Production Notes – fcinematography

I thought I’d write a post with some tidbits on my Mr. Robot parody, fcinematography since it has  surprisingly become the most liked video on my channel, and reached 20K views in 6 weeks.

The Location
The main scene was shot at the Santa Barbara Courthouse Sunken Gardens. I settled on this location after spending a half day scouting for a decent set of bleachers (similar to the set of season 2) with no luck. My plan was to shoot on the main steps. I should have known better. There were tons of tourists and I was too lazy to walk across the street to Fedex and print out a fake film permit.

The Plan B location choice turned out to work well, maybe even better than the first choice. At first I wasn’t too crazy about the palm trees, and was considering removing the background in post. I ended up leaving them in since it is Beachfront Comedy…

The Music
I stumbled upon a Reddit AMA of Mac Quayle (Mr. Robot’s composer) where someone asked him what his favorite software synths are. He listed Zebra, Blue 2, Bazille, Omnisphere, and Predator. I figured why not download a demo of a few and boot up Ableton Live. I ended up fiddling with presets from Predator and now I’m pretty sure I’m a legit film score composer.

The Gear
Camera – Canon C100 with Canon 17-55 2.8 lens and Atamos Ninja Star (for ProRes 422 capture).
Audio – Rode NTG3 inside of a Rode Blimp on top of a poor man’s steadycam. I attached an Zoom H5 with some rubber bands. This allowed me to plant the mic down, walk away, and be a bit more discreet than using a c-stand or asking someone to hold a boom. Also kept the crew count down to one.
Stabilizer – Ronin-M was used for walking/running shots.

The Wardrobe
When it comes to wardrobe, Ross is hands down the best place to find a black hoodie for your actress/model friend for under $15.

The Run
Some commenters on YouTube and Reddit are giving Hayley crap for not being an Olympic sprinter, but in her defense I ended up using the very first take of her run since I screwed up the focus of the following takes. Also she was ill that day, but as you can see, always a trooper.

All in all this project was a blast and I’m stoked with the result even though it went over my $20 budget. Can’t wait to do another piece with Paul Canter and Hayley O’Connor.