Twisted Day: Shooting ‘Twisted Date’

by Jason R. Johnston

Pictured above: Behind the scenes on location at Speakeasy in McAllen, TX for Orange Media’s Twisted Date. The photo shows how the monitor was masked for proper framing in this film’s very wide aspect ratio of 2.40:1.

I was DP on this short film submission to the Cinesol Film Festival’s first annual 24 Hour Film Dash competition, held this weekend, where teams had one day to create a five minute short film from scratch.

Shot on a Panasonic AJ-SPX800P with an RNG35 v3.1 DOF adapter, with Nikon 50mm f/1.4 prime, mounted onto an AJ-D610WBP zoom. Recorded in standard def 1.78:1 (16×9) on P2, but composed and later flipped and matted for 2.39:1. Lowell tungsten lamps used, none brighter than 250W.

The production was plagued with problems from the beginning which stemmed from fragile egos behind the scenes. The director and crew tried to quell any hostility but in the end, the show suffered. I think there were a lot of great things that happened on set with our actors and there were some wonderful technical achievements for the team, but as a whole the film was too ambitious and deliberate to have been told well in 5 minutes. This project was a definite learning experience for everyone involved.

Twisted Date will be screened with the other entries of Cinesol’s 24 Hour Film Dash screening and awards ceremony this Friday, May 8, 2009.

© 2009 Jason R. Johnston. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.