Third Shoot in the Can

My plan to do this biweekly blog hasn't worked out very well....

On Saturday, we did our third shoot for the DVD project, doing a few scenes with Alastair Forbes, an up-and-coming improviser who graciously let us use his bedroom as the location. We didn't have anyone to crew it for us (it sort of happened last minute), but we were able to get the shots done. Just one shot actually had me, Mullet, and Alastair in it, so it wasn't really difficult to manage; the camera was locked down for all the shots, so we didn't need someone to pan or zoom.

This was the second shoot for Bags (working title was Dressing Room). We'd shot most of the dressing room scenes despite my laryngitis in the first shoot, and this weekend, we did the scenes outside the dressing room. Alastair plays the stage manager (probably the assistant to the assistant of the stage manager) who brings us to the dressing room for the unseen variety show. We changed the script quite a bit during the first shoot, but we stuck to what was written in the revised script to come up with some fun stuff. Alastair and I go nose to nose at one point, and we found the beats pretty quickly. Alastair came up with some gems, both verbal and physical, that built on and improved the scenes as written. We've certainly gotten adept at cutting out the non-essential and for allowing the room to come up with new and better things.

Our shooting style, in terms of film grammar, has really evolved since we worked with Andrew Currie. We always had what I'd call a theatrical preference for wide shots over closeups, probably from our stage origins. A singular failure we've had in our older projects was a lack of closeups, and a really limited film grammar in terms of framing action and composing shots. AC's shooting style opened our eyes to a new (and better) approach, and I think the lessons we learned were enhanced by our long delay between projects and my involvement in NeutrinoPlex this summer. I should explain.

We haven't shot much since we did fragments of a short called Temptation almost 2 years ago. We were trying to shoot 22 minutes (a broadcast half-hour) with 4-5 shorts, but with the rise of YouTube, we scrapped that idea and focused on 2-5 minute shorts, which we've completed shooting for 2 scripts (Can and Bags), with 4-6 more to go. Coming back after a long break makes it easier to incorporate new ideas, I think, so we've changed how we shoot more easily than if we'd continued to shoot.

With Neutrinoplex, I've been exposed to hand-held improvised filmmaking shot with a hard deadline of minutes. The shooters and their teams of improvisers rely upon quick shots, closeups, and existing light sources to do their thing. In less than 30 minutes, they produce 3 scenes on 3 tapes using the area around the Bad Dog as their locations. My role is "technical director," which means I run the tapes for the audience, using 2 camcorders and a portable DVD player linked to a video projector via a Radio Shack switcher --very low-tech, but it's worked (the only glitches are human ones, mine or the shooters). The show starts at 10 p.m., so the shooters use the light from streetlamps, store windows, the marquee from the Music Hall across the street, etc. Even with 3-chip cameras, the images aren't very bright, so closeups are necessary in most situations.

So, the closeup is our friend now.

This coming Saturday, we are doing my half of the dressing room scenes now that I've regained my voice. I'll try to get another post up next week....