So on Monday July 21 my Producer Shannon Welch, my crew from NYFA, and myself took the day to gather equipment from all over Burbank in preparation for the shoot. This had to be the largest package of equipment I have ever used to date. Sure I've created similar effects to the equipment we picked up, but its normally been a makeshift version we threw together at the last minute. So it was nice to have the professional version for this shoot. On top of the regular gear we are provided from NYFA we acquired a One ton grip package from a local rental house which just about tripled out grip equipment and added mirror boards, double the flags and C-stands. We also grabbed a large P2 card for our Panasonic HVX200 camera and a glide cam for hand-held shots, and to top things off a large cargo van to put the stuff in. The only slight road bump we ran into was that one our our lead actors called to let us know he had booked a job for one of the days he needed to be on set with us. This scared me a little bit, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it helped us to better schedule some earlier shoots and ended up making things easier. So we were ready to go and I wasn't feeling nervous about the shoot at all. I was excited to see this story finally get out of my head and onto the video screen.
So on Tuesday July 22, 2008 we began production on "The Cypherian". The cast and crew assembled at La Cienega Park in Beverly Hills for the first scene. We scheduled some of the most complicated setups early so the rest of the film would go pretty smoothly. My Director of Photography, Søren Viuf, brought out some of his crew from Orange country, and working my crew made the whole day so much easier for me to focus on shots and actors.
Also Shannon recruited some of her classmates to help with craft services, props and wardrobe, and I don't know what we would have done without them. We just about had every cast member on set except for two which gave our makeup artist, Brian, a good idea for makeup in the rest of the film. Brian also got to add the broken noses and bruises to Jacob Newton and Benjamin Watts, our two body guards, who earlier in the film get a little roughed up by our main character played by Christopher Corbin.
Our female lead, Maddie Bukowsky, and her brother were onset enjoying some sun and relaxation as the day went on. I was so pleasantly surprised at the professionalism of my actors. They came to set ready to read with little to know assistance from the script. They had their character down cold and followed blocking and direction perfectly. Søren gave me some of the greatest shot setups and the end result was a very emotional day for me. The look and feeling of film is even better than I imagined.
The crew seems to be getting along great and really working with one another. I think my crew and I are learning a great deal from this experience, and I know it will serve us well in the up and coming months. So to wrapped it up the first day was a great success and I'm feeling great about everyone involved. Tomorrow we are back in Beverly Hills before we move to Eylsian Park in Los Angeles on Thursday. I've got some pictures here from the first day. They are only a small sample of the hundreds of photos Shannon took on set, but they are some of my favorites.
-D.K.
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