Working as Cinematographer on the Short Film "Over"

I was the Cinematographer on a short film called Over. The writer and director found me online and reached out to hire me to help bring his project to life. (Scroll down to see the footage sample video)

This was a great project for me because it was a paid short film. It combined two of my favorite things: working on films and actually getting paid my full rate to do it. The film is a short horror film, as many short films tend to be, and I really enjoyed working on it. I got to light the actors in some interesting ways and create a more dramatic look that helped set the mood and support the story.

The director, Allen Parker is an upcoming filmmaker, and instead of trying to find people to work for free, he decided to pay for a skilled crew to make the film the right way. I agreed to film the project for him, and I was also able to help assemble nearly the entire Atlanta film crew. I hired a Gaffer, an AC, a G&E Swing, and a PA. The director brought on a sound guy he had worked with before.

Once the script was sent over to me, I started making plans for the shots and lighting. I worked with the director and we came up with a storyboard, then I drew up a lighting diagram. I wanted to be as prepared as possible so that once we were on set, we had a clear plan and could move through the day without guessing.

Once preproduction was done, we got started shooting. Our location was a big house in the suburbs that had a really good look. I used my RED Komodo-X with my vintage Leica-R lenses, which gave the film a really beautiful look. Production went great, and we captured some awesome looking footage that the director was very happy with.

One of the things I enjoyed most was getting to light high contrast scenes with spots of light and darkness. I love getting the chance to make a script come to life with light like that.

There was a hallway shot where the lead actress was walking down the hall. My idea for the shot was to have two pools of light in the hallway that she would walk in and out of. It made for a really dynamic shot, but it was also a challenge to make it work.

The walls of the hallway were white, and the light wanted to bounce around everywhere, so I was having trouble getting the dark areas to stay dark. One thing that would have helped would have been putting black fabric over the ceiling to stop light from bouncing off it, but we did not have the resources for that. What worked was focusing the spread of the lights so the pools of light were more narrow, which reduced the amount of light bouncing off the walls. I am really happy with how that shot turned out. See the footage sample bellow to really see how this effect looks as she is walking.

Another shot I really love is when the lead actress opens the door of a dark room to look for the other character. I lit the shot so that as she opened the door, the only light in the scene was coming from the hallway and spilling into the room. I used a Spotlight attachment to focus a beam of light that illuminated the bed and parts of the room.

We also filmed a scene where the actress was doing laundry. I had the idea to put the camera inside the dryer as she threw clothes into it. That was a fun scene to shoot, and I think that creative angle made the scene much more dynamic. One thing that would have made the film better was set decoration. We had a great location, but some of the shots felt a little empty because we did not have much set dec in the background. I did my best to move around the things that were available to us. If you watch closely, you can probably spot the same lamp in three or four different shots, which is not ideal.

Another thing that would have helped the final product was hair and makeup. There are a couple of shots where having someone there for that would have made a big difference. But when you are working on a low budget short film, some concessions have to be made.

The director originally planned for us to film the entire short film in one day, which was not really plausible. He did not have alot of experience working on projects of this caliber and underestimated how long lighting a scene takes. He told me that while he was watching me light the first scene, he was so happy with how good it was looking that he did not want us to stop or rush it. So he decided to hire us to come back for another day.

We ended up filming for three days before we were done.

On the last day, we had to film at another location and cheat it for the original location. We had missed some key shots in one scene, so I had the challenge of filming pickups that would cut in with the original scene even though we were in a completely different place.

In the end, everything turned out great and the director was very happy with the finished product. I was happy with the work too. It was a good opportunity to work as a Cinematographer in Atlanta on a narrative project and use lighting, camera placement, and lenses to shape the mood of a horror short film.

Here is a footage sample I put together. I color graded and edited this footage. The original film wasnt color corrected or edited by me.

https://vimeo.com/1182776193

Here is a review the Director wrote for me: I had the pleasure of working with Chris on my most recent short film. From the get go, he was excited about the project and worked closely with me in pre production to develop storyboards and a plan for shooting. He is a talented cinematographer but perhaps more importantly, cares deeply about the projects in which he gets involved and his hard work and dedication to this particular one, has left this writer/director very pleased. Thanks so much Chris!

The Director a made some side by sides of my shots and the original storyboards to show how the plan turned into the final images. Here is one of them