Digital Video - July 2008 - (Page 28) ANTI N JET-SETTERS DIY SHOOTING WAS PUSHED TO EXTREMES FOR THE DIGITAL FEATURE LAST STOP FOR PAUL. eil Mandt’s feature project Last Stop for Paul was borne out of a series concept slated for the Travel Channel that didn’t pan out for budgetary reasons. Not wanting to let his travel stories go to waste, Mandt linked the events with a narrative thread in which the characters Charlie and Cliff get caught in crazy situations while taking a trip around the world to scatter the ashes of their recently deceased friend, Paul. To begin the project, the Sports Emmy-winning Mandt, who has produced shows such as ESPN’s Beg, Borrow & Deal and Rome is Burning and SciFi Channel’s Destination Truth, grabbed a camera and his frequent cinematographer, Marc Carter, and began racking up frequent flyer miles. The approach was do-it-yourself to the extreme — just the two of them, no script, no permits, many acting roles filled by whichever local was in reach, and Mandt and Carter playing Charlie and Cliff, respectively. DV: What was your inspiration for Last Stop for Paul? Neil Mandt: I’ve found that the craziest things that ever happened to me happened when I travel, and I’ve got a stack of stories. Most of the movie happened to me. You weren’t working from an actual script, were you? Whether it was a Thai boat driver or my co-star in the movie, I would dictate the line to them right then. We’d rehearse for a minute, come up with the dialogue and then shoot. There was an outline, and I knew 90 percent of the structure. I would go to a location and think what I had to shoot to get this story told. Once I was done with that, what added value can I put into this to make it funnier — like when we were driving up the mountain and the keys fell out of the ignition. It just happened. I said, “Put those keys back in and wait for the next bump.” So you were writing and directing this on the fly? While I was eating dinner or driving a car, the camera was always right there ready to go. I knew very little of the actual locations. I knew in Chile that I was going to go down a mountain — and that’s all I knew. I didn’t know anything about a ski resort or how to get to one, the specifics of the road, or know anything about the hostel. There were some places where I didn’t have anything set up, like Jamaica. There was no plan. I didn’t know what the storyline was going to be or what the flashback was going to be. The main guy, the K man, he was the hotel manager. We were driving in a car, and someone cut him off and he yells, “Battyface!” I had heard there was a cricket match so we shot that first. Then we needed an introduction where we met him, and he had said that line so that came into play. Perfect strangers were willing to participate? Very few people said no. For most part I got good performances out of people. There was no crew. It was just Marc and I. We looked like tourists, and that is what got us through it I’m sure. We were always on alert at the national landmarks, like the Acropolis in Athens. They have signs that say “no filming,” and they were looking at us very carefully. Our cameras were small but looked big enough for people to wonder what they were. What did you shoot with? The [Panasonic AG-] DVX100. Just one. How did you handle when both of you were on screen at the same time? Every single person that appears in the movie held the camera at one point. Marc would set the shot and show the person and then make sure we got the coverage. Once he didn’t need to be in the shot, he would cover it all properly. We’d take turns. For instance, when we came out of the restaurant in Japan, you see Marc and me and the other guy, Ron [Carlson], that was in the scene, just the three of us. There were no additional people with us. That was shot by a stranger on the street. The guy didn’t speak a word of English. Marc set the shot, hit record and said, “Don’t move.” The real brilliance on Marc’s side was not so much getting a good shot out of somebody, but he eyeballed everything — my medium shot and his medium shot were the same for camera continuity. That I think showed his ability as a cinematographer with a script being formed on the fly and not knowing what I’m going to come up with next. Because everything was being stolen while we were shooting, I was limited in locations, so I would stand there and work out what the scene was going to be and then start shooting. And most was one take. So we would do the wide shot and the second take would be my close-up and his close-up and then we were done. Scenes were shot literally in minutes beyond real time, very fast. The shooting ratio was maybe 5 to 1. I have all this single-camera field experience and I have a narrative background. I mixed it all together and got this movie. 28 dv july 2008 www.dv.com http://www.dv.com
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