I shot this film with Tony Winner Jarrod Emick and Tony Nominee Andrea McArdle (she was also the original “Annie” on B’way!), and it’s won a bunch of awards including best cinematography at several festivals. You’ll probably also recognize a few other TV faces in there.
We wanted a clean but filmic look. Here are some notes:
• The beach scene was a very hot and sandy day of shooting in Long Island. I told the crew to wear sunscreen. Some didn’t listen and they paid the price! We set up large white bounces and some hard reflectors, plus a track and dolly for the walking scenes.
• The night scene I was requested to keep very soft and undirected light.
• The main office: We were faking out a very high floor in a much lower floored building, so all the windows I wanted to ‘almost’ see through, and notice buildings outside, but not enough to give away the location. So it was right on edge of blown out windows on purpose for effect. We also had to style the main office with computers circa 2001, which was the start of flatscreens. The set was created by a wonderful designer, Julia Hahn, who I recommend highly.
• I love the bedroom scene in the morning. There was a lot of lighting done, but the effect was to look ‘natural’. I think it walks that edge and is rather pretty without being overly so.
• The interior of the car is lit with daylight flourescents.
• Another favorite shot is the long tracking shot across the pictures. It was a very complex crane/pan shot with no automation, and we had to time the kids coming across the outside.
• The elevator: We found an appropriate one in an industrial building in queens. So exteriors are one building, interiors shot on another day. I did the flashing with several lights set up with PA’s flickering them. The shaking was done the old 1960’s Star Trek method: Shake the camera and have the actor pretend. We just worked with him to make sure it didn’t look cheesy!
• The cemetery had some lighting to enhance the sunset. The crane shots were a last minute suggestion I had just as the sun was setting so we raced to set it up and shoot!