Wednesday, October 24, 2007

LEVERAGE: Production Day 6

Yeah, we're a little behind posting. A bunch of 15 hour days in a row'll do that to you. We'll catch up.

Rollout -- 11:00 am


On today's schedule, the Frank Gehry designed Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millenium Park is the background for a couple menacing phone calls and escapes.

There are two problems -- well more than two, but two that haunt you continually rather than just jumping out and kneecapping you at random -- with shooting outdoors. Weather and daylight. If you're shooting outside and it's raining, you are SOL, kiddos. The soul-deadening same-ness of the Los Angeles climate is one of the reasons the film and television industry wound up based there. Constant light and rain-free weeks at a time of 76 degrees make a shooting schedule happy.

The weather on this pilot is not only excellent but confounding. Chicago continues to toss freakishly warm weather at us on our outside days.

The insatiable, unstoppable bitch goddess daylight, on the other hand, is our issue today. As mentioned, productions must give X number of hours off each night for turnaround, before you can have the crew and actors back on the set. Up to this point, going a bit late each night is easily compensated by just pushing call an hour or so every day. The dominos, however, have brought us to a twelve noon call

But here, the cumulative effect is brutal. We're shooting outside, so we need as many hours of daylight as possible. However, pushing the call on the previous days have forced us to a twelve noon start. Ordinarily we'd have scheduled outside shooting early in the week to avoid this issue, but scheduling issues forced us into this arrangement. As a result the day starts at a full run. Tick tick tick, every delay, every time a tourist waves in the back of a shot, every time a camera battery goes down, every fire engine siren and hovering helicopter, precious daylight burns that just ain't coming back. Doesn't matter what your budget is, how much money you have to spend -- you can't buy daylight at an exterior location.

This is one of the little truisms I toss at younger TV writers who are not yet tired f my pedantic nature: "There's no reason to panic until you're burning daylight." Then, frikkin' PANIC.

What's particularly nasty in this location are the buildings in the background. You can light the hell out of people standing outside as evening hits, and after color correction and some futzing the scene will read as bright as noon. Problem is, after a certain hour the lights come on in the buildings in the background. See?


Once those are on, it's impossible to pull the trick. As bright as you make your scene, you can't hide those lights. Not to mention, none of the footage you shot earlier in the day will match. Often, even if you angle the shot low enough to dodge buildings, you still need to deal with the city's streetlights.

And Chicago's streetlights come on before sunset.

By the time magic hour creeps in, we are well and truly toast. We get almost everything, with the last missing piece easily transferred to another location. Skin of our teeth. Of course, moving that piece to another location creates headaches for the 1st AD as he makes the schedule. But that's his thrill.

Once dark hits, we break for lunch. (first meal's always called lunch, no matter the time) The company moves to a local Irish bar -- Chief O'Neill's Pub.

By the way, if I lived anywhere within a hundred miles of Chief O'Neill's pub, I would drink there every night. Just saying. The DP Dave Connell and I damn near wound up trying to buy the place.

Nearby is a theater where the team recruits its last member. Most of the actors are released for the night, leaving only Chris Kane to do his flashback sequence. The Irish bar doubles for a flashback moment, standing in for a seedy underground bar in Belgrade.


Add a couple Eurotrash ponytails and some nine mils, the atmosphere is complete. After a nice bit of cool-guy thrashing, the place is riged for a lighting effect. Standing outside in what is now a steady downpour, we watch as the lighting department wires the windows to create the illusion of interior gunfire. This is trickier than it sounds. How fast is gunfire? Too slow, it looks like nothing is happening. The last thing you want is desultory violence. Too fast and it's unbelieveable.

After we wrap, the owner gives us a pint. That'll hep me get to sleep, because I'm bloody wired and it is --


Roll-in -- 2:00 am

43 comments:

Unknown said...

I hate you and love you Rogers. Well that will inspire to get through till wrap tonight.

Funny thing, the first script I wrote has a seen in an Irish pub in Chicago.

Glad things are going so well.

Anonymous said...

While you're in town, check out Corcoran's in front of the Second City on North and Wells. And right around the corner is the Old Town Ale House - cheap drinks, shady locale, and a jukebox fulla jazz.

Adam Freeman said...

John - know you are crazy busy, but if you have a sec, this is fun. I tagged you and linked from my site.
Tag.

NY Expat said...

Second the Old Town Ale House recommendation. Good times.

I beg to differ with you on the "all meat, all the time" cuisine options here in Chicago. Sure, if you go somewhere like Al's or Portillo's that's what you'll get, but there's plenty of other options if that's not what you want.

Now, on the other hand, since you were in the neighborhood I have to recommend you go to Hot Dougs. Very, very tasty.

Patrick J. Rodio said...

15 hour days are brutal, but it's not all that bad. You could be digging ditches.

Cool post, look forward to the next.

Anonymous said...

Every picture with exterior day scenes should have an equal number of scenes inside a trailer. That way, poof! Instant cover set.

Unknown said...

15 hour days are brutal, but it's not all that bad. You could be digging ditches.

Literally every person who's ever worked with me has at some point heard me say "Hey, it ain't moving boxes." Unlike some people who went to film school, I had a couple real jobs. And remember.

Steve in Iowa said...

John, this is off topic, but I finally saw Transformers. (Having a 6-year old and 2-year old means fewer date nights at the movie). It was really great. I noticed all the clever homage moments to the cartoon series ("one shall stand, one shall fall"--awesome). Just really well done all the way around. It has me excited for Leverage.

Unknown said...

Yeah, I had a PA talking one day about the long hours. I told him it could be worse, he could have a real job. He thought this was real work. I tried to explain to him what it is like to work a 12 -15 hour day doing air conditioning in New Orleans in the summer. Still not sure he got it then.

chrisc said...

Tap tap...

Is this thing on?

When you coming back Rogers? I just finished up two feature films back to back as a 1st AD and here I am commenting. And you've got one little itty bitty television show and you're gone for days? Jeez Louise.

Guess they don't make writers like they used to.

All of which is to say, get back to posting will you?

Unknown said...

Come on Chris, he's not just a writer; he's a producer. He probably sent his post in to the production office and told some Office PA to type it for him and post it.

We kid because we love Rogers.

Anonymous said...

Hey,John. Been waiting for some strike-related posts and how it will affect you personally.

Check out this comment thread if you haven't seen it yet:

"Box Up Personal Items When You Leave Work Thursday": WGA's Strike Checklist

Kidsis said...

Hi John, hope you're kicking ass!

Totally sympathize with not being able to post the good stories from set. I'm working on the fine edit of my first feature that I wrote and directed. Thanks for all the inspiration! Buy you a beer back in LA sometime and tell you some stories with code names.

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