'A Good One' Goes into Production

Today posed to be an exciting start to our production of 'A Good One' as it was really challenging for me to fulfill both roles as camera operator 1 and lighting person. It required me to be concentrated and on my feet the entire time.

As our call sheet demanded, we were all supposed to be in at 9.15 to take out the entire equipment, receive the keys to the sound stage and then start setting up before the actors arrive at 11.00. And while this seemed to us like plenty of time to set up two cameras, lighting equipment and a tracking dolly, it turned out to be a precision landing.

For most of the lighting setup at the back of the set was taken apart, extension cords and cables were missing, and one of the wall plugs that had been fully working on the day of our test shoot was not supplying power anymore. When finally turning them on however, the previous settings that were installed before, had been changed over the break which would bring me into trouble for a moment.

Now, how did I solve that issue? I had to quickly orientate myself and reset everything to the best of my time and capabilities available. There was nothing much I could do about the broken plug, so I spend half an hour testing all the other wall plugs in the sound stage to assess which ones would be working and cause the least cabling chaos (read: tripping hazards) on set. I then checked how many extension cables we had, what length they were and how many Watts they could support and double-checked with my lighting plans to see what would be feasible. Equipment was scattered around all the sound stage, so I spend a significant amount of time collecting it to assess what my options were.

Luckily, for the back-lighting of the set, we still had the appropriate extension cable and I could still use the original plug I planned for. However, for the red head on the right side of the set, I needed to use the second longest extension cable we had and plug that into the wall plug behind the street set. As this cable would run across the entire space in front of the set and even cross the path of our emergency exit, I thus spend another half an hour figuring out how to best run that cable and cover it or tape it down in a safe way for all cast and crew members involved.

Another half an hour was spend afterwards by me rigging the lights according to my lighting plans, for which I am extremely grateful now as they have really made up for the delay caused by the partial de-rig that happened behind set during the Easter break.

The remaining half hour before the actor's arrival was then used to rig all the remaining equipment such as the tracking dolly and to test the batteries on the LED, so that we would be ready to film immediately once the actors arrived. When the actors arrived, I was finally finished. And when I turned on all the lighting equipment, with all their gels and settings I had planned beforehand, I was happy by how the lighting looked like.

It was really helpful to me that I blocked the lighting in my lighting plans and jotted down or took photos of the gel numbers and LED light settings while test shooting. It came into being better than I thought and once again, I was happy that I went through the preparation of creating a lighting plan and for the fact that we conducted a trial shoot shortly before Easter. For now, even though I encountered initial setbacks, all this helped me in knowing what to do, what to set up, and - ultimately - catching up with the schedule. It helped me keeping a clear mind and continuity in lighting throughout the shoot.

We started off by filming a tracking shot sequence that was supposed to be the key opening shot of our film, establishing our main character Hayden within his own surroundings, leading into the film's conflict.

However, we encountered even more issues when our tracking dolly decided to act up. During operation, the tracking dolly would not only squeak loudly so that we were even more unable to record proper sound, but the ground on which the track was put was also uneven. This resulted in major shakes on the footage itself when being dollied around. We tried to counteract the first issue by placing our sound op at a different angle and position so that she would not pick up the track so much. With the shaky aspect of the footage, I first tried to put more weight onto the dolly in the hope that the downward push would make the dolly run more smoothly and thus also less shaky.

However, as this did not really help, we tried pushing instead of pulling it, but that was even worse than before. I realised that every shake occurred whenever the dolly passed over a connection on the tracks, so we wiggled and reconnected the connectors to see if they would eventually settle. Another attempt at filming was made, but it was to no avail as well. As time was pressing on, I thus attempted to counterbalance the shake by turning camera on the tripod to see if that was of any use. This time, the image looked less shaky and we thus collectively decided to move on for fear of not being able to finish with the rest of the footage in time.

Progressing through the rest first day, through the entire call sheet and the storyboard as well as shot list, it was really helpful to have two cameras on set that could film simultaneously whenever feasible. This fact alone helped us save a lot of time and even capture lots of grand acting examples from two different angles.

This fact also helped us when we started experiencing issues with sound. For in between the first and second camera setup for the day, my camera stopped recording sound properly. Even though I watched the sound levels and heard the sound through my headphones, sound was somehow not saved on my SD-card despite previous formatting.

Thus, when watching the footage back, we suddenly realised that no sound had been recorded on my camera whatsoever. Luckily, we 'only' ended up with twelve clips that we had to re-shoot. So during lunchbreak, we tried figuring out what the issue was and realised that the XLR cable had not been put into the right plug and that the current camera settings thus did not allow sound to record.

Being happy with the fact that it was only an oversight by us but no major equipment issue that would take away one entire camera kit from us during this vital time of production, we quickly re-shot the material in a better quality after the lunch break. This time, we were also a lot quicker since we already knew what we wanted to go for, the actors have had enough rehearsals and we could quickly resume with the scene. It essentially turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

The rest of the shooting day went on quite smoothly and without any major issues anymore. We progressed through the call sheet and shot list and cast and crew got increasingly used to each other, resulting in awesome performances.

All in all I would consider it a tremendously successful day. Two hours for setting up the equipment and light proved to be a feasible amount of time that even accommodated for any technical issues to be resolved in time and without any delay to the overall schedule.

This, once again, goes to show the truth of one major principle in filmmaking:

That preparation is key. Always.