Saturday, April 19, 2008

The Endless Scene

We've all had them...the scene that comes last in the day that just goes on forever. It usually involves dogs or cats or some special effect. Yesterday, mine was a three sided mirror. We shot the master from one side. Two actresses standing in front of a three panelled mirror in a twenty by thirty room. We did a slow push in on them, switching from the mirror to them as we crossed their profiles. After two hours of endless miror tweaking and lighting, we switched to the other side to do a complementary push in ending in a complementary over. More mirror tweaking. The catch was that the room was smaller on the other side so we couldn't get as much movement in before blocking our lead actress before we were supposed to cross. Add timing all this to dialogue and you have yourself a recipe for a meltdown. We got it, though. At the end of it, the operator and I were pretty much done. The director (a great lady) came in and gave me a hug. I needed it.
Keep the comments and pictures coming. Going out to dinner with the boys.
Later

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know what the feeling. One shot I did today involved a push in, boom down, and pull back as two cars drove past the camera, inches from the perpendicular track. The camera was on an offset so it could get out over the hood of the 2nd car as it stopped, with me pulling back just in time for it to speed off again without hitting the windshield. Add to that shooting wide open with a fairly inexperienced 1st and a perfectionist director and you've got a recipe for many, many takes. We eventually got it although it cut heavily into our lunch.

The worst part - I'm on this shoot as a freebie favor for a friend. Ugh.

D said...

Now that sounds like a beauty. Especially for a freebie.

The Grip Works said...

Heh heh heh !! Feebies for perfectionists !!! Sounds really painful. I also hate 1st AD's who think they can push lunch back because they are not hungry. I say let the AD's wrap the grip truck at the end of the shoot to understand why Grips get hungrier than them !!!

Anonymous said...

Glad you survived.

Hope it looks fabulous enough to be worth all the pain.

D said...

Thanks for the comments Gripworks and Devin.