I just got back from a tightly-packed week-long family vacation in Wisconsin.  Go Packers!  Actually, it’s Jenny who’s originally from there.  But, it was a pretty full vacation, lot’s of driving around visiting various relatives, eating copious amounts of cherry and butterscotch dilly bars along the way.  We got back to California at midnight on Saturday and deflated all day on the sofa on Sunday.  Now, life is somewhat back to normal and I’m looking forward to shooting more for the Cue The Moon music video.

The week leading up to our vacation was quite busy.  I had to tie up a bunch of stuff at the office and I also had a shoot for the music video with my friend Marcus and his girlfriend Amber.

Marcus and I are very old friends.  He and I were in all the plays and musicals together back in high school.  He always got the romantic lead part and I always got the comedy part.  Ah well, what can you do?  I certainly tried.

After graduation Marcus followed his dream and moved to New York.  He had lots of success out there being one of the original cast members from “Wicked”, “The Flower Drum Song” and Twyla Tharp’s “The Times They Are A-Changing”.  Now, he’s out here in LA trying to get his film career going.  He’s doing okay for starters, he was just in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.  Check out his IMDB.  His girlfriend, Amber Waller, is also an actress.  Not only is she very beautiful, she also has the most familiar face to me.  I swore I had either met her or seen her before.  She told me that she gets that from people all the time, here’s her IMDB.  She is originally from Missouri and is also fresh in starting her acting career out here in LA.

This particular shoot was the first of three or four similar shoots I have scheduled where I’m filming couples (ie. my friends who are willing) in somewhat intimate situations to eventually be slit-scanned.  The sequence for each shoot is basically broken down into three steps: Man and Woman Apart, The Approach, and finally, Making Contact.  In this shoot, Amber sits on the floor and appears totally normal (ie. not slit-scanned) while Marcus approaches her slowly in slit-scan form.  Once he makes contact with Amber and settles into a kiss then Amber begins to move and they both become slit-scanned.

I filmed it in Marcus’s apartment and moved all the furniture out of the way.  Lighting it was the biggest struggle and yet one of the most satisfying parts.  When it comes to the type of stuff I usually shoot at work, it’s all interview or hosting-type stuff so a couple of soft boxes and a back light is the usual set-up.  This was fun for me to actually light something with some drama and shadow.

I was really lucky to have my first shoot of this type to be with these two actors.  They were so professional and willing that there wasn’t a single uncomfortable moment.  After capturing a few takes of a controlled slow motion kiss, I set them free and allowed them to move and kiss at whatever speed they liked.  They kissed for many minutes, moving from one side to the other and it’s one of my favorite slit-scan shots ever.   The final shot looks like they physically become that famous erotic scrambled television signal we all (at least, those of us who were born in the 70’s) peered deeply into trying to see something we weren’t allowed to see.

Finally, there was the last shot.  The shot on my little homemade lazy susan where the two lovers rotate in a twisting embrace.  I got down on the floor and turned the lazy susan manually with my hands.  I found it almost impossible to keep a consistent speed so the slit-scan has some wavy lines in it.  I have a slomo version of the shot cooking in the computer now so hopefully I can smooth out some of those wavy lines.  Although, I still think the slit-scan came out pretty cool.

This week I am adjusting the lazy susan in order to make it motorized for future shoots.  I am taking my inspiration from the Drill Kart project in the latest issue of MAKE magazine and planning on driving the rotation with my corded drill.  I will no doubt post about it in the next week or so.