I had the pleasure of AD'ing a short film recently titled Ariel with Director Chris Ramirez. Before anything else, check out the trailer!

https://vimeo.com/151600920

As mentioned above, Ariel was directed by Chris Ramirez of Quiet Giant Productions. The Director of Photography was the incredibly talented Robert Patrick Stern, check out his website with his reel, my mind is seriously blown away. As well as the fantastic Production Design of Sarah Sharp.

Now that I'm done giving an acceptance speech we can get into the production itself. This was definitely one of the more solid and proper sets I've ever been a part of. Most of the sets I've AD'ed were (on the most part) smaller budgets and smaller crew. I definitely was a little intimidated going in to this project but it ended up being a pleasure, not only did we make our days, but the crew was happy with adequate rest time and I even let them take the foot off the throttle and experiment a little towards the end.

Rob's team works together a LOT, so they were a well-oiled machine. After going through our setups, they would create their magic on the fly between static, dolly, jib, dolly-jib shots like clockwork. Same with Sarah's team, between each take they placed everything for continuity and were ready to do in the blink of an eye. This was fantastic to let me stick to my AD duties, keeping everything on schedule and keeping things running.

I tried my best to take care of everything logistical with schedule, breaks, keeping track of actors and paperwork to allow Chris to keep his focus solely on the actors and their performances. Speaking of, the cast was stellar as well. It stars Jesse C. Boyd, who most recently plays the role of "Cary" on the show The Originals which plays on The CW, Sarah Murray who's an incredibly busy model here in Chicago and is also a fantastic actor as well, and Robyn Coffin who plays Cindy Herrmann on Chicago Fire on NBC, and I've seen her in a few commercials!

I was ecstatic when Chris asked me to come aboard the set, I saw the last short that him and Rob collaborated on titled "Only Thunder" at a local screening of short films. I thought they did a great job, the acting of Walt Sloan and Katie Killacky were solid, and they got into a TON of festivals and won a bunch of awards. So any chance to jump on a successful team like that, take it!

Here's the trailer for Only Thunder

Overall was a great experience and I can't wait to see the final edited short, just from being on set I think it has some great potential. I'll leave this post with one final image, and it's of our Sound Mixer, Tim squeezing his way into a fireplace to he can boom as close as he can without getting into the shot. It's a funny picture but really is indicative of the dedication of the crew, and I hope I get to work with each and everyone one of them again in the future!