PART NINE
Shooting Night-for-Night with out film Lights.
(ha ha that rhymes)
Saturday I found myself grappling with the fact that Monday was our first attempt to shoot a night scene and I still did not have film lights, or any lights for that matter. I did not want to do day-for-night. Day-for-night the filmmakers shoot at daytime but fake you out in post by making contrast with the shadows and usually using a pale blue gel over everything. The assumption is that moonlight is pale blue. Actually moonlight is no color, it's just less light, but this is cinema and it's not realism it's surrealism (a fabricated version of realism).
Sunday, Jenny's brother-in-law told us he had some stuff from his old DJ days. A smoke machine, a red gel that he put over his light (workshop clamp light that had light bulb you use on the outside of your house that shines all the light forward, not like your standard 75 watt light bulb) and he had this big flashlight that gave a big burst of light but died out within about 2-5 mins. We tested everything out late Sunday night and it became clear to me I had no other option. Monday night was Mike and Jon's 3 day of shooting, we would use the clamplight with the broadlight ligh bulb. If this looked horrible, I told myself, we would just remake the movie, right?
Monday morning we tackled the Cave Entrance scene. The shooting took place in Blue Hill, which was about 45 minutes from my house in Orland. We were starting to find the battery that came with the camera didn't hold the charge that we had hoped for. This would cause it more problems as the production continued. I had no connections in Blue Hill, where I could plug in the charger, so we hoped we had enough juice in the battery to shoot the scene and head home with a few hours to spare. We packed a lunch, basically sandwiches, and headed to the gas station. We had a slight problem at this point. NO GAS MONEY!
Everyone in the car pitched in money and off we were, with just enough gas to make it there and back. I would learn on this film production how many hours I could drive on E before the car stalled out. We arrived in the area we were going to shoot the scene. We would have to hike about a 1/4 mile into the forest with our small amount of equipment. This time I incorporated my Little Giant Ladder. This ladder was a heavy steel ladder that could be a extension ladder or a step ladder. When folder down it was extremely sturdy and almost immovable. You're wondering what I was using it for? A cheap jib-arm. I had planned it out ahead of time, based on the location, that I could make this cheap jib-arm and extended the camera, upside down, over this ledge, to see the characters cross this stream to the cave. It would add to the production value because it took the camera to a different angle of view than the standard setup.
We shot the upside down shot first. Then broke down my cheap jib-arm and shot the rest of the scene on tripod. I would admit that I shot every shot in the scene while also playing Allan Carter. There was a trick to doing both. And no, the cave entrance wasn't real. It was trick shooting where the camera was place at a certain angle to give the illusion. Post-production I wished I had just put a big blue cloth over where I wanted the cave and in post cut it out and replaced it with a piece of fake cave. But that's just a minor, almost irrelevant issue.
Here's the clip from the film:
Just before getting to the last shot of the scene the battery died. I told everyone to break for lunch while I raced back to the house and tried to charge the battery enough to get the scene done. Just before leaving Andrew realized he had forgotten his glasses. I told him that we would add in a part, just before he entered the cave, where he asked "Sandra" for his glasses. She would pull them out of her backpack and hand them to her. This was a quick cheat. We would use her taking stuff out of her backpack throughout the film as just and added element.
I got back with just enough battery power and we finished the shoot. We returned back to my house just in time to set things up for the two scenes that Mike and Jon were in with the rest of the group. One was part of the famous Scene #34 (as was listed on the file folder in post) that Mike, Jon and the group were in.
Mike's girlfriend ran the camera as I took on the costume of one of the soldiers and Jon put on a soldier costume. We were particular about the camera shots because we were faking that there were more people in the shot that normal. Jon and I yelled at the group that was laying on the ground while the camera moved back and forth on the tripod, looking almost photo-journalistic during a war scene or tragedy. Then I shot from Allan's POV, running up to the group. I made sure that spot the soldier I had played wouldn't be in the view. Then I put the camera on the tripod from the other angle, ran up as Allan Carter and did the scene.
The scene wrapped and we had everyone eat dinner while I set up for the first night scene. I set up the little giant ladder, ran extension cords from the house into the field in the backyard, several hundred feet, and had Mike's girlfriend hold the light up in the air while standing on the ladder. I hoped that the slight amount of movement from her holding it would not be noticeable to the audience.
We had a fire barrel from the last tenants that we moved over to a rock in the field. We started a fire which would end up being a large extent of the light. One of the tricks they say to shooting night-for-night is to have as many "practile lighting" as possible. That would be lights that would exist anyways. Flashlights, campfires, house lights that would be on, anything to compensate for more lighting needed on the subjects. We would utilize the flashlights and campfire to do what we needed. I wished I had used the reflectors at this points as well, but that's also a mute point of criticism.
One of the tricks I did do to shoot it was to follow a Rodriguez trick. I shot the whole scene from one angle, but zoomed up between lines of the character speaking so that I go 3 shots in one take. Then I would go to the other angle and shoot it.
Then the close up of Mike's character Paul. By shooting like this I cut out a bunch of my time and made it much easier on the actors.
Mike and Jon left and I was inspired to see if I could get another scene in the bag for the night. This lighting for some reason was working. I set up the "blood-red moon" scene that Allan and Sandra had in between two trees. I put the light in the trees and checked it out in the camera. It looked great. At this point I should have turned off the lights, held off on the scene till the next night, and patted everyone involved on the back. I didn't.... I was persistant to get this one done too.
My wife reminded me that I had to get some people back up to Bangor, because I had made an agreement to take some of the extras back myself or they wouldn't be able to do the shoot. It was heading towards midnight. I started driving them back when I realized I was falling to sleep. I traded spaces with another person who could drive and fell asleep in the passenger seat.
When we got back it was around 1AM. I had decided I was still going to shoot that scene. I recommend that there is a reason why people shouldn't shoot like this. You can only push people so far before it shows.
It was a short scene, but it was dark and people were tired. I set up the camera for the first scene. We had no power in the battery so I was running of an extension cord. I tripped... the camera fell... it hit the ground... I swore I almost swallowed my tongue or something... Time stood still for just a second... I checked the camera. It was ok. A near miss, but I was grateful I had not mowed the grass in several weeks, to the dislike of the landlord.
We shot the move-down-from-the-moon-shot, then moved in for a medium shot. We didn't make a campfire but small fire in a tin because I was afraid we'd burn the trees down. It wasn't working. Lighting wasn't that great. We shot the medium shot, but both Jenny and my acting wasn't up to the level I wanted. She was tired, forgettting lines, and another interesting thing most people don't know about Jenny- she has short-term memory issues.
See a couple years prior she was in an accident wear her seat belt almost scalped her. The story is that they had to bring her back to life. She had to relearn her speach and she had a problem with short-term memory. And she had the most amount of lines of the entire script.
We ran out of tape after the medium shot. Andrew went to grab another tape that we had 10 more minutes on and tried to shoot her closeup shot. Things were starting to drag. We never did get to shoot my cloesup. That was it for the scene. It was one of those scenes I regret that I should have not have pushed through, but things are as they are. In post I would correct the problems, but it was very tricky.
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