Solstice - Week One

[David Mullen ASC]

I just finished the first six days of "Solstice", a small supernatural thriller / drama being shot in the New Orleans area. The cast is mostly made up of young actors -- Elisabeth Harnois, Shawn Ashmore (who I worked with on "Dot" in Austin, TX), Amanda Seyfried -- plus a small but key part played by R. Lee Ermey, who we just wrapped today. It was a real pleasure working with him and listening to his Kubrick stories.

 

We're shooting 3-perf Panavision for 2.40 scope extraction using the "Fincher" almost common top groundglass. This helps make the full-frame 1.78 negative frame more usable when doing the non-letterboxed home video versions, as opposed to center extraction where you have to lose some excess headroom for the non-letterboxed versions. This is my first Super-35 feature -- my last four 35mm features were anamorphic, so I'm having to get used to the focal lengths in spherical again.

 

It was hard to put together a package, especially in 3-perf, with a record number of TV pilots going into production recently (I even got called to shoot two pilots, and I've never been asked to shoot one before.) After Panavision said they were out of cameras, we were calling Arri rental houses on both coasts before Panavision managed to put together a two-camera package afterall. It's a little piecemeal in that a few of my lenses are not Primos but a few Z-Series (Zeiss) Ultra Speeds mixed in. I tried to get my wide-angle ones to be Primos, figuring my longer ones would probably be for close-ups. Was able to switch out a few days into the shoot one of the Z-Series for a Primo when it became available.

 

We had a Millenium and GII, but our A-camera operator (who does Steadicam on this show) asked us to swap the Millenium for a Millenium XL (I got the XL2 because I needed a camera that could also do 50 fps.) Boy, that's a small 35mm camera.

 

We are shooting the new Fuji Eterna 250D and 500T stocks. I have a few rolls of F-64D stock for shooting sunsets, but otherwise, I'm shooting all my day scenes on 250D (rated at 160 ASA). This is the first time in awhile I haven't used mostly either F-64D or a slow Kodak stock for day work, but I wanted to mainly stick to two stocks instead of three, plus the weather here is semi-cloudy all the time due to the humidity. In fact, all week I've been dealing with fast-moving patchy clouds covering and uncovering the sun during every take. It's a nightmare, which is one reason I'm glad I'll be doing a D.I. later to fix some of the contrast mismatches once these takes are edited, since there is never any coverage that is all cloudy or all sunny. The 250D stock is useful when dealing with heavy cloud cover, especially in the woods. It's also fairly low-contrast / wide latitude, which has been useful since I'm trying to shoot more in natural light and minimize the amount of lighting & grip work outdoors.

 

This schedule is a killer, really brutal on some days, although we can't really afford to work much past a 12-hour day, so we don't.

 

One problem has been scheduling exterior day scenes all the way until at the end of the day, so I'm working until the magic hour for scenes that shouldn't or can't be magic hour because of the story or continuity for surrounding scenes.

 

In particular, I was so rushed to shoot a flashback scene out in the woods as the sun was dropping, that we basically shot it handheld with the f-stop wide-open near the end, plus pushing the film. It was messier, sloppier work than I normally like doing, but I justified it as part of the flashback look, with the shallow focus, focus buzzes, and grain from underexposing and pushing. But I don't want to have to shoot that way every evening just to make the schedule. I'm also running two cameras a lot on scenes with our large cast (the story involved five high school friends plus the people they run into), which isn't always great in terms of lighting (or sound or focus...) but does lead to some happy accidents in framing sometimes, and it reduces some of the tediousness of repeating the action for separate camera angles. When I'm not running the two cameras, I send the B-camera around to grab missing bits or whatever nature items are close to the set.

 

Because there are so many productions going on in Louisiana for the tax breaks, we've ended up having to bring more people from Los Angeles than we budgeted for -- we can barely find two or three grips or electics who aren't busy on some bigger show in town (like Tony Scott's "Deja Vu"). Sort of negates some of the financial advantage of coming to these states if there is a lack of crew to hire. And since it's so busy in general right now in the industry, a number of people I've worked with before weren't available, or had to leave another show a day early to join this one.

 

So far, I can't say I've done any major lighting, just some day interiors where I'm trying to keep things as natural as possible.

[Bryan Darling]

Hey David,

 

I noticed you hadn't been around. I figured you were out there shooting something...and sure enough. Sounds like a pretty crazy and intense working situation. Some of your comments particularly about running and gunning before the light is gone and the "messier" work than normal reminds me so much of one particular project. I was directing and my DP was Floyd Diebel. It was all on location. All but one of the locations was within several minutes of each other. However we had to cover typically 3 locations a day if I remember right. The most complex a large gallery party sequence.

 

Anyhow due to time and budget constraints we basically had about 4 or so takes per scene. So we made a rule that Floyd would shoot two full takes at particular angles we wanted to cover. From there we let the actors go for another two takes and Floyd would shoot cutaways and other various angles. It actually worked out quite well as we had enough coverage for every scene and in the end I used a lot of the "space" in the shots were he was framing or focusing into his shot. It gave the whole piece a real nice mood and feel, an almost doc. quality I suppose you could say.

 

Luckily we were shooting 7222 so it helped in the tight lighting situations where we couldn't set up a lot of lights. One in particular was this basement of an old 30's or 40's office building. It had tons of pipes, old A/C and heating gear, freight elevator, and electrical systems, it was doubling for a water plant. The sound people had a real field day as they went around grabbing all kinds of wild sound in-between setups. I think for that setup we really only used 2 or 3 lights, Arri 650s and 2k. Those along with just the existing practicals really gave it this moody dank feeling.

 

At the end of it all, it had put Floyd outside his comfort zone so to speak. He's a guy that really likes to set things up and craft the lighting. I know for him it was a messier and sloppier way of working, but what I love is that his messier and sloppier beats some people's measured and crafted work. That's the thing about talented and skillful craftsman they can shine in most instances even if to themselves it wasn't how they would of preferred.

 

The work I've seen that you've done has been a pleasure to watch. It's rare to find people who know their medium and understand it, or even attempt to truly understand it. By the way I must say that the book you collaborated on with Kris Malkiewicz is a great resource that I use when I teach or mentor others.

 

One question I have is about your stock choices. What brought you to the decision of using the Fuji Stocks? I actually have been curious about the F-64D and notice they have more in the way of Daylight stocks.

[David Mullen ASC]

The Kodak and Fuji line-up are similar other than Fuji also has a 500D stock, Reala, which I've never been fond of due to it being somewhat grainy. If they ever improve it with an Eterna version, I may check it out.

 

If Fuji had come out with the Eterna versions of the 64D and 125T stocks, I may have considered using those for my day exterior work, but on the other hand, I was curious to try using 250D stock on a movie for all day work, inside and outside, mainly as a way of saving a little time on reloading, etc.

 

The Eterna stocks are very pretty, "creamy", although even more low-con than regular Vision-2, almost like the Expression look in terms of contrast. Luckily Fuji has also come out with a new higher-con print stock called "HD" ("high density"?) which is closer to Premier but cheaper, so I may use that for the prints. I didn't have time to really test the 250D stock before the shoot, but I have tested the Eterna 500T stock and the demos by Fuji show that the 250D is similar slightly less grainy. This was a case where I could have gone either way, Kodak or Fuji, since I planned on doing a D.I. which gives me more control over contrast and color saturation. And the Fuji is cheaper to shoot. If I were shooting for direct printing, I would have tested Kodak and Fuji more to decide which gave me the right look when combined with the right printing process.

 

If I were shooting more day scenes in open spaces with more sunlight, like in California (although they have been getting more rain than Louisiana lately), I might have picked Kodak in order to use 5201 50D stock, which is better than Fuji's F-64D stock.

 

I'm still rating the stocks 2/3's over, just as before. I went to see another horror film that this company made, "Stay Alive", which also used a D.I./Super-35, and I'm finding in general with D.I.'s that despite the notion that with scanning, there is no advantage to an overexposed negative, the Number One photography problem I see in a D.I. is an underexposed shot that gets boosted digitally. I rarely see an artifacty shot due to overexposure. So I feel that there is still an advantage to providing a fully-exposed negative with lots of detail for scanning purposes.

 

The only problem with 2-camera shooting is that you rarely feel that you are really lighting a close-up -- you light medium shots and knock off the close-up in that. Which can look more natural, but it's hard to do any special tweaking. But when shooting outdoors, it makes more sense to shoot most of the shots in available light. I generally shoot the wides in natural light and just bring in some white cards off camera for some slight fill. If the light is toppy, I'll bring in a 20'x20' Half Soft Frost, which is like Opal and only loses a 1/2 stop compared to a silk, so I keep the look of the wide shots but slightly soften the sun. I'm trying to not do too much outside in terms of HMI's, etc. unless necessary.

[Guest fstop]

David,

 

What fstop are you usually lighting to on this? On your anamorphic shows you've said you prefer to go T4 so you can minimise takes that go soft. Are you continuing this philospophy spherically? Having never been to New Orleans, I can't imagine bounce card on available light for a stock rated at 160 giving you much stop, especially like you say when the shedule is so crushing and you just have to shoot.

 

Can I also ask why you chose to rate the Fuji Eterna 250D at 160? I'm just interested given the stock's low contrast, "creamy" nature and your decision to go this way for all daylight exteriors (minus sunsets)? Is this just for insurance during those rolling patchy cloud takes and your cautious aproach to the DI and a colourist boosting anything underexposed? I'm just curious given all the great reports I've heard about the stock's latitude.

 

Many thanks.

[Dan Goulder]

Going 1/3 to 2/3 stop over is a good approach for D.I. You get maximum information on the negative, and you're generally better off darkening a scene in post rather than making it lighter, which tends to magnify the "noise" and grain.

[Guest fstop]

That I know, but it's more in relation with the fstop question, especially as David is battling God's own lighting. Seeing as he's keeping exterior daytime artificial lighting minimal, plus he tends to not blow skies out on his other pictures (like Northfork, Akeelah) I was just wondering if there were any added aesthetic reasons given past practice.

[David Mullen ASC]

The sun keeps coming in and out, so most of the day, I have to use an ND.60 or ND.90 (or ND.60 + a Pola, which is a stop and a half) to shoot around an f/8 with the 250D Eterna stock. Sometimes when it gets really bright, I'm more at an f/11 even with the ND.90, but I've been playing the sun about a half-stop overexposed visually to see under hat brims, under trees, etc. better. All the locations are what I'd call partially shaded.

 

But towards the end of the day, the light starts dropping, especially if the clouds come in heavily, and I'll be more at f/4-5.6 with no filters at all. Then of course, it drops to nothing at some point.

 

I haven't had much indoor day scenes yet. One was a creepy steadicam move through an old farmhouse. I wanted it to look a little cold and monochromatic. The first part was shot on a screened-in porch near sunset and I had to switch to 500T stock with no filters just to get an f/2.8 in available light, so I decided to shoot the whole steadicam sequence on unfiltered 500T stock, even though I was lighting the rest of the interior, letting the colorist pull out half the blueness. I lit the house to an f/4 with the 500T (rated normally at 320 ASA.)

 

I did have one scene set in a bedroom at the end of the walk through the old house where the main character ends up climbing out the window and jumping, so I switched to 250D for that room since it was sort of an interior/exterior scene looking at the window action from both inside looking out and outside looking in. In that case, a 6K HMI shining through a 6'x6' frame of grid cloth was enough to light the room to an f/5.6 at 160 ASA.

 

Yesterday I had a scene in a kitchen in a newer house where there was probably enough natural light to shoot at f/2.8 at 160 ASA, but with the fluctuating levels from the passing clouds, I wanted to use some HMI light to maintain a steady level and not be driven up the wall by the fading up & down of the daylight like I'm dealing with outdoors. So again, I ended up at about an f/5.6 once I put a 6K HMI through a 6'x6' frame outside the window, plus some Kinos inside for fill light.

 

Because of scheduling problems with actors, I keep ending up outside shooting a scene that shouldn't be a sunset scene, rather than indoors like I was just earlier with this kitchen scene. So one of the shots I did will probably have to be reshot because it simply doesn't look like daylight in the background despite the light I added on the faces. But in the one hour of shooting that scene under some trees near sunset on 250D stock, no ND's, I went from f/8 to f/2.8 by dusk.

 

I suppose I should be one of those DP's who keep the same f-stop all day long to be consistent, like at f/2.8 (if I know that's what I'll be at by the end of the day), but the truth is that I prefer shooting 35mm at the middle f-stops and it just helps me work faster because the AC isn't dealing with super shallow-focus. Everytime the AC opens up the f-stop all the way for checking focus, I think "that looks pretty", but in reality, actors and cameras move and a swimmy-shallow-focus look can be distracting on the big screen. It would be fine if the actors hardly moved. Also, I feel that if I'm going to be in some distant location like Louisiana, I'd rather not have it all out of focus most of the time in the background. Otherwise, I might as well just put some generic greens behind the actors' heads. So to me, in 35mm, f/4 really is what I consider to a wide-open but decent f-stop, f/2.8 is less desirable but necessary sometimes, and f/5.6 makes me more comfortable. Yes, obviously it's even more of an issue with anamorphic where the lenses behave SO much better at f/5.6.

 

Soon we'll be moving into night scenes and I'll have to get used to shooting mostly at f/2.8 probably.

 

Just from a technical angle, I prefer the look of slow-speed stock, overexposed, and shot at the middle f-stop numbers. But that's not only impractical, but it can be detrimental to capturing some beautiful natural light.

 

In terms of the 2/3's of a stop overexposure rating, that's just something that I've settled into over the years. A 1/3-stop overexposure is so minimal (a 2 or 3 point printer light adjustment) that it's within a margin of error for exposing, i.e. half the time I may actually not have any extra density. And a one-stop overexposure seems impractical and may force me to using faster stocks to compensate, which is self-defeating. So 2/3's just seems like a good amount to overexpose by (plus meters are usually set in 1/3-stop increments, otherwise I might try a half-stop.)

 

In terms of the sky, I'm surrounded by trees most of the time so I'm not worrying about blowing-out what little sky is up there, plus it has generally been hazy & humid, not very dramatic to look at.

[Guest fstop]

Many thanks David.

 

Do you feel anamorphic would have been a mistake for a project of this nature? It certainly sounds as though had the format been requested for a film like this you'd have to put your foot down and say either no or more time and money (though I doubt anyone on a project like this would opt for anamorphic)!

[Adam Frisch FSF]

I can certainly understand your desire to deliver sharp pictures and mimimize potential out-of-focus-nightmares. Especially on such a tight schedule. But don't you find that at those higher stops, 35mm loses some of it's magic?

[David Mullen ASC]

There are a number of factors at work -- for example, a shallow-focus image may work better on TV than on the big screen, because with TV you have to exaggerate more to create a strong visual effect. It may be too much on the big screen, especially for long stretches. And of course, if the subject occasionally drifts out of focus, it may be more distracting on the big screen.

 

Also, how shallow the focus looks depends on the focal length and shot size, so even at f/5.6, for example, a close-up on a 100mm has a pretty soft background behind it.

 

I remember when we screened some shots from "Akeelah" on the big screen at the lab, the director was suprised that on a medium two-shot of two people sitting side-by-side, both flat-on to the camera, shot at f/5.6 on a 75mm anamorphic lens, he could see that the focus was on one person but the other person was slightly soft. Of course, on DVD dailies, this wasn't apparent.

 

But also when you're dealing with actors, the last thing they want to hear after delivering what they think was the best performance is that they have to do it again because of a focus mistake. Sometimes, because of that, I'll let little mistakes go rather than have the actors keep repeating things for the camera.

 

Shallow-focus is extremely pretty, of course, don't get me wrong, but it's not the primary reason why I like shooting in 35mm. I like the fine detail and fine grain of a bigger negative mostly, especially if I have to use fast film to capture a low-light scene.

 

Again, it sort of shows the difference between shooting for commercials & music videos where the image is the primary thing, and shooting narrative where you have to factor in storytelling issues and actors into the equation more heavily. Often a frame needs to contain multiple points of story and emotional information that have to be conveyed to the audience without resorting to lots of cuts to individual objects.

 

I keep thinking, though, that I'd like to do a film where a shallow-focus look was appropriate, but I haven't really run into the right project for that approach, where it was both serve the story and be practical (i.e. I can live with a lot of focus mistakes.)

 

Just yesterday when I ended up shooting this actress at f/2.8 near dusk for her close-up on a 75mm, she tended to talk and lean forward and back suddenly, and not at the same time on every take (and we only had time for two takes anyway.) So it started to get annoying as the light kept dropping and I needed to move on to other angles before the sun was gone to now have to do MORE takes just to get everything in focus. But then, you don't really have a choice when you're shooting coverage at magic hour -- you're going to be rushed AND you're going to be shooting wide-open AND you won't get a chance to do many takes. Not so bad if you're talking about wide and medium shots with miminal emotional content, but hard when you're talking about an important performance shot in tight.

[David Mullen ASC]

There is too much night work on the schedule to justify dealing with anamorphic, plus it sort of came down to which battle did I want to fight, the one for a D.I. (which is a LOT more expensive) or the one for anamorphic, which I probably could have winged a deal on from Panavision.

 

Plus some of the locations are very small and I may be up close to the actors all the time, which may be fine on a smaller C-Series lens (although many of them have a poor MOD) but not so great on a big Primo (although those are better for night work at wider stops.) You have to judge on every project how indulgent the production (director especially) will be to accomdate anamorphic lenses. Some might feel that I'm just jerking off by picking an harder format to shoot with, on a project where working fast is the highest priority.

 

And this is not particularly a wide landscape movie in big open spaces, where anamorphic is almost a must in my book, like in New Mexico. I'm working in dark woods and swampy bayous in fading light for some scenes, but mostly in a small house. In this case, the 2.35 frame is more because we have a lot of group dialogue scenes and I feel that the wide frame gives the actors more freedom to drift around the frame.

 

I do feel a little guilty though because I feel I'm opting for convenience over quality by using Super-35 instead of anamorphic, but on the other hand, more focus problems is hardly a form of higher quality. Who knows, once I blow this thing up to anamorphic for the release prints, I'll either become a convert... or I'll just go back to anamorphic whenever I can.

 

I'm just glad I'm getting to shoot 3-perf for 2.35 using a D.I., which gives me a chance to try new technologies and play with the look. On the aborted film I was supposed to shoot here in Louisiana in January, the line producer pretty much bullied me to shoot the movie in standard 1.85 (I remember his skeptical comment to me: "You're going to have to make a damn good argument for 2.35 -- I don't see the point." He scared the producers: "You're going to have trouble distributing the film to some theaters if you shoot it in 2.35.") It just became a daily argument, and it pissed me off because I wasn't sure why the line producer had the final say on the shooting format instead of the director and DP. But eventually I didn't see the point of pushing any harder for anamorphic or a D.I. or anything at all -- he just wanted me to shoot straight 1.85, no special anything, nothing that would cost a dime more. And this was a movie that supposedly had double the budget of the one I'm shooting now. Here, I have a good producer who tries to back me up if I feel strongly enough about something, within budget restrictions. I only wish I could get a longer shooting schedule...

[Dan Goulder]

("You're going to have trouble distributing the film to some theaters if you shoot it in 2.35.")

 

Are there any circumstances in which this statement holds true (outside of the mainstream American theatrical circuit)? Do anamorphic prints face resistance in the American art house circuit, or do they limit foreign distribution potential? Or, is this concern overblown across the board? Thanks.

[David Mullen ASC]

("You're going to have trouble distributing the film to some theaters if you shoot it in 2.35.")

 

Are there any circumstances in which this statement holds true (outside of the mainstream American theatrical circuit)? Do anamorphic prints face resistance in the American art house circuit, or do they limit foreign distribution potential? Or, is this concern overblown across the board? Thanks.

 

Since more than half of Hollywood's theatrical products come out in scope prints, it is unlikely these days for any theater that wants to make money to not be able to project scope, even art house cinemas. I suppose it's possible for some distant land theater chains to possibly limit the number of scope titles if they are having to share anamorphic lenses between multiple projectors in a multiplex, but it seems unlikely. Since Hollywood is mostly concerned with maximizing profit, they wouldn't shoot in a format that would be hard to sell to almost any exhibitor, worldwide.

 

There is also a long, long list of art house cinema movies released in scope prints.

 

The biggest argument for not shooting 2.35 is simply if a theatrical release is unlikely and the movie will go straight to video/cable/broadcast. But even then, if a movie will get most of its critical attention in film festivals, and if scope would help the movie artistically, I think it's worth it, because one element on which the movie will be judged in those settings is its artistic execution.

[Sean Azze]

The cast is mostly made up of young actors -- Elisabeth Harnois, Shawn Ashmore (who I worked with on "Dot" in Austin, TX), Amanda Seyfried -- plus a small but key part played by R. Lee Ermey, who we just wrapped today. It was a real pleasure working with him and listening to his Kubrick stories.

 

Did he tell you any interesting Kubrick experiences in particular that you could relay to us? :D

 

This is my first Super-35 feature -- my last four 35mm features were anamorphic, so I'm having to get used to the focal lengths in spherical again.

 

Being your first Super-35 feature, wouldn't you consider that somewhat unexplored territory - like sort of an adventure in that sense? I just figure shooting everything anamorphically would become monotonous after awhile.

 

Thanks for your time, Mr. Mullen.

[David Mullen ASC]

Well, it's not like I work 360 days a year. I shot two features in anamorphic last year, one in Feb-March and the other in Sept-Oct, so it's not like I could suffer from monotony. Besides, no one complains about shooting all the time on spherical lenses.

 

Anamorphic is a bit of an adventure and you always learn something new each time you work with them.

 

In terms of learning, I haven't done 3-perf or Super-35 before, but the truth is that practically, it's just like shooting a 1.85 movie except that you're cropping more to 2.35. And I've done 4 out of 8 of my 24P HD features that way (cropping 16x9 to 2.35) so it's nothing new. So I guess this is my ninth feature framed for 2.35 -- maybe the next one will be 1.85 just to be different.

 

What I hope to learn on this one is whether there are any pitfalls to shooting in 3-perf, especially later in post. Right now, the primary problem is simply that I can't watch anything projected here on location because I'd need a 3-perf projector. I printed some of Day One's stuff and the editor watched it at the lab in Los Angeles. Now I could rent an Arri LocPro projector, but I've heard that it's quite expensive.

 

So far, it doesn't look like I'm going to have to mix any 4-perf into the footage since we don't have a need for an Eyemo or Arri-2C shot or anything like that.

 

It seems like we are reloading less often, which is nice.

 

R. Lee Ermey said that Kubrick only averaged about four takes in his scenes because (he said joking, with a smile) "I knew what I was doing, unlike many of those young actors." There were only more takes if there was a technical problem. He said Kubrick was an amazing camera operator and could spot a fly crossing the background of a set during a take, and follow action/movement very well. In fact, he felt sorry for Doug Milsome because Kubrick really did most of the lighting and operating (non-Steadicam) on the show. He also would light every set weeks in advance, shoot tests, and not do the scene until he was happy with the tests. He did that for the bathroom scene where R. Lee Ermey gets killed. After about a week of tweaking the lighting on the set in the mornings, one day he said "OK, it's perfect -- let's do the scene."

 

He said one reason Kubrick did a lot of takes is that he wanted at least two perfect takes that were "normal" and then wanted to play with the scene and try new things with the actors, etc. R. Lee Ermey said he talked to Kubrick about a week before he died.

 

He said that Kubrick would not allow studio interference. The Warner Bros. execs didn't really see a frame of "Full Metal Jacket" until one day when Kubrick called them up and said "OK, your movie is ready."

[John Holland]

Re. Doug Milsome, and the lighting , think you will find same thing happened with John Alcott , neither of these guys have produced anything as good as when they were working Kubrick , { he does the lighting } .Same thing with Eyes Wide Shut ,and Larry Smith . john holland ,london.

[David Mullen ASC]

Those guys proved that they could shoot well on other movies ("Greystoke", for example) even if the movies were not as brilliant as Kubrick's, photography-wise. Milsome was nominated for an Emmy for "Lonesome Dove".

[Dan Goulder]

Those guys proved that they could shoot well on other movies ("Greystoke", for example)

Interesting choice...I believe "Greystoke" was the first movie shot in the super 35mm (then called super Techniscope) format.

[David Mullen ASC]

I only saw the 70mm prints of "Greystoke" which were directly blown-up from the original Super-35 negative, as were the 70mm prints of "Howard's End" and "Remains of the Day". Risky to the negative, but the prints looked great.

[Leo Anthony Vale]

Interesting choice...I believe "Greystoke" was the first movie shot in the super 35mm (then called super Techniscope) format.

 

---Might really be 'Jailhouse Rock' then called CinemaScope/ process lenses by Panavision.

 

Or the soviet movies shot in Universal format.

 

---LV

[Tom Bays]

With so many set ups in such a short time...what is communication with the director like. Is there anytime for disagreements? I can't imagine 50 setups can be planned that tightly?

[David Mullen ASC]

With so many set ups in such a short time...what is communication with the director like. Is there anytime for disagreements? I can't imagine 50 setups can be planned that tightly?

 

Oh sure they can -- I drew 53 panels of storyboards for that day, not that we followed them exactly. Of course, when we planned the scenes, we didn't know they'd all be piled onto one shooting day.

[Hal Smith]

I just read that "Akeelah and the Bee"'s script was a Nicholl Fellowship winner. How cool is that?