Studio Shoot - The Shoot

by Tarald K. Tvedt 12:17 pm 0 comments Cinematography Director of Photography Lighting Professional Toolkit Studio Shoot Year 2

The Shoot - the stress, the problems, the victories

Before me stand the two most important days of this entire project - the shoot. I have a lot of expectations for these days, as well as some worries, and a whole lot of responsibility.

So what do I expect, what do l look forward to, and where do I think we'll have trouble?

I expect it to be stressful, at least the first day. We're all new to this, we've never had this much independence when it comes to a film, but as the same time we've never had the same amount of responsibility. We all know that the entire group is expecting us to do our part. So yeah, that is a lot of pressure, but I'm personally excited to see how I work under this kind of pressure. Will I be able to keep my head cool, and make important decisions when needed? Will my storyboard look as good in real life as it did in my head? I'll finally learn the answer to all those questions and doubts! 

So Monday comes around, and we're all on set. The first scene goes swimmingly, and the actors are doing amazing jobs. But then we encounter our first problem - the dolly won't fit on set and we can't make room for it because of the continuity of the shot. Because of this the camera scrambles a bit as it tries to build the shoulder rig and fin a solution to the problem, but this costs us a lot of time. For the rest of the first day we tried our best to make that time back, but because of all the dolly shots we have to change, and a generally bad work flow among the crew, we have to go overtime. We do manage to finish all the scenes we wanted to finish on the first day, but in the industry you could get fired if the production goes overtime, so after talking to Preston, I took note of how the work flow could be improved for the second day of the shoot. 

This is one of many many impromptu meetings Preston and I had during our two day shoot.
This seems to be a calmer one, with less panicked stress

That being said, I think the camera department managed to compensate for the lack of our missing equipment very well. I think any department would have a bit of trouble keeping time with that kind of obstacle, and although the communication between Preston, Natalie, and myself could have been better, I feel like the camera department was able to get the shots we needed efficiently so that we could finish everything for the day. Umor also did really well, and we worked well together to make the light changes as swiftly as possible. 

The second day went very well I think. The work flow was better, and the the whole crew worked well together. I was able to more thoroughly instruct Arturs in how I wanted the frame and the shot to move, and also I communicated better with Natalie so that we more easily and faster could get to an agreement on how we wanted the shot to look. 

I definitely felt like Arturs and I worked better on the second day,
and that our work flow was really good.

We did have some differences were we both had a vision for a shot, and thought it was the best fit, but ultimately we had to do whatever we had time for. I did notice during the shoot that I missed a lot of the shot that had to be cut, as I feel like they gave the film that little extra, but I understand that when we're limited to 3-5 minutes, we only have room for the highly necessary. We did have a slight difference of vision when it came to the centered shots, which as I described earlier was a conscious stylistic choice on my part as I feel like it would give the film a constant that tells a story of its own. In my mind if you took out all the establishing centered shots in the film, and cut them into a montage of stills, they would still tell the story. But, during the shoot I discussed it with Natalie, and she made it clear that it didn't fit her vision of the film. That was of course okay, she is the director, and I adjusted the shots so that they still made sense -like putting them at slight angles and a couple of over the shoulder shots. I think they still work well with the film, and that her vision makes a beautiful film. 

I've enjoyed working with Natalie as director a great deal, and I think she has a great eye for this.
I also feel like our styles complimented each other very well.

Another challenge we faced on the second day of shooting is that we had to polish the lighting plan for the morning scene. We decided to do a drastic change by adding a door on the fourth wall that would creative a slit of golden morning light on the back wall. I feel like it was the right creative decision to make, as it add some difference to the scene, and makes it more apparent that its a different part of the day. We created it by putting two large pieces of poly on c-stands and holding them up against a studio light with orange and nd gels on it. I think the final product looks amazing! 

We finished on time, and I think we were all pleased with the result!

-TJ