Monday, February 18, 2008

Back to the land of the living

Ahhhhh... I finally got some sleep last night... and a shower. Oh, yeah.

So. The building we are shooting in was built in 1908. The loft has been redone, and is really cool looking, but the place still has the original windows; this is great for the look, but awful for sound insulation. It's incredibly loud (street noise). Busses, people talking, carwash sprayers in the surrounding parking lots, a jack hammer (!!! --luckily it's down the street and not right in front of the building), people singing, people yelling, people honking, and on and on and on.

This will be great fun in post. I requested at least 10 seconds of pre and post roll, but I don't think it's happening on each shot. "Why do I need that?" you ask. Think about a line that's delivered over a loud siren or bus, and the shot cuts right after the talking ends but in the middle of that loud sound... how do you make that sound believable, natural, without having it cut abruptly when the camera angle changes? Yes, that's the problem with ambient noise. If you've got extra, you can fade it, fake it, and work with layering to make everything natural, but if the trailing sound isn't long enough, there's nothing to work with. Good luck, Daniel!

Some of the good things:

We're shooting on the seventh floor, and there are windows all around. The sunlight is incredible, and there's a great view of all the city buildings, down the streets, etc... Night time is super cool, and shootin on video allows for unbelievably low-light situations. So we can actually capture all the city lights in shots with the actors. It's really beautiful.

The director has both cameras outfitted with RedRock lense adapters. The footage is just gorgeous. It really does look like film. Jeff tested and tested a long time to finally find something that had the cost of video but the look of film; he's a maniac for "the look," and I think it will be one of the major strong suits of the finished product.

Everybody on set is great to work with, nice and willing to go above and beyond. No attitudes is so nice. You ask the male lead to to mark the shot with the slate, and he doesn't look at you with an "I'm an actor, not a grip" face. Instead, he's simply happy to do it.

Working on an indie set is exciting, because people are on the team, in it together, working toward the finished product, more so than when you're getting paid for your "job," just doing the work... not that I wouldn't enjoy getting paid once in a while. [smile]


more photos from the shoot can be seen here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/RenaissanceBoyRecordings/FebruaryEdenShoot02/

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