Los Angeles: Act Naturally

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Freshman at Northwestern have more units to work with than I did! Nevertheless, when we shot the big hot tub scene, we had lots of fun trying to find enough amps. That night was super stressful to say the least. Aside from popping circuits and running around the ranch trying to make successful cable runs with only about 1,000′ of stingers, we had to deal with the fact that our actors were forced to sit in a hot tub for hours upon hours. That was one of the hardest nights on set. That and the evening outside of Trevor’s cabin when I had to light up a vast area of the cabins within my ultra-limited means. Calling the production of this film a “challenge” would be a gross understatement. Especially when you factor in the native ISO of the HVX coming in at an unimpressive 320ASA. Now drop that a stop with the Letus Adaptor (they claim it is half a stop, but I don’t buy it), and remember that because you have to zoom into the achromat of the Letus, you can’t be wide open (1.6) on the camera. Instead, you end up at 2.4! Finally, our wide lenses only open to a T2.0 (the 50mm and the 85mm were T1.4, but it is nearly impossible to get sharp focus on anything at that aperture).

Excuse the tangents, I’ll try and return to chronological recapping. With a car full of gear and food, I headed to Colton on Monday March 9, 2009 for the main leg of production. I loaded into the yellow birdhouse that would not only be my home for the next 17 nights, but also double as the camera truck and home of the downloading station. As I looked at the bare walls, I regretted not bringing a few posters to give it a “lived-in feel.” The next morning we didn’t pull any punches: the entire cast would be naked, together, for the wedding scene. What better way to get everyone used to the nudist lifestyle than getting all of the gawking out of the way immediately? Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t friendly to our naked friends: the High temperature was 64°F and Low registered at 34°F! JP vividly remembers his iPhone telling him that it was 38°F when we rolled on the wide shot pictured on the left. Considering our first shot rolled around 9am, I don’t doubt it!

In preproduction, JP insisted that we blow-out our windows for all day scenes at the ranch. Part of the reasoning was practical: we were invading the homes of many residents and we couldn’t exactly tell people that they couldn’t walk by a certain cabin just because we were making our movie. The concept of “lock-ups” was pretty much null and void and we couldn’t risk having people looking into the camera (which seems to be second nature for humans). From a creative standpoint, JP wanted to pop the windows for character’s who had “seen the light” and embraced nudism. Unfortunately, schedule changes meant that we had to partially deviate from this creed (of all the creative compromises made/proposed, this was minor on the continuum). The choice of blowing-out windows allowed us more flexibility in shooting night for day. When making our schedule, we hadn’t planned much night for day, but having that flexibility enabled us to get the shots that we needed on hard drives. Those small cabin windows were particularly easy to pop when I had my 2 HMIs functioning. Maintaining continuity would’ve been next to impossible otherwise. In fact, there are several “day” scenes where you can hear the roaring cicadas signifying nighttime.

Initially I was against blowing out windows. I am not a fan of overexposure (especially when it exceeds 100 IRE and clips) in digital capture. When I see blown out windows, it calls attention to the limited dynamic range of video. I’m always protecting my highlights whenever possible, but like anything in filmmaking style can make you go against your instincts or habits. Day 2 of photography was in the large windowed cabin of Rusty. Those windows overlook high traffic areas at the Resort and we were able to power through long takes (it is a 5 1/2 page scene) without any bogies interfering since we couldn’t see through the glass. It was also one of the most enjoyable scenes of the film to shoot. Because of the lengthy takes, it was also among the most physically challenging. In what would be my first of two consecutive features working with the hilarious Rob Roy Fitzgerald (the second being “Assassin’s Tale“), Rob brought the funny in a serious manner. When we watched the dailies of that scene, we were dying with laughter as we caught the nuances of his sharp performance.

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Dustin Pearlman Dustin Pearlman is a plant-based Cinematographer. Aside from film, he's passionate about the environment, music, and cycling. He's a member of IATSE Local 600 and lives in Los Angeles with his mini-schnauzer Iris.