We shot a Movie on the Weekend ~ Unlofty

This was one shoot where we had all the time in the world for every stage of production. Nice for a change. We actually sat around both filming days, talking, playing games, eating, and waiting for it to get dark.

I was solely Production Designing, and enjoyed putting the costumes and sets and props together to try and make it look convincing. My motto is "Beautiful. Interesting. Realistic." Someday it would be cool to add Symbolic to that list. Maybe if I work on a set with a budget.

Here are some snapshots from the weekend, as usual. You can watch the finished film here!

A much-interrupted family dinner

How did I do?

Got to get everything just right for those close ups

Night scene!

Good friends on and off camera

Set design should always include a sock monkey and a kleenex box

The moment of calm after the clap and before the "Action!"

Get that marshmallow right on those crosshairs and shoot it!

Mirrors are a hassle on set

The Production Designer and Script Supervisor look on

Look what I read in the paper today!

The sound engineer in his natural habitat

The crew

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Filming Terminology

Either you're in the filmmaking mindset, or you're not. It goes back and forth, for me. If we have a shoot coming up, usually around two weeks prior to crunch time I will suddenly flip into the filmmaking mindset. The more time you spend among film people and the deeper you get into the filmmaking circuit the easier it comes to you, and there is a sure-fire way to tell if you are in the mindset or not. You start to think in this language:

Script

Audio

Casting

Crew Call

Audition Tape

INT

EXT

A/V

Pre-production

Beat

Storyboarding

Inciting Incident

Props

Key Grip

Gaffer

Talent

CO

DoP

Cinematographer

Producer

Director

Extras

Production Designer

Script Supervisor

Actor

Sound Engineer

Colourist Production

Equipment

Gimbal

Tripod

Slider

Boom Pole

DSLR

T3i

T4i

SL2

D-mark II

50 mm

85 mm

18-55 mm

24 mm

Telephoto

Recorder

Bezeless

Shotgun Mic

Condenser Mic

Cardioid Polar Pattern

Monitor

Rode

H1N

H4N

Tripod

Wide-angle

ND Filter

Wind Muff

5 in 1

Diffuser

Reflector

Dead Cat

Lens

Lens Cap

Crane

NTG

Dolly

Clapper Board

Continuity

Shots

Blocking

Pan

Zoom

A-Roll

B-Roll

Wild Track

OTS

Short Sighting

Look Room

F-Stop

HDR

ISO

White Balance

Depth of Field

Dynamic Range

Aperture

Full-Frame

Mirrorless

4K

8K

Pre Amp

Rule of Thirds

The 180

On Rehearsal

Background

Action

Back to Ones

Hot Set

Sparking

MOS

Decibels

Key Light

Rim Light

Fill Light

Catch Light

Broad Light

Short Light

Cross Lighting

Flat Lighting

Butterfly Lighting

Loop Lighting

Split Lighting

Rembrandt Lighting

Checkerboard Lighting

Broad Side

Short Side

High Key

Low Key

Drop Shadow

Halo Effect

Lamp Left/Right

Camera Left/Right

Talent Left/Right

On Set

Peaking

BTS

Rolling

Speeding

Green Screen

Kicker

Cinematic

Wrap

Ambient Sound

Post-production

ADR

Resolution

Pixels

Bit-rate

Pop Filter

Glitch

Digital Noise

Export

Render

Crossfade

Stabilizer

Hard Drive

Cut

Timeline

Aliasing

In Post

Hard Cut

Cold Open

Colour Grade

Anamorphic Crop

Foley

If you feel like you know what some of these words might mean, be advised (and beware) that the video world steals words and makes them mean something else entirely. And, these are only the words I've actually heard used and sort of understand what they mean. There are many more.

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Goertzenville Goes West

The Goertzen family has always been idiosyncratic and aired on the side of crazy and dangerous. We are very funny, love a good story, play all the new games on the block obsessively while always coming back to the old ones, and never leave an idea, however insane, without discussing every aspect of it in detail and figuring out how to accomplish it. There has been a change in the past few years. A shift. A sort of a moving on and a coming of age. The cousins have taken the place of the Uncles and Aunties, at least when it comes to escapades and endless energy. Let me show you what I mean by these things.

We drove up Riding Mountain this week for a few days' Goertzen retreat. We spent our time playing Camel Up and Last One Standing, soaking in the outdoor hot tub, putting the waterslide to unprecedented use, playing shinny on the rink, and many intense rounds of Donkey (in our bathing suits). Mind you, it was the cousins who did all this, while the adults mostly looked on and fed the mob of us. And the ideas, they flew. For example, as we froze our hair in the hot tub it was proposed that we storm the white house with a tank and see how far we got. This was seriously and animatedly considered, with the conclusion being that we should build the tank inside the Lincoln Memorial out of 1-foot-thick steel; or perhaps, make the Washington Monument into a rocket. The most unsanctioned thing we did we probably shouldn't have - all of us cousins excepting Sonnet went down the waterslide in a big train. We got those trains of children down to a science. I think we may have emptied the thing when all of us hit the slow-down lane like some sort of human battering ram. Nobody got hurt. That's how it goes with the Goertzens.

Lots of selfies on the drive up

The whole thing was well documented - often from three angles

All the food was delish as usual

Camel Up

Last One Standing

Donkey

We went swimming four times in 48 hours

A very well-designed series of logs

The first important step in forming a waterslide train

We felt like monkeys

And acted like monkeys too

The glass was a perfect mirror at night

We sort of overwhelm any space we're in

Ice droplets after more than an hour chit-chatting in the freezing steam

Hockey time with the Goertzens!

Always time for a quick nap

It's called sport dysphoria. Also called being Manitoban. Go Bombers!

We are quite the pair, if I may say so myself.

"...love one another fervently with a pure heart..." 1 Peter 1:22b

The Goertzen family is going snowboarding tomorrow. Catch us if you can!

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#Goertzenville #goodtimes #winter