Sticks & Holler - Breakdown

The Fx9 and Mercury set don’t necessarily play very nicely, because although the camera does have 1.3x and 2x de-squeeze (The Mercury set needed a 1.5x de-squeeze), it does not provide any recording format/resolution where the de-squeezed image would land around 2:35:1, meaning we had to crop the edges of every frame from 2:67:1 back down to 2:35:1. I did give some thought to cropping in regard to potentially losing some character in the corners of the frame, but I felt really happy with the look of the glass despite having to sacrifice the edges of frame.

Additionally, we had an Fx3 on standby for any scenes where we needed a longer gimbal move or just when a more nimble set up would be useful.

You may notice in the scout frames below, I really, REALLY love the 36mm from this set. I could truly shoot an entire project on this sole lens, and so much of this show was captured through it beautifully. It has the perfect amount of character while not sacrificing consistent image quality. Beyond this, we found ourselves often in tight spaces and capturing people across from each other in profile which lends itself to needing a wide lens. Aside from the 36mm, we leaned on the 54mm and 72mm for more intimate moments.

We opened Day 1 with multi-cam coverage of 4 characters in a diner booth having a tense discussion about their current predicament. We found a beautiful old diner in Statesville, NC that would close at 3pm daily, giving us about 3 hours of sun before an early Fall sunset. We played heavily into the character of the space as we found it, and with the clock ticking we had to build a lighting setup that was broad enough to shoot cross coverage of the cast members, and stay relatively unchanged as we bounced around to each of them for time and continuity purposes.

What we landed on was sending fixtures through the windows and curtains, and then using bounce, small fixtures inside, and the general ambience of the space to even out levels. We hazed somewhat heavily to help add some level to the space while also falling in line with the aesthetic of the show where there would be an old school diner where patrons smoked inside.

Outside: We used an array of Aputure 600d, 300d, and Nova 300 through the main window in the scene with another 300d fixture coming through a window off screen left for level and subtle backlight.

Inside: Nanlite Pavo tubes and Aputure F22c were our workhorses for any scene where we used fixtures inside of a space (and more importantly in very small spaces) to wrap key, add level to a room, or a simple back light. We would shift the interior setup to enhance our key, motivated by the window, to whichever combo of characters we were shooting for a particular scene. We mainly used the F22c as warm ambience to emulate what the warm house lights would do in the diner so we weren’t relying only on ‘our sun’. For our close up we placed a piece of diffusion on the table to get a slight amount of bounced return from the 600d backlighting our talent. The tabletop was so yellow that we ended up either covering with a light colored fabric or neg to get rid of unwanted yellow in skin tones and shadow.

Shooting at Carolina Speedway continued our theme of letting the space dictate the look/light we chose to shoot with. I had planned on leaning heavily into the stadium lights around the track. Although we were hopeful to have a more selective control over the lights where we could use some and kill others, as these things tend to work out, it was all or nothing. There were two types of sources on location, one being the stadium lights which played cooler (something like 4000K-ish), and infield lights that were closer to street light sodium vapor.

We prepped our setup to be grip/light-control heavy with some fixtures to help accent, and haze to fill out the atmosphere. We used an Aputure Nova played into an 8x8 Ultrabounce for our key, set to a similar tone to the warmer infield lights, with a 600d as an edge set to match the cooler track lights. We had a hazer set to its max to give us any amount of ambience we could squeeze out of it. Although on a windy evening it was tough to find much consistency, we were able to capture some moments where it all lined up just right.

We shifted setups slightly for our closeups to give us more lighting control and shape. We quickly realized how much size we would need to block lights that wrapped around the entire track, and ended up fine tuning a series of 4x4 neg to avoid unwanted light spill.

What started as a burning church changed on the day to being a home being set on fire. Our biggest location battle was, very understandably, finding a church to set aflame. We were fully prepared to show up and film guerilla style, in and out. We never found the church that was the perfect look for us, so when we spotted this building right next to another location on our montage day we thought it was meant to be. We waited for blue hour until we had the right level from the sky to begin and captured William McKinney’s awesome expression as our character Donald.

After talking through this scene a number of times, VFX artist Ethan Neville gave me very clear direction on what he needed to pull this off as he couldn’t supervise on the day. We threw up a 4x4 Ultrabounce in front of talent, which was a cool/blue light bounce (evening/blue hour sky motivation) from Pavo tubes hitting the back of our actor, for a clean key of the character. We shot a series of takes where we had our practical fire lighting gag on, off, with the bounce, without, etc. For the fire effect we had all fixtures ‘firing’. We used a Nova, 300c, F22c, and 600d with warm gel all giving us a flicker or built in fire effect on the house and surrounding trees.

For the reverse of ‘Donald’, we used Pavo tubes behind talent matching the tone in the sky which catches a nice edge on his hat. For our key we used the F22c and Nova with some flavor of diffusion draped over, and another fire effect that was built into the 300c shooting into the foliage behind the character. I wanted two fixtures side by side with their own candle/fire effect going to try and emulate a very large area of fire. We were stoked with what we captured in this scene, especially as a result of this simple and minimal setup.

This scene features a conversation inside Teddy, our main character’s, trailer home in the morning. Yet another difficult location to find, that fell into place just weeks before shooting. We located a camper in a family’s back yard that was the right fit for our blocking, look, and would work for both interior and exterior scenes. The conversation in this scene takes place at a small table next to a window with a quite unique curtain which ended up being quite a fun element to light through.

We ended up shooting this scene a bit tighter than I had prepped for. As I mentioned before, I really like the look of the 36mm, and I think I prepped the scene on that lens because of the lack of space in the camper. But once we brought everything together, I realized I had more room to play with and decided on the 72mm.

Similarly to the diner scene, we lined up an array of fixtures to send through the window. A Nova and 300d for a more even wash of light through the curtain, and a 600d with fresnel to cut beneath the curatin as a cut of light across the actor’s bodies. We shifted slightly between coverage of each to get the right mix of softness and direction through the window. Inside the camper, which was incredibly tiny and cramped, we gripped a Pavo tube above for just a touch of ambience. Another tube is set to a warmer tone in the cutout next to the Dolly Parton poster with enough level to read, and add another layer to the space.

The following scene (day Ext. through the window) leads directly into this conversation as the story plays out, and the scene after (night Int.) were shot in this same location as well as three other scenes we had to get through on day 3 of our shoot. We were tasked with keeping continuity of the camper’s identity, but letting the light portray a different time of day, or different day altogether.

This scene was one we’ve been thinking of for years as we shot a very short, single take teaser for this series in 2024 that we knew we had to try to pull off again. The difference, we shot the teaser with that singular shot in mind. It came out great and portrayed the exact emotion and vibe we were after, but with shooting the entire pilot episode this time around the location had to work for all the scenes here rather than just one shot. I racked my brain on how to emulate what we had previously captured but was aware of what a challenge that could be.

The trailer was different, the weather was different, so we had to accept that this would not be a one-to-one replication of that shot which I ultimately think is for the best. We had to match the vibe of this scene to that of the conversation to take place after which we shot just before this on the day.

We had a long layout of fixtures across each window/portion of the camper. A 300d going through the door of the camper, a 300c and Nova through the window with the colorful curtain, a warm tube still under the Dolly poster, and finally a 300d and 600d with fresnel going through the back window where Teddy is sitting with another tube placed above the window for a bit more of a soft light for his face. We really had to fine tune placements of each fixture to not compete with each other and match angles so that it doesn’t appear too much like there are 5 different fixtures and instead feel like different qualities of light are coming from one source.

Still inside the camper, this follows a longer scene where the two characters in the foreground are moving through the space and having a conversation. At the end of their talk, they pull back to reveal two new characters intruding in their home.

We aimed to create a feeling of mismatched exterior lights where one felt sodium vapor and the other a cooler aged/damaged bulb from outside. The rest of the camper scene was lit warm with a blend of practicals and hidden MC/Pavo tubes, so when we turn to this shot I wanted it to feel slightly different. We placed an F22c outside the window frame left to be cool, with a Nova 300c set to around 2700K up high on a stand to create lines through the blinds. We had another warm fixture more directly behind him as an edge that also comes through the back portion of the camper’s glass. Lastly, we rounded this all off with a Pavo tube close to talent for s bit of softness and wrap the sodium vapor light.

This short moment in our montage was one I knew would be a great scene to find a seedy dive bar to, once again, lean into the character of the location. We shot the montage of four locations on day 2 all in Davidson, NC. The scout frame we have was actually taken at our diner location as we had some issue finding a bar that was the perfect mix of vibe, availability, logistical possibility, and would let us in before operating hours. Me and Ben Allison (producer) met for a beer, and really bad round of pool, one afternoon here about 2 months before shooting, so we had seen the space but it hadn’t been officially on our list of locations yet, and luckily everything fell into place not long before production started.

Our set up here was light as I really fell in love with the ambience of the room. We had to pick and choose which neon/wall signs to leave on as the room could get busy with everything, and some branding wouldn’t have been period accurate to the early 2000’s. The practicals in the room gave us some warm/cool contrast, which we added to by having the exit door opening to spill more coolness in.

We hazed heavily and placed our action close to the end of the bar so the hanging lights above would act as our key and not spill over to our shadow side. We supplemented the hanging lights with a series of Aputure MC’s in the ceiling behind the bar to carry the key over and add a more defined key directly into talent. Lastly, we had an Aputure 300c set to daylight with spotlight attachment going into a disco ball off frame left which helped carry some of the blueness of the rest of the room to our talent.

This short dinner scene is one of two scenes that take place between these characters in this kitchen/dining room. This is the first in order of the story and later we come back here for a scene that takes place during the morning. We had limited time to pull off these two looks so we had to create a setup that could flip fast.

To start with this night scene we put up an 8x8 and 4x4 Ultrabounce on the dark side outside the windows on frame left. Our key was an overhead F22c through a 4x4 silk, and we added Pavo tubes behind each character for subtle edge. The rest of our work was moving practicals, replacing bulbs, and hiding MC’s around (for example one under the range hood above the stove) until we filled the space with enough practical motivated level. Sheer curtains were added to the windows and the space was hazed which helped further soften the overhead fixture and added just enough ambience.

The change over to our day scene (which I can’t yet show since it didn’t make the trailer cut) was to take away the Ultrabounces that were blocking the windows and bring down the F22c from overhead to be used to extned the level from the window around our actor’s face, who was now sitting at the seat between the two characters in this night scene, facing camera.