Production Journal #1

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

So, every time I try to sit down and dedicate myself to a blog, it never works. I write one or two entries and give up completely. This time, I hope for it to be different. This isn't a blog, it's a production journal. Hopefully the change of name will help me stay dedicated. This "journal" is dedicated to my current production, entitled Comedy. I guess the best way to start this would be from the beginning.

The idea for "Comedy" came to me when we were given the task of coming up with a final project for our Film 220 class at UW-Milwaukee. The film itself must be between 3 to 5 minutes, and it's to be recorded on Tri-X Reversal black & white film. So, a black and white short is hard enough, but given the fact it's a silent short makes it that much harder. The challenge has been set. I had a few ideas circling around in my old noodle, but nothing concrete. I told my collaborator, and partner in crime, Morgan McPhearson, that I had an idea of showing a break-up. At that point it was nothing unique. I had planned to use my brother in the role of the guy because he has a good face and I feel his forearm tattoos would look nice on film and I figured I'd use his girlfriend as the girl. Well, on the way home that night Tom Waits' cover of the Ramones' song "I Don't Want To Grow Up" came on, and my brain went wild!

When this song started and I heard Tom Waits' raspy ass, three-pack-a-day voice, I saw images in my head. I saw two Harlequin-like mimes arguing. I saw all the images of the story fall into place. It was like magic. I saw a Chaplin-esque male and his cute, Raggedy Anne type girl fighting... with pantomime! The idea of a silent break-up and the obvious theme of growing up was perfect! Also, with b&w, silent film, it could be a nice throw back to the comedy films of days past.

Well, from that moment, I had to call Morgan and my other good friend, and collaborative partner, Greg Bishop, and tell them the news and get feedback. Both felt it was a good idea and it was a story that needed to be told, so I went ahead with the idea. To keep the project in the trifecta of creativity we have going on, I cast both Morgan and Greg in the lead roles, plus, they were perfect for the parts. Greg has the punk rock, Chaplin look that I wanted, and Morgan I knew would have a great patchwork dress laying around and a pair of Mary Janes. From then, we began to work. I talked about my ideas to both of them and we talked about what worked, and what might not. Morgan, who is also my cinematographer, helped me all the way. She's designing the make-up too, which is awesome. Plus, she's letting us film in her apartment.
Morgan's Face paint Design

We started this process by doing some lighting tests at her apartment. We had a Bolex 16mm camera, a tube kit (lights, for those who don't know), and a tri-pod. We realized early on that as good as those tube lights are, they are sometimes too bright (any heavy as hell). So, we decided to go shopping. We got some extension cords, because that's always a necessity, and we bought Clampy (a clamp light to get some more light). We did some lighting tests, and according to the light meter and the view finder, it should be bright enough. Everything was falling into place!

Well, now that the introduction is done, I can move on to today, and our first productive day of filming. Morgan, Greg and I decided we'd film today, even though we lacked the face paint. I have to get it this weekend. Well, we thought we'd film anyway and film all the post face paint stuff now and see if it'll work or not. So we did. The biggest issue with shooting with film, especially black and white film, is you never know, until after the film is processed, whether or not it turned out or if you had enough light. Through our experiments, Morgan and I think we might have found a pretty decent system to judging it and fudging the f/stops a bit with our eye and the viewfinder, but we obviously won't know for sure until the film is processed. We can only hope.

The first scene we filmed was a scene where the main character, known right now as GUY, takes off his face paint for the final time and doesn't put on anymore. He sees his face for the first time in a long time and it's also the first time the audience will see his real face. We tried this a few different way. It was about 4:00pm when we started. We had camera issues, had to run back to the equipment room just to find out it was all working fine and yeah. It was a time suck, but whatever. Film making doesn't always go smoothly. The positive side to this was we got a pre-magic hour sun light that would shine beautifully through the window in the bathroom. Morgan felt we should use the original lighting we planned, but I felt we HAD to take advantage of the sunlight so we did the scene three or four times. The first time we only used the natural, bright sunlight pouring through the window. The next show, we covered up the window with a towel and used clampy laying in the sink to get a great, contrasting evil look. Greg had his face positioned just right to get that Kubrick evil stare that is now so famous. We then compromised at the end and used both the natural light and clampy. We'll see which works best. Either way, Morgan was taking amazing photographs the entire way to document this fun production. I'll attach photos as soon as I can. She's been so great through all of this.

Stills from the shoot

The final scene we shot for the day we a scene in which GUY decides to put on this nice jacket he owns and decides he wants to leave this childish life behind. We filmed it out of order, and we'll be going back and filming inserts to add in later during the editing process. We filmed this in Morgan's bed room and it worked out great. I got, what I feel is, a great reflection shot and the tube light proved to be rather useful this time. I also filmed Greg putting on the jacket, grabbing the jacket and buttoning up the jacket. Also, as stated, it was filmed out of order, and I also listed it out of order. Whatever. Ultimately, I feel it was a pretty good day of filming. It was fun, we discussed the project as a whole, and we also talked about our next collaborative effort. I can't give away too much, but it's a sequel to one of Greg's earlier movies staring Morgan and Greg directing with some directing and producing done by yours truly.

One more shot from the shoot.

I feel that's enough. Until next time, keep believing in film!