It’s now a three day countdown until principle photography for my second short film (or my first proper one) “INSIDE”.
I received the fantastic news only a few hours ago that I won’t only be shooting Arri Alexa, but Red One MX as well! I cannot thank Gideon Furst and the team at Media Film Service enough for making this particular dream come true. I am confident in my eye and ability to see outstanding shots, my vision for the story is strong and the location is breathtaking but now I have total confidence that I can actually capture the images that are already in my mind.
For a few weeks now I’ve felt that I didn’t really have much to blog about. Lots in the pipeline, lots of maybe’s and what if’s but I’ve been waiting for concrete answers before I make a big song and dance about it.
What’s significant to me this time around is that I have a solid story and I know beyond any doubt I can get the shots. This means that I can put my role as D.P. second to directing.
I’m also not shooting neg this time, so I can get it right and get lots of coverage and B roll without running out of film stock. With Daydream I over-compensated and still had stock left over. I also only have one location, Daydream had three and it was a challenge to get between three locations, get set up and move on all in one day.
What I have done with Inside, in common with Daydream is that there is no location sound. There are no speaking roles in this short. I’m not taking any audio gear, neither do have a sound technician, and to be honest I don’t want one. I also don’t want my actor to be concerned with delivering lines. It is a psychological thriller, very intimate to what he’s experiencing in his own mind, it borders on horror and so the visuals and performance will speak louder than any superfluous dialogue. Mood will be carried with music and sound design. What I want to see is believable performance, I want to see fear personified, to capture it and deliver it to the audience.
Daydream was an experiment in technicalities, the story was somewhat insignificant to me then. I will still finish Daydream properly, it needs a online and grade but now I’m moving on, the technicalities don’t worry me and I can concentrate on directing.
I want to point out some specific challenges to this project.
Remote Location – We are shooting in the Cedarberg mountains, at a riverside location 5kms from anywhere. I am hoping for clear skies, but the weather doesn’t really matter as long as it’s not raining. What it does mean is that we don’t have power, and we won’t be taking a generator, so I’ll be operating on batteries alone, that means no big fancy monitors and no lights.
Low Light – we will definitely be shooting at night by the light of candles, a campfire and a kerosene lamp. For these shots I am taking 21mm and 50mm Arri Master Primes at T1.3 and will be shooting wide open, hand-held. These are challenging conditions for both exposure and focus.
Festival Submission Deadline – Inside will be submitted to the Shnit International Film Festival. It’s already entered and the deadline for receipt of the preview copy is July 1st in Berne, Switzerland. We wrap the last scene on Sat June 25th, however the bulk of the film will be shot the 19th and 20th. This leaves the week between to get the bulk of the offline edit and sound design done. I plan to cut the final scene in on Sunday 26th, grade on Monday 27th and get it couriered the morning of Tuesday 28th June.
However you look at it, it’s going to be tight!
Needless to say, I am very very excited.
