Friday 19 February 2010

Location, location

Mercifully there's been no exteriors on this film - that last thing you would want in February is to be outside in the snow on, say, Worlebury encampment in Weston-Super-Mare. You know who you are...
Instead we've been variously shooting in toilets (better than it sounds), hospital wards and corridors and now, for the domestic scenes, in a very plush converted barn. Very nice.
What's setting this apart from the films I've done lately is that it's actually film. And that makes a big difference.
The stakes are always higher as ideally you work on a ratio of 2:1 or at worst 3:1. Ideally, of course, it should be one take but well, that's the Holy Grail. There's also the incomparable experience of actually hearing money being spent as the film stock runs through the camera, coupled with the audible groans from the crew when a plane goes over or you muff a line.
On the flipside there's an amazing focus that you don't seem to get when you're shooting digital, coupled with all the cool paraphernalia that goes with film, too. Exciting.

2 comments:

Jewson Smithee said...

I know what you mean, we once shot with A4 paper stuck together, we went through the kitchen and used bicarb of soda and ground mixed pepper to make a light emulsion. The camera assistant got really bad RSI from having to rapidly remove and replace the lens cap, the second assisted fared little better using a simple house hold rolling pin to bring the paper through the back of the converse shoe box [camera body]. I do have to say though, pin whole movie making is very refreshing. The end result is a little washy and blurred, but that's film making. Interestingly we still had enough change from the twenty thousand pound budget to offer the local cast and crew a fish supper, and my sister got another thirty seconds of fragledom for her show real.

Steve Dineen said...

Jesus, I know films that have been made for, I don't know, a twentieth of that budget...