Lumberjack Fantasy Sequence
The idea going into Made Crooked was to maximize production values wherever possible. I knew that shooting seventy scenes in three days was not going to be easy let alone pretty. Rather than traditional coverage, which is extremely time consuming and difficult for actors without a lot of experience, we opted for a handheld scheme for key broad dialogue scenes wherein the speaker was on-camera and a second camera picked off reactions, spoken or otherwise. For the shorter scenes we locked the cameras off and took more time with the mise-en-scene. I knew that this would still be insufficient. Basically it would be a bunch of people talking. Which can be great, but often isn't anything more than the writer, director and actors fallling in love with the words on the page and ignoring what's under them.
That's where the idea to tell some stories within the story that could be shot at a later date came into play. It would give us an opportunity to get out of the cabin and still maintain unity of place.
The Lumberjack sequence is Tara's way of expressing her longing for men that are strong and gentle, rather than coercive and weak like the men in her family. She concocts a story of a menage a trois and a fight to the death over her. I knew we wouldn't have time to do this over the weekend and even if we did, I wanted Tara to know that we were making a film, remembering that the actors came to the cabin under the pretense of an actor's retreat, and that I wasn't sliming all over her just for kicks.
To solve this problem, we could rent the cabin again at a later date, shoot the sequence in a similiar location or recreate it on a stage. I chose to recreate it on a stage, but rather than build the set we shot plates of each room of the cabin and then projected them onto set paper. Then we traced the foreground elements onto fome-core, cut them out and brought them closer to the camera. We then built a platform to serve as the bed or table or whatever. The light from the projector lit the actors.
I had the orgy scene from Clockwork Orange in mind as a model. Kubrick shot that at 2 frames per second. The scene took twenty-eight minutes to act out yet lasted only forty seconds on screen. They get totally naked, dressed again and naked again to the tune of The William Tell Overture. We too did ours to William Tell at 12 fps but remained fully dressed as vintage lumberjacks throughout as we mimed a playful and sometimes exlicit threesome.
We shot the intro to the scene on a green screen. Jordan, Efrem and I worked overnight Saturday to prepare both sets. I took off at 3:30 to grab a couple of hours of sleep while Jordan and Efrem tarried on until our 7am call time.
I stopped drinking coffee recently and planned on allowing myself a cup Sunday morning. I was so invigorated by the work we were doing that I didn't find it necessary.
I really admire the dedication and good spirits of everyone on this project, especially Jordan. Without his tireless dedication the project would not be possible.
Best,
nc
That's where the idea to tell some stories within the story that could be shot at a later date came into play. It would give us an opportunity to get out of the cabin and still maintain unity of place.
The Lumberjack sequence is Tara's way of expressing her longing for men that are strong and gentle, rather than coercive and weak like the men in her family. She concocts a story of a menage a trois and a fight to the death over her. I knew we wouldn't have time to do this over the weekend and even if we did, I wanted Tara to know that we were making a film, remembering that the actors came to the cabin under the pretense of an actor's retreat, and that I wasn't sliming all over her just for kicks.
To solve this problem, we could rent the cabin again at a later date, shoot the sequence in a similiar location or recreate it on a stage. I chose to recreate it on a stage, but rather than build the set we shot plates of each room of the cabin and then projected them onto set paper. Then we traced the foreground elements onto fome-core, cut them out and brought them closer to the camera. We then built a platform to serve as the bed or table or whatever. The light from the projector lit the actors.
I had the orgy scene from Clockwork Orange in mind as a model. Kubrick shot that at 2 frames per second. The scene took twenty-eight minutes to act out yet lasted only forty seconds on screen. They get totally naked, dressed again and naked again to the tune of The William Tell Overture. We too did ours to William Tell at 12 fps but remained fully dressed as vintage lumberjacks throughout as we mimed a playful and sometimes exlicit threesome.
We shot the intro to the scene on a green screen. Jordan, Efrem and I worked overnight Saturday to prepare both sets. I took off at 3:30 to grab a couple of hours of sleep while Jordan and Efrem tarried on until our 7am call time.
I stopped drinking coffee recently and planned on allowing myself a cup Sunday morning. I was so invigorated by the work we were doing that I didn't find it necessary.
I really admire the dedication and good spirits of everyone on this project, especially Jordan. Without his tireless dedication the project would not be possible.
Best,
nc
posted by Signore Direttore at 2:49 PM
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