e. gustavo petersen | cinematographer

The first of many production meeting took place tonight mostly to massage the schedule.  I was introduced to our 1st AD, Gary, and our Key Make-up, Kristin.  It’s all coming together.  We’ll have day and night shots, a little location work and lots of stage work.  The cast is almost complete – I look forward to announcing who’s in the show.

Tomorrow morning we’ll tour the stages on a tech scout.  Some of the sets are already finished so it’ll be a great opportunity to talk shots out with Corbin (dir) and Josh (CLT).

The first and likely the last of the location scouts took place today.  We visited some stages in North Hollywood called Chandler Toluca Lake Studios.

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The ball is rolling and the clock is ticking.  We’re now officially moving forward on this project.  The money is making it’s way to the bank, casting is being finalized and a final script and locations are due for completion later this week.  So far we’re looking to do some days on a stage, some days on location and a few nights.  We’re picking some more of the “keys” this week also.  I hope to have my visual treatment finished by the weekend after a couple of more readings of the current script.

Project: “Donna on Demand” – Feature Film
Director: Corbin Bernsen

I said this was already shaping up to be a busy year and here’s my first entry as proof.  I had my first meeting with the Corbin today.  The producer, Jesse Lawler, arranged for me to meet him about his upcoming feature.  We met at his office in Van Nuys and jumped right in to talking shop.  I think that before I knew it, I was already selected to shoot the project.

So what’s the project?  I’ll talk about it more in a later entry.  There are still a few minor changes that are going to be written into the script.  But here’s what I can say.

It’s a 12 day shoot here in Los Angeles – six days on two days off then the final six days and maybe a weekend of pick-ups down the line.  It’s a high definition show and we’ll be shooting with the Panasonic VariCam.  It’s a single camera show with several “oners”, but don’t confuse that with just shooting a master.  The oners we’re considering shooting are blocking intensive shots.

The look is clean but dark.  I’ll be playing some more with what shadows can do.  I’m am, of course, having many more meetings with Corbin about the look in the next two weeks.  We should next week have the locations locked down which will contribute a great deal to how interpret the look of the project.  I have however already started my visual treatment of the movie.  This treatment I work out is a written set of concepts and visual rules we’re work from and a structure for the visual arch of the movie.  (It may not be to evident, but I’m trying really hard not to use the word “film” in this entry since it’s an HD show.)