Day One

Today I learned that when it's the first time on a new kind of project, you shouldn't expect too much of yourself. The Mexican I ate last night had me awaking with a stomach ache that was intensified when I reached the Pensacola Bay Bridge en route to the first location and found traffic at a standstill. After resisting the urge to listen to Job's wife, I reached the location twenty minutes late, and as the owner had allotted us thirty minutes to work in his establishment, I was bummed to not have the time to get in the shots I wanted. We made up for it by spending extra time on exterior scenes: a significant conversation between the two leads, introductory establishing shots, and a specially-miked conversation in a truck.

Screenshots to come soon.

Who am I?

You might know me, you might not. If you spend an exorbitant amount of time on Google and Flickr looking at photos of Pensacola and its surrounding areas, my name has probably come up. This blog itself is attached to my photoblog. I am Steven Gray, photographer. Neither well-known nor particularly popular. I do photography for myself more than anyone else, always trying to grow and improve my channeling of the art. After three years of professional photography, two years of live internet television production, and a year of non-stop study of film theory, I feel confident to begin on my first short film project.

The story is original, written by myself. Imagine you reluctantly came back to a place you had tried to escape from, and found that you had only limited time to beat a crazed relative to a small fortune. That is the plot of the film.

I'll be posting more thoughts as time goes on, thoughts on cinematography, music, and more. But for now, I merely ask that you stay tuned, leave a comment now and again, and watch the film when it hits the internet.

Location Scouting

I spent about an hour this afternoon strolling through Pensacola's older downtown neighborhoods with a still camera. The film will be shot entirely in Pensacola, but my goal is to not let on that it is. Sure, you'll recognize some well-traveled areas like Government Street, Seville Quarter and Hub Stacey's Sandwich Shop and Bar, but the beauty of film making allows you to re-plot maps and timelines however one wishes, so the Pensacola you will see is going to be very little like the one you know.

The biggest reason I did this today was because I don't like storyboarding. I can sketch fairly well, but it's tedious and slow, and I think much faster than I can draw. I tend to prefer very detailed written notes, or photographs. The photos I took today will be re-organized into the order that they will appear in the film, allowing me to give the cast a better idea of pacing and tone, and it also cuts down on time spent editing.

Here are a couple of snapshots from the locations. I included the street signs in the photos for my own geographic reference.