What a blur! The first four days of filming
Syncope went by so fast, but I'm not complaining about our much-needed four day break.
Last week was hectic from the get-go. I had problems getting to, and finding the location for the North Vernon headquarters. My GPS took me to a cemetery instead of the NV Police Department - but I got there before the safety briefing and that is what is important.
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| I apparently could not find either of these tents... |
I was assigned to work as a grip with one other guy. Grips set up the lighting and camera support and work under the Gaffer - the man in charge of the physical act of lighting the scene (who is in turn under the Director of Photography - who designs the way the light looks).
Part of my job as a grip was also laying cable. Lots, and lots of cable. Did I mention that I lay cable? And then when we change the shot angle (generally when doing a reverse shot or "flipping the world") I get to
re-lay the cable. Lots, and lots of cable.
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Myself and the other grip laying the "5-strand" main power
cables from the generator to the distro-box (not destructo-box). |
Aside from the bit of rain and lots of wind, the first night's shooting went rather well. We wrapped filming for the day at 4:45am and I finally left the set at 5:30 when everything was put away. I then tried to drive home to get ready for work at 9am...
I only made it about 25 minutes to Columbus, IN where I promptly fell asleep in a McDonalds parking lot for 2 hours. I then woke up, cleaned up (in the Mickey D's bathroom) and went to work. Afterwords, I went home, slept for another hour and then drove back to beautiful North Vernon for another night of filming.
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| Seriously, it looked like this for three evenings in a row. |
On the second day the gaffer came over to me, took my name tag and crossed out "Production Assistant / Grip" and wrote "Best Boy Electric." The Best Boy Grip is more-or-less second in line to the Gaffer and would be, on a full film set, in overseeing other electricians. The other grip was promoted to Best Boy Grip. Normally the Best Boy Grip would report to the Key Grip, but we don't have one, so instead he reports to the Gaffer. All of this is semantics, however, because it is only myself, the BB Grip and the Gaffer to begin with (but we do get to grab PAs to help us whenever we need it).
The second day was pretty sweet because we had an 18' jib on set.
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| This fella. |
They guys at Hearland Camera Jibs did a great job getting some killer footage. But wait, there's more! They came back again on Friday (day 4) for the bridge scene.
Toward the end of the shoot, the Gaffer had to leave to drive to Chicago to get
condor certified which left me in charge of the lighting for about 3 hours (plus tear down). Things were a bit hectic, but I think the AD's and Producers were happy with my hustle.
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| Myself and the gaffer adjusting a flag and a light (respectively) |
After day 2 I was able to catch another 3 hours of sleep before heading back to Indy for another shoot for 12 Stars. I then drove back to North Vernon (with a quick stop-over at Arby's) for day 3.
Day 3 was pretty typical, no steadicam, jib, or explosions to report. But I definitely started to feel the effects of limited sleep (if you've done the math, I'm at 6 hours from Tuesday morning through Thursday night). I finally got to get a slightly normal amount of sleep after everything got cleaned up from Day 3 (and our last day in the town of North Vernon). I managed to eek out another 6 hours of sleep before getting up for Friday's earlier call time.
Friday (day 4) we changed game plans and instead of doing a super-long day, we only did 4 shots, all at the same location, and with only ambient light - My job was cake for the day, except for the massive inventory I had to do of our 1ton grip truck and equipment from three different suppliers...
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| Friday's 30' Jib - booyah! |
I was able to sneak away from the truck long enough to grab a quick video from the cheap-seats at Video Village and bring you this teaser...
Well, that's it for now. I'll try to blog during the next 4 days of production (Wednesday through Saturday) since I'll be able to stay down on location without driving back to Indy nearly every day.
