Film in Three Month - Production Stage

Graeme

Graeme

A follow over form this forum thread - http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=49908

I've finished with pre-production, script took only 2 weeks to co-write and we started filming this weekend all the 'non-cottage' scenes for our cottage-based comedy-thriller, plan is to be done principal photography before Sept 15th and edited by Halloween. Other than accidentally leaving the ND filters to 1/64 for one indoor scene and not noticing the camera boosting the ISO to keep the lighting level (fixed it with Magic Bullet Denoiser - whew!) its been pretty much flawless!

Today I'm running around shopping for props, food, and an extra battery before going to do a quick pick-up scene for the movie tonight.

Some Notes:
- Weather so far its been overcast for a week! Which is great, and it looks like one day will have some light rain while at the cottage, pray to what ever good thee have it stays that way or dryer. As I planned out the shoot schedules a trick I've learned is always do the outdoor's first, cause you can't control the weather but you can say on set 'its raining, lets do the indoor scenes today' :)
- Cast and Crew, All but one is Ottawa/Gatineau based, and were a blast to work with, I know a lot of people like open auditions to find the best talent for the role, but by going with who I know on your first big project has allowed me to avoid a lot of off-camera drama/unreliability, plus we are shooting 70 pages in 4 days, we need to be able to work fast and well together.
- Location, Location, Location - I have to tip my hat to Invest Ottawa, they got me all my permits as promised and I got to shoot in some cool locations to keep the realism of the film (vs. when I tried by myself to get a church/art center for a bloody shoot out movie Il Typo and ended up filming it in my living room - glad it was suppose to be funny)
- Read Through - Not only did it help with actor's inputting on the script during the writing phase, cast has been showing up with lines memorized and a solid understanding of their character's audities, motivations etc. Directing has been a lot easier with commands like (sit here, move here, do this) rather than (be more happy, smile this way, act more ditzy, your in love aren't you?) which is really really good and I hope will add to the realism.

If you have any questions, let me know as I'm working on a production blog/notes for the DVD/Blu-Ray etc.

PS. I'm not crazy, I just do 'crazy' things... and show you they can be done.
 
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Great stuff Graeme.

Real glad it's going so well.

I'm in Canada too though in BC, not Ontario. When you have some free time, could you answer - so Invest Ottawa helped with securing a good location too? Could I ask how much insurance and permits cost? And where did you get your insurance?

Hope the rest of the shoot goes well. If you have a GoPro or spare camera, you should give it to a runner and ask them to shoot some Behind The Scenes footage or some photos. Would be great to see. I'm near the end of a shoot and to be honest I very much regret not having some BTS footage - just been too busy.
 
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In Ottawa/Gatineau film permits are free (tree are costs if you need something fancy/requiring a police officer on set) if you have the insurance.

PM me insurance details, its depending on who and what your doing etc.

I have a behind the scene photo/videographer with me. But may give the Gopro a chance
 
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Well that was a fun wild ride, to update, wrapped the movie in 3.5 days, had 1/2 a day to just 'breath'...

Everyone had fun and we tended to shoot from 7am to about 8 pm with breaks for lunch & dinner.
Afterwards we had bonfires at the cottage (and shot 2 nights for night scenes in the movie).

I have to still do a full review of all the sound/video files but what I did review with what I had at the cottage it sounds/looks good.

Success! Now to post, hopefully done by Halloween. Then I can look at doing the next one...
 
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Quick 'things I would of done differently' notes:

1. Overall extremely happy with those selected as dual cast/crew, but 1 dedicated AD/PA would of been a great addition.
2. Next time check the location before shooting myself (used reference photos), thé cottage was amazone but size/direction/layout was not 100% ideal and had I known before I would of changed a few things in the script, no biggie but next time.
3. One person had a personal emergency (valid) and was late, so having a light first day shooting allowed for us not to fall behind.
4. Less/No costume changes, several actors where changing clothes based on 'day' at the cottage in the film, meanwhile I basically wore the same clothes (changed underwater etc duh) but was more of a hassle and hopefully we got it right.
5. My blood recipe was ingenious, looks good on camera, right consistence and colour etc and was tasty/edible so one girl was totally cool (even volunteered the idea to make the scene better) to put a ton in her mouth and gurgle it out as she died. One side note, it did glicen a bit when bright direct light from around the light hit it, but that was easily fixed with off-angle lighting. It was also stupidly cheap ($10 for the whole movie) and could be easily made and lasted for days in the fridge. That said I should of bumped up the effort on 'wounds' but alas the women I knew who is good at that couldn't make it, hopefully next film if its required.
 
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Graeme said:
5. My blood recipe was ingenious, looks good on camera, right consistence and colour etc and was tasty/edible so one girl was totally cool (even volunteered the idea to make the scene better) to put a ton in her mouth and gurgle it out as she died. One side note, it did glicen a bit when bright direct light from around the light hit it, but that was easily fixed with off-angle lighting. It was also stupidly cheap ($10 for the whole movie) and could be easily made and lasted for days in the fridge. That said I should of bumped up the effort on 'wounds' but alas the women I knew who is good at that couldn't make it, hopefully next film if its required.
Click to expand...

Cool, what recipe did you use? I've got need for a lot more than we used in the last short we did (bleh, too lazy to upload the image somewhere to reference it here...)

CraigL
 
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