Chapter One - A White Walled Basement
I’m the Director of Photography on this particular production and I’m down in the basement looking around at this location trying to make sense of choosing this one. Nearly half the film will take place in this basement. There are two rooms separated by a shallow panel of drywall. There was a third room that was much more dingy and disgusting that had been the only reason I had pushed for this location. Well, not the only reason. The owner of the house where this basement was, was my wife’s best friend. He was a young and easy going guy so logistically I felt if we were to go over our time there or would have any “incidents” during filming, they may be better, tolerated than if we used a basement of somebody we didn’t really know well.
Note: During the Jeopardy shoot which I will refer to many times in this book, we had been kicked out of a secured location for “being too big of a production,” and a Security Guard calling the person in charge twice when we flipped breakers with our light’s wattage. That exodus not only cost us the quality of shots for that particular scene but also put the rest of our production behind leading us to “hack” our way through the scenes following to catch back up. Securing this basement would relieve or assure me the shoot would be tolerated throughout the time needed. And STABILITY was one of the most important qualities of low budget filmmaking. This house was convenient as well for other elements of the production. It had two houses on the same lot which meant utilizing the Exteriors and Interiors would allow us to shoot four locations of the script there. In a twelve day shoot for a feature film, that was a priceless element to have.
On the first discussion it was decided this was our basement. On the second discussion, my “third room” idea was thrown out and it was decided the divider wall of the two rooms was to be taken out and the two rooms would become one where the action would take place. Forget the fact, that there were six to seven two by fours still separating the walls obstructing several would be angles to shoot from when you start stuffing people in this small spot.
I’m ignoring their yearning to use this other room so I begin setting up shots in this “third room.” It was cinematically mediocre, but had mildewed, dirty walls. It had a faded lime colored tool counter and rusted cabinets on a utility door. It was tight, stinky, and crude. It was perfect. But the Director kept favoring the other two by four riddled room. The other room had a clean washer and dryer next to a newly built rack of cabinets filled with those Wal-Mart brand tubs, all labeled nicely. Worst of all, the left wall was still perfectly dry walled with with sheets of half inch cement. No texture nor color to them and the stint that was raised by the home owner about removing the divider wall left absolutely know leverage on asking him to strip those other pieces down as well. A white cinder blocked wall would have been a tad more pleasant cinematically than drywall. Now better than that, all the action was to take place on this flat white boring slab. I wasn’t happy, but kept my mouth shut. I guess I decided to show them after shooting a whole day of useless footage on the wall that it wasn’t gonna’ work. I said my peace. I even attempted to sabotage their plan, by forgetting to ask the homeowner about tearing down the divider wall hoping it would “force” them to have to use the third room. My idea, even after my plea was ignored. I stayed positive that I would be able to talk the first time Director into changing his vision and dropped the issue for the time being.
The day Principle Photography came, I found myself overruled as I watched all my gear being dumped in the mildewed, dingy, rusty area of that third room as the actors began their rehearsal and blocking against my dreaded white slab. Using Mise en Scene and lack of lighting resources doesn’t make a white wall in a dingy basement behind an actor very appealing at all. Think, shooting on a Green Screen without keying out the green. Shooting HD really allows you to play with textures, color and what I refer to as, “stuff” in a frame. I like color rich frames packed with information unless the scene calls for different. Even shooting rack focuses and Dutch Angles on this wall was as dull as playing the board game, ‘Operation’ without the buzzard having batteries.
YOU CAN SEE MY DISGUST OF THE WHITE WALL I SPEAK ABOUT BEHIND ME IN THIS PICTURE
Chapter One Continues....
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