Production Diary:
| Day two
Written by Gabe Sheets|August 14th, 2018
Photographic and video content by Stephen Littmann
The night before I made sure to look over the shot list and the script to make sure I was prepared. I touched base with my actor, Richard Ulrich, as this would be his first day. We briefly went over my vision again, and I thanked him again for being a part of the project.
We had three scenes to shoot this day, one of which I was very worried about, as it was a very crucial dialogue scene in the film. I spent a fair amount of time rehearsing the most important scenes with my actors, however, there were scheduling conflicts for rehearsing this specific scene. I also had not been able to scout the location ahead of time (something that will never, ever happen again). We were shooting at a gas station and trying to find one nearly killed our production.
We spent a good month or so scouting local gas stations. We narrowed it down and contacted management to lock in the location. The first issue we ran into was finding the right person to talk to. We were told at every gas station that we needed to talk to someone at the corporate level. So it was always a battle of endlessly going up the food chain to speak to the “right” person. We ended up speaking to the parent company of virtually all of the gas stations we had scouted and got all nos. So even our backup picks were thrown out the window. This left us scrambling last minute to find a location.
We considered changing it to a liquor store and found one right next to our house. But that location would have forced us to rearrange our shooting schedule.
Luckily, some of our crew members had an uncle who privately owned a gas station. Unfortunately, it was out in a rural area, which was very different from the rest of our film, which was being filmed in downtown St. Louis. But it was either accept the continuity difference or not have a gas station location. So we went with it. This meant that on day two we were all going in blind. There was no location scouting, no tech scouting, and no rehearsal. The only thing we had discussed was the visual style I was going for with the gas station scenes. So we had a general idea for camera movement and lighting. But, of course,that always changes once you get on set.
The morning of the shoot I was put in the picture car with some other crew members. This was a big mistake, seeing as I needed to take some time to process and prepare for directing. I did put in earbuds and listen to music, but I constantly got questions regarding the shoot, and the crew wanted to chat. But I was in no mood to chat, so this put me in a really bad mood. I also had a headache, so that didn’t help my mood.
I should note that I am fine chatting with crew, especially after the shoot when I just want to decompress. But when I am trying to prepare myself mentally for a big day, I really need some alone time to think; and riding in a car of just crew was the complete opposite. Needless to say, I rode separately from the crew for the rest of the shoot.
After the car ride I was thrown right into gear with production. I started walking through my plan for our interior scenes with Austin (DP) and Wyatt (1st AD). The first shot up was supposed to be a steadicam shot. But when we went to set up the steadicam, we learned that it had a gold-mount battery plate, and we only had v-mount batteries. The biggest problem with this was that most of the film was supposed to be shot on steadicam, so even if we rearranged shots on the second day, we still had five other days to worry about.
We considered renting them from a St. Louis rental house, but those would require someone to make a two-hour drive from our location. I decided to ask one of my filmmaking friends whether they owned any, and, sure enough, he had two that we could borrow. So, one of our producers drove off to pick those up. Instead of waiting around and twirling our thumbs, we decided that the first part of our day would be shoulder mount instead of steadicam. Unfortunately, this problem was only solved for the next two days. The batteries had to go back on Saturday night. So we did have to rent some batteries for the remainder of our shoot. There are two lessons with this situation. Firstly, always test your gear. We got the steadicam in a day early, but didn't completely build it out to test it in advance. If we had tested it, we would’ve figured out before the shoot started that we needed the batteries, instead of after we had already begun filming.
The second lesson was not to panic if you go over budget during your shoot. I always assumed that the budget was decided and locked in before the shoot and that if you had any problems, you were just screwed. But if the issue is big enough, you can, in fact, go over budget. If you look at bigger films, this happens all the time. Whether it’s equipment failure, delays, or unforeseen expenses, films go over budget all the time while production is happening. It’s a scary place to be in as a filmmaker and definitely puts the pressure on, but it isn't the end of the world. And in the big scheme of things having to rent batteries wasn’t that bad. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only instance we went over budget.
Despite our steadicam hiccup, the first half of our shoot went very well. We got all the shots we needed and I got what I wanted. It was a great collaboration between me, Austin, and Wyatt, including utilizing extras, the framing of the shots, and the actors’ movements. I would definitely advise any filmmaker to spend time considering the foreground and background of each frame. This is where you give your film life, and it can often be overlooked. I am always challenging myself to do better in that regard.
I think a lot of directing comes down to looking at what the camera is seeing. In the past I would often be very judgmental of video village, because it seemed lazy to me. I didn’t want to be the director who just sat around the whole time, watching everyone else put in the work. But after Fugue I have a whole new respect for it. I loved spending time with my script supervisor and focusing on only what the camera sees. Something I realized very quickly was that the way the camera sees the world and the way the human eye sees the world are very different things. So you can’t get distracted by how something looks to you. What’s most important is how it works on camera.
That was another aspect I discovered about myself on this shoot. I always thought I wanted to be a very quick and energetic director all the time. But I think there is a time and place for that. I would love that for action scenes where we are getting lots of visual coverage very quickly. But I wouldn’t want to be bouncing off the walls and moving insanely quick during an intimate conversation between two actors at a table. The thing about directing a film is it’s a marathon not a sprint. So you want to be smart about where you use your energy. On Fugue I was burnt out by day three because I had used all of my energy on the previous days. On top of that, my stress level was off the charts. I would suggest reserving your energy for the stressful times or you’re going to fall flat on your face.
The crew has the most physically taxing job. Grip and electric is setting up and moving around 12x12 diffusion, floppies and HMIs. The DP is hauling around a 10-lb shoulder rig, and the ACs are running around with all of the gear the DP isn’t using. But being a director, you have the most mentally exhausting job on set. You are the one that everyone comes to for the final decision; everyone on set is depending on you, and you don’t want to let yourself down. You have to take all of that pressure and set it aside so you can focus.
At some point you may have to just focus on what’s most important for getting the film in the can and maybe not getting the film made how you really want it. Sometimes watching your dreams get crushed right in front of you is a part of the job, and you have to shake it off and keep moving. It takes a lot of energy to shut out everything else and just focus on what's on the monitor. It requires the mindset of “no matter what, we have to make this movie.”
Lastly, you have to get used to problem solving; and you have to be okay with it, because that’s really what filmmaking boils down to. A lot of filmmaking isn’t beautiful, artistic expression. It’s a balancing act of directing, managing expectations, and persevering through issues. As you lose your energy, you lose your focus; and you enter this numb state of going along with the chaos, only directing when it’s required instead of when it's inspired. This is also why planning is probably the most important part of the filmmaking process. Your movie really gets made in pre-production. If you plan appropriately and communicate effectively, your crew can step up and really help fulfill the vision discussed in pre-production.
For our first scene, the only issues we ran into had to do with the fact that our location was a functioning gas station, meaning we had to be mindful of customers and the employees. We had to be respectful of their business and schedule around their operations. We ended up losing several minutes to customers. My gaffer also wasn’t happy with the lighting in the gas station and really had to compromise on that front. We just simply didn't have enough lighting equipment with us to get the look we wanted. With that said, it was a fairly painless scene to shoot, and I was happy with what we got, regardless of whether the lighting was perfect.
Next we had to film the biggest dialogue scene in the film, and I will say right up front that it went horribly. This was virtually the first official dialogue scene I had ever directed in a film. So a fraction of the problem was my inexperience. I also think casting was a major issue. The actor I cast in one of the supporting roles was a rushed decision, and one that I regret.
To get a headstart, the crew and I went outside and discussed the mechanics of the scene. Because the lighting was already where we wanted it, the crew lobbied to shoot the second half of the scene first, which took place around the side of the gas station. I decided to trust their judgment and go for it. This was our first mistake. Being an inexperienced director, I was already struggling to wrap my head around how the continuity was going to work of shooting the second half of the scene first. And as we started rehearsing with the actors, it became more of an issue.
This outside scene was our supporting character Barry’s first scene, and the actor came unprepared. His lines weren’t memorized, and he wasn’t giving me the performance I wanted whatsoever. The lead actor was also skipping lines and definitely didn’t have them down, which is nothing I could control. It was just unprofessionalism on their part . As an actor, you never show up on set without your lines memorized. This forced me to take over a half hour for rehearsal we weren’t expecting.
The crew had already set up the steadicam and the 12x12 and were set to go with the current lighting conditions. My stress level continued to rise rose, as it seemed nothing was changing with the quality of performances; and we were now behind schedule.
Finally, my producer, Richard, came to me and gave me a valuable piece of advice: if you're struggling with actors, just do a few takes. This is advice I would definitely pass on. A lot of times things aren’t quite as bad as they seem, and you’ll discover new ideas for handling issues you were tackling in the rehearsals. And again, what the camera sees and what you see during rehearsals are two different things.
Unfortunately, because we had taken so long with rehearsals, the sun had already started to move; and we had several delays because the lighting setup had to compensate for the changes. This made shooting the scene out of order pointless. Lines were being skipped, and continuity was becoming an issue; and the lighting was changing dramatically.
On top of this issue, the sound engineer ran into technical issues on the first two takes. The recorder overheated and stopped recording right in the middle of each. He had to move inside to cool down the recorder, which set us even further behind schedule. I’ll never forget how it felt to not be getting what I wanted, constantly being told I’m out of time and that there was nothing I could do about either. I remember going up to Wyatt and asking him how we were doing. He immediately responded, “We are dead on time.” And this was before we were done rehearsing.
In total, we barely managed to get more than one shot (we ended up with two) before moving on to the first half of the scene in front of the gas station. At the end of that scene, everyone was having a panic attack about continuity — especially with the lead actor going off script. And it was preached to me in pre-production to pay extra attention to continuity.
I knew if things went well there would be some continuity issues I could live with. But if things went badly, continuity was going to kill us in the editing room. So when things weren’t going so well with that, it just added to the pressure. It ended up not being as bad as we thought, but it’s never something you want to forget about while shooting.
My thoughts on continuity are this: set a precedence ahead of time with your crew and cast to pay attention to it. The script supervisor isn’t going to catch everything. So I think it is also important that your actors pay attention as well. This will make everyone's lives a thousand times easier. But continuity is never as bad as you think, and some of the best movies have horrible continuity. Just putting forth the thought will place you miles ahead of many other filmmakers who don’t even acknowledge it. It’s the stuff you don’t think about or forget about that ends up kicking you in the butt.
So the plan for shooting the first half of the scene was we were going to cut out three shots and get it all in one long steadicam “oner”. Of course, this was nothing like “Birdman.” And we were doing this for a completely different reason. It wasn’t an artistic choice; it was a logistical choice knowing we were behind schedule and had another short scene to film after it. This was the part of filming where I really had a bad time.
We ended up doing around 20 takes of this scene/shot. And I wouldn’t mind doing 20 takes of something again, as long as we schedule appropriately and are doing each take to find nuance in the scene. But the reason we did 20 takes was because of actors forgetting their lines, camera operation, and semi-trucks ruining sound. But had the actors come prepared, we probably could’ve done this in six or seven takes.
I remember continuing to do takes, feeling like nothing was changing, and feeling like I had let everyone down on set. I felt like a failure as a filmmaker. There were quite a few moments in between takes that I went into the gas station bathroom and had to collect myself. The issues from the beginning were only getting worse. As I said, there is nothing like feeling this way on your own film set.
As we were re-setting for the current scene, we ran into the parking lot to scout out the last scene we had scheduled for the day. This involved a car pulling in, parking, and the main character getting out and walking into the gas station. We discussed doing this scene all in one shot as well. But the sun was about to set, and we still needed to get another take of the current scene. We decided to set up the steadicam for the car scene and use our Dana Dolly to get another take on the dialogue scene we were still in the middle of shooting.
After getting two more takes and one extra shot of the transition from the first half of the scene to the second half of the scene to save my ass in editing (which we already covered), we decided the parking lot/car scene would have to be covered another day. And with that, we wrapped our second day of shooting. I felt like I had gotten drop kicked by the film gods, and I still had five days of shooting to go.
I pulled my actors aside and told them that their lines were to be memorized for our following days of shooting and that I appreciated their efforts (this is office politics), although I do wish I had been a little bit more firm. After this, I sent both of them home. Next, I pulled aside Wyatt (1st AD) and talked to him about how the day went. Wyatt and I definitely have our disagreements when it comes to sacrificing quality in the filmmaking process, but I do honestly view Wyatt as a mentor. And he was able to give me insight into what went wrong with my day and what I needed to do differently throughout the rest of the shoot to make sure things ran better. We sat down and went through my shot list for the next day and then wrapped up and left. I was exhausted and already worrying about the next day.
There were numerous lessons learned on this day. For one, there is a saying that “casting is half your job as a director;” and it’s true. I will definitely be more careful and methodical in the future with casting decisions. Secondly, if my instincts tell me that I need to rehearse a scene ahead of time, I am following that instinct. And finally, never pass up on a location scout.