A Full Week

Man, it has been a busy week for me. Here is what happened...

Sunday Oct 8th
Mom left Sunday morning, headed back up to the bay area. I had a meeting with Leah, the DP for this LA Film School shoot that I am doing, at noon, so I met her at Borders and we went over lighting ideas, etc.
After the meeting, I ran back to my apartment, ate some food, and then took the bus down to USC to meet Andrew and watch Michel Gondry's new film The Science of Sleep. It was good, a lot of visual intensity, but the story and characters were not as relatable as in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But it was in english, french and spanish!

Monday Oct 9th
LA Film school came in around 8AM, so I was at Mole at about 6:30. Larry was already there, unloading his car because he borrowed some gear for a class down at Chapman University in Orange County that he did on Saturday. I came in early to clean the stage, so Larry and I set up chairs and made sure the stage was in ship shape.
The class went well, Larry told me that the next day we would take a little trip over to the ASC club house... so I was excited. Today was Chris Baber's first official day as an intern. He's one of Larry favorites, he's a good guy and I actually like having backup on the stage(I'm still the only one getting paid, though). After the class I came home, relaxed, and watched Studio 60. It was a good night.

Tuesday Oct 10th
The AFI second years came in, the regular Tuesday crowd. Fred Goodich was behaving himself, he's been more subdued then normal and I was surprised not to get a call from him in the end of the previous week about the class(he generally calls ahead and tells me what gear to have ready for him).
Richard Crudo was the guest DP. Sorry, Denis LeNoir, but I may have a new hero ASC member*(see Oct 3rd post Denis Lenoir, You're My Hero!). Usually the classes start with the guest DP giving a short lecture in the screening room about the days class as well as show some work they have done... here is what happened and why he is one of my new favorites...

...I am on stage, running around answering the questions of the ever-confused 2nd years when Richard Crudo walks in. I immediately recognize him from the day when I helped Owen Roizman take pictures for the ASC magazine of all those ASC memebers, and Larry introduces him to me and Chris. Fred Goodich calls Richard over to touch base and then turns to me and says, "Phill, why don't you and Richard go and test out his DVD." I say sure and lead Richard down the hall to the screening room where the classes start.
I tell Richard that I thought we had met before when Owen was over taking pictures of the other ASC members and he said, "Oh, yeah, you were helping Owen. I thought you looked familiar." I don't know if he really did remember me or not, but I still felt important.
So I set up the projector and the DVD player, Richard takes the remote and was the first DP/guest that I have seen in Mole who didn't need help using it. I could sense his self confidence, this was a man who knew what he was doing and also why he was doing it. He didn't seem too interested in showing off his work, but seemed to want to get out there and talk and shoot.
So he starts off with a great introduction of film vs digital... he articulated so well everything that I believed in about film and he backed it up with logical and quantitative evidence that even if you didn't agree with him, you still could not help but go along with it. He was such a good speaker that I was almost convinced to become a cinematographer!
He then talked about printer lights and the most surprising thing is that I actually understood what he was saying... not only did I understand, but I already knew what he was talking about. It was funny because I was taught to look at printer lights when I got my film back in order to check my exposure... and these AFI students had no ideas what printer lights were! I would estimate that half of the students in the LA area don'+t know what printer lights are because they don't have to pay for their film processing like we do up at State. When you pay for you own film, you have to pick up your own film from the lab and you learn to read printer lights. It just amazed me... And I was genuinely interested in what he was saying, too- which made it even better! I went up to him after, as the class was filing out of the screening room, and thanked him for saying exactly how I felt about film and he shook my hand and told me that he was holding back because a lot of students are into digital.
We then went into the stage and did his special camera test where he goes 2 stops over and 2 stops under by changing the lighting and now the f-stop on the lens. He says that he does this test and then doesn't use a grey card, which I applauded because it seems that so many students these days are obsessed with shooting grey cards when they don't need to unless they are in a totally funky lighting situation with crazy mixed light. People don't understand that the grey card is used to help the timer correct for exposure and undesirable color temperatures... but it isn't supposed to be a crutch and a lot of students shoot it because they are afraid of varying color temps and don't trust they eyes. I loved how Richard just saw it and shot it. He wasn't afraid to slap things together, keep it simple and not over think things- he just put it down on celluloid. Seriously, he reminded me of an artist who doesn't hesitate and over think it but just throws the paint on the canvas in the spots he thinks it needs to be. The way he works is exactly how I want to learn how to work.

The class continued to go well and the Larry took me over to the ASC clubhouse only a few blocks north in Hollywood. We met a woman named Patty there, she's not an ASC memeber but she has been running the ASC for 30 years now... Larry told me to stay on her good side and she'd probably ask me to take pictures at their events or something. The clubhouse was amazing, they have all sorts of vintage equipment collected from the 100 years of filmmaking, including 100 year old crank cameras that they still break out every so often and put film in and shoot(they still work!) Larry said to Patty, "It's Phill's first time to the clubhouse. See, his mouth is hanging open." And it was, I'm talking about the knowledge of over 100 years of filmmaking wrapped up and placed into one house in the middle of Hollywood. Anyway, Larry and I scoped out the power and figured out what lights we wanted to put where and then headed back to Mole. But before heading back, I got invited to the party by Patty, who asked if I was any good with a video camera and said they might give me one to shoot with.
I went home after AFI wrapped(but not before getting offered a paid gig on one of the student's MOS projects coming up in Nov)and then met with Leah and the bestboy electric, Brayton, for the shoot at the LA Film School.

Wednesday Oct 11th
Today Larry accidentally double booked... but we figured this out a week ago and decided to be bold and host two classes. It went surprisingly well. There were a lot of students but we had a lot of help.

Thursday Oct 12th
The next day I woke up early and walked to the ASC clubhouse, which turns out to be literally around the corner from my favorite spot in LA, Sid Graumann's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. I was about 20 minutes early so I visited the handprints, making sure to visit the prints of George and Steve(Lucas and Spielberg). I met Chun Ming, another guy from Mole, there and we did a very easy and fast lighting rig for the exterior of the clubhouse. We heard it was going to rain that night so we covered all the bags and connections with garbage bags. It only took us a few hours to run power and put lights on the roof and porch and on the palm trees in the back.
It was exciting, Daryn Okada( the ASC president) stopped by as we were helping with the red carpet, that was exciting. We hung out with the clubhouse team and Patty, the kind-of manager of the ASC who has been working with the ASC since she was 20 years old. We stuck around for a pizza lunch and then I headed home.
I then met up with Leah and Brayton at the LA Film School stage for the equipment checkout and to meet the crew for that shoot that I am working on. The crew is super green but they were willing to learn, so Brayton and I did a grip and electric 101 class with them real quick.
After G&E 101, I met up with my DP friend Chris Hall who I am gaffing for on this USC project. We met at Starbucks in Gower Gultch and discussed the project, which I am super excited about. He stepped me through the visual references and what he was thinking about look and color and lighting and showed me a bunch of reference pictures of various movies, including Harry Potter and E.T.(it's a family film type project). I got excited because I was told by Larry to say Hi to Allen Daviau when I went to the ASC party on Saturday, so I figured that I would ask him his advice on approaching flashlights as practicals in a scene. If Chris wants the look of the E.T. flashlights then why not just go straight to the source and ask Allen how he approached it. I had been struggling with trying to come up with a way to get into conversations with these guys and Larry gave me the answer- he told me to say hi and congratulate people for him- brilliant!

PhillM tip-of-the-day:
Instead of putting on ND gel to bring a window that is blowing out down a few stops, try using this stuff called Roscoe Scrim. It will bring the window down 2 full stops and you won't see it on film.