Occasionally there comes a moment during the production process when you know it’s all worth it. All the hours of tedious preparations and work pay off in an instant. I experienced that moment this evening. I was looking back over today’s footage and one shot just sent chills through me. It is a shot of the lead singer releasing a dove (yes, a real dove) up to the heavens. I shot this on a special “slow motion” camera. I didn’t realize how awesome it was at the time. I spend hours visualizing what a shot should look like in my head, but when the reality is even more stunning than the imaginary, it takes my breath away. I can’t take credit for the perfection of this shot. It was just the way the dove flew straight up while a couple feathers slowly fell from his body. It was just the expression on the singer’s face. It was a rare moment of amazement captured by a lens. I feel honored to have witnessed it.
It was a very busy shooting schedule today. We worked with the singer, both actors, and the dove. The location was “bedroom”. We had to make the room look like 2 different bedrooms. The final edit will cut back and forth between the actor and the actress each in their own rooms getting ready for work. The dove was mostly cooperative and only tried to escape by landing on the ceiling fan once. Today was a challenge for me, directing wise. I arrived at this location sight-unseen. I immediately had to start changing my vision to fit the reality of the location. I feel like I spent all my energy doing this rather then being aware of the actors and what was going on around me. But, I am still very happy with how things turned out. Two shoots down, three to go. I will post some stills from the footage tomorrow.