Pro Moviemaker Winter 2018

CASE STUDY TOMPATON

UNDERSTANDING THE TECH When it came to shooting Stairs , Tom faced a series of difficult technical problems as it was filmed in just 17 days in real locations, rather than expensive custom-built sets in a huge studio. A crack team including Exec Producers Steve Mosley and Kirsty Bell at Goldfinch Studios helped pull the project together. But with a tight schedule, choosing the right kit proved essential to get the job done right, on time and on budget. “ Stairs is about eight mercenaries ordered to kill everyone at a base camp but there’s a civilian prisoner chained up and they argue about whether to kill her,” says Tom. “Eventually they do. When they get back to HQ and get on the stairwell, the stairs become a Lazarus trap, Escheresque nightmarewhich they can’t get off. There’s lots of time-looping. It’s a complex, out- theremoviewhich I think peoplewill dig.” As well as shooting different versions of each scene to get a mix of wide, mid and close-ups, a lot of the actionwas indoors in a stairwell or outside in awide open space. So there are tripods, as well as a slider and jib. But many of the fight scenes are handheld. “We’remaking awar film so let’s make it verymoving,” says Tom. “But shooting anything on stairs is crazy difficult as you have nine actors in a narrow space. You have to hide lights and consider the heat, especially as wewere thinking of using HMIs andwere shooting in the hottest British summer for ages. We chose LED Rotolights – no heat and easy tomount.” DOP George adds: “The lights were amazing on the staircase as we did somuch in camera. We tried an HMI but had no power as it was a broken down stairwell sowe had to hide power leads. We switched to battery Rotolights and couldn’t have done themoviewithout them. “DMX4s controlled the lights when going for flicker, switched off at certain points. You can do it in post but the lighting changes with reflections off thewalls. It adds to the horror.

ABOVE AND BELOW One of the main challenges in Stairs was shooting day-for-night outdoors in changing light.

As well as the logistics and funding, actually having a good story to tell is the biggest difference from shooting commercial work. The story itself, the plot twists, the dialogue and how the actors interact are all new territory for jobbing filmmakers. But it’s something Tom relishes. “I always sawmyself as a writer first and foremost. It was what I was passionate about. As a kid I wanted to be a comic book writer then I started dabbling with the idea of film scripts. I was very good at it, I feel,” he says. “But now I’m entering the zone where I’ve signed to direct bigger budget projects that I haven’t written, which is weird for me. I have the ability to write, direct and edit. I even did the CGI on Black Sight myself. So I like the ability to take a project from beginning to end and have that control. It’s going to be weird being told I can’t change a line on a film because the script writer didn’t say so. It’s part of growing and being a filmmaker. The next stage for me. “But I love writing, and it’s even better when you get on set and actors start saying the words you’ve written. As a director on set, you can change it to make the scene even better. Or throw things in that weren’t there and tweak them up. “When writing, as long as you concentrate on the theme of the movie, you’ll be OK. Like the theme of Stairs is why people fight. So I wrote that on some gaffer tape and stuck it on my Mac. If I’mwriting and the conversation or the movement or scene isn’t saying something about that theme, I leave it out as it’s not going to service the story.” With a script, actors, a team assembled and a modest budget, there’s still the issue

“It’s about telling a good story and the audience engaging” of capturing the story you want in camera. And despite Tom being a skilled editor and SFX master, he’s clear that it’s far better to get things right in camera as it makes things quicker on set and in post. “I use my special effects knowledge when things go wrong on set – which does happen. I’m practical at heart so try to get it in camera,” he says. “In Stairs , this was this gunshot scene. In every other movie I’ve worked on, the gun wouldn’t fire so we’d do it in post by adding a muzzle flash. Of course,

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PRO MOVIEMAKER WINTER 2018

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