How to Go Insane: A Hot Garage & Crickets…

Virtual Crew,

It cannot be mid-August!

I really have been working hard. Promise.

If you were investors in RECKONING, you’d be lighting up my phone:

“What’s the hold up?”

“We need to release this movie!”

“You will NEVER work in this town again!!!”

Fortunately, crew members such as yourselves are much more understanding. Thank you for that.

But seriously, what is the hold up?

The film school.

Write & Direct continues to crack the whip above me like a merciless farmer over a gasping mule in the summer heat.

And this week? Change in plans. Needed to cover my Mamaw in TN.

She’s 94!

Beautiful lady. Grandad passed a couple years ago. A great man.

My Grandad was a master mechanic for the fire department. There’s a garage here that can hold two firetrucks end to end.

Decided to shoot some of the Production course for the school while here.

One the topics we cover in production is how to light a set.

It’s not just about looking cool. It’s about serving story.

Three kids at a campfire telling ghost stories are gonna be lit wildly different than a couple at that same campfire who are falling in love.

The angle, diffusion, intensity, height…it all plays in.

All to serve story. And story is about entertaining the audience.

Anything else doesn’t work. Ever.

Back to lighting:

This is what a garage looks like on camera without any lighting attention:

Yeah…No Oscars happening for that image.

But a simple 4-point lighting setup, and you get this:

Now we’re talking.

It didn’t turn me into Tom Cruise, but it’s film school not miracle school.

Lighting is just one of the many things covered in Write & Direct.

Don’t forget to tell any wanna-be filmmakers you can get them in for FREE!

Crazy valuable.

And yes, I will finish RECKONING.

The all-wise King Solomon said this: “First plant your fields and then build your house.”

Write & Direct is my field. RECKONING is my house.

Oh…and by the way: If you ever want to go crazy, shoot training videos in a hot garage with crickets and distant trains.

Crickets are SO DANG LOUD. Ruined some recordings.

I resorted to lighting dark corners, using my brother’s blower to shoot air into dark places and STOMPING on any of the monsters I could find.

Wrapped shooting at 4AM and crashed in my Mamaw’s basement.

Woke up a bit later to…you guessed it, a cricket.

The men in white coats almost had to come.

Stay sane. Talk soon!

Kyler Boudreau

P.S. Here’s the link to send people to: https://writedirect.co/enroll/​

The discount code to get them in free is GREENLIGHT.

BOOYAH!

P.S.S. Here’s a wider shot of the set with the lights numbered. Remember, we always have to geek out!