Tonights festivities included a visit to a location that we're going to be using for the movie (I gotta get a name for it), which turned out to be a very nice domicile in south Minneapolis. Discovering that this house would enable us to cover two separate locations was awesome, because other than these locations, the remaining shots are effects shots. We're also doing some effects shots in-camera, planning to use these with digital enhancements.

I'm agreeing to shoot coverage this time instead of storyboarding. I don't have time to do storyboards, and romeoa is editing, so he's the one that has to live with what we shoot. Coverage unplanned makes me nervous; I'd much rather have a clear path that was well thought-out ahead of time when fatigue is not an issue the way it is on location after you've been shooting for hours. Having a storyboard-- or even a shot list-- is a good structure to have. It doesn't mean you can't depart and have spontaneity on the set, but if you have a central plan, you don't end up missing critical footage.

Trying to be chillax-y about it.

The scouting trip is where I make considerations of lighting: where I can put lights, where things are framed, lines of action, electrical outlets, and the like. We have a staging area and everything. Something I forgot is a 'green room' of sorts, but we can wing it as necessary-- our total cast and crew is five, maybe six people. That's not too many to move around as necessary.

It's a great house for shooting: there's a balcony over the kitchen so we can get some nice high-angle shots, and it's huge, like over 4000 square feet. It's also spacious, which is a plus when you're running a camera in handheld mode: you run into fewer things.

The absolute killer is the home theater: apparently the guy who had the house built was a home theater designer, and this was his personal space. Holy shit. It was perfect. And dig this: it was built under the two-car garage.

Yeah, I asked. Apparently there are a number of steel beams carrying the load of a ten-inch slab of concrete. It's quite solid.

And you know I'm jealous as hell.

And I'm planning to build a garage.

This calls for more research.