Film Shoot

Hey blog readers!

On Friday night, I went to a film shoot for an upcoming series called My Babysitter's a Vampire. I had a really great time and learned a lot. The series is directed by Bruce Macdonald, who also directed a Canadian zombie movie called Pontypool. I learned that one scene has to be reshot about 5-10 times before the director likes what he sees. Also, sometimes 2 cameras will be set up so you get the same scene shot at different angles, depending on which looks better.

I brought a hand-held video camera to this shoot and was kind of following people around and shooting different things. I haven't managed to upload them yet and sorry, they don't have the dialogue from the scene. When shooting, only certain people like the director, producers, and other important people get to wear headphones that broadcast the character's dialogue. It was also interesting to see how long it took to set up a scene; sometimes it took almost an hour to get things set up and ready to be shot. When the scene is ready to be shot, everyone has to be absolutely quiet and still. Once the cut is over, everyone bustles around again.

Some curious neighbours came by and were snapping pictures (we were shooting in the country at a gigantic mansion) and a fair number of cars drove by (even though we were shooting at 3:00am. I got home right at 4:00am yet everyone else was still shooting until 5:30am. The actors were mostly teens so they missed school; they received 2 hours of tutoring on Thursday and Friday.