Commercial Shoot ReCap

Friday Jacob, Jared, Chris, Ganesh and I went to the mansion to shoot the commercial. I gathered equipment for the shoot while Ganesh made a list of what we need. I pretty much checked out all of the lab's equipment! All of us met at the lab and loaded equipment and headed to the shoot. I worked with Ganesh on the cinematography of the commercial, he did the camera work while I did lighting. In the first shot we had some issue with light showing through the crack of the door hinges, so we used light cases to cover it up (see first pic below).  We used a cold light on the ground for glow, and bounced a diffuse with umbrella v light on the outside of the wall. While  Ganesh and I set up the first shot, Chris, Jared and Jacob started preparing the next scenes through set design, props and blood. Jacob and Chris took turns at set photography so we could document the shoot/process. To minimize clean up, we used saran wrap to lay the loaf of blood bread on, and had a few spots of blood. The mixture consisted of dish soap so it cleaned up real well (and left it cleaner than before!). On the telephone shot we bounced a cold and a v light off the walls to give a glow, but issues we had is that Ganesh had a hard time focusing the shot. Reflecting back after going through footage, we decided we need a better lens so we'll be doing the shoot again on our rescheduled shoot day this Sunday (March 4) as well as an animatic.  In the last shot, Jacob, Jared and Chris made the tape body outline and I set up lights with Ganesh. I used a V light under the mid level of stairs pointed toward the outline, and directly across it a cold light pointed as well, then a diffused v light up the stairs. We had a little issues with hot spots of lights on the v light and cold, but after minor adjustment of moving them further back we were able to solve the problem. Below is set photography Jacob and Chris took to document the commercial shoot.

Also Monday after class (Feb 27) I forwarded and wrote an email for SWAMP to encourage more auditions for Saturday.

Rough Edit Draft 1 Vizagogo Commercial

This is a rough edit Jared and I did Sunday of the Vizagogo commercial. The third shot of the phone is out of focus, so we'll be reshooting on our rescheduled shoot day on Sunday. We also left the option of hand on bread being in shot as well, but in case if it's to graphic for public tv we are using the shot without the hand as first choice to be safe. Next it's going to Ganesh and Tyler for VFX for the final render.

BLOOD

Since our commercial shoot is requiring a bit a fake blood, I was assigned the task to research blood for the film. Fortunately there are several ways to make fake blood. From personal past experience, I found 2 recipes for fake blood.

1) The Classic Corn Syrup
Make as much as you need, usually it's about 9-12 drops of red with 2 drops of blood. If you need more of a darker look/older blood, add in coco mix. If it's too thick, you can mix in a little water.This mixture is great for a real blood look, since it's thick it has a nice texture. It's also used for whenever it needs to be in the mouth since its non toxic, and is great for set design. The drawback is that it can stain. To help with staining, some dish soap can be added which helps prevent staining (but becomes toxic!).

2) The Detergent
This mixture is awesome because it smells clean! Just like corn syrup, you buy a clear bottle of detergent, 9-12 drops of red and 2 drops of blue.  This is more runny texture, that sometimes makes red bubbles. But it works best for any splashing or spray that needs to be done (like in our case, when Rosemary falls and hits the bottom, and Mr. Knight being staked).

Make Up
at 9:20 http://revision3.com/filmriot/fakeblood
A mixture of corn starch, a tiny bit of corn syrup and red food coloring gives a nice thick wet look that's easily manageable with out it flaking off/running everywhere. Also, this washes off very easily as well.

Set design on blood
Unfortunately anything that has red pigment in it can easily stain wood if it's not sealed properly. From inspection of Astin Mansions floors, the wood has gaps in it which blood can easily stain, which we have to find alternative ways to get across these scenes.
Through suggestions in the group and forums, the best way is to use saran wrap and pour blood over it. If light catches the plastic, VFX can easily mask it out. Another alternative to saran wrap is parchment paper. As for walls, we plan on using a matte paper to "wall paper" the wall and add the blood smears to it, therefore the paint on the walls remain untouch. Our backup plan is if all else fails, Tyler has extensive experience in blood VFX, but only in worst case scenario. We sill want to limit his VFX work since there are other scenes that cannot be done without VFX.

Test Shots

Dolly test with lighting set up in dining room with homemade tracker.


Tracking test with rough lighting set up upstairs on homemade tracker.


Camera run through with lighting set up for commercial.

Lighting Test & Script Finalized

Jared, Ganesh and I went to the Astin Manson Friday night to do lighting tests and layout for the commercial. We lit all the rooms that were in our script except for the outside scene/entrance due to bad weather (it was raining/lightening). The 3 challenges we have on lighting is the tracking scene of Mr. Knight entering the mansion to the dining area, the hallway for commercial, and the mirror room.

As for the long tracking shot, the dilemma we are having is not having enough lights to light the entrance, foyer and dining area as well as without having to go over on power. Right now the dining area is taking 1500 watts (2 V lights and 1 Rifa light). Normally a house has a limit of 2000 watts, and Jared is currently trying to get the maximum wattage on the mansion (the owner was unsure, so we are waiting on confirmation from an electrician). Another suggestion is to use China lights, which contain 500 watt bulbs in paper like lamps that we can hang off the stairs for the foyer, they act similar to an environment light and gives a nice soft lighting to the entire environment. Depending on the answer from the electrician on the wattage, we may have to cut the scene into separate shots instead of just 1 tracking shot.

The lighting of the hallway for the commercial  was mostly a success. We were able to light it to the commercial, except one of the rifa lights weren't working, so the last shot was a little dim. I'll talk to Glen tomorrow about the Rifa light and hopefully get it repaired, otherwise we will just use another v light with a diffuser on it to substitute for the 2nd Rifa. The challenge from this scene was for Ganesh to get the timing right on the camera floating through the hallway. After many attempts, if he counted to 8 seconds on each 'stop' in the hallway, the commercial came exactly out to 30 seconds.

The last lighting challenge was the Mirror Room. Through one carefully placed V light in the corner, I was able to light the entire room efficiently. Ganesh just has to be careful on his camera angles to not get the light in his shot, which was possible after doing test shots in there. We will also have a spare Rifa lighting through the door they came through to give some soft fill to the actors.

We also met as a full group on Saturday to finalize the gags in the script. I gave in suggestions of having multiple cards to shuffle through when Mr. Knight approaches the mansion, another scene where Tim hold another animal while laughing manically, feeding yoghurt to the animal as he laughs as well in the clue reel, and using children dressed as chickens in cockfighting. We had a script run through Wednesday during class to get timing down, which turned out each short was around 2 minutes.

Document Rooms/Shots and Casting Call List

Jared, Ganesh and I went out to Astin Mansion to gather references of the Mansion itself for pre-production planning and to test out lenses/camera shots from the script as of now. We had initial concerns in a room full of mirrors that was in the script, but after testing we were able to figure out it was possible to shoot without getting reflection from the camera guy in the shot. We took out the Cannon 5D, a 2Ti, 18-50mm lens, 50 prime lens, 70-300mm lens, and the 8mm lens. I took shots of all possible rooms we would possibly film in, so during preproduction we are able to visually reference the rooms to the group as well as plan set and lighting design.

Dinning Area

1st Floor Hall Area

1st Floor Bathrooms (Possible Prisons)

2nd Dining Areas

Stairs

2nd Floor Hallway

Mirror Room

Pool Room

Basement

 

Kitchen

Side Room Into 1st Dinning Room

I gathered this list local of places to post casting calls to.

Local Acting Groups
SWAMP
http://aggieswamp.com/

Texas A&M Performance Studies
http://perf.tamu.edu/

The Theater Company
http://thetheatrecompany.com/

Stage Center
http://stagecenter.info/

Navasota Theatre Alliance
http://www.navasotatheatre.com/jm/

Online
Texas Film Commision
http://governor.state.tx.us/film/hotline-cast/

Short Film Texas
http://www.shortfilmtexas.com/castcrew-calls/

Casting Call Database
http://www.casting-call.us/texas-casting.php

Production Hub
http://www.productionhub.com/index2.aspx

Local High Schools
Tiger Theatre (A&M Consolidated High School)
Randy Williamson
rwilliamson@csisd.org

Bryan High Theater
Christopher Rogers
cbrogers@bryanisd.org

Rudder High

Joan Foote

jfoot@bryanisd.org

Lights and Script

Gathered portable light information to take inventory of and whether the Mansion can support it so we don't over power a circuit.

2 Rifa Lights - 500 Watts

6 V Lights (in kits of 2) - 500 Watts

3 Cold Lights - 110 Watts

The interstitial group met Friday, Saturday and Sunday to finalize the script. After much deliberation and edits, the final version of script 1 can be found here in pdf format.

Commercial Idea

I came up with 3 possible television commercial ideas for Vizagogo 19.


1) Overtly Cheesy Retro 80s Commercial
This would consist of cheesy appearances of cast members, and inviting the audience to "come solve the mystery" at Vizagogo 19!

2) Mysterious
This would introduce the characters as well, but the audience wouldn't see their faces. The commercial would invite audiences to solve the mystery by showing clues to characters etc. It would be shot in the studio, black background with singly lit items introducing the characters, like a cigar being smoked, feather of a flapper, gloved hand etc. OR it could just be tracking shots of singly lit weapons, possibly displayed next to artworks. Either way, it would be very well lit, following the same style as the interstitial and web commercials, which would give an overall nice coherence. 

3) Graphic
This idea would require no actors, which means we could get a head start on it. This would be graphics only, more After Effects like. It would be similar to the True Blood teaser, where it can look like a magnify glass revealing text info to Vizagogo, or going through a dark lit mansion with a flashing light revealing the text as well. It would be very stylized and gives a professional look, as well as maintain the mystery theme and curiosity for audience to attend.

We Split Into Groups

After an unique method of voting on the theme, the winner was "Clue". Shortly after we split into groups. I am in the interstitial group as well as the technical group due to large interest in the interstitial group.

For the technical group, I emailed Garrett an excel document of inventory we have in the lab. He will be making a list of inventory that we need, and I will modify the current inventory sheet due to those needs. That way, we can keep track of where all equipment is going and to whom.

For the interstitial group, there was a group meeting on Saturday to start laying out foundations on the script. I couldn't make the meeting due to personal reasons, but I was able to catch up on a google doc that was made. On Wednesday we sorted out responsibilities, and I will be doing lighting and cinematography with Ganesh, as well as any editing. Since I couldn't make the meeting, I was told to go ahead and start putting together lighting references. After reviewing the google doc and discussion with members afterwards, the theme is a World War II era set inside a mansion.  To fit the feel of the feel of the mansion and its muderous mystery, I figure a low key/chiaroscuro lighting style would fit.

Definitely wanted to avoid the cheesy almost sitcom like lighting from the original clue movie. The more low key lighting style will give an update and modern look to the interstitial.

^That is terrible.

Class 1/30/12

In class all the groups pitched their final idea. We discussed the ideas, and came to conclusion that next class we will decide on the theme for Vizagogo as well as break into 'working groups'. The 4 ideas that were presented were:
1) Hipster Theme
2) Clue
3) 90s Television Theme
4) Reality Show