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The Car Stealing Scene
Like the first and last scene, I had very definite ideas about how this scene would work. From the opening shot when the car is framed in the center, and the actors would walk into frame facing opposite directions, (my homage to "Out of Sight"), to how Ben would fit under the wheel, throw his pliers to Suzie, and Suzie would find and cut the wires, I had it all mapped out in my head. Except one thing. Lighting.
I have shot a few night scenes before, but I've must've forgotten what a pain they were. Because our lighting kit consists of a 3 volt camera light and street lamps, we were not prepared. I have to say that the footage looks fine on a TV, okay at full screen on a computer, but otherwise it is really dark. I tried converting my footage to Quicktime and it was total darkness. So my advice to filmmakers wanting to shoot night scenes? Don't. It's a toughie. If you do, use the night mode on your camera, or your camera will compensate for the darkness and your footage will be grainy.
We shot this scene over two nights, involuntarily. Because it was nearing summer, we couldn't even begin shooting till ten in the evening. So we're shooting dialouge, and it's a little after midnight, and blam! The parking lot lights go out. So we had to shoot the next night, with more haste. Eventually, I had to use iMovie 2 to brighten up my footage, which works okay.
We shouted most of our lines to an imaginary car alarm, and the few shots of the parking lights going off to the "alarm" were actually Sean in the driver's seat, flicking the light switch. The car alarm sound effect was added in post.
We also abandoned the breaking in scene because I figured that it was either going to look real, which would mean I'd have to break into my own car and smash the side mirror, or we would have to show the kids slim-jimming the car to get inside, which I don't know how to do. So we just let the audience assume. We got in, deal with it.
One of the jobs as an editor, which totally conflicts with my directorial side, is to eliminate all that is unnecessary. Originally Suzie was to find a rubber duck inside the car, throw it at me, and then I'd discard it. We even have footage of us driving off. But because Eliza kept killing me with the duck, and since the driving off was assumed, we just skipped on through to the next scene.
Finally, the joy of elimination. One can achieve great things by leaving things out of the shot, thus framing your shots can be integral to your storytelling. If you were to zoom out from this shot of the pliers cutting the "alarm" wires, for instance, you'd see a loose set of wires that are simply hanging in the vincinity of some real wires in my car. They were like a dollar something in the auto department, but they add so much to the shot.
<<The Overpass Scene Script | Storyboards | Cast and Crew | Media | Miscellaneous Hamster Wheel Productions, 2001
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