3 posts tagged “cinematography”

Today, I encountered the first interview so far that is marred by one of the sound people moving the mic around; bip, bip, bip, bip. Fortunately, this isn't constant and I should be able to cut around the bobbles. I also hit one of the two tapes where the video mode had been shifted accidentally in the bag and went unnoticed until after several minutes had been recorded. At the time, I chose to play out the tape in the incorrect mode, but switched to the proper mode when a new tape was started. That may not have been the best choice. It might have been better to record the whole interview in the wrong mode and then conformed it all later. I won't really know what the effect of this choice will be until I get into editing proper. Finally, on the flaws and mistakes front, I learned that one of the people who worked on the tape logs managed to record over about two minutes of one of the interviews. I don't think I lost anything
valuable, but it was a shock. Am glad that this particular person did not get a chance to do work on the logs in an extensive way.

I've also noticed that my in-person perceptions of the interviews are not always born out on screen. I have found subjects that seemed kind of flat during recording coming across much better on playback. The differences are not dramatic, but enough to be encouraging. Less common is for a dyamic in-person interview to be turned flat in review. This is also encouraging, obviously.

One of the hardest things about this process is listening to my own voice on tape-after-tape.

I've written previously about how budgetary limits have compelled me to be my own director of photography on the comics documentary. This is not an entirely bad thing, it forces me to do work that makes me a better filmmaker, but last week I got a sharp reminder as to why it's preferable to work with a photographer.

My camera, a Panasonic DVX100a, has a set of "scene files" which allows you to use and save different combinations of settings for color, detail, frame rate, etc. I think I've been reliable about checking that the scene file setting is correct before we begin shooting. However, last Friday, for various reasons, things were moving slow and we were behind schedule, and clearly checking the scene file dial simply slipped my mind. When I changed tapes during one of the interviews, I noticed that the dial had moved, which will happen sometimes when I put the camera back in its bag (hence, the need to check). Unfortunately, we weren't in a location that set off any alarm bells about how the image looked on the LCD screen - muted colors, no real dark areas, s stable camera and subject - and it wasn't until I actually saw the dial that I realized what had happened.

I haven't looked at the tape yet, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to smooth out or finesse the differences in footage during editing and post-production without too much trouble. Fortunately, even though I haven't tested this yet, my understanding is that Final Cut Pro makes it relatively easy to work with different kinds of video (here, I'm looking at needing to work with 24PA and 60i). In retrospect, I probably should have kept the "wrong" scene file for the rest of the interview, but my first impulse was to change it back to where it should have been and that's what I did. This will make it easier to integrate the second half with the rest of my footage, but poses a new challenge of how to reconcile the look within the interview.

The lesson here for me is that one of the practical reasons for working with a photographer is that that person will have nothing to worry about except the camera, making it less likely that something like this will happen. But, to tweak a cliche about teaching, you have to work with the production you have, not the one you wish you had.

I'm happy to say that the Monmouth Film Collective was one of the teams to successfully finish their film in the Portland 48 Hour Film Project. All teams had the same required elements: a character named Roy or Rachel Schwarz, quality control expert, a line of dialogue, "Do you smell what I smell?", and a balloon for a prop. The genre we drew was "Fantasy." We got the genre and elements thanks to Rachel Bridgewater and Jason Kirtland who attended the kick off at the Jupiter Hotel in Portland while the rest of the team awaited our draw in Monmouth (which, for those of you not from western Oregon, is located about 70 miles to the southwest of Portland).

We came up with a story centered around a quality control expert at a "dream factory," DreemRz, Inc., who is having to fight declining quality in the dreams being put out by the company. We went with Rachel instead of Roy. Rachel was played by Meghan Flickinger, who played "Pam" in 5 Cups of Coffee. Her antagonist was "Richard Upright, VP for quality control" played by David Berrier, a member of Pentacle Theater in Salem. The scenario devised by the writers, headed by Maren Anderson, writer of 5 Cups, and including Shane Hosea and Jason McBane, had Rachel trying to convince Upright that the dreams being put out by DreemRz, Inc. were no longer helping the company's customers effectively work through their personal problems, refresh their mental abilities, and develop as people. Upright's focus is on production and profit. To him a dream is a dream. To Rachel dreams are for individual dreamers. Ultimately, she confronts a horrific dream being sent to a little girl. She decides to stop it no matter what the cost to her job. The writers wrote up the dream making process as being like film making, so she races from department to department before finally catching up to the horrible dream in shipping. We used the balloons as dream delivery devices. In trying to convince Upright that the dreams are no good, she "shows" him a number of dreams, including one involving a fish that made for an organic use of the required line.

One of the initial challenges we had to work out on the set was how to incorporate the dreams into the dialogue between Rachel and Upright. Our production designer, Jordan Hofer, searched around the shooting location, at the Willamette Academy Offices in Salem, thanks to photographer William Bragg, and found a round vase and a green calculator that could sort of disguised if you showed the back instead of the front. We went with the vase because it caught the light well. In editing I used Final Cut's "ripple dissolve" to signify a shift into dreams. In the end, the vase pretty much looks like a vase, but it was, I think the best way to create room for the dream sequences.

The shoot was very extemporaneous and the film's ending was in constant evolution right up to the conclusion of shooting. We had to make a lot of decisions on the fly, due not only to time constraints, but also in response to what was happening as we shot. Sometimes the way we shot one scene seemed to make other scenes superfluous, so we would skip them and move on. Jordan's kid, Anna, was cast in the role of the little girl Rachel is trying to save. As they say, "never work with kids and animals." She was feeling overwhelmed by the production and we had to adjust to her mood (this turned out for the better, I think, as I like our ending).

If there is one thing I wished we had done differently it was in how we shot the dialogue between Rachel and Upright. We had a tighter angle on Rachel than Richard. This posed some challenges in editing and some of the cuts between them are a little too jumpy. Had we shot some tighter footage of Upright, too, that would have made this easier (of course, I am not entirely comfortable with the classic, shot-reverse shot style of shooting and editing dialogue. This style provides the audience with an omniscient point of view, but it feels awkward and unnatural to me. When we talk to people, we generally look at them head-on. When we observe conversations, we see the conversants together, and often in profile or from the back. We do not get to see both sides of the discussion from essentially the same vantage point. This is something I am going to keep turning over in my head for awhile).

The work done by the team was exceptional, particularly given how much we all had to get to know each other while we worked. David was excellent, effectively evoking Bill Lumbergh without engaging in imitation. Meghan was also excellent, playing Rachel with a quiet determination. The other actors, Samantha Berrier, Brett McKay, and Jesse Madden, had to get into character on a moment's notice and helped to give the dream sequences, shot at the  IKE Box in Salem, especially, the sort of low rent surreality that we needed. Others on the crew also pitched in with the acting when needed, and Jordan's wife, Armelle was drafted at the last minute to help Anna with the ending. One advantage of our script was it gave us license to reuse people in different roles. I empathize with the writers on a project like this. Even more than usual some of their best work no doubt got left behind as time pressures demanded a certain amount of ad-libbing and cutting of scenes. Still, the architecture and key ideas are down to Maren, Shane, and Jason. Jennifer Richards produced superb music, especially our main theme, which, combined with Bill Madden's artwork for the credits, starts the film with a real Michel Gondry-vibe. Jordan's work on the dream shipping room was first rate. His choice of black and red for the balloons and reworking of the room to make it unrecognizable as a recycled location were both inspired. Norris Lee was very helpful, willing to do any small job to keep the production moving. Will, already a skilled still photographer, was great to work with as DP. He was ready with advice and willing to experiment with me. Anne-Marie did the essential work of reviewing and downloading footage, a task that pretty much isolated her from the rest of the group. She was also instrumental in giving me feedback during primary editing. Jason and Rachel, in addition to being invaluable for the kick off, helped to make sure we got our film in on time when we ran into trouble printing to video on a MiniDV tape and had to burn data files to DVDs instead. These kinds of events are really about the process and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, even the rough patches.

Our film, titled "DreemRz, Inc," screens in a group tonight at the Hollywood Theater in Portland at 7:15. Sadly, I can't make it, but other members of the team are going and I'll be sure to pass on their thoughts and reactions. In the meantime, check out Bill's art for the opening title:

Title-art