I recently came across this little video from a location scout we did way back during pre-production. What’s nice about having documented so much of this process is that you can stand back from the project and look at a specific scene in each phase of production. Let’s start at the beginning.
The major things to note are where we talk about putting the camera, where we talk about putting a fish tank, and the entire look of the room we are standing in. While so much can change your plans on the day of shooting, I’m surprised at how much we stuck to the initial map.
As you can see, Marie Lynn Wagner did a killer job dressing up the place. Harder to tell in the behind the scenes shots, but check out these stills from the final cut once the lights were up. Below, you can see the main camera setup we were discussing in the video.
One thing that completely changed from our initial discussion at the top was the placement of the bookshelf. The idea was that we would follow a character, Saul, from the couch to the bookshelf. We ultimately put the bookshelf opposite side of the wall in order to keep the lighting scheme consistent as we did the move. The end result was a reverse shot like the one below.
Finally, you can see some other angles of this particular setup in the trailer for the film. Specifically, look at moments from 1:25-1:29.
