Diana Galligan’s shoot days are done!

After shooting my two locations, I’m logging the footage tonight. It’s beautiful and wild, with so many twists and turns to the story. The story could go any direction right now because there is so much to work from.

This was like discovering a language of filming improvised scenes. With only an outline of the story, I didn’t know who would speak, nor in what order. I tried to plan the shots to make sure I catch the funny and the character reactions, and crossed my fingers that I’d get it. It was a creative leap of faith.

In my first location, a firepit I created in the backyard, the camera had only a couple of places it could sit because the backyard is so darn thin. Liz McEachern, Bob McGill and Alex Shroen were sitting outside in -18C around a fire.  I used a master shot, then a few cheated angles which I hope work out, but they look darn good. I used only the fire to light the shot, which was fantastic and blastingly bright. I really like the look of actual fire light flickering their faces.

The second location was easier because it was indoors at my work, Warne Marketing, which my boss graciously agreed to let me use for the weekend. Thanks to Peter Ivaskiv and Nelia Amaro crewing. Both were stepped up after I put up a status message on Facebook, asking for a PA for the shoot. Both went above and beyond, with Peter bringing tools, flashlights and his own camera, even. I think I owe him my first born. Sorry Simon! Nelia brought continuity, location set up,  and a great sense of fun.

Carly Heffernan, Crystal Koskinen, Kevin Matviw, Shaista Latif and Liz McEachern were the actors on that shoot day, and barring a few sound issues the video looks amazing.

The hardest part about shooting improvised video so far has been trying not to laugh out loud, since the mic would pick up my snickering and guffaws. On both locations, I was holding my breath and biting my hand (or mitt when I was outside) to keep the laugher in until I could finally call cut!

Next up is the editing, which I’ll be mixing film shot from Peter’s camera (720b) and mine (1081i) both HD. Okay, it’s Simon’s camera. Thanks to him, too. He didn’t take it to LA with him on his trip.

Production stills…

Fireside with Alex Schroen and Bob McGill in Diana Galligan's improvideo

Crystal Koskinen, Carly Heffernan, Kevin Matviw, Shaista Latif and Liz McEachern in Diana Galligan's improvideo

Kevin Matviw, Liz McEachern and Shaista Latif in Diana Galligan's improvideo

Letter of Support

Our letter of support for IVP#1 from Jane O’Hare at the Alzheimer’s Society of Toronto:
IVP#1 Alzheimer’s Society Letter of Support

Full Circle

Here’s an example of a beat sheet for an IVP short entitled “Full Circle”…

1) Bruce Hunter was the first person I asked to participate as a director in this project.
2) Unfortunately he was unavailable within my first production schedule.
3) Then the production schedule changed and we lost a few directors.
4) I confirmed Bruce’s participation today as the 12th and final director in IVP #1.
5) Roll credits.

Addendum - 02.25.2009 (the tag)
6) Bruce is now unable to direct; instead he has agreed to host the event.

Reunion

When this project was still in the organizing stages Simon suggested that we write a little bit about our process as we went from planning to editing.  It went by in a flash, but now that I’m looking at our first rough cut, I thought I would try to put down a few notes about our video.

For those that don’t know me I’ll start off by saying that the cast and I first met while working on the Neutrino Video Project several years ago and have been working (and sometimes drinking) together ever since.

~Pre-production~

I originally planned to set aside half of a day for workshopping some ideas and taking the best of them onto set the next day. The cast quickly realized that I was a foolish, power-hungry egomaniac like most directors and made their own plans to shoot the first day instead.

We tossed around a few different ideas for 20-30 minutes but kept coming back to Renee’s concept of 3 friends reuniting via facebook after being apart for years. We saw a few interesting directions we could take that in, although most of them ended up falling by the wayside when the cast started improvising.

~Shooting~

For you nerds out there, I shot everything on a Sony PD150 (great in low light) and got the best light I could from whatever was lying around. The on-camera omni-directional mic served as our only audio pickup and did an okay job most of the time.

Although I was still kind of hungover from my new years debauchery 2 days before and didn’t want to go outside, the cast decided that we needed to have a simple arrival at one of the characters houses and then see where it went from there.

When that was finished and we moved inside, the characters sat down to catch up and we started to figure out who they were. I did a few wide shots on a tripod to start things off and then about 7 handheld takes just roaming from character to character. I didn’t end up using any of the static tripod takes. When the handheld takes were done we had a pretty clear idea of who everyone was and what direction we were going in. I did 1 take in closeup for Dave, Renee and Joe and then we shot in 2 other rooms, escalating the tension towards our predetermined twist (probably one of the first things we’d thought up).

After about 5 hours we’d shot everything but the final scene. We probably spent the most time setting everything up at the dinner table. We decided to come back the next day for the last scene and work on the song one of the characters would sing.

I won’t give away any top secret plot twists but everyone seemed pleased with what we’d done at wrap time the next day.

~Editing~

Although my coverage would have to be described as irresponsible at best, there were no glaring continuity problems outside of the first dinner table scene.  My first assembly came in around 9 minutes and I realized I would have drown a few of our babies for the sake of the story.

Even with this harsh brutality, the darn thing is still running about 7 1/2 minutes so I’m going to have to leave it for a bit to see if there’s any more chopping I can do. I can’t say I really believe in shorts that are over 5 minutes, but if Buster Keaton can do it, well…I’ll have to think it over.

I hope everyone had as much fun as we did.

Principal Photography 2

Mike Fly just sent me the low-down on his short “Happy Birthday, With Love” which he finished shooting yesterday.

It stars Katie Bowes, Tim Daugulis, Tatiana Maslany, Diana Frances, Fraser Wiest, Sean Tabares, Brette Gable and canine improviser Pender. Mike’s DP was Curt Galindo-Orozco, who shot with a Sony EX-1.

Here are some stills from Mike’s shoot:

the cake from Mike Fly's
'Happy Birthday, With Love'

Katie Bowes from Mike Fly's
'Happy Birthday, With Love'

Canine improviser Pender from Mike Fly's
'Happy Birthday, With Love'