Shooting Concludes -- Day Six

1/1/11:  The final day of shooting

And I’m at the airport waiting to fly back to Denver.  It’s mid-afternoon on a Tuesday, and I’m at Dallas’ Love Field.  It’s mostly business travelers – and many travelers are working on laptop PC’s.  On set I was surrounded by nothing but Apple products.  There were multiple MacBook Pros in various shapes and sizes, most cast and crew had I-Phones, and last night during shooting, some important championship football game was streamed live on an I-Pad – to the delight of interested crew.  It’s now back to the PC business world for me. 

They just announced that my flight’s departure is delayed by an hour – so time for one more blog entry.    

I left Carolyn’s house this afternoon when she, Kimby, and Funk were leaving for the 1:30 call.  As she was getting ready to go, Carolyn discovered a data storage issue with yesterday’s footage.  Carolyn is shooting the film using a digital format.  I don’t know the specs, just that large memory cards are involved.  Throughout the shooting day, the assistant cameraperson (Anthony) manages the accumulating data.  He transfers the data to portable drives and these drives in turn are then copied onto a dual hard drive later that night, or the following morning.  Despite repeatedly explaining to me how to do this, the mechanics are still a bit of a mystery.  My Apple file management skills are not up to snuff – I’ve spent too much time in the PC world.  I do know that at the end of the final shoot there should be four digital copies of the footage.  One of the most important aspects of the AC’s job is ensuring the daily shooting data is backed up in multiple locations.  While Carolyn was showing me (again) how to back up the “the making of” 8 gig cards, she discovered the data storage issue.  The backed up data from yesterday’s shoot (the important data, not my “the making of” data) had gone missing from its supposed location.  As I left, Carolyn was making another copy for safety’s sake – a time consuming process.  Because of this electronic snafu, she will be late for call time.  If the data is lost, 14 plus hours of work by 30 or so people is gone.  In all practicality, for this extreme low budget production, it cannot be recreated.

The cast and crew will have another marathon day today finishing the shoot.  Thank you Carolyn for letting me share the experience.  Overall, I’m amazed at the sustained level of concentration it takes over the 12, 13, and 14 plus hour work-days.  Everybody on set works very hard.  Depending on the action, some positions may have more downtime than others.  As talent commented yesterday, for some “it’s a lot of waiting.”  This cast member had regretted forgetting reading material.  Luckily I was able to provide my new copy of Vanity Fair to help pass the time.

Overall, my outsider’s perspective is that the Director (Carolyn), DP (Kimby), Assitant DP (Anthony), Assistant Director (Barker), and Gaffer (Ben) work incredibly hard.  They are “on” the entire time.  They have no downtime whatsoever.  The ultimate look of the movie is based on their collaborative decisions.  They are the eye of a hurricane, surrounded by a whirlwind of activity.  Of course, the talent is critical.  Without the talent, there would be nothing to look at – no movie at all.  But without the Director and DP’s decisions, shot planning, and execution, there would be nothing to go on.  The action needs a director, and it needs to be properly filmed, and properly lit.  Also, the AD, must run a tight ship, try to keep the shoot on schedule, and insulate the Director and DP so they can concentrate on the task at hand – making a great movie.   

And now a few more of Jordan’s lovely pics:

Here’s a dolly shot set-up in front of the extras for the circus scene.  I rambled on about dolly shots very early this morning in yesterday's post.   

These last two pics are mine.  This last pic is the one that ruined the scene -- at least it came out nicely.

PS – I’m posting this from my home back in Denver, where it's barely 10 degrees.  As I write this I know that there’s a bunch of very hard working folks toiling away in the cold, at Dallas Heritage Village, making Wanda the Wonderful.