Docu-Drama Short Pre-Production

Mateusz Czopek · May 10

Hey all,

I'm starting pre-production on a new short film and thought I'd jot down some thoughts here as it may help give me clarity and some folks may find it interesting!

The short is a currently loose-scripted docu-drama ala Nomadland following a young korean boy who goes to the market for the first time in America. It's directed by Joon Cho, who is a USC graduate but grew up in Boise (where I'm from and where we're shooting the film.) I've worked on two of his short films before, although I was 1st AC on the last one. His usual DP is a good friend of mine, but he couldn't make the dates due to working on a feature in LA during the summer. Joon's a great director and brings a great energy to set and knows what he wants, so I feel very lucky to be able to shoot this particular project of his.

Currently in the very loose planning and creative stages, finding references, lookbooks, dreaming about what the film could be. Since a lot of it is dependent on what locations we shoot at and on the young actor, it's going to be a very small crew that will have to move quickly. Only 1 AC and 1 Gaff/Grip. I'm hoping to shoot on the ARRI Alexa 35 or the RED EPIC with either Zeiss CP.3s or the Standard Speeds, although currently I'm leaning towards the CP.3s. I'm borrowing equipment from my work so the shoot will take place over two weekends, with possibly a Friday after working hours.

I've been testing the different lenses and cameras, and of course my preference is the Arri 35, the sensor is quite superior than anything I've worked with and it has internal NDs which will be helpful for this more run and gun documentary style film, rather than wearing NDs in the mattebox with RED.

We want to have more natural light as most of it is outside and we don't want to overwhelm the kid actor with a lot of lighting equipment or make it feel like a big deal. This does lead me to believe that I should try and light more from the outside in interior locations such as his house, so there's not a bunch of smaller lights inside his space, which actually means I'd need bigger lights and more light control. Quite the paradox.

That's about it for now, hoping for more to come as things start getting closer and closer and we finalize equipment and lighting plans, I'm sure I'll have more to share.

See ya next time!