The Making Of: The Awful Kind
Last year I shot an incredible 22 minute oner with NO camera tricks, edits, or anything. Check out the film at the bottom of this post and read all about the BTS below. I’m swamped and will update this when i have time soon to format it more like the rest of my BTS posts.
Sometime last year I shot my first western period piece and a few months later my buddy Andy Pagana said he had a friend putting together a western that he thought I might be perfect for. I met with Nick Finch and Justin Taite at a Starbucks and we immediately hit it off. I had never met a director who knew so much of my work before. Justin specifically referenced all of my one-take music videos I had done with Logic. His idea was to do an entire film like this. I was excited but nervous because thats a big technical challenge even when you have the budget for it.
I did a lot of testing to see what our options could possibly be. I originally was going to shoot it on an Alexa mini with a wide lens on steadicam. Then it changed to shooting on the RED Helium to window for 4k so we could reframe any mistakes in post like David Fincher does. Ultimately we decided shooting wider than a 25mm would be great for windowing but the angle of view sucked. We went with a 25mm and shot full frame with guides for 2:35 on the helium.
I also decided steadicam would not work for this because without a trinity we couldn’t move high to low. This also meant the person operating had to hit every move perfectly while also physically moving through the space. Steadicam i think is easier to do that because there isn’t a motor controlling the camera but for this I felt like we needed to have 2 operators on a gimbal. I decided my incredible operator Toby, who is normally a steadicam op, would man the rig inside and I would control the camera with the mimic outside. We did this on the Freefly Movi Pro thanks to the incredible Brian Byrne who lent us his rig. Without it we could not have accomplished this.
One of my best friends and longest collaborators Jon Park was tasked with pulling focus. I like to tell everyone that Jon loved to give me shit on some commercial work we were doing because it was boring pulling at f4 or f5.6. So when this job came up I called him and told him we didn’t have a lot of money but this would be one of the toughest jobs he could do. When I watched it back at Light Iron I couldn’t believe he didn’t miss a single mark. And by that I mean we had 0 marks and every time we did a take it would be slightly different. Theres a reason his nickname is “Johnny Sharpz”
Next we had the huge challenge of lighting this place. We shot a Big Sky movie ranch where they shoot shows like WestWorld. We could see Dolores’s house from our set. This meant we had to bring in all power. Not the biggest deal except for the fact that we can see out every window and we have to get the power into the house to rig lights to the tight ceiling. My fantastic G&E team run by my best friend Joe Seiler, killed it. We used an M18 outside but everything inside were Aputure LED lights which we were able to sneak a single stinger through an open wood slat. Special thanks to Ted & Nerris at Aputure for allowing us to borrow these lights. We wouldn’t have been able to get it done without such small units that also didn’t make it unbearably hot in that room.
For production we were able to have a rehearsal day on location and a full shoot day. Thank god for this. Justin and Nick had been working with all the actors at Nick’s house for weeks but I sadly wasn’t able to make it. When we got to location a lot of things changed and having the rehearsal day made a huge difference in the final product. My gaffer Joe and I ended up going home that night and watching the takes which led to adding a lot more negative fill to the room by using cardboard on the windows and cutting slats in them so they looked like wood. This day also helps us iron down timing with the actors and the movement throughout the room. The challenge with camera during a one take is having a reason to move the camera but also not sticking on one shot for too long that people get bored. We changed a lot of how the camera moved because of this day and watching the playbacks. I hope that comes across in the final piece.
I could write about every single person who made this film happen but it would be pages long. I definitely want to shout out Lauren Telegdy for making all of this happen. One of my favorite executive producers who was the perfect collaborator. And of course no set runs without a line producer and my badass wife Gillian Mahar killed it. She kept the wheels turning and made sure we had everything we need to succeed and allow Justin and Nick to not worry about the producing side anymore.
Overall I’m sooo happy this is finally out. It was a technical challenge from even just managing power on the rig, having motors slip off, horses getting freaked out and running away, and more. But in the end we made something we are incredibly proud of and I hope that everyone can watch it and enjoy it.
Executive Producer: Lauren Telegdy
Director: Justin Taite
Story: Justin Taite & Nick Finch
Line Producer: Gillian Entin
Production Manager: Emily Finch
1st AD: Ryan Haynie
2nd AD: Alia Domino
Director of Photography: Nick Mahar
Movi OP: Tobias Harbo
1st AC: Jon Park
2nd AC: Sophie Harbo
Gaffer: Joe Seiler
BBE: Taylor Huddleson
Key Grip: Luis Batres
Sound Mixer: Hilary Stewart
Wardrobe Stylist: Rebecca Houser
Wardrobe Assistant: Robert Kent James
Makeup Artist: Julie Dahle
Makeup Assistant: Nikko Anthony
Prop Master: Tyler Weschta, Jordan Snyder
Horse Trainer: Ardeshir Radpour
PAs: Jeff Shoemake, Nick Bauer, Wendy Taite
POST PRODUCTION
Post Production Supervisor: Briana Norman
Editor: Yoni Reiss
Colorist: Nicholas Hasson
Sound Design: Sledge Hammer, AJ Shapiro, Philip Young, Tricia LInklater
VFX Supervisor: Chris Fregoso
Compositor: Demitre Garza
3D Artist: Joseph R. Poteet
3D Tracker: Alex Tirasongkran
Original Score: Tangelene Bolton
Original Song: Alana Sweetwater
And of course our INCREDIBLE cast
Nick Finch, Alejandro Bravo, Andrew Pagana, Alex Lynn Ward, Keith Stallworth, Charlie E. Schmidt, Chris Finch, C.M. Schwartzy, Chloe Carabasi
