Lights! Camera! Lights...

So with any spare time on the weekends, I've been chipping away at some scenes for Drive-In of the Dead's first foray into film. While I feel that it's all coming together nicely - I have learned that when working on a low budget (which is to say 'no budget') production, it's all about the lighting. I don't have big studio rigs to light my scenes, and have to work within the confines of my camera - knowing the limitations of your equipment is half the battle. What I'm shooting on is a pretty basic camera that doesn't hold up well in low-light environments, so finding a way to creatively light scenes while still telling the story I want to tell is a challenge (sometimes a frustrating, extremely time-consuming challenge). Some shots have had to be put off until much later in the day than I anticipated so I could use the low light of dusk - and don't even get me started on filming with snow! Some scenes I had shot over the winter had to be completely re-done because there was so much glare from the huge piles of snow outside (now thankfully gone!)

As we near the end of production, I'm grateful for all I've learned on this crazy experience - from the frustrations of relying on your spouse to run the camera when she really wants no part of it, to enlisting my 7-year-old as an assistant director, to building sets and staging scenes, to spending countless hours in front of a computer screen editing it all together, to waiting for the sun so the light is just right...it's all part of the magic of movies that most people don't even consider when they pop in a DVD from Netflix. I've always had an appreciation for how movies are made - but now that appreciation is on a whole new level.

More to come...