Even though I'm always complaining about shooting "second unit," I'm actually really happy with the overall strategy. I think second unit is usually seen as a way to save time or money. But for us, second unit is a way to delay certain decisions until the very end. It's actually a time where certain important, but not vital artistic decisions are made.
When Ben gets out of his car in the desert, the first thing he does is look at something in his hand (see the video in an earlier post). In the desert he was looking at a tiny compass. But as the clues changed, it became necessary to change this to a map so we picked up the shot in Ben's backyard. I now need to shoot this insert once again with the new map (At Turning's End). Not a big deal. Likewise, I just finished shooting the shrine interior (yet again) in the garage. Those are my hands touching the shrine interior. But even though Ben's and my hands look nothing alike, it's so shadowy in there that it cuts fine. And I was able to adjust the action and prop to match the bird scene that is to come. The major plot points and function of the story elements haven't changed. But the minor elements, the way we get from point A to point B remains in flux.
That's always been part of the strategy. This isn't the Da Vinci Code where the story is built around the specific clues. In our film, the clues are just ways to get from one point to another using specific props. The small details only matter insofar as they relate to the overall structure of certain sequences. For example, it was important to get Ben out to the desert. But it didn't matter whether it was via the Destination Infinity poster or the At Turning's End poster. I made the change because I wanted to deemphasize the "perpetual motion" angle of the film to streamline it. Ben still gets out to the desert, but in a cleaner, less distracting way.
No comments:
Post a Comment