TRAINSPOTTING

"Train!!!" When you're shooting on real railway tracks you need at least one person with a strong voice ready to shout this word.

Principal photography took place over a nine day period in the middle of July 1996. The pace was hectic, but organized down to the last detail. Shooting all of the principal photography in such a short period of time was both absurd and invigorating, but it's all we could afford. This meant there was no room for indecisiveness. No two hour lighting setups. No stopping to ponder the dynamics of how a shot would cut in with the rest of the film. Everything had to be clearly mapped out in advance. Since we had one thousandth of your average feature film budget we had to be a thousand times more prepared and motivated. Some days consisted of 52 camera setups and thirteen pages of the script being filmed. I cannot say enough good things about the talented and very driven director of photography, James Wallace for keeping his crew moving and motivated. Jim is very sharp in a range of skills. On the set he functioned as gaffer, DOP, and camera operator. His years of experience as a camera operator gave him the ability to think fast and move faster.

The scheduling aspect was particularly challenging because the money, or lack of, often dictated what could and couldn't be tackled. The challenge was not to let the budget determine the quality of choices. We took advantage of things that only guerrilla filmmakers can get away with. Like shooting anywhere at anytime without every required permit. Having next to nothing means you can move fast and light and get shots in places, like highways and railroad tracks, that would be a nightmare for larger budget films. This is where the trainspotters are essential.

There were also five second-unit days of photography spread out over the next fifteen months with a number of far smaller cameras than we used for principal photography.

Cameras used most recently for green screen and digital FX shots are a whole other blog post.