As with all episode of commodoreHUSTLE, this was not a quick shoot. This was also our longest episode (if only slightly) so there was even more to do.
Kathleen had the vast majority written before episode 03 even aired, so we had a good idea of what needed to be shot first. In this case, we happened to be in Seattle anyway for the Child’s Play Charity Gala Dinner, and figured that while we were there it’d be awesome to actually show Matt in Seattle (when it was written, this wasn’t planned). We also asked Wil Wheaton to make another small guest appearance, and he was happy to oblige. Which made our day.
The rest of shooting didn’t happen until the Friday before the video actually went up. Jer, Paul, Kathleen and I got together to shoot Jer and Kathleen’s initial outdoor scene, and then after it got dark, Matt’s scene when he leaves for Seattle. We also shot Kathleen, Paul and I reading craigslist that evening.
The Friday was a full day. We started fairly early for us, shooting the “salad spinner” scene at my place. Then we moved on and shot all the scenes at Bill and Morgan’s place, them being Jer and Kathleen in the bushes, James’ half of the ending phone call, and the binoculars. Shooting the binoculars was interesting because I couldn’t get a decent angle on their bathroom window and kitchen in the same shot. So I shot them separately (there’s actually a cut in the footage when it whips back and forth that I bet you didn’t notice).
Saturday was everything else. We shot the scenes at the office at our actual office (The Moonbase), as well as a scene for a forthcoming video (forward planning), then shot Morgan’s thrusting cutaway before moving on to James’ house. There we shot his scene with Alex, and the “Coalition of James” cutaway just down the road.
Then it was over to my apartment to shoot all the group shots: the intro, the coffee and the newspaper. Last thing we shot that day was the “Why Would You Fuck with My Shit?” scene, back at Bill and Morgan’s spare room. No set dressing required.
While we had planned on finishing everything on Saturday, it didn’t end until Sunday. While editing I realized that in the “salad spinner” scene, the microphone had been turned off for the majority of filming. So while the wide shot of Paul and I was intact, Paul’s closeups, my closeups and all shots of Kathleen were audio-free. Mild panic. Realizing that all we technically need to reshoot is Kathleen, I set up the lights to approzimate the daylight as best I can, and reshoot her lines before she heads back to Vancouver. Thankfully it all turned out, but holding both the boom mic and Optimus Prime in that one shot was weird.
Last thing to shoot was Matt’s half of the final scene, which we shot at 10:30 that night, after he was done recouoperating from a long day of refereeing hockey.
I’d been working on the edit for several days, as we shot things, so it was already coming along, but I still ended up staying awake until 3:00am tweaking little things here and there. I’m thrilled with the final product and hope we can do even better in episode 05.
