Web Series: MERRIme
MERRIme stars co-writers/creators Kaily Smith and David Weidoff, Tom Arnold (True Lies), Ryan Eggold (90210), Tia and Tamera Mowry (Sister, Sister) and Tony Hale.
The show's plot centers around twenty-something Merri Weisman, whose father threatens to freeze her trust fund if she does not find a real job. In a state of panic, she concludes that a husband, not a job, could save her. She signs up to every dating website in her frantic race for a suitable bachelor, setting into motion a hysterical online fun-and-games rollercoaster ride to the 21st century alter, like the web has never seen.
This was my first collaboration with the project's talented, up-and-coming director, Sherwin Shilati. When you share common cinematic sensibilities and passion with a director, you try to hang onto those collaborative opportunities for dear life. I am always interested in utilizing every technique possible to visually enhance a story, thus elevating the audience's emotional response and, as a result, personal connection to the story. As much as I use technique, my work strives to propel the story in an honest manner, without allowing the camera to draw attention away from the story itself.
Filmmaking in essence is the art of storytelling through pictures and sound. Great stories are about "big ideas." I have extrapolated this "big idea" concept into the personal approach of my cinematography work. On each new job, I throw myself into absorbing the script, storyboards, director's treatment, and locations in an effort to figure out which "big idea" approach to incorporate, in my quest to craft exceptional work.
One of the biggest contributions I am able to offer on each project is ensuring we have the appropriate locations to stage scenes against. If I think a location is inappropriate, it is my responsibility as the cinematographer to let the director and producer know. Once locations are locked in, another huge contribution I can make is picking the best time of day or night to shoot. Often schedules are dictated around actor availability, but in preproduction I am forever suggesting, cajoling, and trying to influence my 1st ADs to work around the sun's schedule, as nothing can save money, speed up shooting, or enhance aesthetics quite like taking advantage of perfect, God-given light, or the lack of light if required.
We werefortunate enough to be able to stage MERRIme in a furnished, luxurious Beverly Hills home, set against a spectacular Los Angeles city skyline. My "big idea" approach for MERRIme was exposure efficiency. I figured out that using the fastest prime lenses available [Zeiss T1.3] and shooting wide open at T1.3 exposure-although challenging for focus-would require smaller lighting units, less cables, no generators, and the most efficient use of crew. Lighting at very low light levels for big night scenes not only speeded up lighting time required, but gave us wonderful opportunities to showcase the dimly exposed Los Angeles city skyline against which our location was juxtapositioned.
MERRIme was shot on the Red One. I shot on both the daylight and tungsten modes, although the tungsten mode has a tendency to at times introduce digital grain, as the blue channel in that mode is not activated. I used many filters in order to control exposure and enhance in-camera images as desired-a polarizer to saturate skies or control reflections when shooting at angles through glass or water; graduated neutral-density (ND) filters to control exposure; and straight neutral-density (ND) filters to ensure I could shoot at T1.3, thus creating the shallowest depth of field possible. I also used a Tru-Cut IR-750 filter, which corrects the potential for color shift from the Red Camera's digital chip.
Having chosen a small lighting package, my next efficiency challenge was day exterior shooting. My solution was simple-shoot split days from 11am until 11pm. Because we were shooting three scenes a day, split days ensured that only one scene would face the difficult challenges of harsh lighting when the sun is very high in the sky. The other two scenes would be shot in low sun, magic light. I always try to get what I call my Days of Heaven magic naturalism moments, like when the late, great cinematographer Nestor Almendros shot that entire Academy award-winning feature for cinematography in gorgeous magic light. We would then shoot the third scene at night-my absolute favorite. Night shooting gives you the fullest control of every aspect of exposure. By breaking up our days into three parts: harsh light period / magic light period / night light period, we were able to have crew pre-light each scene, as the parameters of the external / natural elements were predetermined.
I feel the artificial movie lights we use on film sets, need to mimic the color temperature and quality of light in the reality of the world we create in the place and time of our stories. On MERRIme I primarily used tungsten fresnels, as much of the settings were motivated by candlelight. An HMI with a CTO gel was used for exterior shots. I always joke with production when they ask me what lights I want to order. I tell them I am shooting available light. They always repeat, "Available light?" thinking, Oh my goodness, this cinematographer is saving us so much money in not ordering lights! Then I reply, "Yes, available lights-all the lights I have available." This joke is not to be clever, but to highlight and reinforce the concept that to create controlled naturalism requires great technique and lighting. The direction, quality, and color temperature of the lighting has infinite value in transporting images to their fullest emotional realization.
Our "big idea" on utilizing fast Zeiss prime lenses; smaller lights; great locations; steadicam and cranes when required; and efficient scheduling, allowed us to shoot 54 scripted pages in nine days, with no compromising from a technical standpoint. Eight of those nine days were completed in 10 hours, with only one day going into overtime-a 14-hour day. We averaged 30 setups a day, not bad going considering most of the wides were executed with dolly or jib moves, while close-ups where executed on a slider, to keep even traditionally static setups pulsating with energy.
When you next have eight precious minutes, please check out an episode at www.MERRIme.com
