Week Four

There is no way to describe how wonderful this week was for me. I was given quite a bit to do, but loved every moment of it. This was the end of pre production for my short film Celia, as we began shooting the upcoming weekend. I made some minor revisions to the script, to make it more palatable, as well as getting in contact with all the actors and confirming the schedule. I had to create a series of call sheets for the two days we were shooting - a far more difficult task then I thought it would be. Organizing when the crew should be there, how long we should take for each scene, and what was the most efficient scene order was difficult to discern. But after many iterations, I finalized the call sheet. I spent a couple days accumulating props as well. I went to about eight different stores to try and find the colors and materials I thought would fit the feel of the scene. The girl playing Celia, Rose Lehane, her mother was incredibly helpful in finding her costume, as children are more difficult to shop for. I found a bevy of props for the brother's room as well as costume pieces for him. I also was lucky enough to find a perfectly sized white button down for Rose that became her staple outfit in the film. I loved how that fell into place, something I didn't think about that actually turned out being one of my favorite visual parts of the film. The first day of shooting went a little bit long, and we ended up having to reschedule the first playground scene, as we lost light. The crew that Connie Jo had gotten were absolutely incredible. The DP, Jussi Hayha, was an absolute professional, and I really appreciated the amount of thought he had put into the visuals. It was nice to bounce ideas off of him, and I found that he strengthened my vision for the film as well as brought so much more to it. The crew of Kirk, Hanna, Edward, Ryan, and so many more, were incredibly efficient and responsive, and did everything they could to make sure that we got what we needed. The actors that day, Rose and John (the man who plays Mister) were above and beyond. Rose was so incredibly professional for being so young, and was incredibly responsive to direction and emotional callback in a way that not many children are. John also made Mister a lot more unsettling than comical, which is what I was hoping for, and was also such a trooper as I just made him lay in a tent all day. I couldn't have asked for a better set of actors.

The second day of shooting went much smoother than the first. We were ahead of schedule pretty much all day, to the point that I had to call actors to get them to come earlier. It was easy, breezy, beautiful, pretty much all day. Even though we had to change locations at ten, we were still ahead of time. Rose was wonderful all day, and working with Connie Jo and Liz who played the Teacher and Mother respectively, was incredible. They took direction so well and had a wonderful rapport in their scene together - they played off one another beautifully. It was nice to work in a smaller environment as we were pretty much only in a house on this day, and that's why it went so quickly. We wrapped the last shot exactly when the sun went down - it couldn't have gone better.

And,

That's a wrap!