Killer - lessons learned

I am a firm believer that on every shoot if you haven't learned something you aren't paying attention. So this morning waiting for class to start I wrote up some notes from last night. Over all I think it went well. I had fun. The new actors were good to work with, and I think it's good for me to learn to work with strangers. It's a bit easy to just keep working with Esther and Eric all the time. I skimmed the footage and it's all there and looks good, but I am slightly nervous about what I'm going to find myself wishing for when I get to editing it.

• when using new gear (or new crew) give yourself extra time for figuring things out
• if the stuff check list isn't in your head, or better in muscle memory, then actually write it down and check it off.
• the shallow depth field is lovely for those car headlights and stuff, but lens flare is a bitch
• right now I only *think* I have all the shots I need. I don't know how much more organized I could have been really, or why I feel unsure more than usual, but there it is. So I guess the lesson is make sure someone in addition to you is keeping track of the shot sheet and checking things off.
• When it's very cold add in extra time for warm up breaks and for people's mental processes just to be generally slower.

Linda and Christa and Jason joined me on this project because they're in town for Thanksgiving already. Linda of course is a veteran of Heron Media films and sort of took a demotion on this one because the important jobs needed to go to my classmates. She was very understanding about that. And Jorge did a fine job. What I've looked at so far looks good. But really it was very frustrating to not just have Linda on camera. And I'm really happy that it worked out for Christa to be there. She's never got to join me on a shoot before so this was her chance to see what it's like. Jason was a trooper letting us kill him.

Blue is slightly pink now, though I'm not sure the photo really shows it as much as you get just looking at her.