I found BigLu!

[Matt Garrett]

It is a pretty cool set.
Shot there in june with a red, ac ing and second unit dp for Levie Isaacks ASC

Hope your shoot is going well Charles.

 

[Charles Papert]

Yup, I recognize that section--we only shot in the cockpit and the immediate hallway, that still is from the other end of the set. It's amazing how much better that set photographs than it looks in person, huh--held together with duct tape and baling wire...

Thanks again Lu and Lil'! It was a challenging shoot given the budget, crew and resources but we got a lot of great stuff.

 

[BigLu]

Final day of shoot.
Its been very good.
Final product will be fun to watch.
I hope they release pics from the set sooner than later.

The Director was Ahmed Best, funny guy pumped full of good energy 110% of the time.
Never felt uncomfortable around him. Young upcoming director, no doubt will do some cool stuff in the future.

Script was fun and well done. Crew and shooting flowed very well credit to the AD Gail Shand job well done.

Damn Steadicam operator scared me day 1 cuz he was such a grumpy guy, but after getting to know him day 2 and 3 he was a total softy, he was everything you could ask for in a camera and Steadicam operator and more. Erwin Landau total pro.


But on every set I pay most attention to the DP.
I learned a lot on this set from a consummate film maker.
Funny story.
While color correcting the Feature "Wasting Away" in 07'
I ran across clips from the movie "The Perfect Sleep" in the same studio.
I quickly fell in love with its look, and direction of photography.
Quality all over the place.
It had the feel of Conrad L. Hall one of my favorite DP's. and one of my favorite movies
"Road to Perdition".

I saw stills of this movie "The Perfect Sleep" on Charles laptop and came to find out he was the DP.
That was a pleasant surprise.

Why do i bring up this story?
Well when i heard the budget was extremely low, i almost said no.
They wanted me to D.I.T. , and record a wireless HD signal, and load it into FCP and playback for the Director who was also the main actor in the show.
But I am so glad I agreed to the job.

I strongly encourage people to take low budget, and no budget shoots.
You can find such quality people there. You can end up learning so much.
And you can find people your fans of.

If you can get,
LilRed
Charles Papert
Erwin Landau
or
Ahmed Best
to work with you.
TAKE IT!

Thanks Nebula.
I hope someone picks up the show.

 

[Sarah C.]

Ditto!

~S

 

[Charles Papert]

Thank you again Lu.

While it's pretty safe to say that jobs that are organized and crewed by less-experienced folks are generally if not always low budget, the reverse is not always true. When a project has merit or enough favors get called in, you can sometimes end up on a gig that can be more valuable than the meager paycheck would indicate!

It's become ridiculously easy to check out the experience level of the people you are working with. IMDB and personal websites can paint a pretty good picture of one's background. If a DP's site has an "in construction" sign hanging on the reel section, or their reel keeps repeating shots from the same three projects over and over, it might be a sign that there isn't all that much to learn from them.

Regardless, for those who are starting out, just getting set time is what counts (along with meeting folks and forging relationships).

 

[Sarah C.]

Was good times! I was just happy to get out of the office and back onto a set for a little while. To work with such a fun crowd made the effort and commute very worth while!

~Sarah