Day 1, Friday

Alright so I promised to mention a bit about the shoot. 

So we drove north to Bancroft from Toronto. It was a fairly long drive, but Justice (Cross) made it bearable. As soon as we got there, which was around 4pm, we unloaded all the rented equipment from OCAD and divied up rooms. I got no room and ended up sleeping on the couch, but that was fine with me. Andrew started up the furnace, but what I didn't realize, was that it would take practically all night to hit 10 degrees. Needless to say we were freezing, and had work to do. 

Daniel Frade, my gaffer, and I unpacked the HMI's and started setting them up in the forest for our first shot. We then unpacked the 4 bank Kino-Flo and set it up. As soon as the sun went down, the lights went up! It was glorious.

We rolled off 6 shots, and called it a night, since I passed out from the cold. Yes, that is correct, I wussed out.

Next... Day 2, Saturday

Savage

Alright so about a month ago, maybe 5 weeks, I went up north 4 hours to Bancroft with Andrew Frade to shoot his pre-thesis. I, being the dick that I am, convinced him to not shoot on our regular and reliable HD cam and shoot on the Nikon D90 which I had bought a week prior. Needless to say we were a bit nervous never having shot with this camera going up north with two actors and shooting a 20 minute short film. 

The film "Savage" stars Sean Kaufmann, Damon E. White, and actress Saffron Cassaday.

It was written and directed by Andrew Frade

The shoot was intense, but more on that later. Here are a couple of pictures.

The set was Andrew's cottage in Bancroft. We were able to use a pretty sweet lighting package consisting of 2 575W HMIs, a 4 ft. 4-bank Kino Flo, as well as 2 Ianiro Redheads, a 1k soft moley, and a 2 Arri open faced lights.

The grip package was a bit meager but with a trip to Canadian Tire, and a few C-clamps later we had enough to make it work.

We had a C-stand with a grip arm, and the 2 clamps that came with it. We purchased 2 c-clamps at Canadian Tire and sawed off the ends to attach the redheads and arri's and clamp them to the studs on the ceiling. The concrete blocks located on the side of the cottage were used to "sandbag" the C-stand holding the Kino Flo over the balcony. 

Oh, and we also had 1 roll of diffusion, 1 roll of CTO, a small flag, and a small net. I'd like to mention that for the record I had asked for a roll of CTB, and a small silk, but received the CTO and the double net instead.

Being my first actual shoot acting as a cinematographer I had made a fair amount of mistakes, but was very happy with the end result. The Nikon D90 is a troublesome camera with its use of Auto settings. It requires trickery, and we were able to find ways around most of the issues. Since we had no ND with us, we couldn't avoid strobing in very bright scenes. 

All the lighting setups were done by me and my gaffer. One of the biggest issues was the lack of stands for the HMI's. My gaffer rigged up some workbenches to place them on. As seen below.

I'd like to give a shout out to 2.0 (Daniel Frade), first-time crew member, who acted as my gaffer, and by the end of the shoot became a pro. Here's lookin at you 2.0, you rocked the set like it was no one's business. Here he is working hard.

I'd like to thank Sean and Damon for being extreme troopers, an extra special thanks to Sean for running around in the snow half-naked for the first shot, and Saffron Cassaday for eating pizza.  

Also a special thanks to Paolo Iannucci for handling our sound during the Yonge and Dundas scenes.

More to come soon.

First Post!

Hey guys, this is the first post of what will hopefully be several. 

Soon to come, some info on Savage.