Falling for Jack Production Day #1

12/12/2006 by nick.

The first shoot day saw us shooting a scene on the fly. I’d been walking past the pictured skip full of empties from the student union bar, and thought that skip’s always full, and then it occured to me that Jack wouldn’t be able to walk past an opportunity such as this without having a rummage through it. So, I decided to shoot this extra scene because I thought it would say something about Jack’s character and his condition. Neil did a great job of portraying a man who has sunk to a new level of desperation. Neil was able to convey Jack’s frustration and need, extending the dimension of this character. This scene will provide a short pre-title intro.

Jack needed to look like someone who had fallen off the wagon and someone who was living rough, so to this end Neil’s costume was smeared with authentic filth and handfulls of grass. The director’s wish to have Neil literally dragged along the ground was ignored! The producer Carl B Harrison took some stills of Neil to aid continuity, for future shoots.

For the lift interior scene where Jack makes his way to the top of a very tall building, Carl (on camera) and I had to hide ourselves as best we could given the cramped space, together with 3 animation students, who were playing the other lift passengers. A previous recce to the lift had revealed a mirror on the back wall. This would add depth to the shots given the limitations of the Sony HDR-FX1E’s standard lens. I had a wide angle converter, but this would have revealed everyone in the lift. As it turned out the camera’s own lens was capable of getting the shot I had in mind. We were able, as planned, to get Neil and the reflection of the other passengers, which had the effect of populating the shot to a more satisfactory degree.
The mirror aside there were other reflective surfaces in the lift that we had to contend with. We had to constantly watch for the handheld light we were using, showing up in metal cladding. The lift was also in use, so we had to suspend shooting when people wanted to get in. We gave a different excuse for what we were up to on each floor. Oddly enough people didn’t mind when we told them we were ’shooting a porn film’, even if they didn’t think we were joking.
We managed to get quite a bit of coverage in half an hour and the students did very well playing repulsed passengers. At this stage in the film Jack has thrown up in his brief case, which he uses to carry his drink around in. He carries the case agape and wafting.

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