arrangements

Day one of shooting Arrangements.

Today we’re on location at Glen Alba Gardens. Figgered we’d keep it pretty simple, and do all the interiors… They’re pretty easy setups, only a few actors, and we can control light and sound so it’s an easy way for the crew to find its mojo since we haven’t all worked together before. Besides, it’s threatening to rain.

We started with the scene at the front door… Kayla comes to visit Bill. Gina (as Kayla) rocks the performance with some very subtle stuff, Chad (as Bill) is great too. It’s kinda complicated, since the reverse on Bill from outside shoots all the way through the living room and out a picture window to the backyard, where we can see his wife Cassie cleaning up after the party. So I’m directing action at the door, as well as action fifty feet and two walls away simultaneously. We got some funny outtakes, where on “action” the folks in the backyard didn’t know we’d started and were gesticulating a “when do we start” signal during the scene – ah, my kingdom for a set of walkies. But we got the scene off, both setups, including a nice subtle jib shot as the huge moving guy shows up to pick up the tables…  makes a truly huge guy look even huger. Huger? Is that a word? Ah, it is now…

Anyways, the rain is threatening, it’s getting cloudy, cold and moist… we’re done with all the stuff at the door, and manage to get to the kitchen scenes. Bill is sitting at the table, alone, while outside the window we can see Cassie cleaning the yard… again, directing two locations at once with no walkies, but it worked. A simple scene, no dialog, but lots of subtlety in Chad’s performance.

Then, on to the conversation (different story day, different wardrobe) that Bill and Cassie have at the same table. It’s a tough scene to get right… again, very little dialog, but it’s the early scene that sets up everything we need to know about Cassie as a character, and their relationship – against which the audience will measure all their other actions through the rest of the movie. So it’s gotta be on point.

We had shots we needed to get pointing at the window, and reverses pointing away from the window into the kitchen hallway. We made the mistake of starting with the shots away from the window… so, at the end of the shoot, we were pointing toward the window, and racing the light as it got darker and darker outside. The darker it was outside, the more of a mirror the big window became, so of course we struggled with avoiding reflections of the crew standing around watching… but we managed it. The outdoor angles are darker than I might have liked, but in the end it adds to the mood, so it works. Both Chad and Kimberly (as Cassie) gave us great performances, and I think it’s really touching.

Believe it or not, we finish ahead of schedule and get everything we wanted. Damn! What a great crew.

It’s ready to rain – in fact it’s starting – and tomorrow we’ve got a big exterior shoot…. 20 extras, a pool party, barbecue… weather.com shows it’s clearing, so fingers are crossed.