The Blustery Day: First Day On Set

Kris is always looking for projects so when he told me that he was asked to film a student directed short in South Carolina I wasn't very surprised and when he asked me if I wanted to come I was excited to be of help to him in this endeavor. This is of course how I felt before we hit the road.  One part of film is being available to travel which I love except for the 27+ hours in the car.

We left on Wednesday March 4th and arrived in the small town of Camden South Carolina on Friday March 6th. Camden is small but beautiful. The simplistic atmosphere lets you know that you are in the deep south it is a whole. The town is filled with beautiful historic buildings and houses which now brings me to the set of "The Blustery Day."

The set is a magnificently built house, the owner actually built it himself, to describe the entire house would be a post in its self so I will post a few photos so you can get an idea of how beautiful it is. We were very impressed when we arrived. It was as if we were arriving at Captain Von Traps home in "The Sound Of Music."

After we arrived on set we met the director for the first time,in person that is,  received some sweet tea from the owners wife and then received the grand tour. After getting a tour of a house this beautiful the term Grand Tour made a lot more sense to me. We then jumped right in to spiking the set.

For anyone who doesn't know, spiking is when you take every camera angle you are going to want and mark where the camera is on the set with tape. Most independent filmmakers that I have worked with have done this while shooting but to save time we decided to spike the day before. Having all the spiking done before hand will save us time so the director can work with his actor and Kris and I can work on getting the shots perfect. To be able to spike the set this quickly the director and the cinematographer have to be on the same page and the director needs to know what he wants. Luckily our director Evan is a great planner and knew almost every shot and he and Kris hit it off almost immediately after meeting.

Even though we have the luxury of a director who knows what he wants, since the house is so big it took us a very long time to track down all the shots we had to get a job that would have probably taken an hour on a small set took us three hours and we didn't get all the spiking done since there are still a few shots that the director is unsure of. After spiking we looked for a few last minute props got dinner, met the actor Kris and the director chatted about a few plans for the short. Our first day on set was a day of planning which is important to make sure your film is a success.

Thus far I have learned that when it comes time to film make sure you have all your planning done before hand. When you are filming on a budget it makes it that much more simple and will save you money in the long run. I have also learned that even though you may have planned everything give yourself room to be creative and never be afraid to improvise.

Watch for more on this weeks filming adventure and enjoy this picture of me being tired of the road!

By Anne Orban 

Blogger and Photo Journalist 

Ipsum Films