Here’s Johnny!

I spent the evening yesterday with Oxford actor Johnny McPhail shooting scenes for my upcoming sci fi short, “Exit”. There were some interesting challenges that we faced to get the setups I was hoping for.

I wanted to get a really low (skimming the surface) dolly shot – pushing in on our main prop. We rigged the camera on my photography tripod and extended out past the dolly so we could shoot past the pipes. The camera still wasn’t low enough, so we spun the camera upside down which put the lens closer to the ground. I’ll have to flip the image in post but I was really pleased with the effect.

Another challenging shot was getting a jib shot up to basically an over-the-shoulder shot of a lampost over-looking my house. Unfortunately our jib ,extended all the way, couldn’t reach high enough. The solution was a bit precarious but effective. We (very carefully) set up the jib on top of Johnny’s car and were able to get the height we needed for the shot.

An extra special thanks to Matt Minshew and Johnny for all their help last night and my very patient wife Melissa for putting up with her home being invaded once again. I’ve got a few more insert shots to grab in the next few weeks and we’ll have a finished film soon after. Stay tuned!

– Matthew