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On May 23rd Eric Soth's "Mounting" screened for the first time at Marion Knott Studios' Folino Theatre. Production for Mounting wrapped in April, but I've been a little too busy to write about the experience until now.;)
editor Mike Cox often joked with us that he would a place in the assembly for a shot which, mid dialogue coverage, gently pans away from the speaking character and zooms in to a bird passing in the background of the scene. While we never found our bird, Michael Nie and I found ourselves reaching for the microforce absurdly often, throwing a creeping zoom in to add significance to moments and elements which in the typical narrative wouldn't have deserved the attention. add comment
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The 10th of May saw the wrap for principal photography of Chelsea Pickens' "Myling," which follows a party-bound high schooler who is tricked into escorting a ghost child back to her grave. While much of the script was easily accomplished on location as day-for-night, the demands of a few choice scenes saw us working out the logistics of photographing a forest on a sound stage at Marion Knott Studios. Production Designer Katy Echols pulled together the materials from Los Angeles greens provider Green Set, and with a wrap of duvetine 20 feet tall walling in the perimeter of the set we began to see the forest come together.;)
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On a tight budget the selection and quantity of trees was limited; few of the trees were of a height comparable to what we found on location. Luckily Katy Echols was able to use the shorter trees to our advantage, loading the end of the set opposite the camera with shorter trees to patch up the black backdrop and imply a falloff of foliage in the distance. While this demanded frequent adjustment of the forest and ground cover our shot organization allowed only two major rearrangements of the space, accommodating for the addition and removal of a graveyard space. The graveyard set was put together with one end saved for camera, the set being redressed to acquire the reverses for each scene; a bluescreen was assembled and lit at the end of the set opposite the camera, where a 20x20 solid could be swung in and out as the bluescreen was needed. A battery of 10k tungsten fresnels were hung on each end of the set and were fired up as necessary to create the hard day-for-night light which we would need to match our location footage. The Marion Knott's self-climbing Desisti hoists allowed for fast adjustment of "moonlight" position as needed by the particular shot.;)
As far as the color photographed on set, we opted to retain a full spectrum of color on set to later drain in color correction with Autodesk Lustre. While the foliage on location was mostly in the range of greens and browns, Katy brought yellow and red foliage into the stage forest to push a sense of separation as the characters progress into the most fantasy-driven portion of their journey. Our tests in preproduction and with a basic color correction with the uncut footage has proven to imply just the hint of extra color we were hoping to capture.;)
Part of the decision to shoot in an artificial forest was driven by the extensive makeup necessary for the scenes we were shooting: through a series of tests Makeup Artist Jenny Hou streamlined a workflow to put actor Michael Sasso, young actress Danielle Soibelman, and the legendary Doug Jones through transformational prosthetics each morning of stage photography; the process was smooth and never held up production, by the benefit of Jenny's craft and the facilities available at Marion Knott.;)
It of course bears mentioning again that Doug Jones lent us his considerable talent for this show; an incredibly pleasant presence to have around whether he's in front of the camera or not, we all had a great time working with Doug even after our blinding explosions of geeky bliss had subsided. Just that Doug took the time to come out and join such a small production based on his interest in the script says a great deal about the quality of his passion and character.;)
Malachi Rempen's "La Nina del Desierto" screened on May 2nd at Marion Knott Studios to a wonderful audience reception. The film is temporarily available to watch at Dodge College's Cecil Awards page at http://film.chapman.edu/cecils/ add comment
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Erika Cohn's "La Guerrera" screened on May 1st at Marion Knott Studios. Despite a lack of color correction & polished sound design for this early screening, the audience response was overwhelmingly positive. The film is temporarily available to watch at Dodge College's Cecil Awards page at http://film.chapman.edu/cecils/ add comment
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March 1st marked the wrap of photography for Malachi Rempen’s “La Nina del Desierto,” a short film following a gravedigger in the desert. My seventh time around catching Malachi’s images, we’ve both been pleased seeing everything come through the one-light scan.;)
With 3-perf Super 35mm photography, the camera aperture records a 1.77:1 exposure. With a desired aspect ratio of 2.35:1, we lost no information in the process. We flirted with 2-Perf photography, but eventually decided against it: as 2-Perf yields a 2.66:1 exposure, extracting a 2.35:1 frame would require wasting the sides of the exposure, making our usable negative area only marginally larger than it might be with Super 16mm photography. Panavision provides a breakdown of the formats here.;)
The equipment came from Otto Nemenz: an Arri BL4 modified with a 3-Perf movement with Zeiss Standard Speed primes. With the gorgeous mountains to maintain the background of every daytime shot I avoided punishing my 1st Assistant Rachael Loftis with WFO apertures until our night photography, when my Gaffer Chris Richmond finally got the chance to bring out a generator to create nights with a natural minimum of moonlight. (of course, Rachael did an excellent job even with the faster apertures) add comment
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This January I spent three weeks on the Mexican border working to commit to 16mm film director Erika Cohn's vision of writer Becky Bohanan's "La Guerrera." The story follows a young girl struggling to pursue her passion for soccer in a Mexican town that considers sports a man's place. The search for semi-urban Mexico on a tight budget lead the production to San Ysidro, within half a mile from the border to Tijuana. Originally designed as a Utopian community, San Ysidro's land was initially split among a few owners who were to tailor their holdings to fit the needs of the town's people; our location owner was an inheritor of one such land holding, & provided for all of production's wide variety of needs so that although we had planned to build & shoot interiors closer to Los Angeles we ended up placing all three weeks of photography on location.;)
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In discussing with Camera Operator Michael Nie the idea of a dichotomous world developed: as lead Lula (Crystal Guel) was divided emotionally between the excitement of her sport & the restriction of her home life, our camera movement would be so divided, capturing her life outside entirely handheld & her life at home with a locked camera. This separation would be accented by the use of long lenses & a thin shutter on the exteriors against wider shots which would use doorframes & other obstructions to cage the compositions in the interiors. The distinction seemed effective; the change in the tempo of work among the below the line crew also established a different set culture between the exterior & interior work, which helped to frame the different moods for the talent.;)
The assault happens quickly at the height of her anticipation so the maintenance of camera movement, which is an extension of Lula's emotional state, was critical; foreboding was instead established by a stark change in color & light. The scene was established with only a single bare lightbulb as a source in the scene; gaffer Chris Richmond worked with Key Grip Melissa Fisher to build a soft source into the ceiling above the practical & a second source to boost levels in a deep pocket of the storage space. Eyelights seemed to find their way into the scene without any extra work, & only a minimum of bouncefill was necessary to gain the deep ratio I was looking for. Chris manned a set of dimmers outside the container, & through the take I signaled cues via radio to match the switching on & off of the practical.;)
A couple unconventional tricks made their way into this scene: first, a short stretch of darkness between the closing of the door & the switching on of the practical allowed 1st Assistant Camera Katy Echols to pull the 85 filter & keep correct color for both the sunlight & tungsten light. Next, on our master shot Chris Richmond suggested an expressionist trick to draw attention & quietly alarm the audience: as Lula is lead from the deeper pocket in the container back toward the practical where she will be thrown against the wall by Andres, Chris brought down the booster light in the back pocket to complete darkness. The effect is indiscernible without prior notification, but manipulates a sense of fear which compliments the scene nicely.
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