Breathing Room

“Breathing Room” was the 2nd short film of DFTV 2 end of year films. The film was written and directed by Graeme Deacon. My initial thought of the “Breathing Room” script was it would be a production nightmare. It did have the main lead smashing a window and a dog leaping through it. I thought to myself how would this work, as we wouldn’t have the budget to make it look realistic. We would need to remove the real window and fit in a fake. We would need a professional medical person if the lead were to smash a window into a thousand pieces. If that were going to happen then a stunt double would be needed and so on. That seemed like the easiest part. The animal I thought would be the most difficult of the production because it was one of the story’s main characters and the dog had to go through some difficult and complicated actions. But it wasn’t my job to worry about.

I was assigned to be the gaffer, the D.P’s right hand man on the production. I’d be receiving instructions from Paul what lights to use and where to position them. Before the 1st shooting day, I received a small tutorial on Amps, Watts and circuits from one of the 4th years. It was understandable. I took a little note on set of how many Amps each light had. This would be the first time gaffering for me. Paul was going for a naturalistic look, as most D.P’s tend to go for. Even though he had little time to prepare his head was screwed on and he knew what he wanted most of the time. The first thing I did when I was on set was to organise the lights and accessories. At the start of each shooting day I set up the lights we were most likely to use throughout that day. We moved on to the first set up, which was outside so I didn’t need to do much. I was holding reflector in one hand and a poly board in the other trying to bounce light from the sun to highlight the actors face.

The interior scenes was where the lighting set ups got a little more complicated. Through out the shoot I made sure that I didn’t blow a circuit and I didn’t. I also wanted to be quick at setting up lighting for each scene and was fairly efficient in doing so. I hope I made a good contribution to the production of Breathing Room. Even though I had doubts of when I first read the script, the production and dog scenario came together. My superiors on the production did a good job of making the director’s vision become real life. I just hope in the cutting room it will look realistic…

One thing I might add, the day after the film was wrapped we returned the kit back to the Academy but we were missing four items, three that were part of the lighting department. I didn’t make my own kit check list but in future productions I will. Though I found it hard to understand why at least one of these items went missing as it stands a metre and a half off the ground and can be even extended taller than me.
Next time I will take care of the kit and where it is stored at the end of the day by making daily check lists.