After a successful IndieGoGo campaign we were able to put the $7100 raised towards shooting Episodes 4 – 9 of SOLO The Series which will finish out Season 1 of our series. Our goal was to raise $13K and if we had been able to do that in time, we would have been able to pay a small stipend to our cast and crew for their time, energy and creativity. Luckily, we have a passionate team that stood behind us regardless of the pay!
Here’s a run down of our week of production:
Thursday
Production Meeting with our Team: Frederick Snyder (Director), Raphe Wolfgang (DP), Chris Szadkowski (Production Design), Andrew Seely (AD), Jonathan Nail (Creator) and me – Allison Vanore (Producer).
Friday
Meeting w/ Corina Spadoni – Wardrobe
Equipment Pick-Ups
Saturday
Prepare and send out Call Sheets
Finalize the remaining crew & cast schedules
Sunday
Pre-light: Spent the night lighting the spaceship in Jonathan’s garage, building dimmers and eating pizza.
Art Load-in: We were wow’ed by Chris’ props and techy/electronic capabilities.
Wardrobe fittings
Rehearsal on set / choreography
Monday – Day 1 – Spaceship
Call time 5pm
Wrapped at 4am
Tuesday – Day 2 – Spaceship
Call time 5pm
Wrapped at 4am
Wednesday – Day 3 – Spaceship
Call time 5pm
Wrapped at 5am
Thursday
Since we wrapped early in the morning this is a “day off” however due to running out of time on some coverage, our camera team decides to shoot for a couple of hours to get coverage of PHAL and Scott in the ship.
Friday
Call time 6am
The morning scenes were supposed to take place outside and included a pool and hot tub… this morning was extremely cold and the yard we were shooting in was shaded so the look and the performance of the actors was greatly affected by the location and weather. After discussing these problems, running through the first shot a few times and then trying to subdue an extremely excited and loud squirrel in the tree above, we decided to scrap the location and change the scene. This scene will be shot on an upcoming weekend in November.
Wrapped at 5pm
Saturday
Call time 7am
This day consisted of a lot of blocking and dialogue between characters, Gerry and Ratish, as well as a few new additions. We ended the night with a lot of laughs as we added a few touches to the Becks bedroom scene that has to do, yet again, with shoes.
Wrapped at 7:30pm
Sunday
Call time 11am
Sunday felt a bit schizophrenic because we shot Yakuza scenes in the dining room, Green screen in the living room and then Office scenes in the office and Ext. night shots… we were all over the place! At the end of the night, we were borrowing Jonathan’s neighbor’s car for the last scene and after about 45 minutes of the car sitting there with the headlights on… the car died. Go figure.
We didn’t have the car on due to sound issues but the lights were on for the look. A dead battery ended our night a bit early and a shot or two short.
Wrapped at 11:30pm
After wrapping these 6 days we began the editing process with our editor extraordinaire, Frank Mohler. At the same time we have about 2 and a half days left to shoot so our time is spent location scouting and getting wardrobe and art set for the last few scenes of the show!
At this point I have seen rough cuts of Episodes 4, 5 and 6 – and I’m excited because it’s looking great!
More to come soon! For more photos from the shoot, check out our Facebook Fan Page for SOLO and the official website.