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PRESS RELEASE
Student Makes History with One-Take Movie
The film, The Truth About Faces, runs fourteen minutes long without a single cut.
(Los Angeles, CA) - April 9th, 2007 - Lindsey Shockley, a graduate student at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, set out to do something special for her thesis film-- shoot it all in one take. No cuts.
The film, The Truth About Faces, follows a mother and daughter who are forced to come to terms with a tragic event when a long-lost loved one resurfaces and exposes the truth about their past.
"I wanted the film to feel like we were eavesdropping on a life already in progress," Shockley explains. "By never cutting away, we feel the same constant tension that the characters do."
This marks the first time a student at USC has attempted to shoot their entire film all in one take. "Most people looked at us like we were crazy," Shockley laughs, "because there is so much that can go wrong during a fourteen minute take."
The lightning fast three-day shoot in Glendale, CA looked more like an obstacle course than a movie set. The complex choreography called for the crew to work their magic behind the scenes-- flying in props at just the right moment and helping actors with lightning-fast costume changes.
The idea of a one-take movie was both exciting and scary to the actors. "It allowed them to really live in the moment," Shockley notes. "But it also allowed no room for error." It was very demanding on the cast, both physically and emotionally. Not only did they have to execute a complicated choreography with the camera, but they also had to live and re-live the gut-wrenching journey of their characters over and over again.
The cast, lead by Hanna Hall (Forrest Gump, The Virgin Suicides) and Julie Pop ("Will & Grace") took up the challenge with grace and strength, giving powerful performances.
The lighting team and art department had their own challenges. Because of the scope of the long shot, the camera would see all 360 degrees of the spacious boutique. This meant that every inch of the space had to look picture perfect. Cinematographer Steven Edell and gaffer Wes Shive had to create their entire lighting scheme (all thirty-two lights) from above in order to hide them from the camera's eye. The art department, lead by production designer, Rose Shawhan, had the added task of creating a dressing room large enough to accommodate two actors, a costumer, the Steadicam operator, his rig, and the focus puller.
But the greatest physical challenge lay literally on the shoulders of the Steadicam Operator, Daniel Stilling. Even with the advantages of Kodak's Super 16mm Vision 2 stock and Panavision's lightweight Aaton X-Production camera, the load he carried was eighty-five pounds all told. Imagine holding that steady for take after long take.
"It's an extremely risky way to make a movie because it's all or nothing," Shockley notes. But producers, fellow USC filmmakers, Julie Sifuentes and John Blair, were up for the challenge. Sifuentes adds, "We couldn't be happier with the final product."
The film will hit the festival circuit in the summer of 2007.
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