Day 6 of Shoot: It’s Just a Job

(Skipping days 4 and 5 because I took some personal time off & didn’t have enough time to blog them properly. I may assemble my notes later for a flashback.)
“Today I guarantee you’re going to get some good behind-the-scenes footage” said Gorman confidently. This made me immediately suspicious. I always think it’s good to underpromise and overdeliver. Gorman, as usual, was right. I, as usual, was wrong. Come to think of it, he has proven himself to be a master of the overpromise, underdeliver thing.

Today's shoot took place in a computer services firm that was vacated, we were promised, until 10:00am. We arrived there about 8:30am. I am beginning to understand the rhythm of Gorman’s shooting days. I don’t know if it’s typical of a movie, but the morning always starts off relaxed, then intensity builds as the day goes by. I don’t know if that’s just Gorman, or if it’s the way all movies work, or if it’s typical of independents in which you’re shooting a large number of scenes per day. This morning, for whatever reason, there was a good vibe all around. Bonus: it was a gorgeous spring day and the location was big enough to accommodate everyone comfortably. Gorman kicked craft services (food) outside. “On a day like this,” he reasoned, “it just doesn’t make any sense for people not to be outside.” Smart move. Kept noisy juice-and-snack-seekers out of the set while giving the location a festive atmosphere.

The reason a computer services company was chosen as the location was that one of the characters is a webcam girl and the other is a webmaster who works there at a very confused time in his life. Today’s scenes included some with spicy dialog, some with hot chicks groping each other, and some with the brisk delivery and wit one expects from a well-crafted comedy like Friends (With Benefits). My favorite scene had all that, plus plenty of nudity and even a touching dénouement. Guess which part I plan to write about? Hint: it ain’t the touching dénouement.

Emotional Scenes Work Better with Webcam Chicks

The scene in question calls for several of the friends to be talking about whether sex is better with someone who means something to you. As they do it the webcam girls are doing their thing in the background. One of them undulates slowly and languidly, starting with a bikini and wearing progressively less of it as the scene unfolds.

One of my strategies for the behind-the-scenes will be to show rehearsals of some scenes, along with the documentary camera view, interspersed with the final takes. Normally I can’t get all three but the point is to show the movie from just about every perspective I can muster. My video camera (a Canon XH A1) is an exceptionally good one, but director Gorman Bechard and cinematographer Adrian Correia know how to set up a shot. It will be telling and, I hope, illuminating for the viewer to see how the shot set up for the moviemaker’s camera has almost no correspondence to what the bystander (or documentarian) sees. Gorman and Adrian work swiftly and efficiently at all times, even for intricate shots like a couple of the scenes scheduled for today.

The moviemaker’s camera has the only angle for a good shot. All the lights, reflectors, microphones, and cabling are oriented for that shot. Any other angle might as well be in the building next door. The camera, cinematographer, and the cinematographer’s assistant (who has a more impressive job title than that but I don’t remember what it is) are right in the action. The camera sports a largish reference monitor used at least as much as the viewfinder. Because it is a digital world now, a second, larger monitor rests on a stand several feet away. The director, coproducer/screenwriter Ashley, the makeup artist, the production designer, and the wardrobe person all cluster around it during the take. After every take it’so not unusual for every one of those people to deal with cast or crew.

I view my job as twofold: first, stay the hell out of the way. Second, try to get a good behind-the-scenes filmed. Of all the crew members, I am the only one who is not essential and the one who adds by far the most friction to what is otherwise the smoothly running machine that is this production. Consequently I developed a way of working that involves trying to find the best place to shoot that places the least strain on the crew.

Life's Tough Choices: Politeness vs. enjoying Gratuitous Nudity

Lousy strategy. I just don’t get good shots I stood off to the side behind a ficus and ended up with just a sliver of the scene. Plus, I’m a red-blooded American guy. There were some pretty interesting developments on set I wasn’t able to catch. I have a shot of Gorman requesting that the actress playing the webcam girl in the background take off her top. No problem. Someone had prepped her, because she wasn’t at all surprised.

Ultimately what I ended up doing for this and a couple other scenes shot today was standing in the pocket between the camera and the reference monitor used by the director, makeup folks, and so on. It was a privileged position to be in, and as often as not I had a pretty good view, though nothing like what the moviemaker’s camera saw. I think there were 8 takes of this scene. I got to see a lot of naked webcam girl. She was 40 feet away, but the Canon XH A1 has a very powerful zoom lens. Generally I would alternate emphasizing her vs. the other actors each take. It was pretty cool, because the director instructed her to dance in a way that faced her directly into my camera. She looked fine. And you know what?

It’s just a job. I’ve often read about photographers and cinematographers who spend a lot of time around naked people that they quickly become inured, that you’re just shooting another scene. Patently wrong, wouldn’t you think? Who could ever get used to beautiful naked young women?

People who have a challenging, complex job and very little time to do it, that’s who. People like me, I was a bit surprised to learn. All told I was on set for 12 hours today. When you’re carrying a camera instead of mounting it on a stand, you need to deal as reefficiently as possible with a body that does not like to remain stock still, yet must in order to get a good shot. I had a goodly chunk of that 20X zoom on the Canon XH A1 focused right on the webcam girl’s naughty bits, but the more zoom you use the more wiggly the camera feels. On a fully zoom-in view I can often detect my heartbeat bouncing the camera up and down visibly. To reduce camera shake the handheld operator must resort to such painful kludges as holding his breath, holding arms up to form a sort of tripod out of the arms, back, and legs. These positions do not promote good back health. At the end of the day my hands and stomach were shaking from the strain.

It doesn't end there. I don't get to control what happens, so my ability to compose and frame good shots is sharply restricted. Though I don't succeed, my goal is always to end up with each shot. looking like it was planned. I've learned that motion is interesting, and hard to anticipate, and that unusual items in the frame help make a shot interesting. Sometimes this means a bald sweaty cinematographer adjusting a light and cursing in between shots is a better shot than a woman in a bikini. Since I never know when a good visual will come, I must be constantly aware of opportunities, while balancing them against constantly dwindling battery life. None of this makes for a relaxing time, even when some serious skin is involved.

I’m pretty sure everyone else on the crew has a job at least as challenging as mine, so the upshot of it is that all this glorious nudity went essentially unremarked upon by just about everyone involved. These people are true professionals.

Except maybe me and the first AD (assistant director), Michael. After I got a particularly, ah, comely shot, he winked at me. “Good one”, he said quietly. Hey, I did it for my art. I like to think of myself as a consummate professional. Anything to advance the cause of this fine movie...