On shooting the “Midnight” vignette

Covering the new page update with a spoiler warning… that’s a new one, but better safe than sorry. With two new pages going up and the possibility that the second one would spoil the first, I have hidden one from view. Awkward, but effective.

Depending on the size and complexity of the work at hand, Night Zero produces either a full-scale shoot or a skeleton shoot. Full-scale shoots are equivalent to a feature film, including the DP and AD, a gaffer, grips, production assistants, catering, location contracts, and the works. The Sisters vignette, the skullhunter’s house and Yevgeniy’s house in episode three, and most of episodes one and two were produced in this method. A skeleton shoot is just the opposite, where the crew is minimally a director, photographer, and (occasional) production assistant, shooting in a single simple location with a small cast. Jezebel and the untitled vignette, Claire’s escape montage in episode two, and the Nazarov sisters in episode three were all produced quickly on minimal staff, as was the just-concluded Midnight vignette.

With some shoots, using a skeleton crew is a matter of scheduling or speed, but with Midnight and Jezebel it was more a matter of practicality. For this vignette we were shooting the near-entirety in a basement space measuring 10′ square, with two actors, a camera tripod, and three light instruments. Add a director and cameraman in the mix and there’s not much room for anybody else. Jana was present in the morning to apply the necessary makeup damage, and Justin filled dual-roles as production manager and assistant director, usually just outside the room we were shooting in.

The shoot began with a 10:00am call time for the crew (Eli, Justin, and myself) to walk the space, rearrange any furniture or lighting, and setup our equipment. Kristina and Shawn arrived at 10:30 to get into costume, and Jana at 10:45 to apply makeup. The first shoot sequence was for Shawn, already in costume, who went upstairs with us to shoot the dark opening sequence while Kristina got her makeup, and the second sequence was a series of Kristina’s close-ups while Shawn got his grit and sweat makeup. From there the day progressed smoothly, running a sequence of ten different lighting setups (Kristina medium shots, Shawn closeups, Shawn over-the-shoulder, Kristina low-angle, et cetera). Jumping around in chronology so much required constantly refreshing the cast on where in the story we were shooting, but it dramatically accelerated the production time by consolidating setup work.

Shooting in a confined space, having that lack of mobility, makes an even stronger opportunity for swift production. The tight limit on possible shots leads to a lot of duplicate frame- and light-setups, which may seem less artistic but is much, much faster to produce. Every new camera angle or focus costs 2-3 minutes and every change of lights costs 5-8 minutes, which may not seem like much but amalgamated with the time of setting actors and tweaking poses, over the course of a day every delay adds up to serious time. By carefully planning each shot in advance, and developing the non-chronological shoot schedule that consolidated lighting setups and camera positions as much as possible, we were able to efficiently move through 82 shots in a seven-hour day (including lunch break). Compare that to the full-scale production of Sisters (7 crew and 5-12 cast), which also moved swiftly through a highly-efficient shoot schedule, and at peak speed produced 40-50 shots in an eight-hour day.

All told, Midnight was a comfortable and relaxed shoot, a nice change from our previous outing to the cold and rainy shipyard for Special Delivery. In color, tone, style, and speed, Midnight and Special Delivery couldn’t be farther apart, which is why I’m pleased that they ran online back-to-back. As fun as it is to build the slow drama and relationships of the serial story, the variety of the vignettes is a pleasant tangent to our ongoing work.