Gotta Love Magic Hour

In case anyone was wondering "Why travel all the way to Vermont just to shoot a trailer?" I proffer the following:
I had never been to Vermont before, but quickly decided that it's a lot like Ireland: overwhelmingly green, with contours to die for, one of those places where you could pretty much close your eyes, point a camera at random, and get a good picture. The above was taken when I had no time to do anything but point and click, yet it looks like a postcard. Too damn easy. And if the point is to make something with visual oomph, well, this particular property in gorgeous Vermont does half our work for us.

(And besides--the people in town were unfailingly pleasant, and the food was beyond-belief-good. I was working like crazy and still gained four pounds in four days.)

After flying a red-eye, and driving up from Boston (loads of fun to be in Boston again, no matter how briefly), and checking into the hotel, we got off our first shot right at magic hour. A jib-arm shot that floated above a fence to reveal the teahouse, framed in Maxfield Parrish lighting (in fact, Parrish worked in New Hampshire, just next door, so no wonder). Here we've got actors Jennifer Ann Evans and David Goryl doing their thing, while director Marc Rosenbush and DP Chris Gosch do theirs. Me, I had just made the strange Blair Witch-thing, just visible beyond the camera, that was meant to disguise an electrical outlet that would have marred the beauty of the shot. We were supposed to have cloudy weather, with a too-high chance of rain; instead we walked into a painting and shot some film of it. Not bad.

The weather held all through the next day, during which we got the tricky shots: the ones that will require special effects, and compositing and green screens and so forth. There were the beautiful scenes at the teahouse, and at the mini-Stonehenge only a few yards away, and as were working on the last of the tricky effects shots, something blew the power main and we lost power, just as the sun was setting. The next day, it rained. Then rained some more. Then rained harder.

Which is, of course, why everything is so green up there in green green Vermont. We got some interior shots, then started improvising, then kinda had to give up for a while. Went back to the hotel and everyone got a nap for a few hours, till sunset, when the rain finally stopped--and we grabbed a shot at the swimming pond behind the hotel instead of dashing back to the property to get what would have been a nearly identical shot. (Like I said: point a camera practically anywhere in Vermont and you're gonna get something good.)

In the end, we didn't get everything we wanted--but the question remains, did we get everything we needed? Yeah, I think maybe we did. The trailer will be less of a linear storyline and more a progression of interesting images, but that's fine, that's what most trailers are anyway. Now if only we had gotten footage of the time David got attacked by a giant badger...