Crew in attendance: Peter Ninos (Director), David Tang (Director of Photography), Jordan Agutter (Gaffer/Camera Assistant), Trent Ninos (First A.D./Body Double).
It seems that cameras never truly stop rolling... here we are again filming for our debut movie Omega almost five months since we wrapped up filming. In that time we've been deep in Post Production and we arrived to the point where we had our film almost entirely edited together. Almost.
Over all the months of post we'd been racking up a neat little list of missing shots. Beats that I was looking for in the edit that we just didn't have. So shooting pick ups was the right course of action. Trent and I spent the weeks leading up to the shoot watching and re-watching our edits and going over all our cut footage to refresh our memories of those shoots, some of which were shot in December of 2010... JESUS! So a list of eleven individual moments we crucially needed to splice into the film. Shots, if absent, would be confusing and jarring to an audience. We'd also brainstormed some additional pick ups which aren't crucial but would be cool to capture on film, so we may have another pick ups shoot in the coming week... never stops rolling...
The awesome thing about editing the footage ourselves was that it's really highlighted, for me at least, the things I needed to have done during principle photography as the Director. My mind needs to be cast forward to the edit and thinking actively about what shots I'll need in that edit suite while we're still shooting. It's an invaluable learning experience, and will hopefully mean our future projects will be a huge improvement in the way we work in front of and behind the camera.
Now there's one problem with filming these pick ups, all of them are of our main character Jake who was played by Adam Schmerl during the shoot, but Adam has since moved to Melbourne making shooting these pick ups difficult. We flew Adam down to film the Prologue sequence and that was great but for these pick ups we could get creative and try some movie magic. Trent Ninos, my First A.D. agreed to stand in for Adam for all these quick shots. Pick ups also gave us a chance to build more tension into the movie by introducing the actual Omega comet earlier in the film so the slow build starts sooner rather than later.
We had four locations planned for pick ups, I'll explain each of them briefly.
1. The Location Jump. Early in pre-production I'd had the idea of doing a fancy camera transition during the film to merge a live streamed video with the actual event. We filmed the video and the backend of the Jump on Day 11 with Devon Aubert as Prof. David Jameson but the lead in take wasn't yet filmed. Ideally we should have filmed it on Day 4 when we filmed the rest of that scene but I overlooked it. So with Trent sporting the same costume Adam wore during the shoot we dressed the kitchen set, organized the props and DTang and Jordan recreated the same lighting (even though this time we were filming in broad daylight). In the previous takes with Adam he'd finish watching Prof. Jameson's video, grab his keys and rush out. We reviewed the footage of Adam and worked with Trent to get the same movements and speed. In this shot Trent would grab the keys (those damn keys! We spent more time positioning them then anything else that night) then move out of frame and focus off into the background. Then then camera focuses on the laptop screen and moves into the Jump. It looked very seamless and will edit in nicely with the scene we shot two years ago.
2. The Telescope Printouts. This pick up was one settled on early. When we filmed the trashed office scenes on Day 6 we didn't have a locked off graphic for what Omega looked like through the telescope. We filmed Adam's coverage with an early concept which was kept off camera focusing instead of our lead actor. March 2012 rolls around and I'd finished the 3D model of Omega and locked off a final graphic. This pick up didn't really need a specific location as it was just a close up of a sheet of paper so we opted to filming a darkened spare bedroom using an LED for a fill light with my iPhone providing the sweeping reveal of Omega on the printout. This, too, will editing in seamlessly with the shots from the office on both Day 6 and Day 11.
3. The Adelaide Blackout. Back in 2009 when the original Omega concept was in its infancy we'd planned on filming a scene with our lead actor in the foreground with Adelaide and the Hills in the background, then we'd black the city and hills out in post. Back then I'd envisioned we could potentially shoot that scene from the viewing area next to the Adelaide Airport but when the Omega concept exploded out and became much more ambitious that set up was dropped. We did, however, need an establishing shot of Adelaide as it is the films setting. We see the other Australian cities losing power from orbit in a VFX shot I've been working on but for Adelaide it would be good to show some live action footage as well. The shots we did end up getting were passable, a little noisy because of the low light but we caught some good shots with a plane touching down in foreground. Who knows, we may end up using it or not... it's good to have at any rate.
4. The Battle of Kandahar. Here it is folks, the big one. This was a scene I had hoped to film when Adam was down for the Prologue, but I'd underestimated how long and tiring that day ended up being. No matter, Trent Ninos, professional body double to the rescue! The shots I wanted were quick cut aways to be spliced into the opening of the film, even when it looked like we could film with Adam I wanted to keep the camera tight and only showing his legs and feet running through the desert to save the full character reveal until he bursts through the door in the next shot. So the storyboards I'd drawn up were still somewhat relevant. The original location for this scene was to be good ol' Bonython Park which has featured prominently in our previous days of filming. DTang, Trent and I were all ready to head down there to check things up but I wanted to check on one place first. Going back again to the early Omega concept we'd planned it to need only one location, this location was to be a small open dirt field next to the Cheltenham Racecourse. I'd phoned up the council to ask if that area was owned by anyone that we'd need to obtain permission from but was told it was part of a playground and park nearby and therefore open to the public. Prep for this scene was completely on the fly, we had only the three of us (DTang, Trent and myself) and the equipment we'd packed into my car. The scene was expertly lit by David Tang using my cars head lights (corrected with moonlight blue gels) and two LED lights running on battery power. The location was a mix of soft dirt with dry weedy grass patching through.
Trent... ahh Trent. Ever ready to go above and beyond for the good of the movie. He got to wear the Australian Army uniform worn by Adam (and prior to that an Australian servicemen deployed in Afghanistan). When Gigi D'Angelo originally supplied us with the costume she'd also provided us with doubles of the camo shirt and pants, these came in handy tonight as the pants Adam had worn for the Prologue were dressed with our Patented Fake Blood (patent pending) for his characters bullet wound. The shots involved tracking alongside Trent as he ran past frame, mimed getting shot, falling over, staggering up and running on. We did a multitude of takes from many angles, again and again and again (and again). Trent was a real maverick running full pelt, crashing down onto his knee, kicking up dust and staggering up, DTang had the difficult task of keeping up with him all the while being mindful not to go ass over tit with his camera rig. Sweating and bruised they both did outstanding work!
After fleeing several pursing police cars and fire officials we made our way back to my place, managed to watch our Dailies in that special brand of 2 AM delirium where everything's epic and awesome... but in this case what we'd shot was epic and awesome! It was a long day (10 AM till 1 AM the next morning with several breaks in between arguing about which movie to watch) but it was well worth it.
Huge thanks to Jordan, DTang and Trent for an awesome pick up shoot! Now to splice these scenes into the movie and finish this beast!
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