Previously Discussed: Production Disasters and Performances

Jim Mickel (director/co-writer) and Ryan Samul (cinematographer) had very little time to plan the cinematography. The time they did have was spent watching films and discussing what works visually in the genre.

The original plan was to shoot the film in an over the top B-movie style similar to The Evil Dead or early Peter Jackson films. Then as Mickel explains, things changed, “I think as we went along and the script kept getting better and the characters kept getting more real... it felt like it would be cheating the movie to do it that way”.

Mickel and Samul started looking at other films and Dion Beebe’s cinematography for In the Cut proved to be a major influence. “It’s beautiful. It feels like a 70s movie but there is a weird kind of handheld, intimate thing and that was really the big inspiration. It was a movie that felt timeless, it could have been the 70s, it could have been now, but also it had this weird fantasy element... There’s a feeling that you are constantly being watched on screen that you are in the middle [of everything]... We tried to capture it that way - the camera is constantly just another character in the scene... I think, especially in New York, that works so well. I don’t know why they don’t do it more in New York movies.” Explains Mickel.

To achieve this they decided to utilize hand held prosumer grade digital video. “There is something immediate and intense about handheld video that we both agreed would help our cause.” Says Samul.

“The movie felt like a two-act movie in a lot of ways,” says Mickel. To symbolize this they utilized a similar technique to the one used in the invasion sequence of Saving Private Ryan.

Samul points out, “There is also a distinct point in the film where the film switches from a movie about gentrification and living in the city to a movie about defending your family from a hoard of rats. We wanted to have a visual change to signify that, so we switched on the 180 degree shutter to increase the crispness of the image, to make each movement more detailed and abrupt.”

The choice to shoot hand held with a digital camera also proved to be helpful in utilizing Guerrilla shoots. “Shooting in NYC on a shoe string budget is not easy, so guerrilla shooting had a big part in the film making process for Mulberry Street.”

A large amount of establishing footage was acquired from a parade. The crew was on their way to shoot another scene when they drove past the parade and decided to capitalize on the opportunity. “[We] hopped out and just kind of shot stuff, a lot of times just hiding the camera under a coat and just walking along hoping we were actually getting shots. I remember turning it a couple of times as we walked past police cars saying, ‘Please be in the shot, please be in the shot,’” remembers Mickel.

These kinds of shots are easily manipulated says Mickel, “You know you throw shattered glass sounds and screams behind it and it sounds like it’s a riot.”

Samul is particularly proud of a late night shoot. “Our finest hour would probably have to be convincing a yuppie couple drinking wine on their fire escape to plug a cable in for us so we could shoot a scene in their alleyway. Their neighbors threatened to call the cops when we were making too much noise and [we] had no permit to shoot, so we decided to shoot the scene with the headlights of the gaffer’s Ford Bronco and bounce cards two streets over in an abandoned construction site.”

Next: Going Digital