Shooting SAD in Van (2013 – 2015)

By DTL
Posted July 12, 2013

Recently I answered a Craigslist ad seeking an on-set Sound Recordist for a new comedy Web-series, Single and Dating In Vancouver. What is this series about? From the show’s website [now offline]:

Single and Dating In Vancouver is a new comedic Web-series that parodies traditional sitcoms and focuses on the dating culture in Vancouver, premiering this summer. The ever-frustrating dating scene has been showcased in several other cites, and now Vancouver’s dating-scene idiosyncrasies are brought to life by a colourful cast of characters who are searching for, well, whatever floats their boat.

A recent arrival from eastern Canada, Troy, abruptly realizes that his friendly small-town demeanour doesn’t quite jibe with the eye-contact-avoiding locals. He contemplates returning to the east, but decides to give Vancouver one last chance before doing do.

He eventually starts to makes friends — including his best friend Michael, a west-coast native who considers himself “an enlightened man”. Michael takes Troy under his wing and tries to show him the “west-cost way” to meet women in the city.

Along with Troy and Michael, we meet their friends Sheri and Chad. We follow this eclectic group as they trudge through the enigma that is the dating scene in one of the most livable cities in the world, Vancouver.

Let’s watch the first promo:

The Writer, Director, Producer, and star of the project is Troy Mundle. He’s played minor roles on Vancouver-shot American television programmes like Stargate Universe (2009 – 2011) and Continuum (2012 – 2015).

The project is being produced under the UBCP’s Ultra-Low-Budget Programme. Troy said he wants to finish three episodes, and enter them in the Web-series category of the Leo Awards, which “celebrate excellence in film and television and are a project of the Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Foundation of British Columbia”.

I dutifully showed up on the morning of the shoot, only to find that the call-sheet gave the wrong address; there was no such place. Argh! I had even confirmed by email that I was to show up at that address: “On Saturday I will be at [address]”. I phoned the contact number on the call-sheet, but the gentleman who answered didn’t know anything about any movie-shoot; it turned out that the phone number on the call-sheet contained a typo. Argh! again.

Fortunately I have my email on my cellphone, so I emailed asking them to phone me. After only a quarter of an hour of sitting on the sidewalk with my gear, I got a phone call giving me directions to the correct building. However, all that did put a dent in my confidence in the professionalism of the production. Anyway, I arrived barely late, and proceeded to meet everybody and unpack my gear.

One of the Camera Operators was Kelly Kuperis. I worked with Kelly before, on Muaid “Kardo” Mahmood’s abortive short drama A New Game With Death (which I wrote about here). The other Camera Operator was Marco Bossow, a German fellow who had arrived in Canada six weeks previously, although he’s visited here several times before; I’m not sure if he’s immigrated or is just here temporarily.

The other actor for the day was Michael Goudge, who has worked on a couple of indie projects. He and Troy were both very nice, and knew their lines, so the shoot proceeded smoothly.

Good thing, too, as the plan for the day was to shoot over 13 pages of script, involving more than 30 camera set-ups.

Troy had rented a lighting kit consisting of three “tweenies” (650-watt tungsten fresnels) — one by Arri and two by Lowel. It was good to see a crew light an entire shoot with just those instruments, plus some white foam-core board for reflectors. Three-point lighting is a mainstay of movie production!

Troy, Kelly, and Marco followed their shooting plan, lighting each shot and shooting with two cameras — usually from the same angle with one a close shot and one a medium, but sometimes from opposing angles at the same time. Kelly had a Canon 5D Mark III and Marco had a Canon 550D (known in this country as the Rebel T2i).

I was the one-person-band audio team, swinging the Sennheiser ME-66 microphone on my Van den Berg boompole and setting the levels on my Tascam DR-60D audio recorder slung around my neck. Being self-contained allowed me to work swiftly around the cameras. I had the actors run their lines at the start of the day to set the audio levels, and kept the levels around there for the rest of the shoot; sometimes I boosted the levels after the first take. As all the shots involved the same two actors, and were all in the same room, it worked out all right. And I was able to figure out the boompole movements for mic placement while the actors rehearsed.

One handy thing about the Tascam DR-60D is that it can record an identical track with its level 6 dB lower. So if actors get a bit too loud and the audio clips, you have a backup track that is (hopefully) still usable.

The day went pretty smoothly. They had scheduled it from 09:00 to 20:00, and we went until 21:00. That’s a lot better than most independent-movie sets I’ve been on, where they expect everyone to stay for as long as it takes and we’re often still there at 01:00 . . . or later. And they fed us: sandwiches for lunch, and a frozen lasagna for supper.

There was even the possibility of further work for me! Co-Producer Jane Avery asked what my availability was on June 30, as they had arranged with a local nightclub to shoot there. I said that I could be available on that date. Alas, it was not to be . . .

On June 29 I checked my email at 21:00 to discover a preliminary call-sheet for June 30. The call-sheet was (again!) a real mess. Never mind the typos; the given phone number was still wrong. The given shooting locations were wrong, or simply missing altogether; there was no way to figure out where to show up. The only crew required, apparently, was Hair and Make-Up; no Camera Operators, Sound Recordists, Grips, Production Assistants, or anyone else were listed. Clearly, these friends had discussed the shoot and made decisions, and everyone who was present for that discussion presumably knew who was required, where to go, and what to do. But from the call-sheet itself, it was simply not possible to glean this information.

I wasn’t on the call-sheet, so one might assume that I wasn’t needed for the shoot. However, you know what they say when you assume . . . I emailed Troy to ask if he did in fact want me. He got back to me — at 06:00 on the morning of June 30, for an 08:00 call-time. He did say that they could do without me for the first bit, and I didn’t have to show up until 09:30. Unfortunately, whether it was two or three-and-a-half hours’ notice, it was insufficient. I didn’t have time to make arrangements for transportation, so I couldn’t make it.

The lesson here is to communicate well. It’s a common mistake to assume that other people know things that we ourselves do. You must remember that not everybody has your knowledge and frame of reference, and you have to keep your collaborators in the loop. And give everyone proper notice! You should have your shoot planned better than to be letting people know, “Oh yeah, we need you today.”

I contacted Troy and Jane to say that, with regret, I must decline to participate further in this project, as I am not confident or comfortable with the degree of organization. I know that they have other Soundies, so I am not leaving the project in the lurch; I’m sure they won’t even miss me. And good news: I see from this past Sunday’s blog post [dead link] that they wrapped the shooting of the first episode.

I don’t harbour any resentment or bad feelings or anything. I know putting together these micro-budget productions is always a last-minute race against disaster. I think that perhaps these people are wearing so many hats that they’ve simply stretched themselves too thin. I think they need a First AD or Line Producer to handle scheduling and communications.

I continue to wish them all the best. I hope that Single and Dating In Vancouver is a big, fat success and wins at the Leo Awards. I look forward to watching it when it’s finished.