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major shot breakdown....
Film: Boxes Camera: Sony DCR TRV8, Sony DCR TRV 900, and Steadicam JR Editing and Compositing: Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects \ Music and Sound Design: Cubase VST, Soundedit 16, and Final Cut Pro
Clip 1: Intro With the opening sequence, we wound up shooting the entire
segment in one continuous take, using different speeds in post using Final Cut
Pro and the titling sequence to accentuate the boxes in Wren’s apartment and
to really set the tone for the entire film.
Clip 2: Bobby On the Bobby sequence there is a lot of things going on in every frame. We hear about the epitome of white collar crime in the work place, we learn about all of the nicknames they use for women, we learn about dyslexia, we see how Wren and Mattie dodge their bosses, we hear Eager Office Girl’s Militant March. This is also where I our producer, James Portolese makes a cameo when they are discussing the great producer, Robert Evans and we pay tribute to him by adding a picture of him and playing a rather amusing sound effect. The scene was shot in two different office spaces due to logistics and time. We then assembled the performances in post using Final Cut Pro. Also in FCP, we animated the sequences involving Wren and Mattie’s supervisors by scaling each individual video source and composting them into the same space to run concurrently. Each video source was then animated to add a slight movement to the scene, illustrating the distancing between the two of them in the dialogue. Color correction tools in FCP gave us the capability of exaggerating the harshness of fluorescent lights in the workplace.
Clip 3: 5 and 8 When we had the first read through, Rene came up with the John Madden tele-strator on the screen and it is a sequence that everyone can relate to and remember when that happened to them. We cast the roles of the two girls on the set that night and the two
Clip 4: How did I get here? Once again a scene with an unconventional phone ring and it puts Eden and Wren in the same room w/o being in the same room. We get to see Eden’s pain and Wren’s love for their friendship. For creative reasons, we decided to always have the characters inhabit the same space as the other, with the boxes that connect them (the telephone) between them. It was shot in an overhead position handheld using the LCD display as a monitor for the camera movement. With Wren in the Bathroom, he says one of my favorite lines in the film. ‘This is not what they were selling in college’. That line speaks to a lot of people as well. Being alone in the restroom at work is a very private moment and Wren has a lot on his mind. The actual line was actually a piece of action in the script and Wren mentioned that he would like to actually say that line, I agreed and put it back in the script. As Wren’s feeling of discontent build, we begin to see the trappings of technology fill the frame. This was accomplished by animating seven layers of still and video images and by making each image translucent using the image control tools in FCP.
Clip 5: George When Wren leaves it feels like a true Michael Mann moment
with the revolving doors. Using speed controls in FCP, we ran the footage at
regular speed, then on the music cue we slowed the footage down to 65%. Mattie
and Eden’s calls with Wren are filled
Clip 6: Wingman The dance is always a fun moment outside Eden’s
apartment. It’s a free flowing dialogue leading up to Eden’s door.
Clip 7: Willard Willard is another time that everyone has …. The end of
the night, quiet time, placing all the events in some type of order. We
shot this after the Swedes went home and just had |
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For
the titling, we used Photoshop to create the graphic elements then animated and
composited them onto the video footage in After Effects. We only did one take of
the sequence, Rene operated the Steadicam JR and guided Wren through my
apartment, while James hid behind the couch and operated the remotes for Wren as
he approached the television for the Hot Springs Hotel part. The sequence
is one of the most commented on in the film and it is a great way to make it
appear as if we spent a lot more money than we actually did and it immerses the
viewer immediately into the film. 
girls
were great to work with and were a big part of making the scene truly work.
There are always scenes in a film that you look forward to the audience seeing
for the first time and this is one of those scenes. The mere fact that we
call the scene 5 and 8 kinda says it all. During production the Nightshot option
was used to compensate for low light levels. As there was precedence in the
color tone of green in the film, we found the desaturation inherent in this
technology to accentuate the design of the film. The graphic elements in the
scene were created in Photoshop then animated and composited onto a still frame
of video in After Effects. Sound effects were then added in FCP to accentuate
the comedic elements of the piece. 
with
a great deal of issues and when the George Michael song comes on; everyone can
go to that special place in their memory. The sequence was made to show
what goes on in our minds when people are driving home and are totally stuck in
traffic. Random thoughts come and go, in and out, red into green, run a
yellow, think about a girl, a bill that needs to be paid, glad they’re not
homeless, wondering what their parents are doing. Life, it’s bigger than
all of us. This scene is the first time the audience gets to breathe in the
film. The office bits are fast and jarring and angular and uneasy and once
George chimes in with ‘I deserve to see your face again.’ It always gets to
me. There is always someone who got away who lingers and you might not
think of them for 11 months but one girl at a red light can really conjure up a
strong memory 
and it can
really hurt and ache and bleed, but its these moments that let you know that
you’re alive and breathing. The scene was shot on one night using the
Nightshot function to compensate for low light levels. It also heightens the
effect of lens flares as they are captured. Using multiple shutter settings we
were able to catch the streaming of the lights outside of the car. This is cause
by the hyper light sensitivity of the Nightshot mode when you slow the shutter
speed. The graphic elements were animated in After Effects and then composited
in FCP. 
It shows Mattie and Wren’s
friendship and free wheeling sparring. Eden shows her soul and her
motherly instincts. We accomplish this by running two streams of video scaled
and fused in FCP- the exterior footage was shot using a Steadicam JR and the
Sony TRV 900 in order to have sufficient B-Roll. Portions that are in green are
meant to illustrate the public box that Wren and Mattie are going through. When
they reach the warm colored world of Eden they are accepted in and become part
of it. 
Wren
linger in my apartment. I love the POV shots from the DVD player and TV.
This was accomplished by reversing the wide-angle lens on the camera,
effectively creating a "porthole" effect. The Nightshot function is
particularly sensitive to Infa Red light, it therefore picked up the remote
control signal. The overhead swoop to the television and turning overhead shot
were both accomplished with handheld camerawork. The Apocalypse Now reference
always gets a laugh from film fans.