Testing Night Work

Spending much time on the visual effects.  Picked up some filters for day for night shooting, and did some tests in the park today with all the lenses.  Still have to work on the redscale for the nightmare.  Probably using undeveloped film sandwiched between to UV filters, or a UV and a skylight.  Up top is a day for night set up.  An opteka linear polarizer stacked onto an agfa circular polarizer with a tiffen 80A.  I underexposed significantly.  Turning the linear polarizer turns the combination into a variable neutral density filter.  Ostensibly, turning the both the linear and circular, can reduce or enhance reflections off non-metal, to give nice negative space.

For this I used a Hoya 80B.  The Tiffen looks brighter.  

Editing Workflow

I finally found the settings to make the 4:2:2 footage work in my FCP.  I'll be shooting MJPEG, rather than AVCHD.  It'd be nice if there was a stable 1920x1080 setting in the hack I used, but I couldn't find one.  I'll be shooting 1536x864.  That was the largest 4:2:2 MJPEG I could find.  I don't know how that would stand up to theatre resolution though.

I want to put together the rest of the balloon film.  I shot the dream sequence the other day, -that reminds me, I have to revise my ad at Mandy.  I need someone for the role of the fairy.  Don't know how that's going to film, but I want to try it.  I have to make sure it can stand up to scrutiny.  The redscale looks powerful.  I'm shooting it through two layers of unexposed, developed film.  Gives it a thick quality.

Casting, Ads

The production is getting a wind behind it.  I've put an ad on Mandy, and another on NYCasting.  Also sent an email to Ella.  Still haven't heard from Rachel, but we'll see.  I put an ad for Prudence, and it'd suck to have to re-cast this role, but shit.  It'd suck.  Haven't gotten any responses yet, which I'd depended on, but I forgot you have to wait until they approve the ads.  I'll put one on Craigslist too.  I want to get used to that.

I'm also thinking about the production itself. I know it'd be great if some of the leaves fell off of the trees.  We'd have more visibility in that forest.  But that may also be a weakpoint for shooting at Pelham Bay Park.

Another thing I'm thinking about is the feature itself.  I'm blocking about what to do about Jarrod's role. I got in an argument with the lead, and we haven't spoken for some time.  We'd be working on the production over maybe 3 months, hopefully less, but it'd have to be someone that has some staying power.  I could begin scheduling this, while I'm waiting for  the girls, the only thing is if I wait, I may lose what I have now.  It'd sure be good to wait until there was some overcast.  In the meantime, I can begin breaking down some of those scenes as well.