PRODUCTION

We picked up our equipment at 5-ish, and headed to the Westin to build the set. Me, Daniel Watkins (DP), Christina Santa Cruz (1st AC) and Allison Rockefeller (Producer) did some lighting tests and and planned out our setups. Then Alana Crumbley (Production Design) arrived, and we dressed the set. We were there till 2-ish, call time at 8:30 the next day. I went home, made the prop book in the film, and tried to make the photoshopped "ghost pictures", but found out I know little about photoshop. We ended up shooting around it, so I still need to get those shots.

DAY 1

We arrived on set the next morning, the first shot scheduled at 9. The director of Phonography (Christopher Lopez, NOT MARTINEZ... grr) Was pitching in class so was not availble until 12pm. We had scheduled all our inserts upfront, but our lead actor, Enrico Marcellino, was still scheduled to come in at 10am. We had Edgar Jorge (2nd AD) fill in on sound until Chris got out. The schedule went as follows: Enrico comes in at 10am. We get all his shots over with before Annie Kidwell (Alice) arrives at 1:30pm. Then we get the Master and some O.T.S. and wrap at 5pm.

We got a few inserts with Enrico, then did the opening and closing shots. They took place right outside the set on the walk way. We had a total of 4 shots to get, and got them off pretty quickly. Then we went inside and did Enricos side of the main scene, i.e. close-ups.

Annie got there on time, and we were running a little behind, 15-20 min. We got a few last bits, went to lunch and came back. This was the master. We set it up on dolly track, slowly pushing in and out the whole time... it was here we realized the natural light of the windows looked infinitely better than the lighting we brought. This meant we could set up quicker, shoot faster, and looser, the way I like. The master we had scheduled nearly an hour for took half that time.

We then did 4 O.T.S. shots and redid the close up on Enrico with the natural room light. We ended up finishing about 15 min over schedule, including doing sound takes at the end.

DAY TWO

The schedule was as follows: Crew call at 11, Annie at 11:30. We reverse what we did the day before: shoot everything with Annie we can till Enrico gets there at 2:30 (he had work till then, hence the later call for everyone). We did all of Annie's coverage with even MORE speed that the day before. I kept asking Michael Grand (1st AD) how ahead we were, and he frefused to tell me. Good AD. Never let me know, I might start slowing down.

Enrico showed up a half hour early. Great, we can start their together coverage. Today was devoted to the ending, almost sequentially shot. It was the scene I had a lot of ideas for, but wouldn't know till I saw some shots.

The night before, I adjusted the shot list, having seen the footage from earlier. I cut some shots, so on set I could add more if i got the inspiration. One of the shots was a dolly shot: I had scheduled two separate shots on the dolly of each character. Instead, i made it one shot, dollying backa nd forth betweeen the two characters, and on separate take, focusing on one character. Saved about a half hour.

We then did the ending. I found that everything i had already scheduled, looked so good, was so scary when we shot it, i didnt need any more shots. We wrapped an hour or so early, did some sound takes with Alice, and cleaned up. THE END