To follow up on the friday post:
I didn’t go to the Pinewood Studios because it was a “ball”. Like in the guys wearing a tuxedo, and the girls wearing something I am never ever going to wear. Well, I can only think of one occasion, but that has an improbabillity factor of 100%. And no it isn’t my wedding. But Pinewood Studios, I will probably go there in November for a set visit. Without having to wear silly clothes.
And then there was the film shoot I had on Saturday. I took the above picture there, and I really like how it looks. (I manipulated it a bit in PS, and not sure it is allowed to post it here, so don’t tell anyone).
Shortly – we were shooting in a room in one of the more decadent buildings close to Oxford Street. The room had a kind of 18th century look, and so had the actors. We had 4 actors, 3 of them were children, dressed up as kids from that time, and one actress.
We shot a bit outside, which taught me that red doubledecker busses can be quite annoying if you are filming. So can trucks, and people walking through the set because they didn’t notice we were filming. The rest was shot inside.
The crew was about 12 people. There was chocolate and cookies and tea to keep us going. We got lunch delivered. And, yeah, it was fun actually.
The director had been so friendly to attach me as an assistant to the DOP (the camera and lightning guy). He probably thought I had experience with that, but I hadn’t really. So I was wondering if I should tell him that, or if I should just do my very best to be useful around the place and see if I could get away with that. Luckily the DOP was a very nice guy, and he too thought I had done this several times before.
So we had to light the room, and the DOP said “OK, could you light two red heads and a blonde and put some diffuser on please?”
And I thought, damn, red heads, blondes what on earth could that be. I looked around and saw a couple of lights standing in the corner, and luckily in this case, the were red ones, could this be the red heads ? Turned out that in this case, the red heads were indeed red. I was lucky, they could have been any colour. Now the diffuser thing. “Where is the diffuser ?” I asked him.
“It’s in the bag over there” he said.
I looked into the bag, found the paper rolls I had seen at film school, and suddenly I remembered. Diffuser is paper you clip on the lights in order to make it more, well, diffuse. I figured that the other types of lights had to be the blondes, they are lights slightly bigger than red heads. And I am nearly sure these terms for lights have been picked by men, not really a surprise as it is such a man dominated industry, the film industry.
I quickly learned all those terms, and now I will remember them better, because I have worked with them. I learned how to conquer unwanted shadows on peoples faces and in the room. I learned how you can shoot from different angles. How to make tracking shots. How to use some special effects. I learned a hell of a lot.
It was a very long day, we shot about 11 hours, and I was very tired afterwards. The film that is going to come out of this is going to be about 3-4 minutes. In contrast with my film school film, we shot 1.5 hour for 1.5 minute of film (the pressure was much higher on film school). I worked for free all day, but it was worth it, as I learned a lot for free too. And I can add another film to my credit list.
Tonight I am going to make my debut as a student on Uni. I even have an official student card. Who would have thought that I would ever enter a University as a student. In London.
Not me, that’s for sure.
It is Surreal, but nice.
That sounds like a great (if long) day and very interesting about the lights too. I find the mechanics of filming fascinating, this summer I went and watched a couple of mates who were involved locally with filming scenes for the new Cate Blanchett film The Golden Age. Our local beauty spot Frensham Pond was doubling for a scene of the building of the Spanish Armada (I think they are going to have to work some miracles in CGI!)
That sounds like an amazing day, Ingrid. I love the names for the lights. (At first I thought they were referring to the children and had come up with a way for making them quieter!)
Greetings,
I’m somwehat refreshed to find a blog relating to the film of this blog’s name. I stumbled onto the movie quite by accident last christmas season. Now, I mioght be a little late expounding the aspects of the film. However, a year on and I still find tidbits of the movie rather intriguing and relevant. Well relevant, certainly. It does manage to slide you into it’s political statement all the while you are in the midst of what appears to be a love story to the misguided. The next thing you know you are emotianlly drawn into what appears to be the travisty that is the G8 and their seemingly useless accomplishments.
It is q
As I was saying…..the movie does draw you in and yet appeals that oh so commericalized sensabilites on our makeup as we tend to want more to become of the main characters in the movie.
Well, enough for now..
j
Awesome. Experience rocks.
Hi Jaime – it is never too late to talk about this film. The film is still very much alive, and highly appreciated on this blog. As you can see the DVD on tour project is still very much alive too, which is a thing I am very happy about. Thanks for stopping by ! :)
@BL : the children (3 girls, I guess they were around 10-12) were excellent. Even though it was a long day for them as well, they did what was asked of them, and did a great job. I guess it was an interesting day for them too.