Production Journal #7: It's a Wrap!

Wednesday, April 28 2010

Finally, the filming of Commedia dell'arte has come to an end.

It's been a long journey. About two months, I think. I've been physically exhausted for weeks. I'm too tired to do much of anything. It's been a lot of long nights lugging around heavy equipment for the sake of art.

I don't regret a moment of it though. Thus far, this is my favorite film I've made. My rough cut is a little over 5 minutes so far (will be more once I add the new footage) and I love how it's turning out. I'm truly happy with this film.

Perhaps I should show this rough cut to a few more people. Thus far Leanna, Scott, Morgan and Greg have seen it. Most other people have shown their cuts to the class and have gotten feed back and what not. The reason I'm not is because I want to see how this turns out if I stick to my intuition and make the movie I feel is best instead of getting peoples opinions and stressing me out. It's an experiment. Once I'm happy with my rough cut and can call it a fine cut, sure, I'll show everyone. Until then, I want it to stay special. If I show too many people, the final won't be as special.

I guess I should talk about the actual shoot. It was a relatively quick shoot. We filmed what I've been calling "antics" and some inbetweener stuff to round out everything so there are fewer jumps.

The antics were fun to shoot. It was a very mellow, very fun shoot. Morgan made this amazing coffee and some peanut butter sandwiches. It was great watching Morgan, in make-up, try and bite into her food. During the shoot, Morgan and I were switching out our iPod's to pump the place full of tunes. We didn't think it would hurt, considering we're not doing audio. Morgan was playing a lot of Panda Bear while I was sticking to tunes I was listening to while editing: The Dresden Dolls and The Indelicates new album. It really set the mood.

We did so many different things during these antics. We had Greg doing a silly dance with the ukuelele that I've dubbed "the Charlie Brown", we had him pull a bird out of his hat and even tickle Morgan's face with a rather long feather. He really sold the character. Morgan was great too, but most of the focus was on Greg. Greg has the hard job of being happy, yet depressed and ready to crack. To be zany yet subtle. He did it wonderfully.

After we wrapped on my film, we did some credits for Morgan, which was a wrap for her as well and listened to New Order's "Blue Monday". Then shot some stuff for Greg the next day and it was a wrap for his film. Commedia dell'art, Lucid, and The Lady in Black all finishing at the same time. It's a good feeling to be done. Now I just need to finish editing.

Now, time for a video.

"Blue Monday" - New Order