already been given permission to shoot at on Saturday. Apparently Vin had called to follow up with the manger and she told him we couldn’t (even though we had already set it in stone that we could), she said we could only shoot there on weekdays. This was a bummer for us because now we knew we would have to come back up to NY and take more time out of our schedules to shoot the diner scene… But it had to be done…
The next morning was a big one. We all got up at 5am sharp (all with about 5 hrs of sleep)
It was really a sight to behold. The previous night we all got together and I spoke to everyone about the morning shoot at the cemetery. I stressed that it was critical that we all worked as a team, we all needed to work in unison, we all needed to work together to beat the rising sun.
In the morning it was really awesome to see it all come together. We had the full crew out at the cemetery at 5:30am. We had three different groups; some were shoveling and scraping ice off of the mausoleum walkway to prevent the actors and the dolly from slipping. Others were setting up the crane, and even more people were in a different location setting up the dolly tracks so Zach and I could move from shot to shot with minimal set up time. This was an extremely important scene and we had it spread across two mornings in the schedule, but we still knew we needed to hustle to fit it all in.
While all this was going on Zach and I were down in the valley setting up the wide shot. As the sun started to rise, I took a second to take it all in. This was the first time I had seen the entire crew work in unison, work together on set so well. Sure everyone has been working hard, but it was so awesome to see it all take place at one location.
As the sun started to rise we captured some phenomenal shots. We also found out that the sun was more forgiving then we had anticipated and rose much slower. This was very good news for us because it allowed us to shoot for longer into the morning.
Shooting at sunrise is a particularly hard task because the color temperature in the sky changes so rapidly. Luckily this day was decently cloudy (this helped us with the color temperature issue and time issue)
We shot all we could and then took a big break. The whole crew went out to a local Chinese buffet, and it was amazing… we were all so tired and drained form the morning shoot that the food tasted amazing. It was really good moral booster.
Once we got back form lunch we had some down time until it got dark, which was when we where planning on shooting all of the tent night scenes.
During that time most of us took a nap, caught up on some Z’s and did some rehearsing.
That night was some of the hardest lighting Kelly and Zach have come across yet… and they pulled it off beautifully. The footage looked really great. We went long into the night and when it ended we clocked out at about a 21hr day. Although we did get all of our shots in for the day, I can hardly say 21hrs was a success.
Later in the week we went over some concerns during e-board and we realized that we could cut down on our setup times if I rehearsed with the actors while Zach and Kelly were setting up. This would eliminate the time they need to re-adjust lights to the actors specific physical traits.
Anyway… With feet soaking wet, those of us who stayed outside all night for the shoots went to sleep.
We woke up the next morning only to have to rush back out to the cemetery to shoot the remainder of the mausoleum scene. When we got there we shot a few pick ups and then proceeded to get the remainder of an important monologue we had not been able to shoot the day prior. As we started to shoot it was going well. Then out of nowhere in a split second it started to downpour on all of us. We all quickly hustled and grabbed all of the equipment and brought it under shelter.
We then all went back to Vin’s and were about to call it a day until, you guessed it… the sun came out! So we ate lunch and ran back over to the set and proceeded to shoot the rest of the scene. Only this time the sun was out (which is actually bad, because you get harsher highlights on your subjects) and it was extremely windy. We shot what was left in the scene and got the hell out of there.
Needless to say it was a very cold, tiring and exhausting weekend. However, we did get a lot of amazing footage!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Catchin' on up
So, as usual I am playing catch up (Because it seems once I get a break form TMC the last thing on my mind is writing about it) So please forgive me if I am a little hazy on what happened 2 weeks ago, so much has happened since then! After this post I will try and find time to blog as events happen.
So on with the show….
So the weekend came and we shot a whole lot on Saturday at Greg’s apartment. This was the first really intense day of shooting we had that was not in NY. All of the shots that were planned were night shots in the script and we started shooting at 12 noon. Because of this Kelly and Zach tented the windows and we made it appear as if it were nighttime. They did an amazing job, because mid shoot I went outside and was blinded by the light. The whole day was very disorienting, because it felt like it was dark out the whole day.
The whole shoot went well. Of course it was not without its share of opportunities, but we did get a lot of great footage.
This was my first weekend shooting with the very talented David McLaine (Shamus). He really nailed his stuff, and boy was he creepy! Its always fun to have him on set because he makes everyone laugh. Bobby was hitting his marks as usual, so that was awesome. I also had Jess come down for a few hours to be on set, get used to everything, so on Sunday (he first scene) she wouldn’t be so nervous. I think having her come and be on set helped her a lot
People not being prepared for the shoot caused the majority of opportunities on Saturday. We started about an hour late because some departments had to go out and get props in the morning. By the 13th hour we were all getting pretty cranky and tired. It was especially hard for me because I was drained, yet I had to keep everything up-beat so every 10 min or so I would get up and try and cheer everyone else up, let everyone know they were doing great. I think it helped a little.
In hindsight the main problem was we did not have any breaks scheduled besides lunch, and on a 15 hr day that just isn’t going to cut it. So after the shoot when we all sat down for a meeting we realized that we need 10 min breaks every so often on long shoots. These breaks are essential to keep moral up and energy and sanity up.
After finishing at 2am we all went home, only to sleep a few hours for the next mornings 8am call.
The next day went relatively well. It was Jess’s first few scenes and after a few warm ups she really nailed it. When we broke for lunch was when we ran into a huge opportunity. It was just poor organization, no one knew what time lunch was, people were split up, people were out of contact, it was just a mess. We ended up losing about an hour of shooting time, just trying to get everything organized again. It was hard because a lot of it derived from the 4hrs of sleep everyone got.
But after lunch we truly had mother earth on our side. We shot a scene in the woods and the lighting was just beautiful, it was truly a sight to behold. We went out to the woods with minimal crew, while everyone else was over at the next location setting up. Once we were done we moved over to the next location and shot one last scene before the sun went down.
All in all it was a good weekend. Technically we only missed our day by 1 scene, however given that we only had a turn around of 4hrs it wasn’t as successful as we would have hoped. But we certainly learned a lot, and we captured some great footage.
After the weekend we had a big crew meeting to discuss the opportunities we had run into. We spoke about too many people being on set distracting those who were working, and a multitude of other things we had to work on. The meeting was very productive. I like how we are all getting to the point were we can just air our problems to each other and fix what we need too. We are at the point where any problems we have with each other can be spoken about in a group setting without anyone getting personally offended. We all know that we need to let our concerns be heard so we can improve upon them and become more efficient.
With that said we moved on to the next week of shooting… in NY.
So on with the show….
So the weekend came and we shot a whole lot on Saturday at Greg’s apartment. This was the first really intense day of shooting we had that was not in NY. All of the shots that were planned were night shots in the script and we started shooting at 12 noon. Because of this Kelly and Zach tented the windows and we made it appear as if it were nighttime. They did an amazing job, because mid shoot I went outside and was blinded by the light. The whole day was very disorienting, because it felt like it was dark out the whole day.
The whole shoot went well. Of course it was not without its share of opportunities, but we did get a lot of great footage.
This was my first weekend shooting with the very talented David McLaine (Shamus). He really nailed his stuff, and boy was he creepy! Its always fun to have him on set because he makes everyone laugh. Bobby was hitting his marks as usual, so that was awesome. I also had Jess come down for a few hours to be on set, get used to everything, so on Sunday (he first scene) she wouldn’t be so nervous. I think having her come and be on set helped her a lot
People not being prepared for the shoot caused the majority of opportunities on Saturday. We started about an hour late because some departments had to go out and get props in the morning. By the 13th hour we were all getting pretty cranky and tired. It was especially hard for me because I was drained, yet I had to keep everything up-beat so every 10 min or so I would get up and try and cheer everyone else up, let everyone know they were doing great. I think it helped a little.
In hindsight the main problem was we did not have any breaks scheduled besides lunch, and on a 15 hr day that just isn’t going to cut it. So after the shoot when we all sat down for a meeting we realized that we need 10 min breaks every so often on long shoots. These breaks are essential to keep moral up and energy and sanity up.
After finishing at 2am we all went home, only to sleep a few hours for the next mornings 8am call.
The next day went relatively well. It was Jess’s first few scenes and after a few warm ups she really nailed it. When we broke for lunch was when we ran into a huge opportunity. It was just poor organization, no one knew what time lunch was, people were split up, people were out of contact, it was just a mess. We ended up losing about an hour of shooting time, just trying to get everything organized again. It was hard because a lot of it derived from the 4hrs of sleep everyone got.
But after lunch we truly had mother earth on our side. We shot a scene in the woods and the lighting was just beautiful, it was truly a sight to behold. We went out to the woods with minimal crew, while everyone else was over at the next location setting up. Once we were done we moved over to the next location and shot one last scene before the sun went down.
All in all it was a good weekend. Technically we only missed our day by 1 scene, however given that we only had a turn around of 4hrs it wasn’t as successful as we would have hoped. But we certainly learned a lot, and we captured some great footage.
After the weekend we had a big crew meeting to discuss the opportunities we had run into. We spoke about too many people being on set distracting those who were working, and a multitude of other things we had to work on. The meeting was very productive. I like how we are all getting to the point were we can just air our problems to each other and fix what we need too. We are at the point where any problems we have with each other can be spoken about in a group setting without anyone getting personally offended. We all know that we need to let our concerns be heard so we can improve upon them and become more efficient.
With that said we moved on to the next week of shooting… in NY.
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