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Another real film shot on real film! Hazaa! This was for my second assignment in 16mm production--an homage to a favorite film or director. Out of ideas as usual, I eventually stumbled upon (or rather Ethan thrust upon me) the concept of doing a Coffee and Cigarettes-style vignette, except making it instead about rum and pancakes. Genius!

Anyway, this whole thing came together rather well. I had just seen a screening of work by intermediate film students, and Toby Jones's film Sometimes It Snows In April featured, as the mysterious Zorba, an actor named Robert Steele who I thought would be perfect for my film. I was able to track him down and with mere days to spare, we worked out a production plan. (Fun aside: on my final project I'm working with Landyn Banx, who was Stanley Cyberspace in the same film! Small world!)

In the meantime, I was busy ordering 800 feet of black-and-white negative film from Kodak (thank God for student discounts!) and checking out an entire production studio's worth of equipment from the MCAD media center.

The shoot itself went rather smoothly, except for the part where I incorrectly loaded the magazine and nearly ruined 400 feet of film. Good times. We were using the Arriflex SB with a 400-foot external film magazine, which meant that we couldn't record synchronous sound. That was a problem, since there's a lot of dialogue in the piece. The solution was to alternate sound a picture takes, having the actors try to match their performance from the sound take to their performance from the picture take.

RE: THE SYRUP BOTTLE EXPLOSION: The first time, this was an accident. The second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth times, it was on purpose. My apartment still smells like maple sugar, and so do a couple of MCAD's c-stands. And that, my friends, is no bad thing.

800 feet of 7222 Double-X B&W negative film: $100
A boatload of equipment: included in very expensive tuition
Processing and telecine: $160
Getting an actor to pour syrup on his own head: PRICELESS.

-Andrew Gingerich

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Rum and pancakes, and other things

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