“Crushing Violet”

I have been on the set of “Crushing Violet” this last month, an advanced directing project at USC.

The main crew is made up of students all excelling in their individual crafts. There are two sound people (Ian and me), two director of photographers (Abe and Mike), an assistant director (Dawn), a production designer (Victoria), two producers (Josh and Annie), two editors (Amy and Thaiha), and one director (Joe). We all work together to make the movie happen! We have received amazing compliments from actors, crew and faculty about the environment on our set and how it is very professional. We are all very respectful of each other and listen. We also joke around a lot and have tons of fun!

This upcoming weekend is our last principal weekend of shooting (meaning, the last weekend to film our movie!). We may have pick-ups in a few weeks (a weekend of shooting anything we missed in our principal weekends).

Here are some production stills:

Lighting the car for the scenes between “Violet” and “Adam.” In this shot, Adam sees Violet standing in the cold and decides to offer her a ride.

Ian waiting on boom for the car scene to begin. Often sound people must wait for lighting to get prepared for the shot. We can only really rehearse once everyone is ready to shoot. At that point, if there are any sound issues, everyone must “hold for sound” — a common aggravation to assistant directors!

The sprinklers turned on and tried to ruin our shot, but our producer had huge sheets of plastic in his car (?) and beat the sprinklers!

Jeff, our incredibly tall assistant camera person, is holding our make-shift rain machine. We never used it. It was more fun to see Jeff walk around with it, though.

Christian, our second assistant director, Dawn, our assistant director, and Victoria, the production designer, smile after a long weekend of shooting!

Juliana, production design assistant, and Mike, director of photography, love their long hair!


On a sound stage lighting the car. The director of photographers made the sound stage look like the outside of a house. It was amazing!


Since the actress has blond hair, I often have to be her “sit-in.” They light me until they are ready for her to come onto set and rehearse.

Ian and I were already set up with our sound equipment, so they decided to light us both as if we were the actors. It was very hot in that car and I promptly fell asleep. No matter — the light was great!