We just wrapped up a shoot in an abandoned brewery building for a surreal avant-garde short written and directed by Seattle flimmaker Jessie Calhoun.
It was an interesting story made possible by the work of a great cast and crew. Lots of symbolism and subtext made my work as Director of Photography both fun and challenging. Also, the building is in a state of decay that provided us with an amazing set. The condition of the interior would have taken forever to simulate elsewhere. We got a post-apocalyptic setting without all the construction and labor-intensive art direction. The building has been vacant for many years, allowing time and the local industrial environment to take their toll. An uncapped sewer pipe in the building let in plenty of hydrogen sulfide and other gasses over the years, staining the walls and corroding the architectural metalwork.
Lack of maintenance in the exterior walls allowed water to leak in through the bricks. There were washes of multicolored fungus on the interior walls, and creeper vines made it up to the fourth floor, snaking in and around the windows.
Given all the possibility for health risks (lead paint, disintegrating asbestos insulation, sewer gas, open holes in the floor) We took precautions, and kept the set as ventilated as possible.
The images here are from the actual footage. They’ve been reduced in size, but no color correction or other effects have been applied yet to these. You can see more frame grabs here. ‘Buckets’ is still in post, but I’ll add a link to more information when its available.