Welcome to In the Making/Decameron, a special page we’ve set up for our Producers of Up for Air/Decameron. This is where you’ll follow along as ODC/Dance embarks on its first ever full length dance film. Weekly posts will feature exclusive content, offer opportunities to engage with the creative team, and provide an intimate look into the development, filming and post-production process. We are deeply grateful for your investment in this exciting project for ODC and look forward to having you alongside us on our artistic journey.
Images from RJ Muna | 7/19/2021
We invited photographer and longtime ODC collaborator RJ Muna to the set of Up for Air/Decameron on the last day of filming. With his keen eye, deft hand and deep understanding of ODC’s artistic vision and aesthetic, he captured the dancers in fleeting moments of grace, strength, vulnerability, and joy.
- An Early Look at Up for Air/Decameron | 7/9/2021
- Post Filming Reflections: Kate | 7/2/2021
(Photo c/o ODC/Dance Company Member, Miche Wong)
One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot during Decameron filming is the dual capacity that film contains: to intensify proximity - a powerful intimacy in being so close to the dancer’s effort…also to the soft edge of her cheek…a ripple of anxiety crossing her brow - and on the other hand, to cool it off by objectifying the human form, placing it in larger context.That second quality - cool observation - is the one that scares me. Dance as a form relies on the most primal part of our intelligence; the animal senses the animal. Our heat-seeking, underneath-awareness helps us make meaning of movement: fast, slow, high, low, smooth, erratic. How do you pass such a fleet, a live experience through a technology that filters our senses into a tiny, specific peephole?
Well, it turns out, I’ve been learning a possible answer: through collaborative choice-making, accrued skill, experience. This filmmaking process has been so enlivening (and reassuring): Brenda’s multi-layered planning, her bold direction, our camera crew’s avidity, and obvious pleasure, in chasing the movement, our dancers’ commitment to immediacy, to emotional connection. With this much talent collected in the room I have no doubt we’ve caught something wonderful.
-Kate
- Post Filming Reflections: Brenda | 6/25/2021
In filming, an amazing transformation takes place. The world shrinks to the size of your team and setting. Ten hour days, lunch on the sidewalk with the dancers and crew, awake nights imagining continuity blips, new ideas, and constant problem solving. The newspapers (and the New Yorkers!) pile up and the wider events of the world temporarily but totally disappear.
I found myself immensely infatuated with each individual dancer, touched by their intensity, vulnerability and generosity…. the camera takes you into their being in such an intimate way. No wonder people fall in love on film sets. Every take is beautiful, and, strange to say, predictable in the best sense. So you start focusing on the time-consuming complicated mechanics of filmmaking… the activity around each moment is extreme-focusing, resetting, testing, discussing. And the dancers look so easy in their virtuosity that one can almost forget these are bodies..knowing time, knowing limits… the obsessive drive to get “the shot”, a seductive lure that needs a warning bell!
I loved that our DP (Director of Photography) was an advocate for “dirty” shots as he called them, not perfectly arranged, more hand-held in feeling, more spontaneous and energetic to my eye. And working with Kate and Kimi was perfect. We conferred constantly about implication and meaning. Why one thing should follow another. What is the story??? Testing their responses to my ideas, trying theirs, justifying a shot or proposing something slightly impossible gave the whole process a dynamic and deeply connected feel. So many levels of collaboration.
Kellee, ODC’s newish Director of Digital Programming, pulled together an amazing community of filmmakers. And you can believe we matched them with an outstanding crew of dancers. This was an amazing experience.I woke up this morning in a blue mood (post partum). To be expected I think. But not for long… the editing process is coming up. I suspect the next chapter may well include the plague of too many choices!
- b - Transforming ODC Theater into a Film Set | 6/18/2021
- Highlights from the June 4th Digital Open Rehearsal | 6/11/2021
- You're Invited: ODC/Dance Camera Rehearsal | 6/7/2021
You are invited to drop in and observe the camera rehearsal for Up for Air/Decameron this Friday June 11, any time between 1:00-3:00 PM PT.
What exactly is a camera rehearsal?
A camera rehearsal is a complex and intense process in which the dancers, director, and film crew will translate the shot list from theory into practical application. They’ll be diving into lighting setup, dancer blocking, camera positions, sound capture, etc. This will help to identify potential obstacles, surface creative opportunities, and allow technical refinements in preparation for filming which begins June 14.This is truly a part of the moviemaking process that the public does not get to see. Since it is a focused and critical prep period, guests won’t be able to interact directly with the team in the theater. Joseph Copley (Associate Director of Artistic Planning) and Emily Lieu-Harris (Development Director) will be your guides in the Zoom room to answer questions and provide some context into what is happening.
No need to RSVP, just click on the image below on Friday, June 11, 1:00-3:00 PM PT.
- You're Invited: ODC/Dance Digital Open Rehearsal | 6/1/2021
You are invited to a special digital open rehearsal Friday June 4.
Join Joseph Copley (Associate Director of Artistic Planning) and Emily Lieu-Harris (Development Director) for this special Zoom event as ODC/Dance and Kate Weare Company choreographers and dancers return to the studio to prepare for filming of Up for Air/Decameron.No need to RSVP, just click on the image below on Friday, June 4, 11:30AM-12:30PM.
- Pre-Production & Shot List Meeting | 5/28/2021
- Brenda's Journal - Learning a New Language of Film for Dance | 5/21/2021
Two things, one practical and one overarching.
I’m finally getting a handle on the theater vs. film vocabulary distinctions. No small feat after 50 years of doing it the stage way. AD (assistant director)- doesn’t actually direct the production but oversees the schedule, casting and crew. A grip seems to be the equivalent of an electrician for the stage. Best boy, a crewmember who serves as chief assistance to a gaffer or key grip. Or best boy electric...Oh right, gaffer would be head electrician and lighting technician, (would he/she/they design??) Grips rig and gaffers light? Well, i guess fluency will come eventually.
Here’s what feels disorienting: The filmmaking process seems to be the polar opposite of my choreographic process. Ordinarily i come into the studio with a prompt for the dancers (eg. make a phrase with no transitions….) then i see what they come up with and mess around with space, order, timing. Eliminating some things and amplifying others. Exploiting counterpoint ideas. For the film, on the other hand, you try to determine exactly what the eye will see before entering the room. A shot list. Eg. view dancer from high side, swivel around head and pull out to include upper body, then pull out to wide frame to set context or move in to focus on left hand gesture or …. You get the point. It is definitely the director’s eye leading the enterprise. I am forced to commit to exactly how I see the moments, rather than throwing a cornucopia of possibilities out there for the viewer. I begin to appreciate both the democracy of staged performance and the satisfactions of specific perspective. I am wondering if this will change how i work in the future.
More to come...
-b
- Announcing the Creative Team | 5/5/2021
I’m excited to give you an update on our newest artistic venture - the full length film of Up for Air/Decameron.
Our creative team is now in place and I wanted to share my excitement. I am in the throes of planning shot lists, storyboarding, casting, and scheduling with this extraordinary team. Their talents have been critical in reimagining the themes, the pacing, the perspective and the movement possibilities for the medium of cinema.
Jonathan Hall - Director of Photography
Jonathan has been a Director of Photography for film, television and short form content for studios including Universal, Disney, Lionsgate, Sony, MTV, AMC and MGM. An inspired visual storyteller, we were impressed not only with the scope and depth of Jonathan’s work (recently a 3D film with Cirque du Soleil) but also his passion and desire to push boundaries -- attributes that make him a natural fit for ODC.
Jim French - Lighting Designer
Jim is a much admired Bay Area-based lighting designer who has brought his lighting genius to the film world throughout this pandemic, most recently with SF Ballet’s stunning digital shorts. He’s worked with choreographers and dance companies around the globe including Twyla Tharp, Martha Graham, Christopher Wheeldon and Benjamin Millepied.Kellee McQuinn - Creative Producer
Kellee joined ODC in late 2020 as our first-ever Director of Digital Programs. She is an award-winning force of creative nature - producer, director, writer, choreographer, lyricist, entrepreneur. Her specialty is translating the magic of live experiences into immersive on-screen formats - which she did so impressively with our Fall for Art fundraiser and The Velveteen Rabbit.This work will culminate in red carpet premiere screenings scheduled for July 29-August 1, 2021, our first in-person events in more than a year! This is a groundbreaking departure for us at ODC and we are so grateful that you will be part of the adventure.
-b