On the opening montage and council meeting in Episode Four

The scene that we’re just getting into now is the culmination of a year’s worth of efforts, the highly-anticipated “protest shoot” that launched Night Zero to a new level of production last summer. I look forward to telling you much more about it in the coming weeks, but since we had no blog post last week, I’d like to talk today about some of what happened since Episode Four began.

The choice to open the episode with a narrative montage didn’t come until the end of the production process, and was shot just a few days before the episode was scheduled to begin. The consideration that led to these introductory pages was to find a different approach to the “recap” that precedes the serial episodes, filling in details as a reminder of what’s happened since our story began. In the past, this has been done with a single dense page, covering as much information is possible in objective and utilitarian narration.

Instead of another of those, I wanted to take the recap as an opportunity to get a perspective on the preceding events, coloring and affecting the retelling of the story through the eyes of Nadia. While this is new for an episode opening, it’s actually standard operating procedure to dedicate a portion of each episode to one character’s backstory, and Nadia’s morning routine and inner monologue does just that while filling the reader in on what’s going on. It’s a win-win all around, and more fun to read (and shoot) than a simple “Previously on Night Zero…” page.

The office scene that opens the action of Episode Four was a great pleasure to shoot, because it was a rare chance to bring in new faces and play with some new people. Our typical shoot for the serial story has a pretty static cast, so having four new roles outside our usual demographic was the perfect chance to tap into the many artists in the greater Night Zero family.

The four councilmen are all extremely talented actors from the Seattle theater, film, and improv communities, and having this scene as an opportunity to work with them on Night Zero was fortuitous. A single day’s shoot, a simple setup, and very sharp costumes… that’s an easy sell, although they were already eager to be a part of our amazing project.

In addition to these heavy-hitting cast members, we had two new crew members on the shoot who both performed excellently. Phoebe was on hand to learn the ropes as Assistant-Director-in-Training, and following Chloe’s lead, she picked up the job and was a joy to work with. I look forward to many great shoots with her at the helm in the coming year, and am confident she’ll take good care of the cast and crew.

Running camera on the shoot was Jansen, who’s not a stranger to Night Zero (he shot all the behind-the-scenes for our protest shoot), but this was his first go at principal photography while Eli was out of town. Jansen is a highly skilled and experienced photographer and camera operator, so it was a challenge to train him to resist the extreme precision he’s used to working with (on film) and adjust to the highly unusual world of photographic novel production. Finding our balance in the morning pushed us a little behind schedule, but Jansen was very patient with me and we were soon working right in sync. I also look forward to more shoots with him behind the lens, and I’m sure Eli won’t mind a few days off here and there.