Director's Reflection:
What I wanted to do with the film is to show how ridiculous a chase can be, even when it's two criminals trying to get back their stolen suitcase. I liked working with Anna, my DP. She collaborated well and as I would explain the next shot she would listen very well. I think some of the quick cuts worked to keep the pace high contrasting with the slow discoveries like the suitcase being stolen from Ralph. I think there some good comedic timing. But boy did I learn a lot.
When you are are on a really wide lens, you better check frame and see what is there. I messed up with having shadows or objects being in frame that I wasn't planning on being there. I broke the 180 line with the car scene. I totally forgot that Anna needed to sit on the other side or more in the back seat. The drone shot didn't work out as well as planned. It was very unsteady and I had to warp it a lot. I had trouble trying to keep the running time down. I didn't time how long my long takes were. I wanted to have the movement in frame play and have more of the camera static but by doing so I had some really long takes so I had some jump cuts. The ending didn't work as well as I had planned. After the knock, the police say open up but with the reaction before the know, it wasn't working for me. I had a blast with the actors and with my crew. We were hauling and pretty rushed. Next time, I will know exactly what shot is next and try to imagine the film as a whole more so the edits can be clearer in my head.
I really enjoyed working with Cameron on this piece! He had a clear vision of what he wanted and a well planned shot list. He had a schedule for when we had to be done with each shot, which kept us moving quickly and helped us finish on time. There was a fun attitude on set and the improv actors Cameron found were perfect for this kind of comedy. We hardly took more than 2 takes, which was kind of nice but I was worried sometimes about how the footage would turn out. I knew that the time we saved by working quickly on set would cost Cameron a lot of time in the editing room.
ReplyDeleteI appreciated the trust Cameron had in me as a DP and that we were able to collaborate creatively together. I learned a lot about timing on set and how long it takes to do a certain length of film. We spent 5 hours on set for each of our projects but my final film ended up being really short and Cameron was having a hard time staying within the three minute limit. I think the difference was that we spent a lot of time on each shot for my film and we moved really quickly on Cameron's and shot tons of footage! I think my ideal happy medium might be something in the middle of our two shooting styles, but it was interesting to observe and something I wouldn't have anticipated in preproduction.
I was really pleased with the overall experience and felt like we both were able to learn a lot and have fun doing it. Cameron was a joy to work with because of his positive attitude and organization. He got a lot of people to come help us out on set, so there was no shortage of hands, which was also nice.