After four nights of shooting and flipping my schedule completely, we have wrapped on "Today's Tomorrow", a short film directed by Gopal Mada. We started on Saturday night, and since then I've learned to sleep during the day and experience a sunset and sunrise each day. Being awake at the opposite time of day definitely has its pros and cons.

Production started out a bit bumpy, due to location issues, but problems are always to be expected when shooting something like this on no budget. The first day entailed setting up both indoor and outdoor shots, and getting everyone situated. The shoot was at our director's boss' house in Shrewsbury.

The next day was at Lesley University, where we shot some scenes in the bathroom. Above you'll see a nifty piece of equipment - the skater dolly. It's such a simple concept and makes for some really beautiful moving shots. The wheels also rotate a bit, so you can do dolly, tracking and circular shots.

Moving on to Quincy around 1am. The sun came up as we were on the last takes, making for a beauutiful, deep blue backdrop for the scene. I love sunset, but sunrise is the most beautiful in my opinion.

Here I am pulling focus for Jeff while he flies the steadicam. Jeff did a great job as DP, coming up with and pulling off some great shots. By this evening, most of us had become used to working in the cold, and bundled up appropriately. I was wearing about seven layers, in addition to scarves and a balaclava, and had to deal with the cold issues, specifically the lenses freezing. They would get so cold that the follow-focus could no longer focus without slipping out of the grooves, so we rigged a safety cable to the rods to get as much force against the gears as possible. In between takes, lenses were warmed up in the cars.

Luckily, the last day consisted of all indoor shots, with one amazing steadicam shot following the main character from the elevator, down a hallway, and all around an apartment. It took 11 takes to pull it off, but it was well worth it.

This shoot was a great experience, and I'm happy to say we had a wonderful crew. Everyone worked their asses off and pulled through in the end. Even Gopal, the director, made it through four days of no sleep. Several people actually went to work during the day and shot with us at night, and although there were some hiccups, I think we came away with some amazing footage and experience, and maybe even a few new friends.

Check out the rest of the production photos on Flickr.