Writer/Director:
Ben Barker
Producer:
Brian Kung
Director of Photography:
1st AD:
Production Occurred:
March 31th - April 2nd
Music By:
Completed:
An aged fishing pole
A pristine riverside
A satchel of bulbs
Props and Locations
About Fishing Lights:
The story of an old man whose last lamp burns out. When he finds he has no spare bulbs, he goes to the river to fish for some light.
There, an encounter with a young boy who has a knack for asking questions, changes his heart.
See below for more info.
A magic box
Written and Directed by Ben Barker
Old Man
(Jack Rutelage)
Young Boy
(Dominik P.)
A quiet house
A box for bulbs
Production Journal:
Post Production (May 13, 2012)
Well over a month has passed since principal photography, and much has happened! Pickup shots, which finished off all filming for Fishing Lights, occurred at the end of April on the 28th. Unfortunately, the weather seemed only to get colder than day 1. The wind had picked up, and the temperatures were well below 50°. But that didn’t stop a small team of dedicated filmmakers and actors from getting together to call a full picture wrap on this beautiful short film.
Picture editing has not gone smoothly, but it is managing to pull through. The entire film is now in order, and the timing is being fine-tuned. A fine cut of the first scene has been sent to Devin Polaski for scoring and Audio design. Once completed, the picture edit will be perfected, and a picture lock will be called on the fist half of fishing lights. Meanwhile, the main portion of the film will continue to be perfected, and picture-locked, followed closely by ADR. During that time, a few shots will receive special effects, and the film will rapidly fall together.
The hopes are for Fishing Lights to make it to the Sundance Film Festival, the deadline rapidly approaching at the beginning of June. With a little dedication from everyone, this piece will sine!
-Ben Barker
Production Day 1:
“The day started off smoothly. Around 9:15am, the first car showed up at the location... an hour ahead of schedule. Slowly 15 more cars showed up, and the small street in Spring Lake started looking busy. Twelve crew members, one actor and two parents started work on an eleven hour day.
We began inside the house, right where the story begins: preparing the magic tools with which the old man fishes. We moved quickly, getting extreme closeups of the props that I’ve been working on for just over a month now. To finally see all the preparation come to fruition: everything I’ve been working on is being etched as ones and zeroes onto small magnetic discs.
We got behind. A small flaw in the scheduling, we didn’t realize how much time it would take to get the second scene set up. Suddenly, things were being moved faster. We were forced to cut lunch in half, and somehow managed to still be an hour behind. But we moved on. Dominik was not available for our second day of filming, so had to shoot every shot of him in just 2 hours.
The weather cooperated for the most part. The sun came out, gave us that light we were looking for, and created a peaceful sunset to shoot by. But boy was it cold! Temperatures were supposedly in the mid forties, but it felt like low thirties. A brisk wind that blew off the Grand River froze the actors and crew. Poor Dominik was shivering between takes in his small jacket, and frozen during takes in just his button up shirt and khaki pants.
Although we technically managed to film everything, a few shots don’t have the look we were going for. With the weather looking the way it is for sunday, a few adjustments may have to be made to the schedule in order to finish up Fishing Lights.”
-Ben Barker |
Sunday, April 1st, 2012 |
Behind the Scenes
More Information:
The story for “Fishing Lights” was conceived by the Shattered Lamp team in the summer of 2011 as a concept for an entry in Grand Rapids’ Festival of the Arts 24 Hour Film Festival. Ditched as being too complex to film in 24 hours, Ben Barker later decided it would make a good short film.
The original script was written on February 27th and underwent two large changes before the SL team was satisfied. Props were then designed and built by Ben, locations were scouted, and the film started to take shape.
