Day One
An ambitious script for our third episode, 19 pages. Our first two episodes were fairly short, par for the course for a web series. "Theatre At The End of Time" started out the same way and just grew. Written specifically for the location, Tim and Brenda Dietlein's Glendale Centre Theatre, the basic idea of The Doctor and his Companion finding themselves trapped in an, at first, apparently empty theatre, expanded to a much longer adventure, culminating in a mad dash, well, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Our first episode had myself and Tosca as our entire cast and crew. Our second episode, I shot entirely in my apartment, using just me; I wanted to see if I could really do it and come up with something, at least, passable. For episode 3, I called on Michael Paletta, the DP for many episodes of the multi-award winning series, "The Adventures of Superseven" (of which I am the title character), to join us.
We shot 16 pages, our first day, in about 6 hours. I had told Tosca we would probably finish in 4, and I apologize for it taking as long as it did. I quickly realized I would need another day, as I didn't want to keep her and Mike any longer. Since we have no budget (which means no trailers, no craft services, etc.), I try to use my actors and crew as efficiently as possible.
The Glendale Centre Theatre is a lovely theatre in the round, almost four hundred seats, and is the longest continually operating theatre in America, I believe. They put on a number of plays and musicals every year, of very high quality. I've been lucky enough to perform there, as has Tosca, although we haven't done a show together, yet.
As you'll see in the episode, it's a fairly large theatre, with a nice backstage area, dressing and rehearsal rooms. It's a great contrast to the black boxes that are strewn throughout Los Angeles. Anyone who says there isn't a lot of theatre in LA is quite mistaken; with so many actors needing to keep their talents in shape, there is no shortage of live performances, every night of the week.
Luckily, there was no performance this day, Sunday, so we had the place to ourselves. Using just the theatre's practical lighting, and basic stage/house lights, our setups went quickly, most of the time taken with setting focus, exposure and white balance. I am not a techno-phobe, but all I care about is getting the work done and, since we shoot on an iPad, primarily, we don't have a lot of technical issues to deal with. I use the Filmic Pro app, which is fantastic, with variable frame rates, and all sorts of fun things to play with. We did use a Sony A57 DSLR for the one exterior shot, as I wanted to mimic the difference the old Doctor Who series' had when they went from video indoors to obvious film outdoors. You'll all let me know if there is a noticeable difference. I would have loved to shoot actual film outdoors, but there's that budget thing, again.
I was going to shoot in sequence, but the exterior shot is the last scene, so we shot that first, as it takes place in the daytime. That went swiftly, then we headed inside. Things went smoothly until we got to one of the camera trick moments. I won't give it away, but you'll know it when you see it. It's simple, but effective, and I wanted to make sure I was getting what I needed. One of the advantages of shooting on the iPad, is that I can see the take, and go right into iMovie and do some quick test editing. The scene took a bit of time to shoot, the longest of the day, but we were still pretty much on schedule when we moved on to the next things.
The one thing that was a bit of a problem, although we worked it into the script because it was funny, was a wardrobe issue. Tosca wore these stylish little boots that looked great, but got painful as the day wore on. I felt bad for her, but she took it like a trooper. "It's my own damned fault," she said, in typical resigned British fashion, and refused to let it slow us down. I did let her take her boots off for shots that didn't require them. In one scene, she's standing on a phone book, as her boots had heels, and she would have looked a little shorter without them on.
We finished the day with just a few shots still needed, but it was time to take my actress and cinematographer out to dinner, so day one came to a very satisfactory close.
Day Two
I still needed shots of the "villain" of the episode stalking our heroes through the otherwise silent theatre, so second day of shooting was necessary. Tosca has told me she had Wednesday evening free, and the theatre was dark, in case reshoots were called for. Going over the "dailies" (that sounds so deliciously 'Hollywood'), I realized I had completely missed one shot of us crossing the stage, a long, single take gag had to be redone, and I needed to reshoot one line of dialogue for continuity purposes.
Now, I'm usually not a stickler for continuity. I have a dear friend, Matteo Molinari, who has written a number of books on continuity errors. I highly recommend them all; the first is "Oops! Movie Mistakes That Made The Cut", available on Amazon. Some of the errors are ghastly, horrifyingly obvious ones that no way in hell should have gotten past anyone. Others are far more minor, so subtle that only the truly observant (or geeky) would notice.
If there's something really noticeable, something that would take you out of the viewers' trance, I'll worry about it, or if I see something easily fixed, I'll fix it. The one shot I had to re-do was an arm-position thing that was easily fixed. There are a number of directors who deliberately put/leave in errors, so fans have stuff to talk about. I do that purely by instinct... or not...
So, Wednesday evening, Tosca and I were, once again, our entire production team (the shots were so simple I didn't need to bother Mike). We were the only ones in the theatre.
Did I mention it's haunted?
It certainly seemed that way. (It supposedly is).
In reality, the sounds we kept hearing were coming from the alley behind the theatre. There are entrances to a restaurant, a busy bakery, and some ATMs, so there is occasional foot traffic. It did sound a bit creepy, shooting a script about being stalked in a theatre and hearing random noises.
We finished in about an hour or so, about seven camera setups and a few handheld shots from the villain's POV.
So, after two days of shooting, I had all the footage necessary. I had started editing the day following day one, so the episode looks to be up by next week.
An ambitious script for our third episode, 19 pages. Our first two episodes were fairly short, par for the course for a web series. "Theatre At The End of Time" started out the same way and just grew. Written specifically for the location, Tim and Brenda Dietlein's Glendale Centre Theatre, the basic idea of The Doctor and his Companion finding themselves trapped in an, at first, apparently empty theatre, expanded to a much longer adventure, culminating in a mad dash, well, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Our first episode had myself and Tosca as our entire cast and crew. Our second episode, I shot entirely in my apartment, using just me; I wanted to see if I could really do it and come up with something, at least, passable. For episode 3, I called on Michael Paletta, the DP for many episodes of the multi-award winning series, "The Adventures of Superseven" (of which I am the title character), to join us.
We shot 16 pages, our first day, in about 6 hours. I had told Tosca we would probably finish in 4, and I apologize for it taking as long as it did. I quickly realized I would need another day, as I didn't want to keep her and Mike any longer. Since we have no budget (which means no trailers, no craft services, etc.), I try to use my actors and crew as efficiently as possible.
The Glendale Centre Theatre is a lovely theatre in the round, almost four hundred seats, and is the longest continually operating theatre in America, I believe. They put on a number of plays and musicals every year, of very high quality. I've been lucky enough to perform there, as has Tosca, although we haven't done a show together, yet.
As you'll see in the episode, it's a fairly large theatre, with a nice backstage area, dressing and rehearsal rooms. It's a great contrast to the black boxes that are strewn throughout Los Angeles. Anyone who says there isn't a lot of theatre in LA is quite mistaken; with so many actors needing to keep their talents in shape, there is no shortage of live performances, every night of the week.
Luckily, there was no performance this day, Sunday, so we had the place to ourselves. Using just the theatre's practical lighting, and basic stage/house lights, our setups went quickly, most of the time taken with setting focus, exposure and white balance. I am not a techno-phobe, but all I care about is getting the work done and, since we shoot on an iPad, primarily, we don't have a lot of technical issues to deal with. I use the Filmic Pro app, which is fantastic, with variable frame rates, and all sorts of fun things to play with. We did use a Sony A57 DSLR for the one exterior shot, as I wanted to mimic the difference the old Doctor Who series' had when they went from video indoors to obvious film outdoors. You'll all let me know if there is a noticeable difference. I would have loved to shoot actual film outdoors, but there's that budget thing, again.
I was going to shoot in sequence, but the exterior shot is the last scene, so we shot that first, as it takes place in the daytime. That went swiftly, then we headed inside. Things went smoothly until we got to one of the camera trick moments. I won't give it away, but you'll know it when you see it. It's simple, but effective, and I wanted to make sure I was getting what I needed. One of the advantages of shooting on the iPad, is that I can see the take, and go right into iMovie and do some quick test editing. The scene took a bit of time to shoot, the longest of the day, but we were still pretty much on schedule when we moved on to the next things.
The one thing that was a bit of a problem, although we worked it into the script because it was funny, was a wardrobe issue. Tosca wore these stylish little boots that looked great, but got painful as the day wore on. I felt bad for her, but she took it like a trooper. "It's my own damned fault," she said, in typical resigned British fashion, and refused to let it slow us down. I did let her take her boots off for shots that didn't require them. In one scene, she's standing on a phone book, as her boots had heels, and she would have looked a little shorter without them on.
We finished the day with just a few shots still needed, but it was time to take my actress and cinematographer out to dinner, so day one came to a very satisfactory close.
Day Two
I still needed shots of the "villain" of the episode stalking our heroes through the otherwise silent theatre, so second day of shooting was necessary. Tosca has told me she had Wednesday evening free, and the theatre was dark, in case reshoots were called for. Going over the "dailies" (that sounds so deliciously 'Hollywood'), I realized I had completely missed one shot of us crossing the stage, a long, single take gag had to be redone, and I needed to reshoot one line of dialogue for continuity purposes.
Now, I'm usually not a stickler for continuity. I have a dear friend, Matteo Molinari, who has written a number of books on continuity errors. I highly recommend them all; the first is "Oops! Movie Mistakes That Made The Cut", available on Amazon. Some of the errors are ghastly, horrifyingly obvious ones that no way in hell should have gotten past anyone. Others are far more minor, so subtle that only the truly observant (or geeky) would notice.
If there's something really noticeable, something that would take you out of the viewers' trance, I'll worry about it, or if I see something easily fixed, I'll fix it. The one shot I had to re-do was an arm-position thing that was easily fixed. There are a number of directors who deliberately put/leave in errors, so fans have stuff to talk about. I do that purely by instinct... or not...
So, Wednesday evening, Tosca and I were, once again, our entire production team (the shots were so simple I didn't need to bother Mike). We were the only ones in the theatre.
Did I mention it's haunted?
It certainly seemed that way. (It supposedly is).
In reality, the sounds we kept hearing were coming from the alley behind the theatre. There are entrances to a restaurant, a busy bakery, and some ATMs, so there is occasional foot traffic. It did sound a bit creepy, shooting a script about being stalked in a theatre and hearing random noises.
We finished in about an hour or so, about seven camera setups and a few handheld shots from the villain's POV.
So, after two days of shooting, I had all the footage necessary. I had started editing the day following day one, so the episode looks to be up by next week.