HEY EVERYBODY <<<<<< ITS DAY TWO ,,, GOOD EVENING ,,, lets start with a simple cut away to get the ball rolling while we have noisy trains ,,,

It is lucky we are going for a floating point of view look for the Film ,,,, ,, pointing up at this angle on the 85mm is not rock steady ,,,,,, ahh for a Grip and gear .

Hey How did the Sound department get over the other platform for the wide shot before we had really decided to go there ,,, Go Chris Go ,,,,he he he
OK get it all in the Lift boys ,,, upstairs across and in the lift down , one wide shot coming up ,,,,

Jen is thinking ,,,,,, Next I would like to shoot back this way

John and Kelly are getting bored ,,,,,,, Do we really have to wait for a Train before we can shoot .
Here comes the train ,,, here comes the train ,,, Lets roll it .

Go train ,,,,,,,, and we are shooting one of the couple of Tripod shots of the film ,,,

Here is an agency producer going to work ,,,,Thinking ,,, I wonder how much they paid to shoot on the Platform ,,,

Finally the Train clears the shot and we end up on the exact frame we wanted ,,, How did that happen ???

Back to the main platform ,, that was quick ,,

Sir ,,,, I dont care if you are an Agency Creative Director ,,, you cant go this way now ,,, please take the stairs ,,
Gribs is thinking ,,,Oh well that is the last of the tripod shots ,,,,, back to the hand held human tripod ,,,,,
Jen is thinking ,,, I wish Gribs would stop shooting the Monitor ,,, It wont even make the cut ,,,,

NINE pages left to shoot ,,,,,,, We will have to pull our finger out to get this in the can by 6am

CRICK is Looking at the script ,,, He is Thinking Aloud ,,,,,, SHIT 9 pages of dialogue to go ,,,,,,, We had better pull our finger out to get this done tonight .
Phill has the mike live ,,,,, Shit CRICK just wispered to himself that we have 9 pages to go ,,,, I think he is right ,,,, Shit ,,, We will have to pull our Finger out ,,,,,,

CRAIG are you available Tomorrow Night ? ,,,,,,,,, Only Joking ,,,,,, We will get it done ,,,,, We just have to pull our Finger out .

Phil is thinking ,,,,,,,,,, SHIT GRIBS ,,,,,, What have you got me into here ?

Jennifer is thinking like the Good Director that she is ,,,,,,, I love what we are getting here ,,,,, They will just have to pull their fingers out ,,, he he he .

Hey Craig ,,,,,, How many pages to shoot ,,,,,,, Shit Gribs I think CRICK said we have 9 pages left to shoot ........

While CRICK is on his knees PRAYING to the God of Low Budget Filing " NOMOOLA" ,,, John and Kelly are both thinking ,,,,,, Shit 9 Pages to go ,,,,,,, There is NO way my Agent will let me come back for another day if we dont finish ,,,,,,, And I am really enjoying myself here ...

JIAO is standing in the background ,,,,,, thinking ,,,,,, If they all dont pull their fingers out I am going to pick up my bag of money and go home ,,,, Shit ,,,,,, Thats right there isnt any money ,, he he he .

THEN WE PULL OUR FINGER OUT ,,,,,,

There is not a lot of room on the platform and you are not supposed to stand past the yellow line like Josh is in this shot ,,,,,, So we cant just standback and do a sort of wide coverage as a back up for unfinished scenes ,,,,,,,, It is like there are 3 areas ,,, or Mini Master positions and no time to do those masters ,,,,,,, They are mostly left thrown on the cutting room floor anyway ( sounds better than ,,, left in an unopened file in FCP ) So the Plan ,,, if there is one ,,, is to shoot ,,, not talk about what we have to shoot ,,,,,From the Hip again , Just go with the flow of the dialoge ,,, keeping aware of eyeline crosses to match up the reverse coverage for screen direction ,, It is much easier to keep tabs on this when you are actually operating the camera ,,,,,,,

Heck Ryan is looking tired ,,, almost clapped out ,,, Better go download some data mate ,,,,, Chris is still hanging in there with the Boom ,,,,, ,,,

Ryan has his hat on backwards now ,,, I thought he was going to do a Breakdance ,,,,,, I have found a Justification to sit on an apple box ,,,,,

Steves hands are getting sweaty on the preston waiting for the take ..... I am the sort of Operator that if the dialogue makes me feel like I should tighten in or move back a little , I do ,,,,,, So even on a 35mm with the stop at T2,,,,,,,,, It is a difficult job to pull focus ,,, No depth of field whatsoever ,,,,, The 50mm is of course is much worse ,,,,,, But Steve is doing a Great Job ,,,,,,

You can see by this CU that the focus depth is Minimal ,,, It doesnt even carry through to her fingers

It has become a case of Just cover the dialogue and just keep rolling and following as much as you can ,,,,, as an operator it became lots of fun ,,,

It is like we have to just shoot the coverage only not the wides to act as a master ,,,,,
Following with the action low angle from the hip is very smooth compared to having the camera on your shoulder ,,,,,, having it away from your body movement gives your arms the job of being the steadycam ,,,,,,, very effective with this camera ,,,, I think the Red 1 would be to front heavy in this situation ,,,,

Ryan is thinking ,,, I am so tired ,,,, Why did I do this ,,, I have another job tomorrow morning ,,, But like a True Pro he kept going and going ,,,,,, I dont know what he was like on the Morning job ,,, he he he ,

Steve has his work cut out for him ,,, with the shallow depth of field ( shooting around T2 ) So he is working from the monitor sometimes ,,, Jiao is thinking ,,, How doe he do that ?

An example of the shallow depth of field with the open F Stop .
Here is the little beauty in the Hand , Smooth and easy does it ,,,,,

Its about 5.40am and Craig tells us that there are only 3 trains to come and we are ordered off the Platform ,,, The last one just before 6 am

Craig makes the Announcement ,,,,,,, Management has told us we have to be out of the Station ,,,, there are 3 more trains and the last one is at 5. 56 am ,,, We dont know if any of them are the new Millenium trains we would like ,,,,, So it will be a WRAP at 6am !!!!!!!!!!!

We have to physically stop half of the crew running for the EXIT when they heard the word WRAP ,,,,

We weren't lucky with the first train ,,,,, some OLD silver tin can ,,,,, But we got a good rehearsal with my little Leica on video mode ,,, Jen went looking for a new angle through the windows of the train ,,,, missing her only chance to escape ,,,, She came out before the doors closed ,,, he he

The next one was a Tangara ,,,,,newer but Still not what we wanted ,,, another wait ,,, and rethink ,,, now we wouldnt be doing an extra set up that requiring a super fast interior set up of the action through the train window ,,,, It would then take us with it ,,,, This was sort of a relief ,,, Taking a train ride down the track and back before we could go home to sleep ,,,

But we were able to do several takes of the scene by framing the train area out ,,,,,,, And then we waited for OUR LAST TRAIN of the SHOOT .

But when the LAST train of the Shoot arrived ,,,,,, It was exactly what we wanted ,,,, a shinny new Millenium .

I was sitting on an applebox hand holding at ground level ,,,,,, The Train stopped in a great position ,,,, John & Kelly were spot on with the preformance

But maybe just one more shot for the editor ,,,,, A quick spin around to get the train leaving the platform ,,,,

Nice these new trains ,,, i would like to shoot something in and on them one day ,,, It would be easy with this Alexa

It was over ,,,,,,, We really had a GREAT time ,,, full of energy and what was a strange sort of fun The Camera and the People had not faltered ,,,,,,,, 11'20" of screen time ,,, mostly dialogue ,,, shot over 2 nights with only about a total of 11 hours of sound shootable time ...... That pretty fast ,,,
It had just occured to me that hardly anybody on the crew had actually worked together before ,,,,,,,,, If only you could have a wrap beer at 6 am ,,,,,,, THANK YOU LINES MEN , THANK YOU BALL BOYS
Jennifer was very happy with the whole shoot and particularly with her actors Kelly and John ,,,

THE FINISHED GRADE ,,,,,, We decided on a MODERN Look .

Good Production Value in shooting on location for AVAILABLE LIGHT with a small crew and the ARRI ALEXA ,,,,,,,, What more can I say ,,,,,

I Love this wide opening shot ,,,,,,,

And this shot from under the stairs looking out ,,,,, a nice piece of Architecture helping to focus on the people in the shot ......

This shot in its raw colour had a very Green /Blue Backlight from a ceiling fixture ,,,,,, You dont see that now with the final grade ,,,,,, I must say the Camera had handled the mixture of colour temperatures from the various fixture very well .

We had selected the correct head wear for Kelly ,,,, It complemented her and also was very useful in letting some of the top light through when kelly was looking up at John ,,,,,, even If I didnt like the sharp nose shadow it produced at times ,,,,, In a perfect world I would have floated in a very light diffusion frame from above from the conveniently places staircase ,,,,,, But no gaffer and no time ,,, no problem ,,, he he

Love that Hat ,,,,, Hated the Cap ,,, he he he ,,, Multiple face shadows at all times ,,, worse than the one small nose shadow when looking up

The hardest part of handholding this shot was the nearly 2 minutes of static before John moves back towards kelly ,,,, The camera was on my shoulder at this point , It couldnt be a lower angle because of John height and Kelly seated position , ( also my height in bare feet ) ,,, Later we moved to much lower camera moves from the hip ,,, Much smoother moves with the camera off the body of course ,,,,,, one of thses days someone will make a Digital camera that is as good as the Arri 2C was to hand hold ,,,,,,

I love how the staircase shadows the back wall to make the Artists stand out in the frame ( a good 3D shot )...

Baadddee Baadddee Baadddee THAT ALL FOLKS ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,