Jarrod Homer
Active member
I just stumbled upon this thread myself, very cool concept. I'll have to agree with Malcolm your posts are awesome, very good read. Keep up the good work and good luck with the rest of your filming.
"schism" feature length film (DVX100a)
- Thread starter John C Lyons
- Start date
John C Lyons
Veteran
catching up...
catching up...
Jeremy, thanks for finding it! :thumbup: I hope you come back... I'll continue to post regularly, and once I get caught up to the same point where we actually are in production then this will probably turn more into a day to day, or week to week blog of sorts.
Great idea! Whatever helps, right? Which Barry btw?
Thanks Malcolm, I will try and continue to keep giving you guys more helpful info along the way. I apologize for not posting recently. Tonight we just wrapped our 20th day of production! A lot of our key cast (and crew) work day jobs, and we just finished day/night 3 out of the past 4 days, so I got a bit behind here...
Jarrod (and others), I hope that our lighting director, Michael Best, will join me on here as well soon with some tales from behind the scenes. I'm sure you guys will enjoy that too! I've thrown a lot of challenges at those guys.
Thanks Ming, I do think it's an important story and a subject that isn't tackled too often by filmmakers. By having almost complete access to an operational facility I really hope to keep it as real as we can in the movie sense. For those who haven't spent much time in a nursing home (like myself before this movie) I think there will be a lot of eye opening moments just from that aspect alone.
OK, so I will be back in full-force to post more stuff here this week! Promise! And like I said earlier, hopefully we'll get some appearances from one of our key Lighting peeps. So feel free to shoot any questions and watch for the next installments...
catching up...
jeremytuttle said:
Jeremy, thanks for finding it! :thumbup: I hope you come back... I'll continue to post regularly, and once I get caught up to the same point where we actually are in production then this will probably turn more into a day to day, or week to week blog of sorts.
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
Great idea! Whatever helps, right? Which Barry btw?
MalcolmOng said:
Thanks Malcolm, I will try and continue to keep giving you guys more helpful info along the way. I apologize for not posting recently. Tonight we just wrapped our 20th day of production! A lot of our key cast (and crew) work day jobs, and we just finished day/night 3 out of the past 4 days, so I got a bit behind here...
Jarrod Homer said:
Jarrod (and others), I hope that our lighting director, Michael Best, will join me on here as well soon with some tales from behind the scenes. I'm sure you guys will enjoy that too! I've thrown a lot of challenges at those guys.
Ming said:
Thanks Ming, I do think it's an important story and a subject that isn't tackled too often by filmmakers. By having almost complete access to an operational facility I really hope to keep it as real as we can in the movie sense. For those who haven't spent much time in a nursing home (like myself before this movie) I think there will be a lot of eye opening moments just from that aspect alone.
OK, so I will be back in full-force to post more stuff here this week! Promise! And like I said earlier, hopefully we'll get some appearances from one of our key Lighting peeps. So feel free to shoot any questions and watch for the next installments...
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Cryogenic Filmworks
Veteran
Barry Green I believe.John C Lyons said:
Link is Barry's announcement of the deal.
Good luck on your project BTW.
John C Lyons
Veteran
the look
the look
while there are moments of humor, romance, drama, and thriller mixed into "schism", ultimately it's a story of change, time, acceptance, and the mind's descent into it's own twisted reality. and literally (hence the title) it's a story of many schisms: physically, with neil's fractured hip and being in a nursing home, split away from the rest of society, emotionally, with him being separated from his family who have busy lives of their own, mentally, with his dementia, etc etc.
we want to try and also visually show a schism of light and dark in terms of high contrast images whenever possible (and believeable). the reality of neil's world is increasingly covered in shadow as the story progresses, and as we reach the last 1/3 or so of the story there will visibly be more darkness. we'll go into more detail on lighting equipment used in a bit.
these images ive included in this post are totally raw/uncorrected except for making them black and white - the movie isnt in black and white however. the two images below are of neil and kristen (jennifer hooper), who is one of his daughters, and then amy (natalie vindivich), the friendly receptionist at "shady grove".
ok, so here's some of my main camera and sound equipment used :
(1) Panasonic DVX100a
(1) 7" LCD (although Mike has provided a bigger one that he and Dorota use more frequently now)
(1) AT835B mic
(1) Lightwave boom pole
(1) AT8410A shock mount (for mic) which I think we've "broke" early on in the production
(1) Sony MDR-7506 headphones
(1) 50' XLR cable
(1) 15' XLR cable
I'll have Mike post his goodies that we are primarily using here as well...
I use his tripod every day too because mine is pretty crappy after standing in rolling water for hours shooting "Hunting Camp" and just generally that it was pretty junky to begin with. I nice tripod is like a new world for me!
next post: scene breakdowns/locations
the look
while there are moments of humor, romance, drama, and thriller mixed into "schism", ultimately it's a story of change, time, acceptance, and the mind's descent into it's own twisted reality. and literally (hence the title) it's a story of many schisms: physically, with neil's fractured hip and being in a nursing home, split away from the rest of society, emotionally, with him being separated from his family who have busy lives of their own, mentally, with his dementia, etc etc.
we want to try and also visually show a schism of light and dark in terms of high contrast images whenever possible (and believeable). the reality of neil's world is increasingly covered in shadow as the story progresses, and as we reach the last 1/3 or so of the story there will visibly be more darkness. we'll go into more detail on lighting equipment used in a bit.
these images ive included in this post are totally raw/uncorrected except for making them black and white - the movie isnt in black and white however. the two images below are of neil and kristen (jennifer hooper), who is one of his daughters, and then amy (natalie vindivich), the friendly receptionist at "shady grove".
ok, so here's some of my main camera and sound equipment used :
(1) Panasonic DVX100a
(1) 7" LCD (although Mike has provided a bigger one that he and Dorota use more frequently now)
(1) AT835B mic
(1) Lightwave boom pole
(1) AT8410A shock mount (for mic) which I think we've "broke" early on in the production
(1) Sony MDR-7506 headphones
(1) 50' XLR cable
(1) 15' XLR cable
I'll have Mike post his goodies that we are primarily using here as well...
I use his tripod every day too because mine is pretty crappy after standing in rolling water for hours shooting "Hunting Camp" and just generally that it was pretty junky to begin with. I nice tripod is like a new world for me! next post: scene breakdowns/locations
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Brandon Rice
Distributed Producer
John, the images look really nice! Good work using the good ol' DVX my friend! Make us proud!
Thought I'd jump in here and make a few comments. Foremost, I want say that working with John and Dorota is truely a pleasure - compassion comes to mind, they care about people and that draws people, and I believe that has a lot to do
with how cooperative this facility has been. We have complete access to everything, even their maintenance people respond immediately to any need we have, from shutting off heat zones to getting a screwdriver to us, they have been wonderful. A lot of laughs break up the day which is imperative with long hours in a closed up, terribly hot environment where 'accidents' are frequent. There have been priceless moments at this location that will unfortunately never be seen, and some that, well, shouldn't. I think I'll use my golden years now thanks.
I'm not big on long posts so I'll stop back with technical information if anyone is interested. A location like this is nothing short of an enormous challenge from a lighting and sound standpoint - what's life without challenges..?
with how cooperative this facility has been. We have complete access to everything, even their maintenance people respond immediately to any need we have, from shutting off heat zones to getting a screwdriver to us, they have been wonderful. A lot of laughs break up the day which is imperative with long hours in a closed up, terribly hot environment where 'accidents' are frequent. There have been priceless moments at this location that will unfortunately never be seen, and some that, well, shouldn't. I think I'll use my golden years now thanks.
I'm not big on long posts so I'll stop back with technical information if anyone is interested. A location like this is nothing short of an enormous challenge from a lighting and sound standpoint - what's life without challenges..?
John C Lyons
Veteran
"m1best" (the previous poster) is our Lighting Director, Michael Best, guys. I'm sure he has a lot of stories to share and you equipment nuts will definitely want to hear about all the lighting schemes he's put (and putting) together on "schism".
For my post today, here's a couple of the difficulties/issues we've run into up to this point (now 22 days into production):
- The heat/vents:
You can imagine that in the Winter (and even the Fall when we started production) they have to keep the seniors nice and toasty in the nursing home we're filming at. Well this doesn't work so well when you're recording dialogue. When our sound guy puts those cans on his mellon it's loud as hell! It also isn't too comfortable when you're in a bedroom, with the door closed (to keep out sounds from the hallway) and you have lights running and 6 people in the room. whew!
we usually have to crack a window in the bedroom, and Mike turns the lights off every chance he gets. The vents/heat have been something I didn't even think about coming into it. Luckily maintainence is very cool and most of the time they are able to shut down vents in a certain area for a short period of time for us. We have to have a really close and accessible relationship with the staff at Brevillier Village, and they've been very helpful (I'm waiting for the day when we've pushed too far and someone blows up on us for being in the way....) I still think we're going to be doing some ADR on certain "open" area scenes (hallways) as well to get good sound.
- No pay/burn-out/forgetfulness/schedules
Having people on your cast/crew for no pay is something I'm not proud of. I really wish I had the money to pay these people. For them to step up and do the movie is huge. But no pay also occassionally leads to situations where you can tell maybe you aren't a big priority in someone's life. Scheduling and continuity are really my two biggest headaches. When working on Hunting Camp I thought I was in a real tricky scheduling situation, with 4 main actors, but I had no idea! Scheduling has been a nightmare particularly this month, so this one's a fresh issue. Also when working with mostly 60+ aged actors I've sometimes found myself in pinches where an actor shaved that wasn't supposed to, or brings the wrong wardrobe or something.
One of our lead castmembers has a suitcase that he keeps his entire wardrobe for the movie in at all times and never takes it out except for filming. This is a great idea. As far as scheduling, I send out very detailed email messages to everyone that has email (each week) and make phone calls to those that don't. Making phone calls to 10+ people every couple days is just not time effective. My shooting schedule emails look like this:
SATURDAY 12/2
7:00AM Crew arrivals
7:30AM Terry, Natalie, James, Lori, Charmalene arrivals
*these are lead actors, who will get more makeup attention
8:00AM Other resident/nurse arrivals (will be notified this week)
*extras
Morning Scenes:
B01 + B02: Neil’s arrival in the nursing home (front office area)
Pages 3-4
Summer day
B06 (if there’s time before lunch): Neil asks Natalie for messages (front office area)
Page 31
Summer day
***1 HR LUNCH BREAK, please bring your own lunch***
Afternoon Scenes:
C03: Neil gets his 1st meal and meds, asks Tammy to close his door
Pages 6-7
Summer day
C14: Tammy helps Neil into his wheelchair
Page 47
Fall day
C07: Tammy helps Neil dress, another nurse calls her away
Pages: 18-19
Summer morning
*the letter and number codes are the scene codes. I went through the entire script and each scene (per location or unique setup change) gets a scene code. "B" scenes take place at the front desk/lobby, "C" scenes in Neil's bedroom, etc etc.
"schism" has 122 scenes, by this method, and our location codes go from A-T
*I then list a short description of the scene
*Then the page numbers in the script
*And lastly, the time of day and season for our lighting gurus
On the day of filming, we take pictures of each person's wardrobe and makeup in each scene. So for continuity, if someone is in a connecting scene we already filmed, I will attach photos to the schedule email message above as well showing them what to bring each day of filming (for phone calls I describe the clothes). To me this is as much information as you'd ever need as an actor, but as I touched on before I still get "surprises".
I'm VERY curious how you guys deal with these situations and how you deliver shooting schedules each day. Feel free to share them here, I want to know (I'm sure others do too!)
Tomorrow is day 23!
For my post today, here's a couple of the difficulties/issues we've run into up to this point (now 22 days into production):
- The heat/vents:
You can imagine that in the Winter (and even the Fall when we started production) they have to keep the seniors nice and toasty in the nursing home we're filming at. Well this doesn't work so well when you're recording dialogue. When our sound guy puts those cans on his mellon it's loud as hell! It also isn't too comfortable when you're in a bedroom, with the door closed (to keep out sounds from the hallway) and you have lights running and 6 people in the room. whew!
we usually have to crack a window in the bedroom, and Mike turns the lights off every chance he gets. The vents/heat have been something I didn't even think about coming into it. Luckily maintainence is very cool and most of the time they are able to shut down vents in a certain area for a short period of time for us. We have to have a really close and accessible relationship with the staff at Brevillier Village, and they've been very helpful (I'm waiting for the day when we've pushed too far and someone blows up on us for being in the way....) I still think we're going to be doing some ADR on certain "open" area scenes (hallways) as well to get good sound.
- No pay/burn-out/forgetfulness/schedules
Having people on your cast/crew for no pay is something I'm not proud of. I really wish I had the money to pay these people. For them to step up and do the movie is huge. But no pay also occassionally leads to situations where you can tell maybe you aren't a big priority in someone's life. Scheduling and continuity are really my two biggest headaches. When working on Hunting Camp I thought I was in a real tricky scheduling situation, with 4 main actors, but I had no idea! Scheduling has been a nightmare particularly this month, so this one's a fresh issue. Also when working with mostly 60+ aged actors I've sometimes found myself in pinches where an actor shaved that wasn't supposed to, or brings the wrong wardrobe or something.
One of our lead castmembers has a suitcase that he keeps his entire wardrobe for the movie in at all times and never takes it out except for filming. This is a great idea. As far as scheduling, I send out very detailed email messages to everyone that has email (each week) and make phone calls to those that don't. Making phone calls to 10+ people every couple days is just not time effective. My shooting schedule emails look like this:
SATURDAY 12/2
7:00AM Crew arrivals
7:30AM Terry, Natalie, James, Lori, Charmalene arrivals
*these are lead actors, who will get more makeup attention
8:00AM Other resident/nurse arrivals (will be notified this week)
*extras
Morning Scenes:
B01 + B02: Neil’s arrival in the nursing home (front office area)
Pages 3-4
Summer day
B06 (if there’s time before lunch): Neil asks Natalie for messages (front office area)
Page 31
Summer day
***1 HR LUNCH BREAK, please bring your own lunch***
Afternoon Scenes:
C03: Neil gets his 1st meal and meds, asks Tammy to close his door
Pages 6-7
Summer day
C14: Tammy helps Neil into his wheelchair
Page 47
Fall day
C07: Tammy helps Neil dress, another nurse calls her away
Pages: 18-19
Summer morning
*the letter and number codes are the scene codes. I went through the entire script and each scene (per location or unique setup change) gets a scene code. "B" scenes take place at the front desk/lobby, "C" scenes in Neil's bedroom, etc etc.
"schism" has 122 scenes, by this method, and our location codes go from A-T
*I then list a short description of the scene
*Then the page numbers in the script
*And lastly, the time of day and season for our lighting gurus
On the day of filming, we take pictures of each person's wardrobe and makeup in each scene. So for continuity, if someone is in a connecting scene we already filmed, I will attach photos to the schedule email message above as well showing them what to bring each day of filming (for phone calls I describe the clothes). To me this is as much information as you'd ever need as an actor, but as I touched on before I still get "surprises".
I'm VERY curious how you guys deal with these situations and how you deliver shooting schedules each day. Feel free to share them here, I want to know (I'm sure others do too!)
Tomorrow is day 23!
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John C Lyons
Veteran
DVXUser, represent!
P.S. - This weekend will mark the halfway point in production...
P.S. - This weekend will mark the halfway point in production...
John C Lyons
Veteran
I hear crickets...hmmmmmmm. Alright, I'll try one more short one, then hang it up until we clear out the cobwebs...
"schism" is also my first movie using any kind of prosthetics, work with foam latex, etc. Here's a pic of a wax mold of my mellon made last week. Talented Edinboro University student Joe Anderson did the honors.
If you've ever had a full face mold done, you know that it's quite an experience. An insane experience actually.
Anyhow, enjoy:
"schism" is also my first movie using any kind of prosthetics, work with foam latex, etc. Here's a pic of a wax mold of my mellon made last week. Talented Edinboro University student Joe Anderson did the honors.
If you've ever had a full face mold done, you know that it's quite an experience. An insane experience actually.
Anyhow, enjoy:
Brandon Rice
Distributed Producer
Thanks John! I've been following your thread very closely! Thanks for all the detailed posts! I certainly am liking what I see here!
John C Lyons
Veteran
check's in the mail, brandon!
Brandon Rice
Distributed Producer
hehe awesome! Keep us updated!
awesome! Keep us updated!
MojoTrancer
Well-known member
John C Lyons said:I hear crickets...hmmmmmmm. Alright, I'll try one more short one, then hang it up until we clear out the cobwebs...
"schism" is also my first movie using any kind of prosthetics, work with foam latex, etc. Here's a pic of a wax mold of my mellon made last week. Talented Edinboro University student Joe Anderson did the honors.
If you've ever had a full face mold done, you know that it's quite an experience. An insane experience actually.
Anyhow, enjoy:
Now who's a handsome fellow...? John's a handsome fellow! Thats who!
Matt Gottshalk
Resident Preditor
Great concept, looks like you are well underway. Kudos to taking on such a substantial product.
I'll be rooting for you, especially since I went to grad school down the road at Clarion.
wOOt!
I'll be rooting for you, especially since I went to grad school down the road at Clarion.
wOOt!
John C Lyons
Veteran
today finished day 29 of production. 6:30AM to 9:30PM. whew! gotta love it --and we're back for more tomorrow!
more reports coming soon....once we get some sleep!
all the ass talk earlier today mike i thought you'd had enough, LOL! are you working on a lighting setup post for on here?
more reports coming soon....once we get some sleep!
all the ass talk earlier today mike i thought you'd had enough, LOL! are you working on a lighting setup post for on here?
John C Lyons
Veteran
Today 3 of us from the crew are meeting a couple hours before filming to build a canopy, I'll take some pics for you guys and post them here a bit later.
The hope is the canopy idea will:
- Enable us to film any kind of scene, any time of day, mainly so we can shoot night scenes when it's broad daylight out.
- Enable us to shoot during crappy weather. This has been a major problem lately as keeping our lighting equipment outdoors during a snowstorm isn't very wise.
*updated with pics 3/6/2007*
yes, you are seeing correctly. we aren't building a shrine around this tree, this is coincidentally what is directly outside the window of the room we are primarily filming at in the nursing home.
tada! it totally works!
this is a shot from inside the room, before mike got the lights all setup (the entrance ways to "terry's outhouse" were still opened up in this pic, hence the light pouring in from sides.)
We've had to cancel the last 3 Tuesday's of filming because of snow/sleet/etc so we're hoping to take control of that situation. This afternoon we have two night scenes on the schedule in the bedroom where the film still from post #1 here is set. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Tomorrow we're doing a cool crane and time passage shot that we've been wanting to film those last 3 Tuesday nights. I'll post stuff on that here as well.
*updated with pics 3/6/2007*
there are two residents and beds per room, so we had to almost entirely clear out half of the room to setup for the dolly crane shot. not much space to operate as you can see. here is the beginning position of the continuous shot...
...and here is the mid position of the shot... this winter "daylight" is all artificial btw (see pics above). perhaps Mike will add some more info for those interested...
As far as media coverage we continue to be very lucky. I got a surprise call a couple of weeks back from the Erie Times-News to run a story on our production and have their writer Gerry Weiss be a part of our crew and write about his experiences. They ran the article, as well as an online interview on Oscar Sunday. Check them out when you find the time:
This is our Sound guy, Kirk Daniels, showing writer Gerry Weiss the ropes.
Article - unfortunately you'll have to create a free account to actually read this article
MP3 interview - direct link to the 20min interview with the writer (no acct needed)
The hope is the canopy idea will:
- Enable us to film any kind of scene, any time of day, mainly so we can shoot night scenes when it's broad daylight out.
- Enable us to shoot during crappy weather. This has been a major problem lately as keeping our lighting equipment outdoors during a snowstorm isn't very wise.
*updated with pics 3/6/2007*
yes, you are seeing correctly. we aren't building a shrine around this tree, this is coincidentally what is directly outside the window of the room we are primarily filming at in the nursing home.
tada! it totally works!
this is a shot from inside the room, before mike got the lights all setup (the entrance ways to "terry's outhouse" were still opened up in this pic, hence the light pouring in from sides.)
We've had to cancel the last 3 Tuesday's of filming because of snow/sleet/etc so we're hoping to take control of that situation. This afternoon we have two night scenes on the schedule in the bedroom where the film still from post #1 here is set. I'll let you know how it turns out.
Tomorrow we're doing a cool crane and time passage shot that we've been wanting to film those last 3 Tuesday nights. I'll post stuff on that here as well.
*updated with pics 3/6/2007*
there are two residents and beds per room, so we had to almost entirely clear out half of the room to setup for the dolly crane shot. not much space to operate as you can see. here is the beginning position of the continuous shot...
...and here is the mid position of the shot... this winter "daylight" is all artificial btw (see pics above). perhaps Mike will add some more info for those interested...
As far as media coverage we continue to be very lucky. I got a surprise call a couple of weeks back from the Erie Times-News to run a story on our production and have their writer Gerry Weiss be a part of our crew and write about his experiences. They ran the article, as well as an online interview on Oscar Sunday. Check them out when you find the time:
This is our Sound guy, Kirk Daniels, showing writer Gerry Weiss the ropes.
Article - unfortunately you'll have to create a free account to actually read this article
MP3 interview - direct link to the 20min interview with the writer (no acct needed)
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John C Lyons
Veteran
news pics posted above, gotta bump this thread for the "A" effort by my crew.
looking good mang,
can't wait.
can't wait.