stills from Day Two (Oct 25)

it was joanna and dan today for Day Two of actual production on ELTEE.

we filmed at strathcona, by the sugar refinery, a small dam by the Hive studios, and the Hive itself.

More Shooting scheduled

This weekend we plan to shoot more scenes. This time we will actually go into the studio. I'm very pleased with the first batch of footage I just have to sustain that quality for the duration of the shoot.

more pics from Production Shoot Day One

see here

Starting to edit

I'm lining up stuff and doing a rough assembly. I should have a little teaser done in a couple of days. Here is a still that I kinda fancy.

First day was sweeeet

Joanna, Rob, Steve, Ryan

Joanna, Ken, Steve, Rob, white mannequin head

All my fears were dispelled by my awesome cast and the lovely Mona.

The cast in order of appearance
Joanna Garfinkel as Sylvie
Ryan Matthews as Vince
Ken Tsui as Eddie
Steve Hubert as Randall

We started shooting around 6pm and stopped at 10:30pm. Good thing Mona brought delicious cookies.

We managed to get three scenes done. I am loading the footage in right now. The tone was decidedly light yet natural for the first few scenes. The drama will come later.

I was seriously biting my cheeks when Steve (who's never acted before) did his first scene. This guy is funny. Ryan was dry and witty like I've seen him in real life. So glad other people well get to see how he is. Joanna was the grounded one (someone has to otherwise it will fly off the rails). Ken was his usual bad-ass self.

As long as Mona and I are impressed, that's all that matters. I'm sure other people will like it. Maybe.

The edit starts tomorrow.

Cast is a dream

Had a great lunch with two of the cast members today (Joanna and Steve) and the more I talk to these two the more I feel my vision is going to get to the screen undiluted. They are excited by this project.

Spent the weekend being sick and watching the Goodfather series with Frances' great commentary.

Best bit of advice...

Always shoot a scene where one of the actors in on the phone with either their back to you or mouth obscured by shadows. Reason being? So you can add dialogue in post production that fills in any story gaps.

Wardrobe: no red plse

one of the obstructions for ELTEE is to find actors who already wear the type of wardrobe that i imagined the characters at the recording studio would wear.

this has meant that casting has been a little more, erm, specific.

and i've made a further decision on wardrobe: i'm banning the colour red.

although i was already thinking that red wouldn't be a good colour to have onscreen, it wasn't until i watched Days In Between that i noticed how the lack of red really made a visual impact on the story and the tone.

also, i seem to recall that The Lives of Others didn't have any red onscreen.

hope that's okay with everyone.

Locking down some scenes and the talk of the tech

Mona and I are working on scenes and shot lists. We've got some great tracking shots and weird angles we'd like to incorporate but we'll see if they actually play on the day.

Also I'm going to be getting some china balls and bulbs cause that studio is way too dark. We are shooting on two HV20s in 24p mode, one with a wide angle lens adapter, which will be on a tripod and the other one will be handheld (no wide angle, just naked). I know what you're saying "that's an $800.00 camera". When you see the footage you will be impressed, I assure you. When Soderbergh made Full Frontal, his XL1 didn't look half as good as the images coming out of the HV20.

I won't bog you down too much about the tech stuff in future posts because it's all about the approach and not the gear.

It's On

Mona and I (Rob Leickner) are jumping into the world of feature-length fiction.

We have access to a recording studio so why not make a film there. Use what you have.

No mere short here but an actual motion picture. This may come as news to some as we mentioned it was going to be a web series but when we sat down and thought of it we wanted to make a movie sometime. Why not now?

This blog will keep you abreast of our production (pre, in-the-thick-of-it and post). We will be putting photos and videos on this thing so keep checking back. It is a learning experience so we hope to pass on our triumphs and mistakes to others.

Exciting and Scary times...