Providence Falls: Ireland
Day 3 in Ireland was one of the more ambitious days in the schedule. We had a full company move and then 2 cart pushes on a truly impressive castle property that sprawled out like a tiny town. All of this in an 11 hour shooting schedule with no overtime permitted due to electrician union rules. The schedule had it all, day time interiors and exteriors as well as night time interiors and exteriors. Yet even with all that, I think the scenes ended up being some of my favourite frames in all three films.
I will walk you through the day and how we executed it.
Location 1: The bar
Our first location was the Blue Light Bar, a traditional Irish pub built from handcut stone with 300 years of history. This beautiful and unique location was chosen for its heritage and lack of visual modern elements. Also its stone texture and cramped nature had a shady, yet lively vibe. A perfect fit for a 1800s bar where criminals and unsavoury characters gather.
Originally I had planned to place 2x 4ks and 1x 9k HMI outside the location as a hard light push through the windows. However, we ran into problems with floor space outside the main windows thus had to pair it back to one 9k through the windows and one 4k through the door in the backroom. We also used a Litemat 8 in the backroom to add some fill to that space. Finally, we added a whole bunch of NYX bulbs in the sconces on the walls that set dec covered with shades. We had each bulb on fire effect to make it feel more ‘of the time’.
We also placed one last bare NYX bulb next to camera to push a flame light fill onto the casts face.
Location 2: Exterior Streets
Having finished shooting the bar, we loaded our trucks and drove 30 minutes down the mountain to Killruddery. A massive property filled with sprawling fields, hedge mazes, gardens, little towns, a beautiful castle, I could go on. Yet another part of Dublin history, this place truly felt like stepping back in time.
The scene was played entirely in natural light. We used 4x4 white styro bounces and hollywood neg fills to create shape and add twinkles in casts eyes.
Location 3: Jail Cell
The art team did a truly fantastic job building this jail cell. Using the existing stone work they built two walls capping off the corner with a barred window to allow light to shine into an otherwise dark world.
We kept this super simple, using one lighting setup for all the coverage of this scene. We pushed a 4k, with 4x4 opal, through the window and then bounced a 4k into a muslin to wash light through the doorway. Our main issue on this set was haze consistency. The scene was around 2 minutes long and wind was constantly wafting through and evicting all the haze by the end of each take. Another thing we had to take into account was daylight consistency. The sun was setting during the wide shot and then was completely gone by the first piece of coverage.
Location 3: Cora’s bedroom
I loved this set. The warm skin tones against blue wallpaper really made every shot pop. We merely amplified that using a mix of warm firelight and blue HMIs.
Originally, we had planned to use a combination of Leko room openers and Titan tubes to push the fire deeper into the space. Luckily for us though, none of that was necessary. Special FX plumbed the fireplace and was able to make it raging enough to give great exposure.
As for the moonlight, the set was on the 2nd floor, so we put 2x 9k HMIs in a 50ft condor approximately 20ft from the set and hit one into each window. I believe we ended up at a medium flood through an opal.
We snuck in a Litemat 8 to add a subtle eye light for #1s coverage, but other then that it was the one setup for all coverage.
Location 4: Exterior Castle. Night.
And so we make it to the end of our day. One last cart push. Outside. 1 hour left in the day. A fantastic run to the finish line. I had the electrics team leap frog ahead to light the set while we were shooting Cora’s bedroom. This is why I love doing schematics for every day, it gives the crew some autonomy from which we can quickly adapt and build upon once I land on set.
We reused the crane, merely backing it up and scrimming it down to light up the castle. As you can see in the schematic we originally wanted to do a 20x20 muslin tabled above the cast as a soft top light. However, Dublin weather had other plans and decided to be incredibly windy. Thus we dropped it down to a 12x12 and had it on the floor tied to trees and piked into the ground.
Other then that we had a whole bunch of brazers that we lit for pops of colour and then lit the interior atrium room with 2x 2ks into muslin to give a beautiful warm glow.
The fun ingenuity actually came during the coverage. We had to do cross coverage in order to make our day but only had one 12x12 frame close to set. So what we did was use the 12x12 to light our #1 giving her the softest source possible and then we actually bounced an LED leko light into a tree trunk to light our #2. We cooled off the leko to compensate for the warmth pushing off the bark and then adjusted #1s light source to match and there you have it, a tree bounce.
And thus completed our day, I believe we ended up with 2 minutes to spare. A chaotic day? Sure! But with ample planning and a clear vision we made it through, and as I said in the beginning, they ended up being some of my favourite frames in the entire series.