One Last Job: Production Notes

I know we mainly report on other people’s art here at The Breach, but I talked it over with James and Adam during a pre-show Breachcast talk a few weeks back and they both gave their blessing for this article so here goes.¬† I apologize for the “bloggy” nature of this post but I’m writing what I feel here.¬† I also apologize if any of the technical jargon gets a bit much but my secondary goal, besides spilling my guts on how much of an ass I am, is to provide some information to folks interested in using some of this gear.¬† For those types, feel free to leave comments should you need clarification on anything.

I am a failed filmmaker; it is true.¬† I went to college with the goal of graduating with at least 15 film projects lined up to start what would be just a completely awesome career.¬† Spoiler Alert- I settled for shooting weddings a couple of years and ended up getting out of the game altogether around 2008.¬† That was not before I had been a part of at least a few decent projects, but it was not the career I had hoped for. After a few months of doing nothing creative at all, Adam and I decided to start this site.¬† I would be lying if I didn’t say that the experience of creating the Media Breach fueled my artistic side.¬† Go ahead, ask Adam how often I would be up on a school night pining over the silliest shit to make this website work the way we wanted.¬† It made me realize I wasn’t ready to give up on making something entertaining.

June of this year rolls around and the wife and I have this huge flooring project done to our house.¬† To pay for a good portion of it, I had decided to sell the two semi-professional video cameras we had purchased for shooting weddings a few years back.¬† They were each still worth %60 of what I had paid for them originally (absolutely unheard of in the gadget world these days) and had been gathering dust.¬† And of course I couldn’t live without some kind of “nice” camera.¬† The agreement I made with the wife was that I would sell them both and purchase a DSLR Camera that can shoot video, leaving a healthy profit to pay towards our floors.

Here’s where things get interesting, along with nerdy and technical.¬† After selling both cameras, along with a Canon DSLR I wouldn’t need, I had somewhere in the neighborhood of $4500 total.¬† In my younger days, I would have said, “fuck it” and bought the biggest, baddest DSLR that shoots video.¬† I drew my eyes over to the Canon 5D Mark II.¬† Running a smooth $2500, I would have plenty of cash left over and I could have bragging rights like a mofo.¬† Then I started looking and learned that a number of cameras existed with similar video capabilities that cost substantially less than the 5D.¬† If you’re unfamiliar with how high-end electronics work, you’ll typically pay a premium to get just a little bit more performance out of your gear.¬† Having learned this over the years, I decided that I didn’t need to win every pissing/specifications contest.¬† I settled on the Canon 7D.¬† Yes, there are even cheaper cameras out there but it was a huge step for me to not just blow all my cash on lenses and a 5D.¬† It made more sense, and maybe it was the adult in me, to acquire a camera that was great for the money and would perform well for my needs.

Little did I know this would set the tone for the first project we would shoot on this new camera system.

Some people say they have the best ideas in the shower.¬† For me, it’s while I’m laying in bed and cannot sleep.¬† I had already envisioned a bunch of shots in my head for a test shoot of sorts and spent a couple brainstorming sessions trying to string them together.¬† I had around two/thirds of a film when I found myself unable to sleep one evening.¬† I do not remember the exact spark that started the idea, but it caught and I had my first beginning, middle, and end narrative idea in a while.¬† The best part about the whole thing was that this wasn’t an idea that would challenge me as a filmmaker as much as it would just be a great path back into film making.¬† I will be the first to admit- the ideas behind One Last Job are as simple as possible.¬† Some may call it settling for the cheaper camera but I would prefer¬† calling it “great for the money” or “well for my needs.”

With that I began fleshing out the idea just a bit- a mysterious character, armed with a gun, drives into a rather suburban area and begins to follow a woman around.  I will admit that my first intention, and this may shock those that have seen the film already, was to have the armed individual be played by a female.  The wife even had a friend interested in the role but alas, we could not sync our schedule with her.  I had mentioned the idea to my buddy Jesse and he expressed interest in doing anything for the project.  Not that I find him to be feminine in any way, we decided to have him play the role for the sake of getting it made.  Again, some might feel like I was settling on my creative ideas but I was more excited at the prospect of shooting this film rather than waiting for someone to become available.  Damn it, I was excited to be jumping back in the game, even if it was just a test shoot.

Then there was the trouble of audio.¬† The one drawback from these DSLRs is that the microphone has no monitoring system and, therefore, cannot be adjusted in anyway.¬† I wasn’t too concerned because, in my goal of making this film completely simple, there was to be no dialog.¬† But I knew there would be atmospheric sound effects to capture as well as several car sounds so I started researching options.¬† A lot of folks were all about the Zoom recorders and I was very close to ordering one of the H2 models.¬† After reading that the internal microphones on the H2 were spectacular but the mic inputs were less than stellar, I decided to go with the Tascam DR-07.¬† I have a boom mic as well as two wireless lavaliers I would like to continue using and felt this was the better route.¬† More on this later but Spoiler Alert, the jury is still out on the DR-07.

So we had our first day of shooting.¬† I think it’s safe to say that it was something just short of a disaster.¬† The first shots we did were of Jesse driving around in my Honda Fit.¬† I had laid the backseats down and set up a tripod to just get some angles from inside the cabin.¬† Two things I didn’t count on-

• It was hotter than Hades.
• I would get motion sickness staring into the LCD and trying to keep the camera steady.

I know you’ll think it silly of me crying about this but I get wore out real quick like.¬† We shot what amounted to a quick two minutes of editable footage (much of which ended up getting reshot on the second day).¬† Nevertheless we did get a few great shots, including a completely unreproducible shadow reveal of our firearm prop.¬† But I also learned that using a portable audio recorder is not as easy as pressing record and stepping away.¬† None of the audio we captured was usable as ¬† the input level was turned down too low.¬† I have since learned that cranking up the headphone volume for monitoring the audio on the DR-07 deceives the operator into thinking they are capturing appropriate levels.¬† Once the files were on my computer, they had to be cranked to 11 and even then were tinny at best.

I took what footage we had and put it together for something of a sizzle reel.  I showed it to a few friends and co-workers, prefacing that this was not finished nor was the audio final and got relatively positive feedback.  One viewer began asking me questions about what would happen and demanded to know the final body count.  I was a bit shocked but it cemented that even on a shitty day of filming, we were on the right track.

Taking all of the feedback and experiences from that day, the second round of shooting went much smoother.¬† The night before the production, I took a few moments and drew up crude storyboards of the final 15 or so shots.¬† We had nothing but a list of shots while shooting the first day and truth be told, we rarely looked at the storyboards while shooting the final night.¬† But the process of planning the shots allowed me to give clearer direction to Jesse and the wife (playing the poor damsel in distress) and we breezed through everything.¬† It didn’t all come out as well as I had hoped but I was shocked by how well our night shots came out under the lights of a parking lot. In the past I dreaded all manner of dark lit shots but the 7D just plowed through it with ease.¬† I had a nerd boner the whole 15 minutes we shot at that location.

This is a good place to stop before getting into the post-production section.¬† If you hate this, go ahead and tell me below.¬† I’m not going to stop writing the second post but figured I would open myself up to feedback.¬† As I said in the opening, if you are looking to use some of this gear and want some further advice, feel free to ask away.

To be continued…

Recent posts by Dustin

• Monday Morning Dork Attack: Dublin Dr. Pepper - January 16th, 2012
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• Monday Morning Dork Attack: Luck - January 2nd, 2012
• Dustin's 2011 10 Favorite and 5 Disappointments for Film - December 30th, 2011
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