Pre-Production on The Great One [Producing]

Posted July 1st, 2008 at 8:59 am by C47

As noted before, it’s back to producing mode. This is the same director that I produced The Treasonist for (where I got a free bus and Dodge Magnum).

Here’s the one-line synopsis:

A messenger in the Napoleonic Wars contemplates his future after accidentally discovering he is destined to become a great artist.

This is what I’ve mainly been working on:

Casting

Aaron (the director) looks through our actor database to find people he likes. I set up the auditions (and keep us synchronized with Google Calendar), they come in, have a read, we talk and then make a decision. The choices have been pretty slim to find someone that looks right and can pull of a convincing Russian accent.

And of course we need extras. Aaron’s an After Effects whiz, so we only need about 10 and he’ll replicate them to create 10,000.

Locations

I’m really excited because this is the first film I’ve produced where there are multiple locations and the director didn’t have a specific place in mind.

Our main locations needed are a field and tent interior. The tent will be on the sound stage. We’ll actually be using two fields, one for the large daytime scenes, and another for a night scene. The night field is a wooded backyard, so we can draw power from the house for lights (since we don’t get generators).

Here’s a video of some of the possible locations. The first is the backyard field. The second is one we found just driving around.

We did find a promising park, and they were fine with filming except we couldn’t have weapons of any sort, which wasn’t fine with the script and leads to…

Weapons

This is more of a production design task, but it’s affecting where we can shoot. The PD team has done a great job of finding period guns. They even found a cannon with a guy certified to fire it. Once Aaron found this out there’s been a slight script tweak. When the park told me we couldn’t have weapons, I didn’t even bother mentioning the cannon.

Horses

What period army would be complete without horses? We have a few horse leads with people willing to let them be in the film. We just need horses that are used to people and won’t freak out.

And of course there’s lunches, craft service shopping, and since we’ll be out in the hot field - fans, bug spray, Easy-Ups and anything else to add outdoor comfort.

Photo by beggs.
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Posted in Casting, Location Scouting, Producing | No Comments

91 Set-Ups in 3 Days

Posted June 12th, 2008 at 10:31 pm by C47

Yes, we got 91 set-ups1 in 3 days. That’s about 30 a day. The 6 day show had 106 set-ups. Bottom line is we got a shit-ton of shots.

And this was despite company moves, lots of extras, a tired crew, and broken/missing equipment. The odd thing is no one brought up any objections or said we were crazy when we submitted the shot list, unlike my 60 set-up F3 that made my Director of Photography think I had lost it (we got the shots and wrapped early).

I think the main weapon that allowed the Director and I to get the shots was preparation. We storyboarded everything together in Frame Forge and had print outs of the boards on set. This way we could easily refer to a shot and communicate visually what we wanted to the crew and with each other.

I also used minimal lighting and kept the camera on the dolly when possible for easy repositioning.

It doesn’t seem like another show will pass the 91 (the other 6 day show has 80 planned), unless I manage to think of a few more for my movie. Apparently I just have a thing for lots of set-ups

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  1. A set-up is essentially a shot. Every time you move the camera, change lenses, change lighting, or film new action, that’s a new set-up. ↩
Posted in Cinematography, Production, Thesis Films | No Comments

The Glamour of Producing

Posted May 30th, 2008 at 12:45 am by C47

Ten cans of film have been turned in after the longest producing job I’ve had yet - six days of summer thesis kick-off. You get three days to shoot your thesis film, or you can team up and double your resources as the DP and Director did here and shoot for six days with twice the film.

I wanted to jump on this producing opportunity since this was one of two doubles that are shooting, and the other is a Producer/Director pair.

It was fun, and I love the people I worked with, but as far as producing challenges go, there were very few. The main reason was most of production was on a set in the soundstage. So that meant hanging out in the green room. For five and a half days.

There was a lot of craft service munching (I got Krispy Kreme donuts the last day as a treat). A lot of bored crew making ridiculous requests (”Make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a glass of milk.” I got them Uncrustables). And a lot of down time.

I finally had a chance to read a good part of Michael Eisner’s Work in Progress, but more importantly, I finally got into Lost. I should probably be careful with what I say, now that I’ve learned the Dean reads my super secret and anonymous blog. But just as a disclaimer, I set everything up to be self running and I wouldn’t let Lost get in the way of my main priorities.

I had always wanted to get into Lost, but I was reluctant because what I feared would happen, happened. I became so addicted I just kept watching episode after episode. I watched all of season one in about two days (there was a one day hiatus in between).

It might sound crazy, but my favorite day was Monday because it had the most problems and challenges. In the morning, a stream of crew members brought a variety of broken equipment to my attention - TAP doesn’t work, we were never given HMI lights, no one can locate the piece of half-dolly track, the boom pole is broken, the lenses to lights are cracked. Fixing these problems allowed me to feel like I was doing something (besides watching Lost).

Monday was also the only day we were on location in Gallie Alley. I had already set everything up and gotten the proper releases, but by coincidence it couldn’t have been a more perfect day to shoot than on Memorial Day.

Downtown is very lacking, and generally runs on business days during work hours. Since everything was closed, our group of background extras could easily take over the seating in one of the outside cafes.

And by setting up craft services at the cafe, it allowed me to completely forget I set up our own craft service table down the side walk. At the end of the day, we left without it. When I went to set it up the following day for lunch, I realized what I’d done. I sped back to downtown, and found it exactly where I’d left it - in the middle of the side walk.

I still enjoy producing. My next and last producing job should have a few more challenges. It involves forests and horses. But in the meantime, it’s time to get back behind the camera and DP Murder in a Mini-Skirt.

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Posted in Producing, Production, Thesis Films | No Comments