PRODUCTION DIARY - DAY 12 - October 15th, 2011 | Seaton, Adelaide.
Crew in attendance: Peter Ninos (Director), David Tang (Director of Photography), Micheal Tessari (Camera Assistant), Trent Ninos (First A.D.), Teena Ninos (Production Manager), Billy Ninos (Clapper Loader/Grip), Paul Larsen (Grip/Runner). Cast in attendance: Adam Schmerl (Jake Mercer).
Scenes being filmed: OMEGA Scene 2 (Reshoot).
And we're back! For those of you keeping count our last shoot was way back in July, and now we've arrived at the final two days of filming for OMEGA. Leaving aside some quick pick ups OMEGA will be wrapped by the end of the weekend.
Our lead actor, Adam Schmerl, had since moved across to Melbourne where he's establishing himself as brilliant actor. Having just finished filming his role in an upcoming mini-series Adam was good enough to fly back to Adelaide and give up his weekend helping the crew and I complete this year-long short film. It's a true testament to Adam's professionalism and dedication that he was willing to do this, and for that I'm extremely grateful.
So we could grease our gears and get back into the film making mindset we are filming a single scene today, a reshoot of a previous scene to be more accurate. The crew who were on set for DAY 6 back in January will surely attest that that day was a madhouse. We all did great work, no question, but we had four full scenes on four separate sets, and less than seven hours to film it all. For the most part what we filmed looked spectacular, Adam handled the four scenes perfectly, and the DTang and the crew set them up as good as ever. But, the casualty of the jam packed shoot was Scene 2, the Radar Room. I'll admit, my planning of that scene wasn't all it could've been, now it still looked great and was acted perfectly but several things had bothered me about it for the longest time. First and foremost was the set... we didn't have one. We used the same locker room location from the following scene but with a table and a tv monitor playing a radar graphic. And again, it looked fine, but I know it could've been way better and considering it was the first scene with the main character and the start of the crisis we'd need something stronger.
It's nine months later, we're going to do it right this time.
Trent and I began planning for the reshoot in August of this year. We'd decided to build a set for the radar station, the most complicated one we'd attempted so far. The radar set construction will be covered in detail in an upcoming episode of REEL FX, but I'll say now a huge thank you now to John Ninos, Con Ninos and George Vlass for their help planning and constructing the set. Trent purchased a heap of actual LEDs and Switches that we mounted onto the station, these with some LED fairy light made the set pop. We used the same screen set up as last time (a PS3 playing a radar graphic on a flatscreen tv) but this time I had much more time to render a more realistic radar graphic, and the tv was now mounted inside the radar set so it didn't just look like a random tv. We constructed the station over the course of four weeks, the effort certainly paid off because it looked amazing!
Now for the shoot. As usual we were running behind schedule setting up. We were filming inside a vacant transportable unit, as soon as all the pieces of the set were there we got to work setting up. Adam arrived shortly after and we caught up with him while putting on the finishing touches. DTang arrived soon after followed by Mike Tessari, they both did wonders with lighting. The actions of the scene are more or less the same as they were during the first attempt, Adam is on duty monitoring the airspace around Adelaide - the last major city with power - trying to get on with his work. But Adelaide can't escape the darkness, power is lost across the city, the building switches to emergency power. These blackouts tie directly into Jake's troubled past (featured in the prologue) and his unease during a black out.
Being able to revisit this scene also meant being able to change something that had bothered me since it was filmed. The opening line, "There goes Adelaide", I'd never really been happy with it and after weeks of trying out different variations, even giving the line to other characters, I stopped and thought, is it really a good sign that I'm trying this hard to make it work? Nope, the line was cut. Less is more, as they say. The shot list I had planned out was relatively short, this gave us ample time to plan and rehearse out each set up. It was great fun planning out with Adam the various buttons and parts of the radar station he'd be interacting with. This background action, the blackout and Jake's look of concern have gone a long way to bolstering up the first act of the film.
After reviewing the footage I was pleased that the end results looked amazing, the set, the lighting and the acting were a joy to behold. I'm so grateful that the cast and crew were willing to revisit this scene and help achieve and striking a opening for OMEGA.
Huge thanks to Adam, DTang, Mike, Trent, Teena, Billy & Paul! Day 12 is in the can, now for the long awaited, the much anticipated, the day many thought would never come... the final day of shooting for OMEGA.
And we're back! For those of you keeping count our last shoot was way back in July, and now we've arrived at the final two days of filming for OMEGA. Leaving aside some quick pick ups OMEGA will be wrapped by the end of the weekend.
Our lead actor, Adam Schmerl, had since moved across to Melbourne where he's establishing himself as brilliant actor. Having just finished filming his role in an upcoming mini-series Adam was good enough to fly back to Adelaide and give up his weekend helping the crew and I complete this year-long short film. It's a true testament to Adam's professionalism and dedication that he was willing to do this, and for that I'm extremely grateful.
So we could grease our gears and get back into the film making mindset we are filming a single scene today, a reshoot of a previous scene to be more accurate. The crew who were on set for DAY 6 back in January will surely attest that that day was a madhouse. We all did great work, no question, but we had four full scenes on four separate sets, and less than seven hours to film it all. For the most part what we filmed looked spectacular, Adam handled the four scenes perfectly, and the DTang and the crew set them up as good as ever. But, the casualty of the jam packed shoot was Scene 2, the Radar Room. I'll admit, my planning of that scene wasn't all it could've been, now it still looked great and was acted perfectly but several things had bothered me about it for the longest time. First and foremost was the set... we didn't have one. We used the same locker room location from the following scene but with a table and a tv monitor playing a radar graphic. And again, it looked fine, but I know it could've been way better and considering it was the first scene with the main character and the start of the crisis we'd need something stronger.
It's nine months later, we're going to do it right this time.
Trent and I began planning for the reshoot in August of this year. We'd decided to build a set for the radar station, the most complicated one we'd attempted so far. The radar set construction will be covered in detail in an upcoming episode of REEL FX, but I'll say now a huge thank you now to John Ninos, Con Ninos and George Vlass for their help planning and constructing the set. Trent purchased a heap of actual LEDs and Switches that we mounted onto the station, these with some LED fairy light made the set pop. We used the same screen set up as last time (a PS3 playing a radar graphic on a flatscreen tv) but this time I had much more time to render a more realistic radar graphic, and the tv was now mounted inside the radar set so it didn't just look like a random tv. We constructed the station over the course of four weeks, the effort certainly paid off because it looked amazing!
Now for the shoot. As usual we were running behind schedule setting up. We were filming inside a vacant transportable unit, as soon as all the pieces of the set were there we got to work setting up. Adam arrived shortly after and we caught up with him while putting on the finishing touches. DTang arrived soon after followed by Mike Tessari, they both did wonders with lighting. The actions of the scene are more or less the same as they were during the first attempt, Adam is on duty monitoring the airspace around Adelaide - the last major city with power - trying to get on with his work. But Adelaide can't escape the darkness, power is lost across the city, the building switches to emergency power. These blackouts tie directly into Jake's troubled past (featured in the prologue) and his unease during a black out.
Being able to revisit this scene also meant being able to change something that had bothered me since it was filmed. The opening line, "There goes Adelaide", I'd never really been happy with it and after weeks of trying out different variations, even giving the line to other characters, I stopped and thought, is it really a good sign that I'm trying this hard to make it work? Nope, the line was cut. Less is more, as they say. The shot list I had planned out was relatively short, this gave us ample time to plan and rehearse out each set up. It was great fun planning out with Adam the various buttons and parts of the radar station he'd be interacting with. This background action, the blackout and Jake's look of concern have gone a long way to bolstering up the first act of the film.
After reviewing the footage I was pleased that the end results looked amazing, the set, the lighting and the acting were a joy to behold. I'm so grateful that the cast and crew were willing to revisit this scene and help achieve and striking a opening for OMEGA.
Huge thanks to Adam, DTang, Mike, Trent, Teena, Billy & Paul! Day 12 is in the can, now for the long awaited, the much anticipated, the day many thought would never come... the final day of shooting for OMEGA.
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