It’s murder mystery time in Wisconsin, and we’re starting it off at the Waukesha County Courthouse where we interviewed two attorneys for the British production company, First Look. One of the most fun things about being on a one-man-band shoot is fitting a cart full of gear inside a tiny elevator. Watching people’s faces go from disbelief to astonishment as the elevator closes in front of you is PRICELESS. It’s even more fun when you get to push it down long, dark, narrow hallways, knowing that this environment is going to be totally on brand for the content we are about to create.
Although we were in a pretty small conference room with a big table in the middle, we were able to get two different looks for our two subjects. We were able to find both a flagpole (with flags on it) and a podium with the official county seal. Those came in handy to give our background a little bit of life. With our 60 nan light motivating the natural light from the window, we used the other 60 for our fill and a 300 with a full softbox and grid for the key. Our second look was similar, but utilized more windows in the background, and a flipperooski of the background flag pole and podium.
We didn’t stop there, because the next day we were in OshKosh, Wisconsin. Same production, different story. This time we interviewed one of the key characters of this story in her home. Now usually with interviews in homes, there’s some pretty standard decoration, art, etc. Not at this house. Our subject was big into hunting, and had a rainforest’s worth of animal heads on her wall. I mean you name it, she had bucks, gazelles, turkeys, a zebra, a mountain lion, a couple bears, none of this is an exaggeration. Even setting up my interview shot, I had to post up under a giraffe skull. It was a great shot nonetheless, and we were able to get our subject’s animal trophies in the background.
Both shoots ended with some fun broll. The first day was getting some general views of the Waukesha/Pewaukee area, but the second day, all we needed was the above-mentioned lady’s house. All the animals we talked about earlier, I was able to get plenty broll of them. Our company has been shooting a lot of these episodes, so ask some of our DP’s and you may hear more fun stories like this one!
