film processed!

film developed and processed at alphacine and now residing at letterpress. DP and I going up on monday to supervise the transfer. stay tuned

smooth landing

film en route to processing

by sheer coincidence my editor was in town for a couple days and is driving to vancouver BC on I-5 which will take her right thru/past seattle and by alphacine and due to her good-nature (as well as her probable need to stop for a coffee re-up in seattle) she was willing to drop the film off. This is also perfect since she'll be guiding the film through post, who better to literally bring it to post.

pictures from production - TBBD

the westerner inn, interstate ave, portland ore

Matt Sipes, The Man

Matt Sipes, Todd Tschida, Edward Davee looks on

Laying tracks for dolly move

craft service, day 5

director en route to setting up shot

production wrap - The Big Black Dark

finished shooting TBBD last night. I had hoped to be better at updating all the steps of the process, from the script to the storyboards to the pre-planning to the shooting and all stations in between but time is a precious commodity when you get into the zone and literally i had zero time to do anything beyond make the movie. which is to say it gets all whirlwind-y and there's no ability for context much less commentary. so then here, post shoot, are some generalization from across the shoot.

birds-eye view: things went exceedingly well. i did some new things on this one, including but not limited to shooting on super 16, using rear-projection, using a jib arm, acting, super long takes. b/c we shot on film (ie, $) i was hyper-concious about how much film we had left and so nearly everything was done in one or two takes. w/ one big exception (jib arm shot #2).

random data: 5 shoot days (2 night, 3 day) spread across 6 days, Thurs-Tues w/ an off-day Mon. we shot in a bar, in a hotel, in a garage, in my basement, wooded property etc. we shot on 7 400 ft rolls of kodak b/w single perf 7222, a total of 2800 ft of exposed film. 7 speaking parts.

things to remember for next time: do tech scout w/ sound for all restaurant/bar locations; rehearse everyone, ie don't presume b/c someone is great that they get what you're going for; don't scrimp or be lax on craft service/food etc; hire a script supervisor and/or AD and, as a corollary, don't print out only one copy of a shot list and then freak out if it goes missing; if using jib and shot starts high and ends low be sure to get a remote camera device so operator can start camera high instead of starting low, running film while jib is raised and then lowered b/c you will run through an entire mag in 10 takes and eventually you'll have to just walk away and hope you got something close; if you have a late night shooting push back the next day's call as long as possible

pictures from production - My Beer With Bill

Jacob Morehead

mike tanner

jacob morehead & mike tanner

lanie hoyo & jacob morehead

above are 4 screen-grabs from the footage, shot by scott ballard

shoot 1.22.11

actor came over at 4 to do voice-over, which starts the movie. he nailed it on the first take. we did it again for safety's sake but it was moot. around 5 dp arrived. we got into my car and drove across the river. we needed shots of actor on the max train - for the beginning and end of movie - but i had planned nothing out per se, going to steal the shots as it were so i felt quite at the mercy of fate. the three of us walked onto train, dp w/ hd camera w/ 35 mm adapter on it, and did our best to look inconspicuous. transfered lines and ended up downtown. we walked back to car and stole walking shots where we could, some from across the street, parallel w/ actor as he walked. by coincidence we went right by a series of food carts (the script has mention of downtown food carts in a - one hopes - amusing way) which fit right w/ script. only thing we needed was a shot of actor entering bar. decided spur-of-moment to get him descending down staircase into a restaurant/bar. several takes of that as dp had to do his own rack-focus...then across the river, to a vintage store in portland. they have great lamps that they leave on when store is closed and i'd hoped to get shot of actor crossing in front, but alas the store, though closed, still had all overhead lights on, which nullified any visual value. we got a shot off but i prob. won't use. we were just getting back into car when i saw a great neon COCKTAIL sign w/ a martini glass so we got a quick shot of actor walking under it.

back home for last scene. other actor arrived as did camera help. camera dept lit the living room while i ran the scene w/ actors. didn't want to give too many notes or over-direct. finally started shooting. i'd planned to do it all in one shot but decided on set to do a close master and two singles. got what i needed quickly and wrapped.