KOB Shot of the Day #87: ...It Time To Dim The Lights...

Shot with iPhone, click to enlarge.

It's Friday on the Henson lot (home of IndieVest), which is teeming with crew running about preparing for a weekend shoot on THE MUPPETS (which I didn't feel right about shooting some of the spoilery things I saw, but it was pretty exciting to see the "Band back together", wocka wocka! But here are some from /Film) and we're about to watch the current cut of KNIGHTS (the same one from last week) on "the big screen" for the first time in the Henson screening room. This to me is insanely exciting, thinking about all the films that have played in here in the past and now our crazy flick is gracing it's silver screen. Posters from the films of MUPPETS past hang on the wall, the smell of history (and moldering felt) hang in the air. Very exciting. After Howard and Alex worked on the calibration of the digital projector and the sound system, they pressed play...

One word: WOW.

Having been a 2:35:1 convert since my Criterion laserdisc of HALLOWEEN, I've always seen the world in "scope" and while I lost the battle to shoot WRONG TURN 2 in that aspect ratio (the thought was "noone who buys DTV movies wants to see them shot like this" even though it automatically makes your film look "bigger" when you use this look, oh well...pick your battles) I've used it before in my music videos and commercials and just love that look (even if its faked by just putting a "matte" over the image. Try it sometime, it works!). So when we did KNIGHTS, from Day 1 I said 'We gotta shoot 2:35" and the producers were completely in agreement, which was nice. But editing it on a plasma monitor for months, or even looking back at when we shot, seeing the images on a smaller screen while we rolled, you never truly get a sense of how wide the mise en scene is till its actually on a big screen, unfolding before your eyes. So this screening was even more important to me since it was both a good way to watch the film the whole way through after getting the producer's very thoughtful notes earlier this week to see it from their perspective (which were not NEARLY as long as I thought; you always expect the worst when you submit for notes and I think we got lucky!) but also....watch it like an audience member, not someone extremely close to the film without an objective opinion. You notice things on the big screen too that you dont at home too, little nuances and pacing. What a difference a larger view makes! It was so killer to see it like this, even in an unfinished form, and I think only got everyone involved MORE excited to whip this beast into shape and get it out to the masses. We then reconvened to the IndieVest office, went through the notes and here we are now, a few days later, fine-tuning and preparing another screening for before the holiday weekend to keep the momentum going and then continue forth.

But it's all going well, thanks for all the well wishes online inquiring about the progress and there's more coming soon enough....stay tuned!

Onward!
Joe