Going to church

The latest shoots have gone quickly and uneventfully. On Friday we finished the red room and last night we did all of the planned previs church shots in three hours including set dressing and lighting. I planned the use the FantasyFX Haze in a can at one point and then Erik asked whether it was flammable or not. "No, it couldn't be," I said. I then looked at the label which says CAUTION CONTENTS EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE DO NOT USE NEAR OPEN FLAMES. So I promised to diffuse the shot in post, hence the versions you see here.

Notes:

>It was tough to shoot in that small space. It would have been nicer to shoot using a longer dolly track--not that we had one.

>There was something about shooting in a candle-lit church that had us all singing Gregorian chants.

>The pre-vis shot is more dramatic than what we shot. Maybe I should have used the crane?

>It was hot in there because of the light (just one) + candles and because it was small. Ben was sweating. It was the first time we used makeup--some talcum powder I had in the car. Still, he looks kind of shiny on tape.

>The table Ben is using is a fold up card table with a checkerboard built into it that we found in the room.

>In the latest battle of the 2d vs. 3d thinkers, 3d wins. Last week when Erik and I were trying to figure out how to flip the crane mount, Ben said, "Why don't you just flip the camera upside down." Of course, it worked and saved us a lot of time and head scratching.

>Ben is wearing a hooded sweatshirt. It was his actor-y idea for a costume that would evoke a monk's robe.

>We always forget to think about chairs. Ben is sitting on a folding metal chair but it's hidden in the shadows.

>The candle light fixture is a repurposed electric chandelier hanging precariously from a board suspended between two bookcases. If you look really closely in some of the shots you can see the board.

>As I have long advocated, you can never be with enough tape of various kinds. Last night we used strapping tape to mount the chandelier on Ben's improvised crossbeam. We used black lighting tape to cover up some of the white wall that was showing and black electrician's tape to cover a chrome spot on the chandelier.