That's When The Party Started

I spent most of the day attacking the digital shots of Natsuko and got about 1/3 of the way through my selects. I drop the black & white off at the lab tomorrow, which I'll get back Wednesday or Thursday. I think of going through the digital stuff as a sort of precursor to seeing the film. I love manipulating the digital to give it "my" black and white style, but I love going to the lab and SEEING what is on that film even more.

I remember at NYU when my group shot our "thesis" film. We thought it was a masterpiece. I've seen it in the last couple of years or so, and it's UNWATCHABLE, but I digress. My buddy Andy and I shared cinematographer duties. I think neither one of us was confident enough to do it on our own, so the buddy system worked out for us. Oh...we were using blue, yellow and green gels and all sorts of crazy lights and there was a - hold your breath - dolly shot!

I lit a complex shot in the kitchen set where our main character was to throw a glass against the wall and shatter it. Real glass. One take, one money shot explosion. I was on top of the stove focusing an "instrument" and when it was perfect, I jumped down and landed with my right big toe underneath my foot. It "snapped" so loudly that everybody stopped what they were doing. As I was standing there trying to deal with the tsunami of pain, I looked at the actor, tears streaming down my face and sounding like a murderer, said, "One take, man."

Toe is still fucked up.

Anyway, I remember the fear that Andy and I felt when we took the subway up to DuArt and breathlessly waited for our Super 16mm Reversal. The guy handed it to us and we just looked at him. He said, "What?" And we said something like, is everything all right? He smiled and ushered us into a room off to the side with a light table and told us to have a look at it.

I hope he thought that we were more cute than stupid.

We unspooled a few feet off of each reel and checked it out and it was perfect. We were ecstatic! And all the way back down to 10th Street and Broadway we sang little songs like "There's pictures on the film!" and "It's perfect, it's perfect, we kick ass."

I still feel that way when I go to the lab.

I also remember Andy looking at me totally stone faced, right before the guy came back with our film and saying, "Dude, what are we going to do if it's all black?"

Haven't had that happen yet...but it still haunts me.