Flashback: First Day

Even though we finished shooting over a month ago, we thought it'd be fun to go back and look at our journal entries from the actual shoot. So here's my thoughts on the first day of filming:

24 January, 2009

Today was our first day on set, and of course it was one of the sole rainy days in Los Angeles. We got to Barbara’s house (aka “Set”) at around 9:30 AM, and her normally quiet street was filled with appliance delivery trucks, post office trucks, and people trying to back out of their driveways.

It was a bit of a slog, but we got everything unloaded and Barbara shot some broll shots while I went to pick up scar makeup and Juliane went to get the bathroom cabinet for our rain day cover set.

None of us are professional make-up people, but Abby (who plays Charlotte) had taken some classes, so she was able to figure out how to craft a scar pretty quickly.

Finally, the rain stopped and we were able to get outside to shoot Scene 14: Charlotte finds the fossil. It was a pretty easy scene to start with, and we didn’t have any major problems.

Then we went on to the bathroom for Scene 11, where Charlotte finds out she’s pregnant and has her first scare. The scare itself was pretty low-tech but it should look pretty cool on screen.

After that, we shot a night scene in the bathroom (scene 10) and wrapped for the day.

And here's the email Barbara (the director) sent the first day:

When my roommate Monika came back tonight she noted that it must have gone well because I had a huge smile on my face. I modestly mumbled something about always having a smile on my face when I'm shooting, but I must admit that I especially enjoyed working with you all today. It just really reminded me of all the "creatively liberating" times of my experimental teenage years. (Not that I think our movie will ever be like the time I locked a ballerina into a church. On HI 8 - does that format even exist anymore..?)
Onwards and forwards into the mud tomorrow morning. Have a great night sleep. No, really. Get some sleep.

That's it for this week. We're still powering through editing, and hope to have a first rough cut in mid-May. Coming up, we'll have some more flashbacks to the production, and talk about working with SAG. If there's anything you'd like to hear about specifically, leave a note in the comments.

Thanks for supporting our backyard movie!

-- Matt H.

Charlotte sees something disturbing.



Aymae loves making movies.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to the "Fugue" blog! This is where we'll update you on the progress of the movie, talk about how we made the film, and hopefully post information on screenings, awards, and the millions of dollars we'll be netting.

But first, a little backstory. "Fugue" is a psychological thriller in the vein of "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Others." It's about a woman named Charlotte who moves into a new house and immediately starts to see strange things. She thinks the house is haunted, and soon discovers her connection to the place is even more personal than she imagined.

The project started around Thanksgiving of 2008. Barbara and I were talking about the idea of doing a low-budget "backyard movie," and we decided to start pitching ideas. Using her house as the jumping-off location, we outlined the story in December, and I started writing on New Year's Eve.

Twenty-seven days and many drafts later, we started shooting. Barbara directed, I produced, Aymae acted as cinematographer, and Juliane was the production designer. We started off on weekends, continuing to work on the script and figure out upcoming scenes.

We finished principal photography on 19 March, 2009. We'll go back and talk about the writing process and day-to-day production work in more detail, but we're currently in post production. Our editor Stephanie is assembling footage, and we're tweaking the teaser trailer so we can post it online.

Below are some sample shots from the production. Enjoy!

-- Matt H.



Abby, our amazingly talented lead actress.



Abby and some awesome production design.



Aymae, our DP, and Janna our main sound person.