by Uwe
This summer I took some time to work on a project by an old friend from film school, Ryan Bennett. He has had a feature film in development for the last few years and this summer was the time for it’s birth. “Ramblin’ ‘Round” was shot on S16mm with the Arri 16 SR3, mostly on Kodak 7207 – 250D, in and around Dexter, Maine.
Arri 16 SR3:
Dexter, Maine:
I was 1st AC and slept in a room with a hole where a window should have been. You can see here, it was covered over with red fabric giving my bedroom that prostitute-at-work aesthetic. Fortunately, this also made it easy to gain entry to the house on the numerous occasions when we found ourselves locked out.
Now, shooting on Super 16 in rural Maine in the summer can render you with a fridge full of fantastic images of epic locations, but it also means you don’t get dailies because the lab is not exactly on the way home. Unfortunate to say, but the video tap on the Arri SR3 consistently let us down, forcing us to do things the old fashioned way. To say that the gear had seen some action was an understatement, most of it still bore the marks of West Germany. Also, we took it through some pretty tough locations.
In knee-deep water…
On moving trains…
The cast and crew lived in a house on the hill, sharing too few bathrooms…
…and too much beer.
At one point we acquired a drum kit and a guitar amp (by class act, First Act!) which boosted moral into the stratosphere. Well, at least for a few peoples.
It was a pretty damn good time.
Here’s an article in Hollywood East Connection about the project.
All things must pass and in this case those things were mostly time and money. We shot all we could given that cast & crew had other commitments after 4 weeks. The majority of the film is complete, though it will take another summer to finish shooting the remaining scenes.
Camera Team, chillin’:
This is the bad-ass, home-made convertible picture car which tried to take us down at every turn with its near permanent status as a non-functioning motor vehicle. What we learned is that nearly every random person that drives by you in the country is, thankfully, a mechanic:
Processing was done at Deluxe and dailies were done at Company 3 in NY and we have since had the opportunity to watch them. The footage looks fantastic and is currently being cut into a teaser.
I’ll update the continuing story of Ramblin Round as more exciting news, shocking photos and surprising memories are recovered. MORE TO FOLLOW…