Shooting Report

I'm writing about this the day after it happened, because it wasn't over until the day after it happened. Call was at 4 p.m. The first frame of film was to be shot at 6. This was ambitious. We shot the first scene at 8. This was ridiculous. It was a 10-second dolly shot with no dialogue and it was a nightmare. The problem with student films is that everything has to be technically perfect because everyone's getting a grade on it, and then it becomes their demo for the industry, so they doubly desire every unnoticeable detail to be flawless. So we've got hundreds of guys (OK, maybe 2, but it seems like hundreds) running around with their little light meters saying we're up a stop, or 2 stops under or we need to open up the light, or get a single in there. And I guess everyone is taking a different course at Northridge because there's a lot of disagreement and working alone as opposed to a big unified team of technicians striving together to get a shot in before the year 2000.

I guess the most annoying aspect of the light-men busy-work is that I have absolutely no idea what the hell they're talking about. There I sit waiting for the set-up to be completed so we can shoot and a disagreement starts to brew:

And I don't really have a clue. It feels like we're 18, but maybe we're 24. And I remember being a stop under before lunch. Maybe it was that sandwich I had that put me a stop over.

I guess I could use a quick course in lighting. If I work some real jobs, I should really pay attention and glean whatever I can.

Anyway, we had a rape to shoot. I guess I haven't mentioned the content of this film yet. It opens with the end of a date, boy and girl driving home, boy comes into girl's room. They start to fool around. Girl wants to stop. Boy doesn't want to stop. Boy doesn't stop. It's shown in pieces in between the credits for the film. The bulk of the film is how she deals with the rape. I only reappear later twice - the first time I'm leaving a message on her machine, unaware that I have done anything wrong. The second time I run into her on campus and she darts away panicked. Those two will be shot another day. Tonight we rape.

The most difficult shots were close-ups. A tight shot of my hand on her breast, a tight shot of my hand pulling her underwear down, a tight shot of my hand holding hers against the couch.

The earlier stuff went OK. There was a shot of her putting on music and sitting down. A shot of us starting to kiss. Then we're on the floor, still both into it. Then I start to kiss her neck and as I move down, she tells me to stop, I say relax. And then the last shot is her saying she means it, and I grab her hands and pin them above her head.

So, nothing too awful in those two lists. There were three shots left, though: a close-up of her face screaming, "No!" as I rape her, and a close-up of my face doing the same. We both survived these shots OK, though. Hers was more emotionally charged, but mine was pretty goofy: making sex-faces into a camera. The last shot worried me. It was a shot of the whole room as I "pounded into" her "lifeless body." I felt I had to speak up. I approached the producer, Vince, and said that showing the rape might be exploiting it. Everyone watching knows what's happening. They don't need to see the two bodies engaged on the screen, and that the tight shots, and shots of hands cringing makes it more artistic, less exploitive. He seemed a bit annoyed that I had overstepped my bounds as an actor, but an hour later, when we shot that scene, it was, instead, a close-up of her teddy-bear, and in the foreground was my backside going up and down. (I was having sex with the ottoman for the shot.)

Wrapping at 4 a.m. was a pain in the ass. Luckily, I'm done for the weekend. I can't imagine shooting more today, and with the same time-wasting going on. Quickly, let me say everyone was nice, pleasant to work with, everyone was flirting with Angel, my victim, which was annoying. It must have been tough for her with a crew of 10 guys, 1 woman. And I ate like a madman. (Gotta take advantage of that free food.)

Twice a Victim | Student Productions | Resume