Deconstructing a Project, Part 2

Crossfader.com Marketing Video from Goldie Jones on Vimeo.

Production is always quite an adventure and a test of your quick response problem solving skills.

We broke this shoot down into 2 shoot days and 2 locations. Day one was spent at the beautiful Landreth Studios filming the scenes with the photographer and the videographer. Day two was spend at the Sea Sound Lounge filming the scenes with the DJ and the dance club scene.

We started off day one with the photographer and the breakdancer scene. While they were setting up the lights and camera equipment and once the breakdancer was finished with wardrobe and makeup I pulled her aside for some quick still shots which I then used to create the poster featured in the video and the images that we see the photographer manipulating on his tablet computer.

Once we finished working with the breakdancer and photographer we began to reset for the videographer/liquid dancer scenes and realized that we were missing two lights that had been on our lighting list which of course led to an emergency run back to the equipment rental house to pick them up and set our schedule back slightly, but crisis averted and the shoot moved on.

Working with dancers is fun and we got great shots, but they get hot and tired fast after dancing for shot after shot after shot under the hot production lights even with lots of water and fans. Each dancer had to perform for a couple of hours for what ended up being a matter of seconds worth of footage in the final video.

Day two was the really eventful day. We begin to set up for the DJ scenes in the club we had rented for the day when I see our laptop that had been provided for our DJ to use is this beautiful Alienware green laptop. Now, this might not seem like a problem, however, all of the computer screens in the video as well as the video screen in the club were green screened and keyed in later (the second unit shot the computer screens days later). Keying out green screens removes the color green from the shot, which means keying a green screen on this laptop would also remove the laptop. After recovering from the initial shock and consulting with the DP on the best plan of attack we resorted to a Luma Key (which means we covered the screen with white instead of green) and shot the laptop screen with as static of a shot as possible in order to ensure a clean key in post production.

Then the real fun begins: crowd scenes. Extras who had been promised free drinks and appetizers began to flood into the club and we finished resetting the lights and dressing the club for the final event scene. The DJ (fun fact: the lovely lady DJ is my sister who is in fact an actual DJ) was swept away into makeup and wardrobe to get dolled up with our four featured dancers. Finally the stage is set, the actors take their places, the extras have been shifted and adjusted to fill the space and not cast long shadows. The DJ starts playing music to give the dancers something to react to and for the next couple of hours we have our own little dance party with the camera rolling.

Up next: Part 3, Post Production