Shooting the Eastern United States Danceport Championships

My last freelance shoot was at the Renaissance Waterfront Hotel in Boston for the Eastern United States Dancesport Championships. I've shot live performances in the past, but this one was one of my favorites. A ton of colorful clothes flying in and out of frame made it a fun shoot. Every style of dance dictated my own shooting style. I liked being able to switch up the movements according to the music. I'm interested to see what kind of a piece will be made with the footage I shot. There were definitely some really good moments captured that night. I've never seen so many talented dancers before. It was a much bigger event than I had expected and I was glad I got the chance to work it.

Video Lock

After one last meeting with the director, all major decisions were made regarding the video and my responsibilities as both cinematographer and editor have finally come to an end. We have reached yet another important milestone in the progression of this film, and I hope it will continue to move at a steady pace. After working on The Mercury Cycle for almost a year and a half now, it feels weird to finally be moving on. I know big things will come in the near future for this film, but for now at it enters post audio, things will be quiet for a while.

The Real World

Now that I'm officially out of college and have left the world of "student" productions behind, I figured a website would be a solid way to showcase my work as freelance cinematographer. The site looks good so far and will be constantly updated as I build a larger body of work.

Here is the link: www.zachsalsman.com

Looking Back

It is crazy to think about how much we have accomplished in just one semester.  We set out to finish principle photography and we did it.  If it weren't for our lead actress dropping at the last minute way back in December, we would not even have to shoot the few pick ups we have scheduled for after graduation.  I am so proud of everyone for sticking with it and accomplishing something that I'm pretty sure no other undergrads have ever done before.  No other grad program either.  We shot an entire feature while still passing our classes, barely.  For that we should all be proud.  I know we still have a lot of work ahead of us in post, but I absolutely can not wait to show the final product to all the teachers and administration at the school.  I can't wait to show all the people that laughed behind closed doors when they heard what we were trying to do.  No one believed in us except ourselves.  We all believed we could get it done and thats all that mattered.  I can't wait for everyone to see what all our hard work amounted to and realize that we have accomplished something truly great. 

Almost There

This weekend went very well overall.  Like always, its tough to look back and reflect because at this point in time, every day blends with the next.  Friday we shot a pick up scene at the shadowy house and it went very smooth.  It's amazing how much less pressure there is when you only have one scene to shoot as opposed to 5 or 6.  Everyone is more relaxed and you can concentrate more on little details that you sometimes have to forgive when you are working against the clock. We also had a small crew, which sometimes makes this go faster rather than the opposite.  Kelly and I stayed a bit longer to shoot some shadowy house establishing/cut in shots.  

Saturday was a big test for me because I knew that Kelly was not going to be on set and that lighting was my responsibility.  I know that I have learned a lot about lighting in these past few months but I was still a bit nervous about having to do it myself.  My biggest problem is having confidence when it comes to lighting.  I used a lot of CTB to cover the overhead halogens in the cafe and utilized the light from the sun through the big cafe windows.  I used the omni's to fill in some more general light on wide and 2 shots. I had to use the soft box later on in the day because the sun was setting and not giving enough light through the windows.  I know they weren't the hardest lighting set ups in the world but I was really proud of the way most of the lighting came out. Saturday really helped boost my confidence. We also did the really complex cafe shot that involved dollying in on Bobby at 12 fps.  It was really tough because bobby had to stay completely still for like almost 4 minutes while all these other people were buzzing around him.  I felt bad because his eyes kept watering because he was trying not to blink.  I wish we had more extras for the shot.  I was really impressed with Cody's system for controlling the extras in the background.  He grouped them by numbers and called out each number when he wanted certain groups to move.  I thought that was really cool. 

 Saturday night was just alright. We shot in a classroom, there were a ton of white walls and not really much we could do about it. In the interest of time, we were forced to use the shitty florescent overhead lights.  They blew out the walls a lot which sucked but at least they didn't look green.  I hated having to use them but to be honest we would have been shooting till 2 a.m. easy if we didn't and we had another big day early in the morning on sunday.  It was a sacrifice we had to make.  Enough about that. 

I lit again without Kelly on sunday. I wasn't as nervous going in because of the small bit of confidence I was still riding on from saturday.  It was also not the most complicated scene to light and I knew my main source would be  motivated by the single window in the room. I clipped the soft box to a shelf next to the window with the mafer clamp to mimic sunlight and used the Omni's to fill in some more general.  It was actually pretty simple.  Maybe I just think its simple because I know more now... or maybe it was just simple.  There were only a few shots that I wasn't completely happy with lighting wise on saturday but once again the clock was ticking and not everything can be perfect.  I think the weirdest thing about sunday was that Brianne wasn't there and Cody was doubling as the A.D.  It was so weird because Cody is always the one that wants to do just one more take and he had to play the opposite roll and be aware of time instead.  I will never forget the moment that I wanted to do one more for safety and he looked at me and said, "we have to move on."  I was so shocked because I'm usually the one thats pressing the time issue and he is usually the one that wants to do one more.  It was actually kind of refreshing to have Cody as A.D. because it forced him to be more aware of the time. I found myself more relaxed, probably at the expense of Cody being more stressed haha.  At the end of the day we moved over to the studio to shoot one dolly shot for the montage sequence.  I used a a few of the studio lights for general and I used an Omni to backlight the students sitting and another one to light David and Lancaster.  It was a fun shot to light.  I'm actually starting to have fun lighting things.  I remember when I used to hate it.... interesting.  

Shooting Day 12-14

It's hard to rewind all the way back to friday when we start our marathon of shooting every weekend.  It seems as if fridays shoot was months ago.  We shoot so much everyday it's hard to believe that the footage I'm reviewing was shot only a few days ago.  Everything we shot on friday was at night because classes don't end until around 4.  Overall it was a good night of shooting, we ended on time, which is a rarity for us, but we are getting better.  Cody and I started meeting with Brianne (A.D) Before every shoot so she is even more on the same page as us as to what time we should be finishing each scene. Cody and I have also been drawing up overheads to go along with the shot list so that everyone can more easily understand where the camera will be positioned for each shot.  This helps us all become more efficient.  

The only really memorable moment from fridays shoot came when we were lighting an exterior car shot.  We had 2 stingers running across the road with a power strip resting a foot away from the curb.  We were running our lights and monitor off the power strip.  All night we had been waving cars through, all of them running over the stingers no problem.  Then this women comes down the road with no head lights on and I'm already thinking she must not be the the brightest bulb in the tree. I watch as she slows down when she sees all the lights and the people.  She then proceeds to turn to the right as she crosses the stingers and runs right over the power strip, crushing it to pieces and killing all of our power. I started flipping out and had to walk away for a few minutes.  That power strip was by no means in the middle of the road. This women had about 12 feet to the left of that strip to drive and she still ran over the box.

Saturday we shot from 9:00 A.M to 9:30 P.M. We were on the 12 foot jib for a lot of shots on saturday so that was fun.  We were running behind schedule for one scene that was supposed to be during the day and the sun had already set so we had to shoot night for day.  We had shot day for night plenty of times but not the other way around.  It was changing to light the room the scene took place in because it was a wide shot so their was not much play as to where we could put lights.  Kelly and I's first thought was put 3 lights outside and shine them directly through the window.  Bad idea, lights were too direct and casted harsh shadows all over the place.  Then I thought maybe we could bounce all the lights outside off a reflector inside to throw a softer light on the scene.  This didn't work either because the lights just weren't powerful enough to shine through the window and bounce off the reflector to produce enough soft light.  So then Kelly (gaffer) brought all 3 lights inside the room, lined them up just out of frame and bounced them off the corner off the wall and ceiling so that the bounced soft light filled the room.  Yay, it worked.  Took us a long time but hey we are learning.  Next time we have to shoot night for day, we will know how to do it.   

Sunday we shot from 9 A.M. to 10:00 P.M.  We shot one of my favorite comedic scenes from the film in the morning.  It was a fun scene to shoot not only because it was comedic, but because it was in a new location.  We shot at my friend Dina's house.  Her house is full of colors, hot pinks, purples, greens, reds.  This was a refreshing change from the boring plain white walls of the Aspen Glen apartments (previous interior location).  This scene went pretty smooth.  We had to fake that there was snow on the ground for one exterior shot so Justin (art director) ran around with a purple shovel that Dina game him and shoveled as much snow into the frame from the few remaining mounds scattered about the yard. It was funny to watch him run around with that gay purple shovel.  

Late afternoon we transported back to the white walls of Aspen Glen.  We had some minor scenes here that went smooth but the two major scenes were the "make out" scene and the "after sex talk" scene.  These were both very significant moments in the film and we wanted to make sure we got them right.  Bobby and Jess (male and female leads) were both really nervous about the "make out" scene.  They tried not be but you could easily tell they were.  Cody and I had everyone leave set except for Josh (lead camera) and Aaron (audio).  We hoped this would make it feel less like they were making out for an audience.  Once we were ready Jess and Bobby went out in the hall for 10 minutes.  I think they might have been making out to break the ice but I'm not sure.  Thats what I would have done.  Anyway, they came back and we did the scene.  I think we got it in 6 takes.  It wasn't exactly how I had envisioned it but I did not want to overstep my bounds and try and direct the scene.  Cody had a vision and had went over blocking so I didn't want to step in and change things.  

Next came the "after sex talk" scene.  Bobby and Jess weren't as nervous for this I guess because they didn't have to make out.  We shot this scene from the Jib and a few other angles for coverage.  I really liked how this scene came out visually.  I didn't have an audio hook up so I couldn't hear their lines but I'm assuming they nailed it because Cody was happy. We ended 3 hours late but those scenes were really important so it was okay.  Solid weekend. 

Shooting Day 9/Pick Up day 1

The week from hell didn't result in a complete wast of a weekend.  We were able to shoot half of what we were supposed to on friday.  Everyone scrambled to put together one robe and one mask, the bare minimum for what was needed to shoot half of fridays stuff.  We lost saturday completely unfortunately because we needed robes and we just didn't have them.  Sunday we salvaged as a pick up day to shoot the few scenes that we had missed on prior days.  It was a good feeling to pick up all the scenes. However, although these scenes are now picked up, the scenes that we lost because of robe issues on friday/saturday put us back in the hole, thus leaving us in the same position that we started.  

Friday's shoot was one of the hardest shoots in terms of lighting set ups. We shot on a back road with no street lights.  All the lights were powered from a generator that my Dad brought to set.  The generator worked great for power but we are going to have to do ADR for the sound because the generator engine was so loud.  It was really tough lighting a night scene without making it look unnatural.  Having Kenny there really saved us.  (Kenny is Kelly's boyfriend who works as a professional gaffer in the "real world.") He really helped a lot. 

I think the production meeting we held on saturday was very productive.  It was basically a meeting to discuss what went wrong this past week that led up to the "almost blown" weekend. It was also an open forum for anyone in the crew to discuss concerns that they had.  This went very well and I was glad that we handled this near disaster in a professional way so that something like this will not happen again.  It is so important that we work together as a crew and get all our problems/opinions out on the table so that their is no boiling resentment on set that could potentially hurt the overall outcome of the film.