The endless shoot

Over these last few years of filming, I've learned many things. My brilliant DP Heath Orchard, who has done it all and seen it all, opined that one mightn't say we shoot tomorrow when making a video for the local sheriff, but rather we film tomorrow.  My co-producer Lindsay Gauthier has patiently taught me film lingo such as logline (etymology obscure, first attested 1613 as logge-line according to Wiktionary) and crafty, not as an adjective but as a noun. 

But I suppose none of this cuts to the heart of the matter, the film itself, for which we have once again accomplished some filming recently.  Some photos:

The latest on She Who Is Alive

We have finished filming about a third of the She Who Is Alive^† opera film so far, the last scene filmed being the end of the movie, a behind-the-scenes shot with me as wannabe director seen here. The wonderful Laura Bohn, an actor so utterly fantastic in the piece, bravely agreed to go up in a plane that the pilot Chris Prevost has been flying for forty years and which has coughed and sputtered reliably into life since the nineteen forties. 

The light was surprisingly favorable, and we were able to do many film-y things: night-for-night, evening-for-dawn, day-for-night, etc. And those wonderful shots of flying in a plane when it is not actually flying at all, the wind whipping the hair of the actors as they sing amiably to each other over a deafening roar. Actually, I should point out that Laura hadn't quite decided to go, but the sun was setting (aka rising) and Pilot Prevost suddenly took off with her in the front passenger seat, almost blowing to the ground Heath Orchard and his very fancy 6K Sony Venice love-of-his-life camera in the surprisingly powerful prop wash. 

When filming, one is able to see the scenes again and again, and one soon notices that the adorable Bradley Kynard is really pretty creepy, and his character is the perfect spy/aggressor/victim, a foil against which Laura could be both seducer and stone-cold dealer of death. 

^†Dimmi pur, prego, s' tu se' morta or viva!" / "Viva son io e tu se' morto ancora - Petrarch

Maria Fleeing

My epic film begins

She Who Is Alive is in production! Laura Bohn jetted in from Amsterdam to shoot two of her scenes, one alone with Beethoven on the 25th and one with the inimitable Bradley Kynard on the 26th. I've been told it is insane to film 30+ minutes of film in two days, but needs must and therefore will be. Heath (Orchard) has been so allowing of my failings and idiocies in these early days. 

This whole world of real-ish-not-me-just-fucking-around filmmaking, new to me, has been inviting so far. DTC Lighting & Grip gave us a hazer and some equipment when we promised to hire some up-and-coming gaffers. Jim Cave, my long-time friend and director, has stepped up, as he always does, to be a little of everything: acting coach, set dresser, covid tester, etc.

After

Before