This last week has been spent planning production day for the "Memento" recreation. Days spent studying lighting and what resources i'd need in order to properly recreate the scene from "Memento" to the best of my abilities. The lighting study came fairly easily because the week prior I did the exact same on recreating a scene from "Fight Club" so I knew exactly what my capabilities were and how to handle shoot day.
The next step was verifying location before shoot day just in case back up plans were needed from my intended location in Canton, Ohio. The specific spot I had in mind was the Towne Manor Motel due to the vintage 90s feel the entire facility gives off along with the idea the motel resembled the one in the film. My plan of attack was to head to the location and discuss with the owners my plan and it's purpose, getting some confidence and their "ok" for them to be comfortable with the situation and then from there discussing pricing options. I had intended to pay a full-days right for a room simply for the shoot. Much to my surprise, I told my mother of my plans and she told me the owner was a member at the bank she works at and she'd discuss the whole situation to him. Lo-and-behold she talked with him and got the Ok for me to shoot there on the 28th.
The final objective was taking out equipment for shoot day:
After the lighting study I realized I would be able to light the hotel room easily with one light and use natural light through the window, ambient light in the room, bounce boards and reflectors, but I can't account for the scenery of the room because I hadn't scouted the rooms before shoot day so I'd rather be safe than sorry. I grabbed a Lowel Interview Kit for the lights with the barn doors in which would come in handy for bending light and also the modifiers that came in the kit is more reliable than other kits available to me. For back up, I also grabbed the Mole light kit just because i'd rather be prepared for anything, even if it meant setting up 3 more lights or if any of the other lights I had available had busted bulbs I could have a contingency such as more lights to choose from. Along with this I had various bounce boards, gobos, reflectors and clamps.
As for camera, I would be using my Canon 5D Mark II, a 70-200L for the close up footage, 50mm 1.4 for the photo series i'd be doing along with it, and a 24mm 1.4 for a wider shot in the scene. Along with the 70-200, I took out a slider because in the scene there's a slight slide from back to front on the actor that would be moving throughout the entire scene.
For sound I ended up using a set of Lavalier mics.
Shoot Day
Shoot day began around 3pm where I met with the owner of the motel, Tim to scout rooms to find one that matched the scene. We looked through 4 different rooms each with distinct styles and window locations which I was paying close attention to for composition sake. The room I chose to shoot in didn't have the same size bay window as the scene in the film, but it was at the same location (right side of room) so I thought more about the source of the outside light more than the size of window itself which would prove to be hardly relevant. After a bit of location scouting of the motel we began set up and shooting.
About an hour was spent playing and modifying lights and shaping them to mimic the cinematography in the film. The day was gloomy and cloudy so there was no excessive light coming from the window, which was surprisingly convenient. I played with the curtains to make sure the light only hit the back wall and use a black board to block the outside light from hitting a few unwanted areas. This would act as a background light in the room. The next step was setting up key light that met the same harsh shadows as seen in the film. I would do this via a Lowel 500W light on camera right, the light being modified through the barndoors to avoid excessive light leaking and destroying the shadows of the face. (shown below).
On the image above, Schyler is lit with the 500W Lowel light high on camera right with a diffuser screen in front of it because the initial shadows were too harsh on Schyler. The wall behind Schyler on the right is lit very dimly by the outside light coming through a window, the light on the left being reflected from a large reflector from the light coming from the Lowel light. I also experimented with setting another light in the restroom and bouncing it but it gave too much of a fill on the right side of Schyler's face.
Not shown is the lavalier microphone we hung from an overhead lamp. I hung it just out of view of the camera because when we shot test scenes with the microphone clipped on Schyler it was far too scratchy. Hanging it just out of view produced much better results. Below are some stills from the footage.
This image in comparison with the prior is the difference between adding a bounce board on Schyler's face (top) opposed to not (bottom). Dependent on editing, I may use the bounced footage and tweak thinks in post.
After filming I took a photo series to go along with the project that will be apart of the final. Here are a few shots from it:
An iPhone image and edit.
Final steps include completing the photo series and doing post processing on the footage. I'm in search of the score from the film in order to add another element to my recreation. All went according to plan and the finished product is certainly coming along nicely.