Location scouting

Today we had our team meeting and we also went looking at a location for tomorrow's shoot. I was an apartment, nicely decorated, everything already in a color palette, and enough of equipment space, so we decided to go for it. I will be director as well as director of photography.

I proposed that we would spend two hours in the morning to pre-light the set as to have a plan when the actors come. We have three scenes to do and of course each will have their own lighting scheme (as well as changes between framings). All the three scenes take place during late afternoon in the movie world whereas it will be going from day to night in the real one, so I decided that we would cover the windows to have control over the light amount.

One challenge will be to simulate tv flicker, which we will accomplish through intermittently covering a blue-gelled light. Another challenge will be a type of panning diagonal crane shot, but without a crane... instead we will use a Steadicam Merlin, which is a beautiful little tool to do floating shots. As a director I should have total knowledge of the script, but I will only take a look tomorrow morning... these have been intense days. I have a cold but I hope I won't be too bad tomorrow...