How the films get made, written down while we still remember it. Useful if you are trying to shoot something with nothing.
On 3 Generations we ran full rehearsals in a living room with no camera, no lights, and no crew. By the time we got on location the actors already knew the blocking, so the shoot days were about light and sound instead of decisions. Three days of shooting, and we finished every one of them early.
We wanted the poster to feel like it was printed and pasted on a wall, not rendered. That meant flat colour, a halftone screen, and only four inks. Once the poster existed the film had a look, and we graded the footage toward the paper instead of the other way round.
We saw ninety people over two weekends in a rented room downtown. Most had never been on a film set. What we looked for was not polish, it was whether someone could listen to another actor and change their mind on camera. Half the cast came from that room.
We write these when a project teaches us something worth passing on. Ask to be added to the list.
