The Lion's Den

Gashlycrumb Tinies Update 2: Have room, have cello, will play

The project is progressing well. Una, a Cello player with the Portland Philharmonic has agreed to play the part of the Cellist. She knows the poem, had good suggestions for the music and is willing to give us some of her time on the project. She has a comely classical look that will enhance the part. Una teaches Cello lessons at the Community Music Center on 33rd and Francis (ten blocks from my house) and will ask the Center if we can use their main auditorium to shoot the short.

It may be hard to get the auditorium at the Community Music Center dark enough to get an isolated image of the two characters without any background, but the space is otherwise really rather perfect for our purposes. The acoustics of the room are deep and rich, I think they will add some natural resonance to the Cello music. The stage has a solid (does not creak) wood floor, power outlets and even microphone pickups in case we try to use their mixing board. The stage is not very deep and it has a light colored background, trying to shoot towards the back of the stage without filming any of the background may not be possible, my idea is to set the camera up downstage and shoot towards the audience, if we can get the room dark enough and get the light(s) aimed at a steep enough angle and with close masks I think we can isolate the character without illuminating the background. If that fails we can also use a dark material for a background (stage felt would be perfect) or digitally isolate the character in post. Once we have some possible shoot dates Una will ask the center if we can borrow their room for a few hours. An ideal setup would be to have the room for about four hours late at night but that may not be possible. If our schedule gets to tight we can split the shots of the player and the narrator between two nights (which I want to avoid because it would complicate other things like setup and makeup) or shoot the narrator at some other location.

With the player and a (possible) shooting location secured attention now turns to schedule, costumes, props and makeup. This evening the Unconscious Collective is due to meet, I have schedule and production details top of the agenda for our meeting. I have also asked Sven to bring his camera and mixing board so we can shoot some test footage of tightly lit characters in a dark space (probably my back deck). Una is leaving town mid-June and will not return until August, so I am trying to get everything ready to shoot on June 5th. I have the name and number of a local costume shop where we may be able to rent costumes. I am still worried about both costumes and props, I don't have them and I would rather keep to the tenants of Guerilla Filmmaking and shoot this movie without spending money. The way I see it I can either spend time trying to find someone who can lend us costumes, rent them or we can do the truly Guerilla thing and use whatever we find in our closets that is 'close enough'.

Sven pointed out an important detail about the costumes: If the set is truly dark enough to not register on video a person in a black costume may not be distinguishable enough. The real solution to this would be to have a back-fill light so the edges of both narrator and player show up, but given our limited resources this does not seem likely. A better solution would be to find not-quite-black costumes, something like a dark grey. A third solution is to de-saturate the characters in post production, something I do not want to do as I want to keep effects as practical as possible. The idea I have is to put both characters in colorless costumes and use some makeup to drain color from face and hands. If the effect works it should look like the part was shot in black and white with the color of the Cello and the candles and book in front of the narrator standing in sharp contrast. I will keep a post-effect mask as an option but if there is any movement to Cello, book or candles it will be very hard to track the mask in post.

One other piece of post-production that I had been hoping to get done but we may not have time for is a voice-coach. I have read the poem enough times that I have a good idea for what it should sound like, but I would much prefer to record the narration and work with another person to see how it could be improved. I figure another ear is likely to pick up nuances and have ideas that have not occurred to me. I also do not know who would be interested in doing this with me.

The unconscious collective meets tonight (minus Carl who is out of town). Hopefully many of these questions will be answered then.