I need a Director of Photography for a feature.

[Guest Jeremy Hain]

It's a romantic comedy. It shoots July 7, 8, 14 in LA. Probably pickups in August. It's a non-union production, all interior shooting. I need some one who can make a big hotel meeting room look like a boardroom where 2 lawyers will negotiate with their clients. Fifty pages of dialogue happen here. I need someone who can make a hotel double-room suite look like three different kinds of living rooms. I need someone who can do a funny bathroom scene around a long mirror. I need someone who can focus around female nudity. I need someone who can shoot a living room scene around a air hockey table and really white walls. But, most importantly, I need someone who can make a digital camera with the 24 fps feature look like film, or, at least, good enough for the film transfer to look seamless. Hopefully, you will know a gaffer and sound guy who have their own equipment. I have two digital cameras with the 24 fps feature available. I will need a dolly that works well on various types of carpets. I have a budget for the director of photography, gaffer, and sound guy. All other assistant and helpers will need to be paid from that budget so if you need help and want to be paid decently, know people who want to break into the business as interns. If you can't find any, there will be several hands on set who just want to help out. So, you can teach people who are willing but don't know what to do, you might not need your own people. The craft services will be real. I won't be feeding twenty people with jelly beans and a slice of bread.

 

Reply if you're interested and you've had sufficient experience as a director of photography to know you're ready to author the visual presentation of this movie. Don't think it. Know it. This is a comedy, but I am very serious about its production. Thank you.

 

Jeremy Hain

[Nate Downes]

Sounds like you need more than a DoP. I've seen 4 jobs there.

 

Scary thing is, I've done all 4 before.

[Simon Miya]

I have to agree with Nate. Most of all, it sounds like you need a good production designer.

[David Mullen ASC]

I have to agree with Nate. Most of all, it sounds like you need a good production designer.

 

50 pages in three days is like over 16 pages a day. Even with two cameras, you have to be a real pro with a good crew to pull off that kind of pace. For the typical micro-budget indie crew, it's near-impossible unless you don't care much about the quality of the shots and just go for volume shooting. Dolly moves, for example, take time to get right. If I had to shoot 16 pages a day, I'd probably be avocating the available-light handheld Dogma-95 semi-documentary approach as the only feasible way of blowing through the coverage.

[Alessandro Machi]

I'd be careful when dealing with a hotel. I'm assume that the hotel knows about your shoot. As a general rule I don't recommend trying to be sneaky and sort of stroll in with your stuff unnoticed. About the only way that can work for you is if you actually rent a room and it's big enough to do your shooting without bothering anyone else, and that is the only shooting you will be doing there. Sneaky shoots just make the hotel's security division look bad if they don't know about the production until after it's started.

 

I'd also be really careful about the big hotel meeting room you may book. See what is booked around your meeting room and how close your room is to the actual entrance of the hotel. Usually hotels can create different size banquet rooms all next to each other, but they aren't sound proof. You could end up next door to a 50th anniversary wedding with a big band playing on the other side of the wall while you try and record your scenes.

 

If you try and get a sweetheart price, than don't expect any favors of any kind, what they book next door to your room is not something you will have any control over. What you could do is book an end meeting room, than book a smaller room next door where all of the prepping will go on. Your prep room now creates an added sound barrier to any possible noise coming from a banquet room further down the hallway.

 

DO NOT try and only book one meeting room for your shoot. You'll basically stop any advance prepping from going on because everyone will have to freeze during each and every take so they don't make any sounds. If only one set of doors leads to outside public sounds, you will again be screwed because nobody can go in and out as freely. For instance, a take ends and you want to do a quick rehearsal,

but the doors open because crew members have to get in and out and have already been waiting for the take to end, the doors open and all of those outside sounds waft in, this in turn causes more conversation inside as well. It's as if you've lost total control in an instant, all because the doors from your meeting room adjoin the outside and outside sounds you have no control over.

 

The bigger hotels may have a creative way to use all of their big hanging sliding doors to make double rooms out of single rooms with two sets of walls so people can exit the main place you are shooting without bringing in any new unwelcomed noise.

 

Finally, as has been already said above, background, background, background...dressing a background in a big hotel meeting room to make it look like a boardroom might end up being more expensive than finding a business that already sort of looks like what you want and renting out their facility over a weekend. However, having all the space you need at your disposal can be a great thing, especially for setting up the proper distances to the background and for lighting purposes.

 

Do realize though that the moment you call wrap from the first of your two day shoot, who pays for the down time the hotel may experience because they can't reconfigure the space you have taken over? No matter how nice and accommodating your sales rep is, there is a number cruncher lurking in the background who will go crazy if Hotel booking space is not available for rent and yet is also not being paid for by you because you consider it down time from the time you send everyone home from the first day until they return for the second day.

 

And see how far you are from the kitchen and all the sounds of the utensils clanging as they are being cleaned.

[Charles Haine]

Jeremy,

 

Take a look at my reel at www.charleshaine.com and feel free to contact me.

 

thank you

Charles Haine

[Charles Haine]

So, I took the above listed gig, and figured I would report back.

 

We shot the entire film over three days this past weekend, and had an enjoyable time throughout, wrapping about 30 minutes early every night, and enjoying leisurely lunches.

 

During pre-production Jeremy made it clear to me that he was much less focused on the visuals than on the acting and writing, and wanted to cover things simply so that the story would be clearly told in the dialogue, so we decided on DV over HD (to save on rental costs) and shot with 3 DVX camera's.

 

I had never done a project quite like this one before, lining up camera's, rolling them, and then stop and starting until we'd gone all the way through a 50 page scene, cutting rarely if at all. By necessity, the lighting had to be simple (no time to light, no time to do full rehearsals, etc.), but I feel like the main goal of the film was accomplished.

 

One or two of the shots ended up looking pretty good, too, though I would be reluctant to post anything until it's been color timed. Certainly not the best looking thing I've ever shot, but that wasn't the point; my job on this one was to create an area for the director to work with his actors unobstructed, and we achieved that.

 

Ch:H

[Tim O'Connor]

So, I took the above listed gig, and figured I would report back.

 

We shot the entire film over three days this past weekend, and had an enjoyable time throughout, wrapping about 30 minutes early every night, and enjoying leisurely lunches.

 

During pre-production Jeremy made it clear to me that he was much less focused on the visuals than on the acting and writing, and wanted to cover things simply so that the story would be clearly told in the dialogue, so we decided on DV over HD (to save on rental costs) and shot with 3 DVX camera's.

 

I had never done a project quite like this one before, lining up camera's, rolling them, and then stop and starting until we'd gone all the way through a 50 page scene, cutting rarely if at all. By necessity, the lighting had to be simple (no time to light, no time to do full rehearsals, etc.), but I feel like the main goal of the film was accomplished.

 

One or two of the shots ended up looking pretty good, too, though I would be reluctant to post anything until it's been color timed. Certainly not the best looking thing I've ever shot, but that wasn't the point; my job on this one was to create an area for the director to work with his actors unobstructed, and we achieved that.

 

Ch:H

 

 

Sounds like you got the job done! Glad you posted.