2018 | Production Diary 3 - Deakin University Phoenix Gallery | Film: Cycle

My third day on set involved working on the challenging 'White Room Scene' - a location that bookends the forest scenes that were shot yesterday (Tuesday 28th). Earlier on in the planning stages several weeks ago, Başak told me about the setup for the White Room, one involving the moveable art studio walls that were in the part of the exhibitions in Deakin University's Phoenix Gallery on the Burwood campus.

The script and storyboards required certain shots that the moveable walls were extremely useful and versatile for the setups and film trickery we want to pull off and if we needed more space we could move them out.

Our little set inside the Phoenix Gallery at Deakin. Two moveable walls arranged to simulate a room.

The way the moveable walls are placed meant that we had two of them to form the other two walls against the gallery's real walls. Sounds easy enough, the technicians moved the walls into place and adjusted them to account for gaps etc. then we found that there is a distinguishable strip running along the gallery wall that clashed with the moveable walls and without lighting looked terrible. So, we deliberated with our director on whether to shoot against the moveable walls or the real ones and ultimately decided to go with the real ones - for one very big and simple reason: the moveable walls didn't reach the ground and our first shot required us to see the actress on the ground!

The biggest challenge in the beginning of the shoot was the lighting - something that seems rudimentary and easy enough, but the reality of the situation meant carefully placing lights here and there, and enough to reflect light back onto other surfaces that might better illuminate the actress and the other walls. The lighting also helped make the ugly strip running along the wall mostly invisible to the camera, and because we were filming indoors we could control the consistency of the light for continuity.

Trying to get the split shadow effects with the lighting.

Nikki, Ramin and Dylan look over the shot list, the most holy document on the set.

The RED camera.

Ramin gets in the way of the camera. Again!

31/08/2018 Update:
The following day we would need to do the pick-ups from the other day that we couldn't finish, and get around to doing the practical effects shots that are important for the end of the film. Everything went as well as we could've hoped, the shots were all done well and the acting captured the tone we were going for in the script and storyboards, but because of the logistics of shooting, trying to get the most out of our actress and all the lighting setups, we were pushing it close for the deadline the next day!