Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Shooting An Affair: Day Eight

Tonight's shoot was in a liquor store. You might be surprised, or perhaps not, that it's hard to find a liquor store in which to shoot a movie. Liquor store owners are not in love with people traipsing through their stores after hours. We actually had to call in a favor from a longtime friend of our productions and a former city manager. He still has a lot of friends in the city he used to manage, and he vouched for us, so we were able to work tonight in a terrific liquor store in Bellmead, TX.

One of the odd quirks - not surprising when you think about it: our entire crew tonight had to be 21 or older. Since we work with a largely student crew, that meant several people had to stay home.

This was a comparatively light shooting night - we had three very short scenes to get, a total of about a page of script at the most. We took our time and got some really nice shots. You know there's production value when the dolly comes off the truck.

I had the pleasure tonight, too, of involving another good friend in the film. Stan Denman is the chair of Baylor's Department of Theatre, and he has been a friend of mine since I arrived at Baylor. He graciously agreed to play a bit part in the film, and it's always fun for me to work my talented friends into my films. Stan played a surly liquor store clerk, and he played it well. I really love it when an actor with a single line asks me about his character's motivation. Some people might think that's silly, but I think of it as real dedication to craft. Stan knows that he has to make a choice about his character, even if there's only one line, and he spent time thinking about how to play it. That's dedication.

We had a couple of shots in the parking lot of the liquor store. Unfortunately, this liquor store is situated on a major trucking lane, so there was a good bit of loud traffic. In situations like this, the boom mic is somewhat useless, and the lavalier (lapel) microphones are what you're going to use. That means we'll have to EQ the sound later, but it was still pretty clean.

So - a comparatively easy night, and I'm thankful for that. Tomorrow is an off day for everyone. I plan to enjoy some family time after sleeping in late!

Finally - if you're reading my blog and haven't yet "liked" or visited the movie's facebook page, please click over there and check it out. We have added a bunch of preproduction, rehearsal, and production photos, and I think you'll enjoy checking those out! (Special thanks to lead actress Cora Vander Broek, who had the night off from acting tonight and spent the evening uploading and tagging a ton of photos! That's commitment!)

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