The Discarded Body: shooting begins

Yesterday I started the first roll of Tri-X out of seven that I ordered for this film. I shot footage of a construction site where an old K-Mart was demolished. The site is rapidly changing, and I needed to capture it to cut in with the character shots later. These are all POV/environment shots without actors. The sky was overcast and lighting conditions changed rapidly; I tried to quickly get a reading with the incident meter then run back to the camera, which was under part of a building, and shoot before the lighting changed. A somewhat challenging shoot. Also, I'm not sure the lighting was hard enough to give contrasty images.

I went back today and finished the roll in much brighter sunlight, which revealed another issue: I need an ND filter. f/22 was barely stopped down enough to shoot in direct sunlight, and it's probably even 1/2-1 stop overexposed. Hopefully it can be pulled back in the telecine without losing an enormous amount of detail. I will try to get an ND filter before the next outdoor portion.

I may be shooting the first indoor scenes as early as Friday. I may noticeably underexpose these, rating the film as 200ASA, for a grainier, low-key look. The only light will be provided by a fluorescent practical.

Still plenty of special effects to set up before the real shoot starts. 600' of film left - I hope it's enough. More later.