Why do a lot of filmmakers seem to hate deep focus cinematography?

[Brian Drysdale]

What you think pools of light are? Films are full of them.

[Josh Bass]

I would imagine he's referring to things like this The light source doesn't necessarily have to visible in shot but overall effect will be much the same.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay. Do you think that if for some scenes, I want that brown wall look, like in Seven, then I could light the walls with a brown light?

[Brian Drysdale]

You won't get the precisely the same as "Seven" because it's painted , however, not many places use brown light, at least, not many modern police stations. Why are you changing from blue to brown walls?

If you're not allowed to paint any locations. you'll probably have to go with the white walls and keep as much stray light from the walls as possible. I did a corporate where the director didn't want to see the white walls, which was a bit unusual, since it was supposed to be in their offices, all of which have white walls.

You may be then able to be able to put slashes of a suitable colour onto parts of the walls using flags or gobos on spots.

In the end, with your low budget, you'll have to go with what you can get. As a film maker the real world kicks in and you have to roll with it. It forces you to be creative, quite a few great things in films aren't what they originally planned to do, but lack of money forced them to come up with something new. That's what indie film making is all about.

The usual method is to find an old building in a run down area, rent it for a month or two and let the art department do their stuff. I've filmed in empty old houses, stinking of damp, which look like plush houses on screen. Don't go for commercial buildings, unless you've got the budget to get control.

If you just want one room to have brown walls, talk to your art department, they may be able to build a small set with brown coloured walls built at low cost fitted against the room's usual walls. However, all these things have associated costs, even lighting will take longer if you want to do more than an extremely basic 15 minute lighting job. If your police station is a modern building, you can't suddenly put brown walls in because they had them in "Seven", because it will look out of place. .

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay, but Seven took place in modern times and still had that brown look though. I thought I could have some walls be brown, some be blue, etc.

That's why I thought of lighting the walls, instead of painting, because of low budget. I can try to find a rundown building, maybe something like that will turn up.

[Brian Drysdale]

Seven is set nearly 25 years ago, the police station is an older building somewhere in an US city (inspired by NY), not a modern police station (it looks like the 1950s since the last refurb).

[Josh Bass]

Ryan, is there not a Canadian Film Commission, or Canadian Production Guide, or something, a place where all the pro production personnel list their contact info? In Houston we have the houston production guide (google for website).

If you have a resource like that I would look through and start calling the location scouts, whose entire job it is to find places for people to shoot, and tell them your needs. I dont know how/what they charge for their services but gotta be better than banging your head against wall and going in circles like this.

[Brian Drysdale]

This looks like the type of place to be looking: https://www.thelocationguide.com/fil...hewanselected/

[Ryan Elder]

Oh yes, I know of that, but I don't think they deal with location scouting particularly. Perhaps I'm wrong...

[Josh Bass]

Yes but there simply has to be some location somewhere that knows the Saskatoon area.

[Ryan Elder]

Yeah I can advertise for one, instead of doing it myself like before. So many of the buildings here have white walls.

[Josh Bass]

If you advertise they might think youre trying to hire them i.e. something that costs you money. Great if youre looking to do that, but you might be able to get some pointers for free if you contact them yourself. I dont know for sure.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh I thought that was the idea. I could contact them myself, I just don't know where any are. So I thought I would most likely have to advertise to get them to contact me. But I can try to look for them, if that's better.

However, this would probably be after I have picked a DP, right?

[Paul R Johnson]

If the location is critical, then it's an early decision. If you can't find the location your DP cannot light it. When you wrote it, did you not have a location in mind?

[Brian Drysdale]

You can spend weeks looking for the right location, find that first. As a DP I've usually been brought on board after the location has been selected, then go on the recce. DPs can change because of circumstances, so don't hold off on decisions because of them. I've been rung up the day before the shoot because the original DP wasn't available for the film.

The state/local film commission etc may have a list of places that are available as locations, it's worth checking. I know lots of shorts here have used locations on our local database, you'll probably have to negotiate lower location fees with the owner, if they're used to bigger productions.

It can also involve driving around possible locations and checking with estate agents who handle commercial properties or empty houses that might be slow movers.

You have to be extremely proactive, nothing will happen unless you make it happen. On your budget, you can't turn down a great location because the walls aren't brown or blue, you have to be flexible and go with the best you can find.