Posts Tagged ‘crew’

Inertia Part Two: Loew Hall

Posted: 25th March 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Inertia", Behind-the-Scenes Photos, On Location
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On shooting the students’ half of the “Inertia” vignette

There are times when the Night Zero schedule is relaxed, structured, and done well in advance. This February, with the production of “Inertia”, was not one of those times. Between proofing Volume Three (now shipping) and on the eve of a 2 1/2 week trip to Europe, there was not a lot of time available for the vignette, and while early plans had us shooting the two halves on consecutive weekends, the availability of the cast (on which I did not want to compromise) pushed us into shooting both halves on consecutive days. And due to the building schedules at UW, our second shoot day was moved to a new location that we didn’t see until the night before. It was going to be a tough day.
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Inertia Part One: Denny Hall

Posted: 18th March 2011 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Inertia", Behind-the-Scenes Photos, On Location
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On shooting the professors’ half of the “Inertia” vignette

The production schedule for “Inertia” was rigorous, to say the least. Shooting was done on location at the University of Washington on a single weekend, with each half of the vignette taking one day. The first shoot, Saturday, was spent in Denny Hall, home of the Germanics and Anthropology departments and much of my undergraduate studies. In past years I’d spent many hours in this particular classroom, discussing Goethe and Lessing. For this day, we would be discovering the story of Richard and Elisabeth, professors and colleagues on the night of the zombie apocalypse.

In a typical film production, shoots are split between on-location and sound stage, with as much as possible being done on stage because it’s easier, faster, and cheaper. At Night Zero we shoot everything on location, so for us we can only grade difficulty relative to other locations. The University of Washington is a very friendly and accommodating facility, so gaining access to the space is about as painless as could be hoped for, but working in actual classrooms in a building well over a century old, there are other challenges to face.
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A Holiday Gift

Posted: 24th December 2010 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Episode 5 - "Reversals", On Location
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On the full day warehouse shoot between the Claire, Edge, and the Trio, plus a holiday gift

With the holiday breaks there will be no new pages on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve, but here’s a special gift instead. In preparation for the publishing of our next book, Night Zero: Volume Three, I’ve been re-reading and proofing some of our vignettes and taking advantage of the comic reading apps on the iPad to do so. For anybody out there who uses a comic reader (on whatever platform), here’s a collection of some of our vignettes in CBZ format. And please let us know, is this something you’d be interested in more of?

The warehouse scene which just concluded last week was another of our all day affairs, taking the approach of knocking out a huge chunk of comic with a single marathon shoot. This meant we’d need a full crew on set, starting with Eli on camera and Jana on makeup/costumes. Eric returned to do his lighting magic, this time accompanied by long-time Night Zero fan/contributor Justin, who took up the ropes learning grip work. Eli was assisted by Kai on the camera side of things, and Phoebe coordinated the show as Assistant Director with Mike supporting her. The full call was eight cast members, just shy of the Dariya’s Death shoot but still much larger than our average shoot.
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the Death of Dariya

Posted: 3rd December 2010 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Behind-the-Scenes Photos, Episode 5 - "Reversals", On Location
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On location for shooting the Death of Dariya sequences

For the day of the Dariya shoot we had a 9:00am crew call: in addition to Eli on camera and myself as director, Eric was back to his lighting magic, supported by Jason and Justin; our post-production gal Jen had her first day on-set as a production assistant; Phoebe was assistant director as usual; Jana was costume and makeup supervisor but (due to her on-camera obligations) the makeup application itself was handled by Sara with the help of James. The bulk of the morning was spent hanging lights and redecorating the conference room to be a makeshift emergency room, while the cast entered at staggered times to meet their respective costume and makeup needs.

From a post-production standpoint, large-scale shoots like the Death of Dariya are more challenging to structure. The typical post-production workflow (handled in Adobe Bridge) separates the thousands of photos in our catalog by shoot date, for easy-to-find sorting chronologically. The downside is encountered when we do large, all day shoots, because shooting 20+ pages in a single day and trying to sort through 200 photos for the right 4-5 on each page is a tiresome process. Instead, for substantive shoots like this I break the scene down into smaller sequences, based on character entrances/exits and changes in action. In this way, a large segment like the Death of Dariya becomes the equivalent of six smaller shoots, each one spanning 2-4 pages and containing 20-30 photos.

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A Dark Day At the Bar

Posted: 10th September 2010 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: "Devon", Behind-the-Scenes Photos, On Location, Photography
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On the day of shooting the “Devon” vignette bar sequences

The primary shoot location for the Devon vignette was the small bar in Seattle’s Market Theater, home of the improv troupe Unexpected Productions (source of many great Night Zero cast members). Despite producing a full range of shows each week, in addition to classes and rehearsals, the team at UP was happily willing to let us take over their bar for a full Sunday shoot, which is where our story begins.

Crew call for the day was the usual 9:00am, and the production team consisted of myself as director, Eli on photography, Phoebe as assistant director, Kai as 2nd AD and assistant camera, Jana on makeup and costumes, and Eric in charge of lights with Jason as best boy. As always, the first step of the day was to review the space and start shifting it to our liking: moving and removing chairs and tables, rearranging the bottles and accessories on the bar, adjusting or removing posters and other decor. A separate space away from the bar was set up for makeup, and another to stage the various lighting gear that may be needed throughout the day.
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Securely in Security

Posted: 30th July 2010 by Anthony van Winkle
Categories: Concepts & Development, Episode 4 - "Insecurity"
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On the growth and change experienced over the course of producing Episode Four

As you can see, this next vignette is another character backstory piece, and a dark one at that. I’m very pleased with how it’s turning out, and I look forward to telling you all about it in the weeks to come—but first, some final reflections on the recently-ended episode four, “Insecurity”.

For many of reasons, the fourth episode was a paradigm shift for Night Zero, as a production and as a family. The technical challenges of the protest shoot I’ve already discussed on this blog, but it was more than just the impact of large-scale production. The scope of the protest shoot involved more than a year of planning and preparations, and the entire production team was heavily invested in its success. The timing of the shoot coincided with the end of production of episode three, so the event itself was a fitting “last hurrah” for five of Night Zero’s team members (including two from the very first days) before they moved on to their own projects.
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