Details, Details

Matthew Lillard, deep in thought on the set of FAT KID RULES THE WORLD in Seattle.


Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Brian Durkin's THE TERRAIN (part 2)

by Karen Worden

Editor's Note: Since I can't be everywhere at once, we've started expanding A Year Without Rent to other places and people. This is the second post from Film Courage's very own Karen Worden. Enjoy. - Lucas


Even in LA, where a facade of cool is associated with arriving fashionably late, being the last one to a party is a strange feeling.  On the last day of my volunteer set photography gig for The Terrain a few Sundays ago, this thought plagued me.   David and I hurriedly rushed from our show with Chloe Crespi and Jonas Elrod, documentary filmmakers behind Wake Up, to an apartment in Hollywood where the final shoot of The Terrain by Director Brian Durkin took place.  The shoot had begun at 7:00 a.m.  When we arrived, it was close to 1:45 p.m.

As we glanced around for the apartment complex street number, a voice shouted down to us from an upstairs window, alerting us to the shoot location.  We approached a small courtyard with a pool, reminiscent of Melrose Place (circa 1992).  We walked up the stairs to a bright and window filled location, home to PA Wesley Stiller.

As we entered the beautiful apartment, the cast and crew were breaking for lunch. After a short round of “hellos,” people gulped back their sodas, crumbled up chip bags, and shooting resumed.

Before we arrived on set that day another crew member, Chris Zatta, had shot this great picture of Christopher Stanley from Mad Men, who plays Crane in The Terrain.  Christopher Stanley had already been wrapped since our arrival.  We wanted to add this shot to complete the vibe on set.  Really bummed that I missed this.  Great shot Zatta.



As shooting began, Marisa Petroro (Deal or No Deal, Desperate Housewives, Dexter) and Todd Cattell (The Closer, Justified, Goodbye Promise) set up their scene on a living room couch, lovingly embraced, discussing future ‘couple’ plans.  Marisa and Todd had amazing chemistry together, staying in character and keeping the moment alive even when the camera was off.





I felt awkward shooting such a private moment between these two, like some sort of intrusive voyeur.  Both Marisa and Todd are true professionals and never seemed to notice me there (or at least I never caught on).  They sat together embracing each other as a loving couple with history between them.



DP Casey Feldt worked with Director Brian Durkin in setting up the shots, fine tuning every detail.





PA Wesley Stiller caught a few moments between takes to fan Marisa and Todd with a newspaper.   When not working, Wesley caught a few chapters of Gary V’s incredible book ‘Crush It.‘  PA’s know the value of building your own brand.  The view from the living room window surveying the Hollywood Hills was amazing.  It was easy to pick which dream house you wanted.  As someone on set said “that house right there is where I’ll be in 5 years.  The house at the top of the hill is where I’ll be in ten.”  If this was my place, I’d probably get little work done, watching outside for hours.  Should have probably snapped a photo of the view.

Wesley was co-collaborator with Brian Durkin on their web series Sails Men.



I was in awe of Wesley’s mad respect for Magnum P.I., as a black and white 8 x 10 photo of Tom Selleck graced the kitchen decor of his Hollywood pad.  Personally, I was more of a fan of the cop show Hunter (Fred Dryer and Stepfanie Kramer) growing up, but I gave the appropriate homage due to a man of Tom’s clout by snapping this photo, surrounded by everyone’s on-set beverages.



Director Brian Durkin zooms in close for the last few scenes of the day.



Todd and Marisa stayed calm and in character as rock star PA Kyle Kao prepared us for the last shot.





Director Brian Durkin works to emphasize a moment in the scene, as DP Casey Feldt surveys and Producer Vivian Lee snaps a quick photo.



The crew engages in viewing the right angle.



In between takes, The Terrain cast and crew stopped to watch a rough cut from the first two days of the film, edited by DP Casey Feldt.  Wanting to watch, I listened instead to the oohs and aahs of onlookers, snapping this scene.

Air conditioning would have ruined the sound on this summer afternoon.  Focused on the shots, the sweat drenched room never slowed us down.



Brian gathered everyone together for a group photo. The final shot of the day received a round of cheer and applause.  Happiness is apparent.

As we gathered our belongings,  Marisa, Todd and I talked briefly as everyone packed up.  We discussed random things like how the film White Oleander was so overlooked and deserves more credit.  We discussed brilliant actors who (again) were overlooked and how the view out of the back bedroom would make a great opening shot for another film.

Thanks to Brian, Todd, Marisa, Casey, Vivian, Kyle, Wesley, and the whole rest of the crew for allowing me on set to snap photos.  Looking forward to the next adventure.  Thank you, Lucas, for inspiring me with the idea.



Karen Worden is a (very) part-time actress, co-host/co-producer of the Noon (Pacific) Sunday radio show Film Courage on LA Talk Radio.com, as well as co-owner of FilmCourage.com, along with husband David Branin.  Each Sunday, Karen and David interview filmmakers and content creators from around the globe on surviving and thriving the entertainment industry.  Karen, David and their three cats live in Los Angeles, California.  Follow them both on www.FilmCourage.com, @FilmCourage, @DavidBranin and @KarenWorden.

Why Your Klout Score is Completely Worthless and Super Valuable.

By now you've no doubt heard of Klout, that magic mumbo jumbo number that condenses your social media influence into one simple number. Everyone with a Twitter account has a Klout score (even you!) and you can easily kill a hour or so checking out people's scores. It's essentially a way to compare your manhood without the awkward part where you have to take off your pants.

People either love it or hate it, and here's the dirty little secret: they're both right.

On the one hand, it's completely worthless. My score went up when I added my Facebook page, and it fluctuates based on how much I tweet in a given rolling time frame, even though any idiot knows that just because you don't tweet for a couple of days, doesn't mean your influence has gone down. People have longer memories than that.

Also, there's the problem where you can compare the numbers and realize they're just flat-out wrong. For example, I have a higher score than Sheri Candler. I am not more influential than Sheri. I doubt I ever will be. The fact that I have a higher score than her is idiotic to the nth degree.

So it's completely worthless, then. Moving on. Except that it isn't.

It's also really important.

More and more every day, influence and importance isn't dictated by how smart or insightful or helpful you are. That helps, sure, but it plays second fiddle to the general perception of how other people view you.

Think about it. You hear from someone that Phil Holbrook is a taste maker. You have no idea who that is. Are you going to spend 5 hours researching him? Of course not. You're going to Google him. You're going to look at his Twitter account. And you might check him out around the web. One of those places could be Klout. And if you aren't checking it out on Klout, then be assured that other people are. And to them, the Klout score will mean a lot. Phil is a 50, which is pretty good, but it's lower than Sheri, which is lower than mine. So that person will assume the ranking is Me --> Sheri --> Phil, when in fact it's more like Sheri --> Phil --> Me. Think of it this way: it's kind of like your Twitter ratio, only without the math.

And, sure, someone will figure out your real influence anyway. But maybe they won't. People are busy. A super easy metric like Klout is a pretty lazy way to figure something out.




Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Day 3 of Paul Osborne's FAVOR

All through Day 2, one of the chief topics of conversation was how to shoot a scene with prop glass.

Let me explain. In the scene, an actor has to throw a wine bottle against a door, thereby breaking it into a gazillion little pieces. Generally speaking, actors don't like it if you ask them to deal with real broken glass, what with it's ability to draw blood and everything. So, you have to deal with prop glass--the sort of stuff they use in the scenes where the stuntman jumps through a window. We have one molded in the shape of a wine bottle.

But only one.



We're also (naturally) shooting in a one camera setup. Do the math and we've got exactly one chance to get everything perfect. One. You never want only one shot at getting something on film.

So what do you do?



You rehearse the hell out of it. You make sure all of the actors know exactly what's going to happen. You make sure the crew knows their moves in detail. You leave as little to chance as humanly possible. And even then, you're skating on some thin ice. Remember that even after doing a perfect take, very often a director will opt for a safety, just in case something goes wrong that no one spotted.

One take is scary. One take where the key prop is going to be destroyed is even worse.



If you're smart, you start looking around for contingency plans. Newell, our stills photographer, is using a 7D, and while that isn't really the same as the AF100 Paul is using, it's not that different in the great scheme of things. Close enough that should something happen to the footage on the AF100 (a very remote possibility), the footage on the 7D could work in a pinch. So, we set Newell up next to camera to record it as Option B.

Me, I'm recording it on my camera in case something goes wrong so we'll have footage of the fuck up.



Of course, it goes off without a hitch. Nothing ever goes wrong when you're prepared for it to go wrong. It's always when the camera is in the other room or something.

But it's the preparation that's key.



The other big event is that we're being visited by one of the FAVOR Kickstarter backers. Sort of. One of the backer rewards was that the backer got to do a 1 hour Skype session during filming. What that means in reality is that a backer is live on Skype via Paul's iPad as we film. Remember Bruno, the garbage man who would carry Oscar the Grouch around? Being in charge of the iPad is kind of like that. He gets passed around, and while I can't speak for him, it seems like a pretty sweet perk. He watches the takes, and while lights are being tweaked, the actors talk to him about life, the project, and what drew him to back it.



This is the sort of thing that we should all be doing. It's a personal touch. People love it. Provided your equipment and location make such a thing possible (it might, for example, have been tricky on UP COUNTRY, but when your primary location is a house with wifi? It's a no-brainer.

At least it should be. As common sense as getting out that second camera, just in case the first one fails at a critical time.


Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

I Slept Here #35: Seattle, WA

Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Day 2 of Paul Osborne's FAVOR

You know how I said it's generally a bad idea to film where you live? Well…here we go again. We're filming at Paul Osborne's house in Burbank, and while it's generally not a good idea, the house has one advantage that may be helping things along: it's at the end of a dead end street, which means that sound is only coming from one direction and traffic is scant.

Never under-estimate the power of good sound in a location.

In the narrative, Paul's house functions as the residence of our lead, Blayne Weaver, and the word is that we'll be at the location for a couple of days. Makes sense.



Fitting in with Paul's minimalist, DIY approach to FAVOR, the interior lighting kit is pretty simple. We've got some LED's that we can gel to whatever we need, but primarily, he's lighting the interiors with soft lights. That means that we're using those china balls and upright lights you buy at IKEA, only with better bulbs inside. It's one of those approaches that either works really well or not at all. They're super easy to set up and move around, but you can't really put a lot of direction into the light source. It's a trade-off. Also, actors like soft lights because they even our skin issues and blemishes.

The downside of these lights can be scary. You sometimes can't control them very well, especially if you want to do something specific (although there are ways around it). But the thing is, Paul knows this. He's shooting the film himself. So, above all else, this is what he wants his film to look like. And that's the most important thing.



I may not be the best grip in the world. Part of the reason I decided to do A Year Without Rent was that I wanted to learn more about how various departments and jobs on a film set functioned. You know, the ones that aren't "director" or "producer". I'm a firm believer that the more you know about what everyone on your set is doing, the better director you'll be. It's common sense, right?

Point being, this is a lighting kit that's well within my range. I know how to use all of these lights. There's no learning curve. And as small as this crew is, this is immediately beneficial. And by small, I mean really small. Joe Pezzula, the sound guy, also seems to be the lighting guy (along with Paul). This is the sort of set where it's clear that "an extra set of hands" might be a bit of an understatement.



We shoot in the living room, which is a little tricky because Blayne Weaver is drinking real wine instead of juice, and after a bit, that tends to add up. Then, some bedroom scenes where the LED lights prove to be a little tricky. We're trying to put enough light in the hall, but it keeps spilling into the door frame, which is too hot. The space is tight, with barely enough room to fit the stand before it ends up in the shot. Not enough room to flag off the excess light. It takes a bit, but we figure it out.



It's indie film. We always figure it out.


Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

I Slept Here #34: Seattle, WA

Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Duke Silver

Remember this album? Yeah, me neither.



Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

I Slept Here #33: Seattle, WA

Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

I Slept Here #32: San Francisco, CA

Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Headphones

This photo tells you nothing. But it is kind of serene, in a way.




Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Expectations vs. Reality

Tomorrow (the 17th) gets us to the 5 month mark of A Year Without Rent. I've talked before about what a tricky thing it was to budget and project, so let's compare, shall we?

My thinking was that it'd be easier to find projects, and therefore would be able to find projects close together, especially on the East Coast. So the thinking was that we would probably average 600-800 miles traveled a month. Figure 1-2 weeks for a project, maybe some longer. Some in the same city (as the easiest way to find a project is to actually be in the city). 800 miles a month seemed like a good estimate.

That would put us at 4,000 miles at the 5 month mark. Maybe 5,000 to be safe.

So far, I've traveled over 13,400 miles. Yes, 13,400 miles. Trust me, that's a lot. And it's going to go up pretty fast.

Our worst-case scenario for travel put us at 1,500 miles a month, or 7,500 miles so far. And, you may have noticed that gas prices shot up almost a dollar nation-wide from when we were doing our math. That doesn't help.

The other projection was that we'd be able to line up sponsors, which just hasn't materialized, no matter how many doors we bang on (and we're adding a door-banger very soon. Keep your eyes peeled).

So, as always, we're exploring our options. We'll go as long as we can go, and fit in as much as we can fit in. It's a real 24/7 operation (literally) and I think we're doing pretty good, all things considered.

As always, you can help.

Keep us on the road.

Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Brian Durkin's THE TERRAIN

by Karen Worden

Editor's Note: Obviously, I cannot be everywhere at once. With that in mind, I've started reaching out to fellow members of the film community who might be interested in bringing the AYWR experience to a film shoot near them. Up first: Film Courage's very own Karen Worden. Enjoy. - Lucas

A couple of our friends launched a Kickstarter campaign in May for a short film entitled The Terrain.  It’s almost every day that people we know (and many more that we do not know) reach out to us for help with their crowd-funding campaigns.  (You can get word out about your project through FilmCourage.com by submitting an article to us. Email us for info). 

You can imagine our surprise when we heard about THE TERRAIN Kickstarter campaign through the gossip grapevine after they had eclipsed their $2500 goal.  We’ve known Brian Durkin and Todd Cattell on a personal level for years, yet they did not press us for assistance.

After we discovered the link, Brian, Todd, and producers Vivian Lee and Matthew Blanco had already exceed their goal in the first few days.  The train was in the station and those who wanted to ride could get on if they wanted.

Long story short, THE TERRAIN not only met its goal, it kicked its goal’s behind raising $7,310 in 30 days, exceeding the initial $2,500 goal.  THE TERRAIN is a narrative short film written by Brian Durkin, starring Todd Cattell and Marisa Petroro, about two friends and fellow soldiers who return from war, broken and vulnerable, recruited into a covert Los Angeles assignment.

Flash forward a month.  I receive a new camera.  Being thoroughly inspired by (i.e., copying) Lucas McNelly’s ‘A Year Without Rent’ campaign and its accompanying pictures, I wanted to take set photos.

I e-mailed director Brian shortly after getting the camera, inquiring if he needed a volunteer set photographer.  He thankfully obliged and after several e-mail correspondences sent me a very organized call sheet.  Eavesdropping on Lucas a few weekends ago, he mentioned to a group of listeners that an organized call sheet is sign of a great production.  Even better when it mentions the weather report.

I had trouble sleeping the night before the first shoot.  Yes, I was just a ‘volunteer,’ but what if I forgot the camera battery?  What if the photos were not usable?  Being a person who rarely gets a good night sleep, I tossed and turned on one of those hot June nights where terrors were hard to fend off.

When the alarm sounded a few hours later, I wasn’t quite in the mood to be social, let alone take set photos.  But David prompted me to get going, and after downing some strong coffee, we drove to the shoot location (a little late and slightly ornery).

As we pulled up to the set location, the shoot was already in progress.  I hate being late to things.  Putting my ego aside, I readied the camera.  This was my first shot as I quietly made my way to the set, shoot in progress.


Day One: Exterior shots of The Terrain


Day One: Exterior shots of The Terrain

The neighborhood was a mixture of cute little houses, one with so much ‘stuff’ in the front yard that someone on set affectionately referred to it as the "Sanford and Son" house.  Another house across the street had a bunch of cute kittens and their mother cat in the yard.  Cute cats in the yard always make me feel at home. 

While on set things flowed so well that I didn’t have time to be nervous or tired.  The producer, Vivian Lee, walked by and I snapped a quick photo of her on the way to replenish some essential set supplies. 


Day One: The Terrain producer, Vivian Lee

Inside I watched actors Sarena Khan (as Neda) and Brian Burnett (as Reza) take their cues from director Brian Durkin.  The day called for a mixture of interior and exterior shots, with production halting momentarily for a blaring car stereo and car alarm.




Day One: Actors Sarena Khan and Brian Burnett

DP Casey Feldt always amazed me how he prepared for shots and (at times) was able to balance a cigarette in his mouth.  He seemed to know instinctively which angles he wanted.


Day One: DP Casey Feldt

For day two of the shoot on the Terrain, David and I drove from our radio show (right after our interview) with director Leonard Zelig, producer Roberto Alcazar and crew of SubHysteria, not even grabbing lunch.  THE TERRAIN's second day of shooting took place at an old warehouse in Downtown Los Angeles. 

The warehouse was intriguing, dusty and a little scary. Many rooms and enclaves inside this old ammunition storage facility just didn’t ‘feel’ right.  The energy was off.  However, the energy on set was great, although we were under time pressure to wrap at 5:00 p.m. sharp. The building manager would arrive at the property to lock up or tack on the appropriate billing for extra time.  It was now 3:00 p.m.  Things were rolling fast.  Air conditioning was non-existent and we were well in the midst of an L.A. summer.


Day Two: The Terrain interior warehouse shots as actor Todd Cattell
readies his aim

My brief time on ‘Day Two’ of THE TERRAIN went by fast and furious, but shots were made.  Although hurried, we made shots were made just in time.  As the building manager arrived to lock up a few minutes before 5:00 p.m. he told us about the spirits and ghosts which befriended him at night inside the warehouse.  He explained that most of the entities were friendly and called him by name, asking questions about ‘who was that guy here today?’  He seemed at ease while he told this story.  Whether true or not, I didn’t care.  It fit perfectly into the day and I didn’t want to ruin this experience.


Day Two: The Terrain interior warehouse shots as rock star PA Kyle Kao surveys the shot

Director Brian Durkin and crew mentioned that they picked this warehouse especially knowing the exterior shots would receive little disruption from too much traffic.  Unbeknownst to them, a movie/commercial shoot of some type was taking place on this Sunday afternoon just block away, rerouting traffic right by our location.  So it was busy with cars whizzing by and slowing down to eye our exterior shoot.  Funny how when a camera is out people can’t help but strain their necks to see if anyone famous is around.


Day Two: The Terrain exterior shots, waiting for traffic in between scenes


Day Two:  The Terrain exterior shot of warehouse as actor Todd Cattell (Major Jacob Kohl ) waits for his cue


Day Two: The Terrain exterior as shots are checked

As I got back into the car at the end of the day, I felt empowered, satisfied with the photos I took, and happy that some great friends put together a first-class production.  I watched first hand that you don’t need to wait for the phone to ring or an e-mail to validate your worth.  You can make it happen on your own with proper planning, choosing the right people for your team, and taking the ‘Black Swan’ approach of not being too rigid at the risk stopping yourself in the process.


Karen Worden is a (very) part-time actress, co-host/co-producer of the Noon (Pacific) Sunday radio show Film Courage on LA Talk Radio.com, as well as co-owner of FilmCourage.com, along with husband David Branin.  Each Sunday, Karen and David interview filmmakers and content creators from around the globe on surviving and thriving the entertainment industry.  Karen, David and their three cats live in Los Angeles, California.  Follow them both on www.FilmCourage.com, @FilmCourage, @DavidBranin and @KarenWorden.

CXL Photos

Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.

Day 1 of Paul Osborne's FAVOR

I'm not entirely sure where the rumor originated that I wouldn't take A Year Without Rent to Los Angeles. Sure, one of the project's primary goals is to see indie film outside of the major hot spots, but who's to say that you can't be outside of a major hot spot, but right in their neighborhood? It seems obvious to me that some really interesting indie filmmakers would exist in Los Angeles. It'd be pretty impossible for them not to.

Also, I know a lot of people in LA. And the weather is nice.



So that's kind of how I ended up at a place called Chili John's in Burbank to work on Paul Osborne's second narrative feature FAVOR. I qualify it with "narrative" because you probably know Paul from his documentary work, the seminal indie film documentary OFFICIAL REJECTION, which chronicles the festival experience for his film TEN 'TIL NOON.

I have not seen it, but a lot of people think I'll really like it. Probably because one of my pet peeves is the festival system.

I kind of imagined that Paul, being an indie film celebrity, would have this massive crew of people working on his next project, essentially just to be there. But when I arrive on set, it's pretty clear that Paul's going a different direction and has a skeleton crew. The light kit is equally small. It's surprising at first, but makes sense when you think about it. FAVOR, a film about a guy who accidentally ends up with a dead body he needs help moving, is very much in the noir camp, which allows for a bit of "dirtiness".



Paul is operating the camera himself, which is our second film in a row to do this, and the word from the production is that the film is moving fast. Sound guy (and all-around right-hand man) Joe Pezzula tells me that on a couple of days Paul has added shots and still finished the day early.

I can't remember the last shoot I was on where the day finished on time.



Chili John's is a cool little diner in Burbank, a very old school picturesque place where you'd imagine regulars have been coming every day for years. Naturally, we have to greek a bunch of stuff. The art guy has brought these generic label stickers, which are helpful up to a point, but they haven't been sized to cover what we have to cover, so we end up resorting to the standard indie techniques of just hiding stuff with other stuff.



Part of Paul's motto to move fast involves recording sound directly into the camera (Panasonic AF100), which is something I haven't seen in a long time. It eliminates the need for a slate, and it definitely speeds things up, not just in production but in post as well.

We shoot our inside stuff, then move outside (but not without eating some fantastic chili first), where we're using gelled LED lights in a variant of a 3 point lighting setup.



This being a night shoot, it becomes quickly obvious that in Los Angeles it gets cold at night. I wasn't prepared for this. I lived in Tennessee for a year or so and the nights were pretty much as stifling hot as the days. Here I'm really rather cold. Not as cold as the shoot in San Francisco, but cold nonetheless.

And sure enough, Paul wraps the day early. Go figure.


Filmmaker Lucas McNelly is spending a year on the road, volunteering on indie film projects around the country, documenting the process and the exploring the idea of a mobile creative professional. You can see more from A Year Without Rent at the webpage. His feature-length debut is now available to rent on VOD. Follow him on Twitter: @lmcnelly.