OMEGA - Production Diary - Day 8

Our lead actors last day on OMEGA - let's hope we get everything filmed!!

PRODUCTION DIARY - DAY 8 -  January 9th, 2011 | Bonython Park & War Memorial Drive.
 
Crew in attendance: Peter Ninos (Director), David Tang (Cinematographer), Jordan Agutter (Gaffer/Camera Assist), Trent Ninos (First A.D.), Teena Ninos (D.A./Sound Recorder), Billy Ninos (Clapper Loader/Boom Poll) & Paul Larsen (Grip/Runner). Cast in attendance: Adam Schmerl (Jake).

Scenes being filmed: OMEGA Scene 6 & 9. Scene 12 pick ups.

Tonight is our last day of filming in this four day block and also Adam Schmerl's (Jake) last day of filming for OMEGA before moving to Melbourne! Adam is flying out tomorrow and was still willing to work on the film tonight. So a huge thanks to Adam for being such a great sport!

Tonight we're filming the oft-put off car Scenes 6 & 9. But we also had a large chuck of Scene 12 to finish off filming. The sequence is when Jess (Kate) calls Jake and explains about the Agent just as Jake sees the Agent arrive at the Observatory. We filmed the Agent (Frenk) and Professor Jameson's (Devon) coverage yesterday with Adam in the foreground so tonight we'll film Adam's coverage and the entirety of the phone conversation.

First shot up was Jake driving his car and parking in front of the Observatory. Exterior coverage was first, Adam drove up in Trent's car (doing a great job playing Jake's car), turned off the head lights and walked out of shot. The framing was very nice, when I reviewed the footage it looked great, DTang and Jordan set the scene perfectly.

Next up was the shot immediately prior to the one just filmed (gotta love filming out of order). This was Adam driving through the gateway of the rear entrance of Bonython Park standing in for the Stockport Observatory. Over the four days of outdoor shoots we had been lucky so far with power. This was our only shot where we didn't have readily available power so we cracked out Trent's generator. We didn't want to overload it so DTang and Jordon only ran a couple of Dedo lights, it was pretty dark but overall the shot worked.

We moved onto a transition shot of Adam walking along the building, checking in the windows then pulling out his phone as it rang. A quick shot but it draws out the stillness and emptiness of the set. It will be very effective building up the suspense of the impending kidnapping.

Now here was a fun sequence to shoot. We had a very large area at Bonython to work with so we took full advantage of it. The scene called for Jake and Jess to exchange a few hurried words before the Agent drives up for his next target.

Kate was under the weather and unable to attend filming tonight so Teena was good enough to read out Jess's lines with Adam. She was very nervous but after a quick sprint with Adam she did a great job, thanks sis!

We started the shot with Adam was standing against the side wall of the Observatory. The long, curving drive way of this part of the park extended into the distance behind him. Our 1st A.D. Trent hopped into our Agent's car, tore off down the road and, after we started rolling, he slowly drove towards Adam and the camera. It took a couple of takes to get the timing right, Adam had to deliver a whole paragraph of dialogue before noticing the lights of the car so we had Trent go further back down the road and slow down his speed. We rounded out the scene by having Adam pressed up against the wall with Trent tearing off out of the driveway, kicking up dust and gravel. This'll be added after the shots we took of Devon getting kidnapped.

In the end we got it, the shot looked amazing! The car creeping slowly towards our hero, then the bright lights sweeping like a search light across the wall, will definitely be a nerve wracking scene for the audience. Although if anyone yells out "Look out behind you!" to the screen I will lose all faith in humanity.

Woo! Scene 12 done! What an awesome sequence, can't wait to see this one on the big screen!

Interior car scenes up next. We split these sequences up into two set ups. Set up 1 was having the car stationary, with the background blacked out completely. Our large fan was positioned to blow in through the drivers window simulating the car speeding down the road. Now I know these type of faux driving shots may not look as convincing as shooting while actually driving but we needed to be able to control the environment for these few crucial moments. Luckily the scenes worked pretty well - adding Sound FX and the radio voices in post will sell the scene completely.

The stationary shots were lit with a combination of Dedo's and glow sticks (thanks for Billy for supplying heaps of them!). When filming in the dark things we can see great with our eyes tend to fade out on even the best camera. So the glow sticks helped accentuate the light being emanated from the cars dials and the radio. It may have looked like a Tron-car to us, but on film it looked perfect.

We said goodnight to Jordan, great work tonight mate, and started setting up Set up 2. Our final two shots required a smaller, mobile film unit. Adam, DTang and I drove off to film the shot of Jake pulling up at the hospital Jess works at and various interior driving scenes.

The Women's and Children's Hospital was standing in for Jess's hosptial. Adam dropped DTang and I off in front of the hospital and took a run up (or would that be a drive up?). We did a number of takes covering the drive up from both sides - at one point standing in traffic. For the last three takes I suggested we add a pan down from the hospitals highest floor to add some motion to the scene. Adam pulled up, played the emotion of the scene where his character is longing to go in a see his girlfriend, but resolving not to and driving off.

We had a little drama at one point, suddenly to our left we saw in the Memorial Hospital adjacent to the main building a large explosion of (I'm assuming) steam. It was billowing out very fast and looked to be a series breach of some sort. I looked pretty cool provided no one was hurt (I spoke with the hospital the next day and they said no one was, but wouldn't elaborate on what happened).

Final shots for the night, our destination - War Memorial Drive. Anyone familiar with it knows it's a long winding stretch of dark scary road. This is one place you don't want to be walking down in the dead of night, well unless you have an aversion to clean pants.

So, with Adam driving, we ventured further down to the stretch where the street lights were few and far between. We filmed Adam driving, changing the radio station, looking around and just some plates of his head lights beaming down the road as he drove. We may have caught a few street lights in some of the shots but they'll be easy enough to edit around in post.

So that wraps up filming for this week and it also marks the last shot for Adam on OMEGA. Adam worked tirelessly and with complete professionalism throughout the entire shoot. He is a pleasure to work with, listening, taking direction, and offering helpful suggestions and insights at all turns. I know I speak for the whole crew when I say Adam was an invaluable and down right awesome guy to work with!

Thank you so much Adam, you've elevated OMEGA to greatness! All the best of luck in Melbourne!

Thanks to Teena, Trent, Billy & Paul for packing up super fast (as always) while Adam, DTang and I filmed the last shots on the road. A well deserved break from filming for the next two weeks, then hopefully we can wrap up OMEGA with another four days of filming!

Kudos everyone! Thanks to Adam, DTang, Jordon, Trent, Teena, Billy & Paul.

OMEGA - Production Shots - Day 7

Production Shots from our seventh day of filming have been uploaded to our Flickr account, check them all out here.

OMEGA - Production Diary - Day 7

Big scene today & our largest cast and crew shoot yet!

PRODUCTION DIARY - DAY 7 -  January 8th, 2011 |  Bonython Park


Crew in attendance: Peter Ninos (Director), David Tang (Cinematographer), Michael Tessari (Gaffer/Camera Assist), Trent Ninos (First A.D.), Teena Ninos (D.A./Sound Recorder), Billy Ninos (Clapper Loader/Boom Poll), Gigi D'angelo (Costume Designer) & Paul Larsen (Grip/Runner). Cast in attendance: Adam Schmerl (Jake), Devon Aubert (Prof. Jameson), Frenk Etti (The Agent), Travis (Goon).

Scenes being filmed: OMEGA Scene 12.


We're back at the ever-versatile Bonython Park for our big Scene 12. We were just around the corner from where we shot on Thursday, we set up camp, organised power and started unloading for what is our biggest shoot yet. Scene 12 is set on the exteriors of the Stockport Observatory where Jake sees Prof. Jameson kidnapped by the mysterious Agent.

DTang's Camera Assist for tonight is Michael Tessari, thanks for coming down man - great work tonight!

Also an extra thanks to Adam, not only was he acting tonight but he assisted us on clapper board during the scenes he wasn't in, thanks man!


Scene 12 in the script it's only one scene but there's so much going on; Jake stealthily approaching the Observatory, cars pulling in and out of the drive way, hurried phone call from Jess, Security guards getting shot, Professors getting kidnapped and heaps more! Our shot list practically doubled by the end of the night as we came up with new interesting shots as we went through all the elements of the scene.

PART 1 - We filmed Devon's kidnapping scene first as it was his anniversary tonight and we didn't want to keep him too late, he was a great sport to come along, thanks Devon! Our first shot was Devon being dragged across the grounds by Travis and tossed into the car. Devon and Travis worked out all the motions of how they'd be moving, and how they'd get him into the car. Devon was slammed repeatedly into the side of the car! I was getting a bit worried but Devon reminded me he was a hardened Hockey player! So then I started getting worried about the car...

Kidding!

We reset and did the same sequence from Adam's perspective along the side wall. We reviewed the scene and it looked great, Devon and Travis struggling kicked up heaps of gravel and dust which looked awesome. Frenk stood menacingly at the hood of the car silently watching, Trent (in his second cameo!) was the car door opener and Adam was good enough to run Slate for the scene.

PART 2 - We said goodnight to Devon and started planning out Paul's big death scene! The shot takes place just as the Agents pull up and before they rush inside and kidnap the Professor. DTang and Michael changed the lighting slightly from the previous shot as we had to show the same area from a different angle. The Blondie worked well as moonlight and we used the cars head and brake lights as part of the scene.

Trent and I worked out a simply blood shooter system that would spray our Patented Fake Blood out of Paul's shirt simulating getting shot in the heart. But this shot as we were so far away we did a bunch of dry runs and we'd move in closer for the grand blood shot. So the actions worked with Adam in the foreground watching from the shadows as Frenk and Paul walk up to each other, exchanging incidental dialogue, walk around to the rear of the car, Travis exiting the car causing Paul to be distracted as Frenk pulls out the (fake) silenced pistol and shoots him as he falls onto the (completely uncomfortable) saftey mesh! Phew! We did quite a few takes trying to get the timing right and we eventually got some great footage.

One shot was interuptted but something very... odd. We rolled camera, the actors started their actions when Billy called out urgently that someone was stealing out clapper board! I turned to my left and see this massive horse, replete with determination, lifting our clapper board over the fence with its mouth! Whoa! I grabbed the bottom of the board and pulled, the horse wasn't letting go, but the sudden loud cries and motions from the crew towards it must've startled it and released the board (with plenty of saliva, yay) and galloped away. I supposed we have to credit the horse as a clapper loader, right?

PART 3 - We then moved into the close up of the blood shot. We only had one take! DTang and Michael set up the lights, DTang got a good angle and grabbed focus, we had Paul standing rigged up with the blood shooter beneath his shirt and I yelled ACTION! It was tense but the shooter worked like a dream and Paul reacted perfectly when the blood sprayed out. Cool!

PART 4 - After reviewing the footage we came up with one last shot before Frenk finished for the night. A simple shot of the car pulling into frame, Frenk stepping out waiting a few seconds then rushing back in. We'd split this up to bookend the kidnapping sequence we'd already shot. Quick set up, we did three takes and got it! Moving on!

PART 5 - We bade Frenk and Gigi and good night and we moved onto our next shot; Jake running to the shot security guard and checking his pulse before rushing into the building. We added more fake blood (you can never have too much fake blood!) to Paul's wound and we had him lying on the hard gravelling ground - what a trooper! We rolled and had Adam rush up to Paul kicking up dust (which again looked great through the 7D) and check Paul's pulse. Covered the sequence from two different angles and we got it. The final part of that coverage was Adam's reaction to the shot security guard, trying to call the police before rushing towards the building. Adam played the scene with a great deal of urgency, it was a great moment to have the pulse pounding music kick in when he bolts towards the Observatory - great work!

Scene 12 still had some extra shots before completion but we didn't have enough time, and they were crucial so I didn't want to rush them. We agreed to shoot them tomorrow before the interior car scenes.

All in all it was a long, complicated shoot but it went very smoothly (aspiring film making horses not withstanding). We got some great footage and the cast and crew all performed fantastically!

Back here at Bonython tomorrow, then a break from filming - huzzah!

Great work everyone! Thanks to Adam, Devon, Frenk, DTang, Michael, Gigi, Trent, Teena, Billy, Paul & Travis!

OMEGA - Production Shots - Day 6

Production Shots from our sixth day of filming have been uploaded to our Flickr account, check them all out here.

OMEGA - Production Diary - Day 6

Why is it so hot today?

  
PRODUCTION DIARY - DAY 6 -  January 7th, 2011 | UniSA West Campus, Adelaide

Crew in attendance: Peter Ninos (Director), David Tang (Cinematographer), Lyndon (Gaffer/Camera Assist), Trent Ninos (First A.D.), Teena Ninos (D.A./Sound Recorder), Billy Ninos (Clapper Loader/Boom Poll) & Paul Larsen (Grip/Runner). Cast in attendance: Adam Schmerl (Jake).


Scenes being filmed: OMEGA Scenes 2, 3, 13 & 14.


Big night ahead of us, tonight we have four scenes to film in four different sets! We're back again at UniSA, they've kindly allowed us to film in a vacant office, a long hallway, and a locker room. Thanks again Christine, Mark and UniSA Security!

With so much to shoot we arrived earlier to set then we have so far. Being this time of year it was still quite light outside so we opted to film the Locker Room and Radar Room scenes first as the set was partially underground and had no windows - so we had complete control of the lighting.

Scene 3 was up first, the Army Locker Room. DTang made a makeshift window (to shine the lights through) with some dividing walls the Uni store in this large locker room. Such a crafty Cinematographer isn't he? DTang and Lyndon played around with the lights and got some cool effects by shining the lights onto the rough metal ceiling, the effect gave the background above the lockers a lot of depth. We ran through the shot list pretty quickly and got some nice sweeping shots of Adam entering the room, getting his gear out, seeing the missed call from Jess, then exiting. I'm glad we managed to get this shot, we had to change the location originally for Day 2 because we couldn't get into this set (it was being renovated up until last week). So now that we have this establishing shot of Jake leaving the lockers we can cut to the hallway where the phone conversation with Jess takes place.

Scene 2 was up next, the Radar Room. Luckily this locker room was large enough that we were able to use another corner as the radar station. The dividers came in handy again to make walls around the radar desk, we had a PS3 and monitor playing the radar graphic I created in Photoshop and animated in After Effects. I had to re-edit the graphic on the spot because the 10 second loop was noticeable on the PS3's playback. DTang and Lyndon used the fixture lighting with green gels for the ambient light and they had a redhead with a deep red gel for when the emergency light comes on. We ran through the sequence a few times, Adam read his opening line and it all ended up looking very cool. Thanks to Paul for standing in for the Radar Supervisor voice.

Scene 14 was great fun, while DTang, Lyndon, Adam and I were going through and planning Scenes 3 & 5, Teena, Trent, Billy & Paul were getting the next set ready - and by getting it ready I mean trashing the place! Scene 14 takes place in Prof. Jameson's office at the Stockport Observatory post-kidnapping. Funny, this set was trashed first then will have to be recreated untrashed when we come back to film Devon's pre-kidnapping scenes. We took plenty of photos and videos so we can recreate the set when we're back to film in the next few weeks. Our set was a vacant office right around the corner from our hospital set from Day 3, it was empty except for a desk, chairs and whiteboard. So the crew went to town adding in our props, hurling papers everywhere and filling the whiteboard with astronomical jargon. This room was on the inside of the building but had a large window looking out into the student computer area, we took advantage of this by lowering the blinds, hoisting a box plant onto a table outside the window and shining the Blondie through the leaves as simulated moonlight. It definitely looked like a spooky, ransacked office. The effect was outstanding, well done DTang!

The shoot went very smoothly, we worked with Adam to work out the actions he'd go through and what parts of the set he'd interact with, we ran through the scene from start to finish from several different angles. We had a great take of the crucial plot moment - when Jake discovers some of Jameson's notes hinting at the true nature of OMEGA!

Scene 13 rolls around and I'll be honest - by this point it's past 1:00 am, stinking hot, and we're exhausted. We had said goodnight to Lyndon and we moved on to our last scene for the night. As is always the case we only discovered the frosty air conditioning switch towards the end of the shoot, that made things more bearable (but would've been nice five hours earlier). Okay, so Scene 13 is a quick one, just Jake running down the long Observatory hallway before stepping into Jameson's office. DTang and I decide to do it on the fly, we left Trent, Billy & Paul to pack up all the equipment and completely restore the trashed office to it's neat and tidy self. The hallway we were filming in was on the second level of the Yungondi Building, it was very long but also full of lights which unfortunately we couldn't turn off. So it was tricky working out the shot when the scene is set during a black out. So we kept it simple, we didn't set up any of our lights and DTang just framed the fixture lighting out of the shot. We had Teena on sound and boom, DTang on camera, Adam acting while I Directed and operated the Slate. We ran through it four times before we got usable footage, not a minute too soon as we discovered DTang quietly napping against the wall cradling his 7D.

Home time, yes! It was a very loooooooooooooooooong shoot and I think we were all feeling the effects of all these late nights (the heat certainly didn't help). So a bigger then normal Thank You to the cast and crew! Two more days of filming and then we can have a break!

Cheers Adam, DTang, Teena, Trent, Billy & Paul. And thank you to Lyndon for helping out tonight as Camera Assist, much obliged. 

OMEGA - Production Shots - Day 5

Production Shots from our fifth day of filming have been uploaded to our Flickr account, check them all out here.

OMEGA - Production Diary - Day 5

First day of filming for 2011... ahhhh yeahhh!

PRODUCTION DIARY - DAY 5 -  January 6th, 2011 | Bonython Park


Crew in attendance: Peter Ninos (Director), David Tang (Cinematographer), Ian Bethune (Gaffer/Camera Assist), Trent Ninos (First A.D.), Teena Ninos (D.A./Sound Recorder), Billy Ninos (Clapper Loader/Boom Poll) & Paul Larsen (Grip/Runner). Cast in attendance: Adam Schmerl (Jake).

Scenes being filmed: OMEGA Scene 15 & Scene 18

2011, punch it! New Year and straight back into filming. Hope everyone had a great holiday and enjoyed the time off.

Today we started the first of our Four-Day Adam-Exclusive shoot, we needed to wrap up all of Adam's scenes before he flies out to Melbourne on Monday... crap that's in four days! We were originally supposed to film on the grounds around Adelaide High but we ran into a heap of problems when we found out the Schützenfest guys would be there testing their lighting and sound system for next weeks event - so we needed another location. We considered a few other areas that would match the exteriors of the wooded and green Stockport Observatory Grounds, we eventually settled on a neat little corner in Bonython Park.

Being an outdoor shoot we assumed power would be non-existent so Trent bought along his generator so we could power our equipment. Luckily we ran power off the nearby BBQ area, it handled the lights like a dream.

Scene 15 and Scene 18 are essentially the same scene (split in the script for two quick cut-aways to Kate and Devon) so we had all the action taking place in a small area of the large field. This sequence also happens to be the finale of the film, so that was fun filming the ending before we're even halfway through the shoot. We had Adam running back and forth across the grounds several times, we had him running in and out of frame, light and focus - when cut together it'll make for an adrenaline fueled scene. Teena and Billy got some great sound of Adam running with the grass and gravel crunching beneath his feet, very effective. Adam was great in the various shots, he was jogging, running full pelt, on the phone to Jess, tripping over, looking up amazed, grabbing his ears in pain and finally getting thrown back - great belt yanking Billy but you almost knocked Adam out cold!

We did two cool visual effect tricks in-camera, the aforementioned Adam flying back shot and the eerie shot of Jake's dogtags slowly rising into the air. I'll explain both in a bit of detail...

Adam flying back was achieved easily enough, we had a mattress behind Adam and Billy with a firm grip on Adam's belt. We rolled camera - first Ian would kicked on the bright Blondie Light (Diffuse and Blue Gel), then Adam would react to the light then is immediately yanked out of frame by Billy, DTang would then snap the camera down and to the left to give the impression of the entire action happening faster then it did. We did three takes and they all looked great. Simple execution but so effective.

The army dogtags rising, again, was achieved simply enough. Trent and Adam fastened some black string to the ends of both tags and suspended them over a C-Stand, they varied the lengths so both tags would rise one after the other. We had to do a handful more takes after the tags kept getting caught on Adam's jacket but once we had the actions down the effect worked perfectly.

Filmmaking at its finest!

A great night of work from everyone! Tomorrow we're back at UniSA filming four scenes, on four different sets! How will we do it?!

Major thanks to Adam, DTang, Teena, Trent, Billy & Paul.

A special thanks to Ian Bethune, it was his last night on the shoot with us tonight before heading back home to Canada. Thank you Ian - it was great working with you, you've helped make OMEGA great!

OMEGA - Trent's Behind the Scenes - Day 2 & 3

Check out our Flickr photo sets for new Behind the Scenes shots taken by our 1st A.D the always-epic Trent Ninos. Images are a little fuzzy, such is the quality of DV Cameras... enjoy! Day 2 and Day 3 updated.