Today I got to help out with the filming of a new short called, ‘Joey Got Raped,’ that will be submitted to a couple festivals, including NFFTY. I got involved through an old friend, Tommy Yacoe. I knew him from way back in freshman year when I did the Husky Winter Sports. He is a filmmaker and I had done an interview of him and Champ Ensminger for the Daily’s Double Shot a while back too. Anyway, he emailed me asking if I was interested in helping out, specifically playing the role of ‘b-camera.’ So I was helping Tommy, who was the ‘a-camera’ and director of photography. [There’s a giant example of keeping up with people you meet and maintaining the those connections for different opportunities in the future. Networking!]
My call time to be on set was bright and early at 8am. The actors would be there at 9am. So I discussed the opening shots that we would be doing with Tommy, talking about the lighting and camera angles. Then helped them get the rest of the gear all set up and ready to shoot. The connection to this shoot and the stuff we have been doing in Andrew’s screen acting class was immense. The same kind of on-set vocab was being used and a lot of the same equipment. So I felt comfortable and familiar with it all. It was great being able to put the stuff I’ve been learning in class to practical use on a real-world indy film set.
It was a 15 page script, and we were able to get it all done today. Took from 9am to 5pm to shoot it all. Which is an impressive feat! It’s thanks much in part to the actors having rehearsed a lot, so they knew their lines extremely well. We also had three Canon 7D’s to film with. So that really sped up covering the different angles at once for each specific scene/shot.
It was a super fun day and a great learning experience. I can’t wait to see what the final edit turns out like.
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(Also I should explain, the title: ‘Joey Got Raped’ while, yes, it does deal with someone who has been raped, the rape is never shown, just talked about….only its just that it is talked about in a very racy and crude humor fashion. All in good fun for some good laughs.)
ericschofhauser 