Our new bartender, Jason, was on the mark. He required very little direction from my end and had previously done some bartending, so he wasn't a newbie behind the bar.
The New BartenderWe set up pretty quickly, having taken lots of continuity shots to go by and fired up with almost no problems. Almost.
Once again, something got left out. Hank har originally lent his floppy Outback-styled hat to Ventura, who was the fill in for one of the first cast members to drop out of the film.
I had to go back and look at the first sequence of the film to see if there would be any kind of problem using some of the footage we'd already had in the can. At first, it looked like we might be able to, but when I looked at it all, the previous bartender's face and tattooed arms were visible in several good takes. I had to make the call: we'd have to reshoot the intro. So this would free us up to put Ventura in a new hat or go without one. The hat looked good on him and lent itself to his character, so we went with a new hat.
The PourHaving two cameras on set is always handy. We were able to get the primary take and have a secondary angle for coverage. Not to mention the fact that when it came to tight quarters, like behind the bar, our second camera, a Canon GL-1 was easier to take off the sticks and go hand held. I made work of that by doing some hand held stuff with the sequence with Ventura and the giant beer.
Having a small crew is great because you don't have to wait on a lot of people to get fired up, but I'm finding that I'm going to need a larger support staff. And I'm finding out the hard way. After examining the footage from this weekend, I could just kick myself in the nuts. We've got boom mics and people who should be out of frame reflecting off mirrors. And this was after my speech about clearing the frames before each take and how it was also partly my responsibility. Which means I'm just as much to blame, if not more so, for these flubs. Thankfully, we've got several takes and covering angles that might allow me to cover up those mistakes with little effort. I'm not going to say that for certain, but I'm confident and hopeful that said statement will apply to everything.
As for the support staff, I'm going to need a continuity manager and an assistant director. There might be use for an assistant of some kind, someone who can float from job to job and handle a myriad of things (script supervising, location/actor relations, etc.) I'll have to really sit down and think about what's the best thing to do so as not to complicate things too much.
Still, even with the small problems we had, we got through the work very quickly and got the shots we wanted.
Sky, on B camera, had this great idea to help make Theo's fall even funnier. We had originally had Ventura and Mike look at one another, in separate takes, once Theo hits the ground. Sky suggested a low angle shot where the bartender, who we never shot during the fall sequence, looks over the bar and shakes his head at Theo and then calls for the bouncer to do his job and we see Ventura and Mike peek their heads into frame and look down at the fallen Theo. It worked out great, but we had a few problems during the first couple of takes. Ventura and Mike didn't look at each other at the same time. They kept moving in and out in bad time. Eventually, we did manage to get a good take, however.
Are you okay?With my impending birthday coming this Sunday and my family coming into town, we won't get to shoot this weekend. Theo is going out of town the following Sunday, so that's another weekend we won't shoot, but that Sunday we plan on blocking the outside sequence with all the available players.
We're all determined to see this through. Mike especially, but I'm not far behind. This will be my third film. There's three projects on the horizon now. Maybe even blowing off the dust from my 'road' picture and finally finishing that.
Lots to do. Lots to do.
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