Cloud Symphony
Things are finally starting to slow down after the CLOUD SYMPHONY shoot. I'd hoped to be able to keep an actual production journal but unfortunately, was just too busy during the shoot. It was long and hard on a lot of different levels.
A little background...
I guess Shogo and I have been friends for almost ten years now, and a lot of the basis of that friendship has really been cinema -- both watching films and making them. But we didn't get really serious about things until a couple of years ago. I started seriously writing screenplays and he made CHARLIE CHARLIE. Then we both worked together with John Howell on FOR HER and BLIND TELLS. This year things have been moved up a few notches. CLOUD SYMPHONY was shot on Super 16 with an actual professional crew and SEX MACHINE will be an ambitious feature length project. A lot of things are coming together on a lot of different levels and it will be interesting to see what happens in the near future.
We've been prepping CLOUD SYMPHONY for at least a year now. At first it was going to be a quickie digital production. When our intitial casting sessions were fruitless, Shogo decided to shoot it in Japanese with Japanese actors. We managed to find two great actors thanks to our new casting director and shogo's new girlfriend Masami. Gradually as word got out about the project, we found ourselves with a crew, a whole truck full of equipment and a bunch of film donated by Lone Star productions and Kodak.
Everything is essentially a blur, but I will try to break down what happened...
Day One - Thursday
We shot in a couple of cheap motels on Lincoln Boulevard that I had rented the night before. Surprisingly, we didn't get kicked out -- another benefit of doing these productions in OKC. We showed up at 6:00 and were shooting by 7:00. John and Mike from Lone Star brought a whole truck of equipment. Lance recorded sound. The hallway was filled with equipment. Doors were slamming. Mike removed the bathroom lights and replaced it with practicals (I think). These guys were so good and worked so efficiently that there was really little for me to do. It was a little overwhelming when Shogo and I are both used to schlepping our own equipment around. But these guys are absolute pros and sometimes the best thing to do is get out of the way. The people at the second motel got a little suspicious. It was a smaller motel and it was harder to be inconspicous. But they were okay with it when they were assured we weren't shooting porn. And having Steven there to schmooze them always helps.
After the motels we tried to get an exterior at a gas station, but a fairly heavy thunderstorm moved in. We managed to get the equipment moved under a metal roof, but it was quickly becoming clear that shooting just wasn't going to happen. We cancelled shooting for the day and headed home. Later that night we had dinner at Steven's parents. It was a great dinner but Shogo was a little frazzled planning the next days shoot. He was attempting a LOT of scenes for a four day shoot on 16mm and it began to look like some screenplay restructuring was in order.
Day 2 - Friday
Still cloudy as hell - and cold. The weather was not cooperating -- remember this movie is called CLOUD SYMPHONY -- that means we need fluffy pretty clouds. We managed to get some shots in the middle of a field. I headed into town and picked up Subway sandwiches for everybody.
After lunch, Mike built a rig on the back of a 4-wheeler so John could get on the back with a Steadicam and get some footage of our actors on their scooter. It worked like a charm. Then we hauled ass over to Steven's neighborhood to grab some footage on a hill before the clouds totally dissipated. Then it was off to a wheatfield just in time for some beautiful footage at golden hour. This may sound like we were just cruising around from place to place, but keep in mind we had about six vehicles including a huge truck and trailer. Each time we had to move, it meant packing up lots of c-stands, tripods, sandbags, reflectors, shiny boards etc. I tried my best to help out. But our gaffer, Mike, is THE MAN. Calm, cool and collected, he probably did about 80% of all the work being done and barely broke a sweat.
Our last sequence of the day was at a laundromat in Edmond and this is where things finally started to come together. We bribed the manager to let us hook a hose into one of their washing machines to make rain. We finally got to see our actress in our underwear. Shogo finally started to take charge and really direct. We got beautiful footage and by the end of the day we were beat. We wrapped around 2 a.m.
Day Three - Saturday
No surprise... everybody was pretty beat and moving a little slower after the killer previous day. We shot in more fields. First, a couple of sequences by an old windmill. When we arrived at the location, we had to drive around an accident scene where two teenagers had wrapped a car around a tree and killed themselves. Throughout the entire day, shady teenagers in wraparound shades driving old pickup trucks with loud mufflers were stopping by asking if we had heard about an accident. What was normally a quiet country road was pick-up truck central. Not the best conditions for shooting dialog, but we made it work. We then headed for another field for some scenes where our actors stopped their scooter and ran into the field.
We had started having some problems with the Vespa on Friday but they started getting worse today. There was a serious electrical system malfunction. Also, it had fallen over on the scooter earlier in the morning resulting in a few scratches and dents and a broken headlight. Steven kept working on it to keep it going and we got the shots.
We then put the Vespa on a trailer and attached the trailer to a pickup truck. Our actors got on the trailer and John got in the bed of the pickup truck with the Steadicam. They drove around country roads getting some great looking shots. But the scooter fell over again and basically quit running. We decided to call it a day and headed over to Andy's house for dinner.
Andy is a friend of Steven's and lives in the same neighborhood. He has a full service bar in his living room which I quickly found my way to. I sunk down into one of the comfortable bar chairs and they kept filling my glass up. It was incredibly relaxing and a very nice way to end the day.
Day Four - Sunday
Did I mention that we hired a bus for this shoot? Today was all the bus footage. I stayed in Arcadia with Leah and Masami and Richard (who was here to play the bus ticket salesman). We ate lunch and waited around for the crew to get back. The bus was overcrowded and very hot so the less people the better. We needed to meet a guy in Guthrie who was going to let us into the train station there. Richard and i hurried over there but the guy was a no show. We waited around for an hour before driving around town, finding the bowling alley and playing a few games of air hockey. The rest of the crew showed up a little after four and we knocked off the rest of the shots. The guy who was supposed to let us in didn't show up until six, which means it was too late to light the interiors we needed, so we improvised and shot the scene outside. I think it came out pretty well. We banged out the rest of the shots we needed including a different ending for the "american version" and a snap zoon of Shogo yelling "Brilliant!" in Japanese. And just as the sun set, we wrapped.
No after party for this one. Leah and I went to Chili's on the way home and I drank a lot of beer and devised plans for he future.
A little background...
I guess Shogo and I have been friends for almost ten years now, and a lot of the basis of that friendship has really been cinema -- both watching films and making them. But we didn't get really serious about things until a couple of years ago. I started seriously writing screenplays and he made CHARLIE CHARLIE. Then we both worked together with John Howell on FOR HER and BLIND TELLS. This year things have been moved up a few notches. CLOUD SYMPHONY was shot on Super 16 with an actual professional crew and SEX MACHINE will be an ambitious feature length project. A lot of things are coming together on a lot of different levels and it will be interesting to see what happens in the near future.
We've been prepping CLOUD SYMPHONY for at least a year now. At first it was going to be a quickie digital production. When our intitial casting sessions were fruitless, Shogo decided to shoot it in Japanese with Japanese actors. We managed to find two great actors thanks to our new casting director and shogo's new girlfriend Masami. Gradually as word got out about the project, we found ourselves with a crew, a whole truck full of equipment and a bunch of film donated by Lone Star productions and Kodak.
Everything is essentially a blur, but I will try to break down what happened...
Day One - Thursday
We shot in a couple of cheap motels on Lincoln Boulevard that I had rented the night before. Surprisingly, we didn't get kicked out -- another benefit of doing these productions in OKC. We showed up at 6:00 and were shooting by 7:00. John and Mike from Lone Star brought a whole truck of equipment. Lance recorded sound. The hallway was filled with equipment. Doors were slamming. Mike removed the bathroom lights and replaced it with practicals (I think). These guys were so good and worked so efficiently that there was really little for me to do. It was a little overwhelming when Shogo and I are both used to schlepping our own equipment around. But these guys are absolute pros and sometimes the best thing to do is get out of the way. The people at the second motel got a little suspicious. It was a smaller motel and it was harder to be inconspicous. But they were okay with it when they were assured we weren't shooting porn. And having Steven there to schmooze them always helps.
After the motels we tried to get an exterior at a gas station, but a fairly heavy thunderstorm moved in. We managed to get the equipment moved under a metal roof, but it was quickly becoming clear that shooting just wasn't going to happen. We cancelled shooting for the day and headed home. Later that night we had dinner at Steven's parents. It was a great dinner but Shogo was a little frazzled planning the next days shoot. He was attempting a LOT of scenes for a four day shoot on 16mm and it began to look like some screenplay restructuring was in order.
Day 2 - Friday
Still cloudy as hell - and cold. The weather was not cooperating -- remember this movie is called CLOUD SYMPHONY -- that means we need fluffy pretty clouds. We managed to get some shots in the middle of a field. I headed into town and picked up Subway sandwiches for everybody.
After lunch, Mike built a rig on the back of a 4-wheeler so John could get on the back with a Steadicam and get some footage of our actors on their scooter. It worked like a charm. Then we hauled ass over to Steven's neighborhood to grab some footage on a hill before the clouds totally dissipated. Then it was off to a wheatfield just in time for some beautiful footage at golden hour. This may sound like we were just cruising around from place to place, but keep in mind we had about six vehicles including a huge truck and trailer. Each time we had to move, it meant packing up lots of c-stands, tripods, sandbags, reflectors, shiny boards etc. I tried my best to help out. But our gaffer, Mike, is THE MAN. Calm, cool and collected, he probably did about 80% of all the work being done and barely broke a sweat.
Our last sequence of the day was at a laundromat in Edmond and this is where things finally started to come together. We bribed the manager to let us hook a hose into one of their washing machines to make rain. We finally got to see our actress in our underwear. Shogo finally started to take charge and really direct. We got beautiful footage and by the end of the day we were beat. We wrapped around 2 a.m.
Day Three - Saturday
No surprise... everybody was pretty beat and moving a little slower after the killer previous day. We shot in more fields. First, a couple of sequences by an old windmill. When we arrived at the location, we had to drive around an accident scene where two teenagers had wrapped a car around a tree and killed themselves. Throughout the entire day, shady teenagers in wraparound shades driving old pickup trucks with loud mufflers were stopping by asking if we had heard about an accident. What was normally a quiet country road was pick-up truck central. Not the best conditions for shooting dialog, but we made it work. We then headed for another field for some scenes where our actors stopped their scooter and ran into the field.
We had started having some problems with the Vespa on Friday but they started getting worse today. There was a serious electrical system malfunction. Also, it had fallen over on the scooter earlier in the morning resulting in a few scratches and dents and a broken headlight. Steven kept working on it to keep it going and we got the shots.
We then put the Vespa on a trailer and attached the trailer to a pickup truck. Our actors got on the trailer and John got in the bed of the pickup truck with the Steadicam. They drove around country roads getting some great looking shots. But the scooter fell over again and basically quit running. We decided to call it a day and headed over to Andy's house for dinner.
Andy is a friend of Steven's and lives in the same neighborhood. He has a full service bar in his living room which I quickly found my way to. I sunk down into one of the comfortable bar chairs and they kept filling my glass up. It was incredibly relaxing and a very nice way to end the day.
Day Four - Sunday
Did I mention that we hired a bus for this shoot? Today was all the bus footage. I stayed in Arcadia with Leah and Masami and Richard (who was here to play the bus ticket salesman). We ate lunch and waited around for the crew to get back. The bus was overcrowded and very hot so the less people the better. We needed to meet a guy in Guthrie who was going to let us into the train station there. Richard and i hurried over there but the guy was a no show. We waited around for an hour before driving around town, finding the bowling alley and playing a few games of air hockey. The rest of the crew showed up a little after four and we knocked off the rest of the shots. The guy who was supposed to let us in didn't show up until six, which means it was too late to light the interiors we needed, so we improvised and shot the scene outside. I think it came out pretty well. We banged out the rest of the shots we needed including a different ending for the "american version" and a snap zoon of Shogo yelling "Brilliant!" in Japanese. And just as the sun set, we wrapped.
No after party for this one. Leah and I went to Chili's on the way home and I drank a lot of beer and devised plans for he future.
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