Monday, June 13, 2011

Shooting An Affair: Day Seven (Goin' Back to Marlin)

I just got home at about 5:35am. I can't believe how many all nighters this shoot has entailed, nor that I'm always wired and wide awake when I get home. Tonight, as I was throwing out some trash in the kitchen, I was scared out of my mind when two little arms reached around me from behind. I spun around to find a sleepy eight year old hugging me. Apparently, I'd woken her as i came in, and she wanted to see me. I gave her a hug and a kiss before sending her back to bed for some more sleep. It reminded me of the toll that filmmaking takes on my family...

Tonight, we were back at the inn that threw us out last week. We finagled one more day to wrap up some really critical scenes. It was a good night overall. The actors were "on," as they always are, the crew was working pretty well, and the night still seemed to drag on interminably, until the actors were pretty much out of steam.

Part of that was my fault. I chose, unwisely, to shoot a scene wildly out of sequence because we were already lit for certain angles. This was the more efficient choice, since it would enable us to get all the later shots in the scene in one spot, then go back and shoot the first part of the scene at the end of the night.

The problems came from the fact that the early part of the scene was some heavy emotional stuff, and also that we were finishing at almost 5am. The actors were spent, and they really had to turn it on for a long and fairly complicated take at the end of that long night.

I really should have just not worried so much about efficiency and worried first about the actors - so my apologies to you guys, if you're reading this. Mea culpa. That was my mistake, and I'll try not to make it again!

Regardless, they did great - I could just tell it was wearing on them. And I felt bad that I put efficiency before performance. I got lucky that they still did a great job, but it really wasn't fair to them.

One picture I took tonight: my shadow on the ground...



And I'll keep it short tonight, because I have a meeting at work tomorrow, and the sun is already coming up.

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