musings on my cinematic wanderings
sirius tweets purebred tweetsSo we finally shot the death scenes (where the band is killed off) and a number of the supporting photos of a bunch of different comedians who were so kind as to stop by. Now a little blood spatter and we’ve a finished visual product. This section will have the longest post process and will turn out pretty kick as with a very stylistic look. Each of the guys is really getting it.
I won’t say when we’ll have the whole project set, but at least we have the goods.
We’ve wrapped the first days of Lucifer’s Crewcut. What a joy it was working with Maria Bamford … nothing like working with real pros to take your project to the next level. We had a half day with her and banged it out with time to spare. I think that also speaks to the quality of the effort our crew put in to rattle this one off. Robert and I were simpatico on working the scenes together to squeeze out the best creative juices from the project.
Robert and Jason work with Maria Bamford on her climatic shot.
Stacey’s team did a wonderful job of pulling together the sets to really give us something to shoot. The last couple of weeks of their work are going to as much of the film as anything else. The whole thing is turning out beautifully. Nicely distressed walls of funny old men in pointy hats … the perfect dressings of water coolers and radiators. The detail of the years worth of pencils hanging from the old rotary phone in the hallway leaving little half moons scrapings on the wall. Great job baby!
And as a bonus, Mark Brecke was there as our set photographer to capture the best moments. It’s nice to have someone like that working with you and adding that extra dimension.
Mark and Jason work to capture the heap of quartet.
Next stop … December when we can reassemble the cast and crew to bang out the remaining days.
The bulk of the Lucifer’s Crewcut webiste has been uploaded and ready to tantalize the masses. Right now there is just the one clip with Jello Biafra talking about his run ins with the ‘cut. Soon we’ll get the stickers and shirts turned on. And let’s not forget some great materials from Arj Barker, Robert Hawkins and Doug Benson.
Our first day of shooting is set for Oct. 8th at our new studio. We’re grabbing Maria Bamford while she’s in town at one of the local clubs. We can shoot out the day with the other shots of the four guys together as they will all be here in SF.
It’s in the can … or the drive rather. 18 days of lighting and camera and now Jesse (the editor) is off and running. He had a snippet of the film ready for viewing at the wrap party (and threw in some good humor as well). The Red held up quite well … only twice did it have trouble and that was just for a second. And I did give it and the rest of the equipment a good detailing after the beach day, so now it’s a bit sparkly as well.
The next round of fun for me will come in a couple of months when they have picture lock. I’ll need to spend some time in there giving it just the right look for each scene. Plus fix a couple of things I had to let go on set due to time / money / whatever. It’s nice to have the tech up to where it can help compensate for that.
Here’s a couple of pics (thank you Cristin) …
I’m two thirds in the can with one week left on principal photography for Fiona’s Script. So far we’ve been able to capture so great stuff, with some locations working out much better than I anticipated. Plus we had some great underwater materials thanks to Cliff Traiman and his handy underwater bag for the HVX200.
The 1200 par and the bug a beam with the 400 joker was the only think piercing the water. The pool was (thankfully?) dirty enough to get the light striations from the surface caustics (or ‘jesus rays’ as Cliff called it) to get a cool look. I was busy kicking up the surface with a set of borrowed flippers to get it rough enough. Should be nice for the opening credit sequence / dreamy stuff.
This last week, we have a couple of days in San Francisco with a few more visits to the location house in Emeryville. The kino / joker / Red combo has been winning time and again. Aaron and I have been dialing in the look augmenting with 1/4 stop silk for the exteriors.
The final looks will be dialed in during the coloring process. I’ve been playing a 1/4 classic black soft in the lens the whole show that has helped smooth things out a bit and smear the blacks a little. There may be some contrast issues caused by our schedule with the time of day we’ve had to shoot. But I think we’ve been 95% good. I’ve had total fun with some of the slo mo shots as well.
I’m actually just home from day three as I write this, but this first photo is from the first setup of the first day of the film.
Michelle is busy putting a lens on the camera as we prep for that primary setup. A quick couple of shots and we’re on to the next.
Here we are at day three, and the crew is spilled all over the sidewalk as we go for a take. As always, the outside of the building doesn’t match the inside. We’ve got two scenes on the “stoop” of the house. The gaggle of people lining the sidewalk was a little humorous for the shot. But we soon put them all to work with silks and flags and such.
The best part was I boxed Aaron in the van with the camera and he ended up directing the lighting from the comfort and safety of the Ford for a setup or two.
Tomorrow is our big prep day for both G&E and the camera department as we are heading into principal photography for Fiona’s Script. We’ll be organizing the shelves and van so we can quickly get ready for each day. Tungsten here, HMI there etc. We’ll probably pull a lot off the van and only put on what needs to be there.
Camera department is coming over later and running through the set up and break down so we’re down pat on the red. We’ll shoot a little something and deal with data wrangling. I’m going to make the decision on the data program … right now leaning toward R3Dmanager … I think we’ll have time to push the data around quite a bit.
I just went to the meet and great and put faces to names. It looks like we have a good team in place and this has good potential for a dynamic piece.
Details later …
Tech scout on a very windy beach …
