I’ve been having an extended panic attack for a couple weeks now. It started when I looked at the footage for Bright Black.
There were lights and crew members in some of the shots, but that’s what CGI is for. There wasn’t nearly as much frenetic camera movement as I wanted, but that could be simulated in post. The problem was that in our rush to get Jesse Pieper’s shots done the first night (he couldn’t make it back the next day), we forgot all of the establishing shots of the thugs.
There is literally zero footage of the thugs not looking in Jarod Bright’s direction. Therefore, there are no shots that would be usable before the Interrogator gets killed. This means the thugs would just appear out of nowhere, as the viewer has no idea that they were in the scen until then. It would effectively push the film beyond “silly” and into the territory of “amateurisih.” As in, it would actually, legitimately suck. But it’s impossible for it to not be terrible, since we don’t have that establishing shot.
Unless I decide to go all non-linear on yo’ ass.
So, that’s what I’ve decided to do. The film will be completed in time for its previously alluded to May 8th upload date. It will start with a shot of the interrogator and end with a shot of Bright watching Clarisse leave. Everything in between will be in a completely different order. And it will be even more ridiciulous than I imagined.
The problem is that I don’t particularly love that idea. It’s not being done because I’m excited about the idea, nor that I think it will work very well, but that it’s pretty much the only way the footage we got would work correctly. Also, the entire cast would hate me forever if I decided not to finish the movie because I didn’t like it. Especially Shannon Mary Burgess, who would probably cut my testicles off with her fingernails.
Well, it’s certainly been a learning experience for me: I am much better at getting what I want from animation than from live action. Working with action-focused videography of live actors is not something I should do when I have to devote half my time to unrelated homework and classes.
Also tapes. I hate tapes, with their dropped frames and broken timecodes and gahhhh. I’m not shooting a scripted production again until I have a memory card video camera.
