Doug's Production Diary 15

Monday, June 6, 2005

Wow...big break between shoots. It really was a drag, since shooting has gotten so much easier and quicker and more fun! But, Dan and I did not spend the time in vain. Since our thumbnails are so helpful, we put work into those for our Comic Heaven scene, back alley chase, and Amsterdam flashback. This is where we started today.

We decided to show a little more so had our heroes stroll past a prospective coffeehouse before going in. We shot at the Enclave, which looked awesome on film! A guy we'd never seen before (John Beech) was wrangled to be our Barista: he looks great on film.

Shoot went VERY smoothly with incredible continuity of movement and some very nice, innovative shots. For a short, almost "throwaway" scene, everyone put good work into it.

Actually it's probably my favorite that we've shot so far...

Brett, Christian, and I are developing nicely with each other. This will help a lot in scenes without all three of us, because we can carry the scene (and should: we're the main characters!). I think we utilized what we had on hand very effectively. Even Wally! :)

Anyway after that we shot the boys' comings and goings from Wishes' Well. This was extremely short and easy stuff but still, we shot from multiple angles to cover the bases and get well-composed shots to string together for a great scene.

Unexpectedly squeezed in one more scene: Buddy and Jones en route to work (pre-firing). This was a long tracking shot that met with some skepticism: timing, shaky cam, audio, traffic...but in the end it went superbly. Naysayers! (Except Christian - we both knew we could time it perfectly).

Dan and I made our Comic Heaven coupon and also went to Tony's to review footage in the evening. I'm still geeking out about it! Stuff looks fantastic. Tony put together the chase/kill scene of Dan and Jason: brilliant! This movie is turning out even better than I imagined. I can't wait to see the finished product. But until then, I'm just enjoying the ride...immensely!!