duke city shootout: day 1 – arrival

i flew into albuquerque, new mexico, and was kindly picked up by my 2nd 2nd AD. we went straight to marcia, my producer’s, house. i met her and my 1st AD, then walked down the street to the location where we’re going to shoot the first night. there i met my DP, and the production designer and his crew as they were dressing the set. i had seen photos and videos of the location but it was nice to finally step foot inside and walk around the space. the DP and i figured out how to do the blocking upstairs, and discussed with the production designer how to make some changes to make the blocking work better.

downstairs, i didn’t like how the stairway was right in front of the door. i want the character to walk around for a while and find the stairs a little later. we figured out some angles we can use to extend the space, so i think we’ll be fine.

then marcia took me to hotel where i dropped off my bags, and then we were off to the opening reception party. we met a bunch of people who run the duke city shootout, and are part of the film industry there. from the people i met, it seemed like there was a close, tight knit film community in new mexico. i was told several shows are shot there, like breaking bad

after the party, we went back to the house where i met my actor, chad, and met some more of my crew. we needed to take a few still pictures that show up on the digital camera but the flash was too bright. the DP suggested we use a little LED light and turn off the camera flash, and that looked much better. while we were taking the 2 still photos upstairs, the camera dept. was running some tests downstairs. i want shots where we see the digital camera screen, but they couldn’t get the screen very close to the lens. if we can’t figure out a solution, i’ll have to show all the still pictures as inserts, which i really don’t want to do.

for tomorrow, i have a mandatory orientation for all of the crew in the duke city shootout, a reading with both my actors, a virtual tech scout / production meeting, and finally, the official shotgun start.