Shooting Schedule, Photography and Lighting Kit

This evening I finally completed a partial shooting schedule for Nicotine. It was tough putting it together, but after weeks of trying to figure things out and many headaches, I wrote it out. It's partial, as I said, but that's mostly because we don't have a lock on all locations. I'm not stressing that fact either, because the major locations are a go, and the bowling alley is, as the owner told me Sunday morning, "A 90% sure thing." 


Because we all have jobs in the real world, the entire film will be photographed on the weekends. That was the most challenging thing to work out, because I want to finish the shoot in September, cutting it a long the way, polishing it up and do music in October, and screen it at the end of October, then hit some festivals whenever those festivals happen. That's my time frame, and it's completely doable, but that means some days will be non-stop action. The first full day of insanity will be September 10th. Day begins at 8:00am, with Day Wrap at 9:45pm. Of course the following day I didn't schedule anything until 2:00pm. 


What will  be a major factor in deciding the length of a day is the amount of "coverage" I plan on getting. If I ever learned anything useful from Peter Bogdanovich, it's that he doesn't do the traditional set-ups; he doesn't do the master, two-shot, close-up, etc, etc, etc. He just photographs what he needs. In theory that would work, but that's not the reality of this production. It's also not a minimalist production either, as far as the photography is concerned. It's somewhere in between I think. Soon I need to figure out exactly how it will be shot, because I need a sense of fluidity through camera movements and style, just so the entire film feels the same. A mismatch can work, but not with this one. I have rules for myself. One major rule: no handheld camera work. None. It's not only overdone by independent filmmakers, it's too easy of a manipulation. The entire thing will be on a tripod; however, the motions will be loose and freeing and floaty (maybe), but not handheld. 


Another rule I have is that I must not use blue unless there is true-to-the-eye atmospheric reason it would be in that particular tone. I tend to use a lot of blue tint in projects. I have for about 11 years now, actually. I blame Michael Mann's Heat and Sodebergh's Traffic. It's mostly used as an emotional tool;  loneliness, a sense of detachment from your surroundings, oxygen cut.

Bobby De Niro is in super deep thought. It's like he's drowning!

Mikey Douglas is chilly.

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Tonight I went to Ace Hardware to pick up four clamp-lamps w/ reflectors: Two 150watt and two 60watt for $40. It's my very own poor man's light kit. It will do the job, but at an extremely cheap price. The lighting for this film will be quite low-key and natural, nothing too fancy or overtly "lit". Too much theatrics with the lighting can ruin a perfectly good scene. Where's that balance? Of course if we're going for total realism, we could just light all scenes from the practical light locations; meaning the only light hitting the actors are from the actual light sources in any given room. This sometimes works, but mostly doesn't. Never over do it. Remain as natural as you can.

There will be times when I rent some 750w Tota lights from LightsOn for very specific scenes. That's yet another thing to keep in mind when designing a shooting schedule. If I know I need to rent lights, then I will plan to shoot other scenes over the weekend with those lights. The cost to rent a 750 w Tota is $12 a day. That's cheap. They will be used for creating intense direct morning and evening sun.

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That's all from me today. Gonna go watch tonight's Conan repeat in 30 minutes, then get to bed. A fun 13.5 hour day of work is tomorrow!

Morning Bowling

This morning the four friends in the film were all together for the first time. Where did we meet and what did we do? Tuttles and bowling. They have an amazing morning deal, by the way. Two games, shoes, and breakfast for $6.99. Why haven't I done this more in the past? Fantastic.

(the awesome video quality Blogger posts isn't too awesome. oh well)

Jeff focusing on the pins. "I'm gonna get you, sucka!"

Andy's about to kill some pins with his magic back-spinning ball of doom.

Harold and I chat a bit.

Rudy brought his daughter bowling today. Pretty much the cutest kid ever. We're going to have her play the pre-schooler Paul interacts with during a scene earlier on.

Hooray! She knocked down all the pins!

The idea of this morning was mainly for all of the guys to be together. Up until more recently we didn't have a John. It was difficult to find someone. We've been rehearsing scenes with only Jeff, Harold and Rudy, and I've been reading for John. But now we have him. Andy Josephson will be John, and even though we only went through two scenes today at the alley, I was impressed with Andy's readings of the lines. Very natural.

John is a character I compare to Fredo from The Godfather films -- yes, I know, it's mostly a very broad comparison, but I was influenced by many American and French gangster films and especially the four 'brothers' from The Godfather while writing Nicotine.  John is the runt of the litter really, vulnerable, with very few things to say, going with the flow of whatever was happening. That's partially why it was tough to locate a John. It's not a real meaty role, but there is a reason for his actions. There is one scene I wrote between John and Paul. It's a scene that hasn't really worked yet. We'd probably shoot that last. There's a lot of things the scene could be about, and I think I haven't quite found what the scene is supposed to be.

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Today was short. It's my fault really. I should have extended the rehearsal time out and at least read through the bigger scenes. I'm disappointed that I didn't encourage any further progress for today. We'll have Saturday to get everyone together again and run through the two big scenes.

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What's next? What I am going to try to do tonight is to make a very big shooting schedule. I have enough pieces together that I can really start to make this thing. Don't know about the Tux shop or a preschool yet, but I'm not terribly worried about those parts. Friday I will begin shooting a small scene with Jeff. Saturday we'll rehearse the bigger scenes with all the guys. Sunday we'll rehearse the scenes with John Andring, the man playing Eddie, at 10:30am, then at 1:30pm we'll rehearse the scenes with Jennifer Prettyman, the actress playing Liz. I will post her picture next week.

I have a bad headache now. What am I doing tonight? I'm thinking tonight I will chill with my fiance. That sounds awesome to me.

Until next time!

Oh yes, today I bowled my best first game in quite some time. I did a 191, then a 134. I really really didn't expect that to happen. See what happens when I bowl at Tuttles! Magic!

Fun Happens with Nicotine

Today at 1:00pm, Alison, the actress playing Courtney, was over for her first rehearsal and meeting with Jeff and Harold. The chemistry right away between her and Harold was natural and fun, and once we started working on the scenes between Courtney and Peter, it was elevated even more so. Often the way we start a scene is to develop about a half-page to a page worth of improv material, just so the beginning of the actual written dialog feels like it came from a real place, and didn't just suddenly start out of thin air.

Sc. 67, P. 61 to 66

Sc. 62, P. 59 to 60

After we went through some material we wandered outside to take some pictures. I'm in the process of collecting photos from Alison and Harold, mostly so I have extra background props to use at Courtney and Peter's house. The below picture will probably be something seen on the fridge. We took a few other pictures, but I'll save those for the film.

At about 3:00pm Alison was finished for the afternoon, then Harold and Jeff ran through the Peter and Paul scenes. Some of this stuff we haven't worked on since July, so it was very nice to go back to those first scenes we started with. It was a combination of remembering what we originally talked about and wrote down, then trying new things.

Oh my god, Jenn took a pic that includes me. The only picture I'll post of me, by the way.

Sc. 89, P. 89/90

This process has gone really well. To the point where we're definitely ready to shoot this dang movie. At  4:30 we finished for the day. Everyone was fairly exhausted, so Jenn ordered some Pizza Luce goodness. Garlic Mashed Potato and The Bear. Oh man, it was awesome.

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Tomorrow morning a bunch of us are going bowling at Tuttles, then we'll run over a few bowling scenes.  After that I will sit down and write out a good shoot schedule for September. I've been organizing most things to happen that month, with one weekend dedicated to photograph all the outside stuff. 

About to collapse, gotta get to bed. 

Nicotine Fun

As of right now we've raised $725. That is amazing. If you would like to donate to the production, please click the Donate button below!

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I talked with Tim Janke, an old High School friend who works at Tuttles. He will play the bartender in the film, which will be perfect since he does that sort of thing at the bowling alley. Perfect. He's totally willing to help us shoot a scene after operating hours; meaning 1:30am until 3:30am (or whenever, but we'll try to keep the shoot short.)

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Yesterday our new fancy audio recorder showed up. The H4n, a nice compact recorder that will give us great audio for the production. I haven't had a chance to really play with it yet, but I will hopefully have an opportunity tomorrow to do so.

Today I got a small inexpensive 7" portable monitor that will be attached to the top of the camera by a 1/4" shoe adapter (which was $7, and will be in the mail soon). Because this was a more frivolous purchase, I didn't use the money we've raised so for to buy the monitor, but rather my own.

The monitor will be especially nice for location shooting, just to have something a bit bigger to look at. I love the small swivel monitor on my Canon 60D, but there have been times during editing other projects when I realize that something I thought was fully in focus suddenly wasn't. It will be good for outdoor shooting too. I will be making a nice monitor hood to wrap around it though.

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Tonight we worked on some simple Paul and Lady scenes. Lady has a name which is mentioned once, and it's Mary. Jenn, my super awesome lady fiance will play this character. She's excited to play someone bitchy. What are these scenes? I'm not gonna tell you. Jeff and Jenn play well off of each-other.  These scenes are pretty much ready to be shot, so we'll be doing that next week. That's exciting. I'm eager to begin the actual production of Nicotine.

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After we ran through those scenes we went off to Ragstock and Unique Thrift Shop to find the wardrobe for the film. I'm dead-set on Paul having an obsession over polyester shirts. Whenever I can, I always wear polyester. Why do I love it so much? There's no big revelation or anything, but it's because of That 70's Show and how people used to ( and still do, to my amazement) call me Eric / Topher. That early attempt to see if this kind of clothing would work on me has translated into pure love of the material and style. Now I've spreading that love into my film. Ha. Suckers. 

During my first film there were wardrobe problems occasionally because of mis-communication. But this time everything will be far more organized and I will be in possession of the clothing. We'll also document all clothing of all the characters for the sake of continuity. 

Color palette is a subject  I will keep for a later blog perhaps, but I don't have too many restrictions with color. There's "complete realism" and "artistic film style" to battle when deciding on the clothing. If there is any realism in this film, we can't deny certain styles and patterns. People wear what they wear; friends don't call up each-other to see what colors they're wearing when going out. For the sake of the movie, there will be problems if we think like that. Some colors and styles may end up clashing on screen causing for an unwanted video effect; for example if we pick clothing with striped colored lines too close together, it will no-doubt be troubling on the eye when the film is screened on the big screen. 

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Tomorrow could potentially be a 6 or 7 hour day of rehearsals.  I will have more to report then. Gotta get some sleep. I'm exhausted.