Director/producer: Jon Shaivitz
DP: Cameron Dozier
Writer: Dan Sorgen
Why this script/concept?
How does it reflect your vision as a commercial director?
At this stage in my career I am still trying to figure out exactly what
kind of commercial director I want to be, and how best to reflect that in my
reel. The two spots that I've done so far have been shot driven, rhythmic, and
don't rely on dialogue too much if at all. I generally don't like the idea of
dialogue doing all the heavy lifting - I much prefer visually driven comedy,
especially something where I can use music to set the pacing and overall feel.
This script had all of the above – a shot-driven piece where the music could
build into a strong punchline at the end. It's kinetic. Exciting. Loud. And
above all it's really funny.
What was
the casting process like?
Though we ended up cutting the
actors out of it, the casting process was an important part of preproduction.
There is a great website – LAcasting.com where you can post your casting calls
for free, review reels, headshots, resumes and get in touch with talent
directly for your project. For a small spec production like this it's
impractical to hold formal auditions, but a great way around that is to have
actors put themselves on tape and email you video auditions. It's quick,
convenient, and allows you to see exactly how your actors will perform – before
getting on set.
How did
you search for/lock a location?
Craigslist. Because we didn't
have a lot of money we couldn't pay for an expensive location, however, nobody
needs to know that when you post your ad. We posted an ad for the kind of house
we were looking for and told submitters to send their regular rates. If you
post your fee and it's low, you won't get a lot of responses. We sorted through
the submissions, found the perfect place and negotiated our way down into something
doable.
How did
you select your DP, crew?
My DP is my best friend and
business partner Cameron Dozier. We've been working together since our time
shooting industrials in Washington D.C. going on about four years ago now. The
rest of our crew was very small and contained - we like to have a small
footprint with only the essentials. And everyone on the crew was working for
meals/copy. We had a makeup artist, a couple camera assistants/PA's and a boom
op. The single biggest deciding factor on how big to make our crew was – how
many mouths do we really want to feed? Every additional crew member is another
meal – and that adds up if you go too big.
How did
shooting go? Any challenges?
Shooting went surprisingly well.
The biggest challenge we had was getting the most out of only 3 lights. We have
three 2k/1K fresnels and even though they provide a lot of light, we are
restricted to simple three point lighting setups -- only really being able to
light what we need to see without much room for accents. With a spot like this
where your subject is the environment, that got a little tricky, but overall we
kept it simple and it didn't seem to get in our way too much. In the future -
we hope to have a few more lights to sprinkle in and break things up.
Tell us
about editing and finishing.
We shot this a few different
ways. As written, with a narrator, with a protagonist reverse shot, without,
etc. It took quite a few cuts to ultimately settle on what version worked the
best, and in the end we decided on using a title and cutting the on camera
narrator. The sound effects also took a few tries to get exactly what we wanted
but overall post went smoothly. I basically knew what kind of music I wanted to
use before I shot it so picking the music was easy. I had one of those flashes
of inspiration where I knew exactly what song I was going to use. Hard to
explain that one. We did a little bit of grading, crushing our blacks and
making things look a bit more contrasty than the raw image. We edited in FCP 7
and After Effects CS4.
In
retrospect, is there anything you would have done differently?
More lights!
Any other
thoughts.
Specbank rocks. If you want good
material for your reel there is just no other place to go.
Thanks!
