"October"

Well, October is crazy. Really. I've just come to realize that I'm potentially busy every evening and weekend from now on until Thanksgiving break. Two midterms this week, a few after that... it's wild. Plus tomorrow is our big "First Cut" event at the DGA in Hollywood, and I get to work at that as a photographer and assistant. Fun fun fun, but busy busy busy.

This past weekend was the first weekend of AP (Advanced Production) shoots. Only a step down from Senior thesis productions, these are taken pretty seriously. As a Cine student, I am required to work one of the shoots. Funny thing is, this wasn't the one I was required to work - this one, titled "October" (fitting, yes?) was directed by my good friend and fellow film/theatre double-major Carly Pandza (see previous post). Though this wasn't the one required by my Cine class, I was still thrilled to be working on it.

The production itself was a welcome challenge for me as a focus puller. About 3/4 of the film was handheld, and a decent amount of it moving quickly through tight spaces. In my opinion, the hardest shot on the film occurred on the second day of shooting, in our main indoor location (we had six locations, I believe - four outdoors). The long, single shot required.... a handheld follow of the actress starting in the (tiny) bathroom, having a bit of a breakdown, *running* out into the hallway as camera stayed in front of her the whole time, into the bedroom, throwing a glass vase across the room at a picture frame (ideally shattering the vase), running BACK out into the hallway, into the bathroom, and melting down into the final (dreamy) sequence of the movie. First off, with a somewhat-bulky Arri SRII shooting on 16mm film stock, with no steadycam rig (i.e., just handheld on the shoulder) this isn't an easy task. Then factor in the fast, backwards running, the tiny (I mean, tiny) hallyway, avoiding lighting rigs, boom op and the director... and trying to keep it in focus for the full scene (just under 100ft of film per take, I think). It was NOT an easy task. Reaching the focus ring alone was hard... and though I think I did a decent job, I'm sure not EVERY second of that scene is in focus.

I can't remember how many full takes we did, but I can't wait to see the developed shot. It has the potential to be a killer shot. DP Jessee Dietch did a great job with this sequence in particular (not to mention the entire film) and felt like her style really fit this film well.

Another interesting aspect about that day of shooting was the use of interior and exterior... even switching from one to the other in the same shot (which required a major iris pull for the light change... I have never before had to do this while filming, though I know of it in theory. So it was really interesting experience and challenge. Like I said, I just can't wait to see it developed (and meanwhile I pray it looks good).

Another great accomplishment for me personally with this project was certainly working with the film. We used Kodak Vision 2 16mm stock, 500T for the indoor and 250D for the outdoor (and the indoor-to-outdoor) scenes. Though I've worked with film before as an AC, it hasn't been to this degree. I really got to put my Cine knowledge to work, and I truly feel like I gained a lot from this experience. I even got to load occasionally (typically the 2nd AC's job) since I was potentially more comfortable with loading... we only had two mags (film magazines) and from the second day on had one loaded with daylight, one with tungsten film, so when we had to change a roll, production had to stop to wait to change the correct mag - both unloading and loading the roll. Since production was literally stopped to wait for the loading, and it was potentially faster than 2nd AC Alexis was comfortable with, I took over some of the duties and got my loading/unloading down to probably just under 5 minutes (but I can get better!).

Working with camera filters was also something I haven't had much experience with but got used to quickly on this shoot - for the outdoor, because it was so bright on the 250D we usually employed a 9ND filter, which I learned brought us down three full stops on aperture, and a Polarizer filter which brought us down 2/3 of a stop. (Which meant our light readers, now reading at an ASA of 20, could actually give us measurements I could use since most of our lenses only went to a stop of 11). All this technical jargon may or may not be lost on you... but lets just say I learned quite a bit. AND we shot nearly 10 rolls of film! Amazing!

Overall, the experience was wonderful. The crew and set atmosphere was welcoming, calm for the most part, and friendly. Though many of us didn't know each other beforehand, we became a family immediately. It's definitely been one of the closest and warmest sets I've been on. Carly did a fabulous job directing, Jessee did an awesome job DPing and putting up with and teaching me, and everyone else really held their weight too. Great job! (Can't sleep soundly until I see the developed film)...

Oh, and we had a dog on set.