Cinereach Blog

Jeremy Kipp Walker talks about visiting Dena’s set

Dena directs her actors

After weeks of hard work and planning Dena Greenbaum finally got to call “Action!” on the set of her short film “BLUES” on Saturday morning, November 15^th.  What had led up to that moment amounted to countless hours of preparation including script writing, script revisions, auditions, rehearsals, location scouting, budgeting, and scheduling…  LOTS of scheduling. 

With only four days to shoot and several large scenes taking place outdoors, Dena’s film required a bit of luck from Mother Nature during the early winter month of November – a time of year that can bring a tumultuous forecast along with limited daylight.  

Dena's actors perform a scene

Luckily for the cast and crew of “Blues”, Dena was all over it.  She came up with multiple shooting scenarios which took into account rain, complicated actors’ schedules and limited availability to her interior shooting locations.  When Friday and Saturday of her first shooting weekend brought rain, Dena called an audible and brought her team out to Long Island in order to shoot indoors. 

When Sunday cleared, it was back to Brooklyn to tackle the exterior scenes while the skies were sunny.  That’s where I joined Dena and her team on Sunday, November 16th to observe her shoot. The rain had passed but it had left cold temperatures in its wake.  What I found on set was a committed team of young filmmakers working together in balanced unison.  Despite the stress of fading daylight, the overall vibe was laidback, methodical and efficient.  Dena and her team started each set-up with several rehearsals, careful not to expose any precious film stock until all the kinks of each scene had been properly worked out.  I was impressed by the great attitude everyone shared both in front of and behind the camera. Everyone was working together – lending a hand to move equipment, helping to pack or unpack the trucks, and chipping in however needed.  There were very few complaints about the cold temperatures and everyone remained focused despite very long hours and a few company moves.  I very much look forward to working with Dena during the post-production stages of her project.  So far things are off to a great start!

Jeremy Kipp Walker is a producer/director and partner at Journeyman Pictures.  He recently produced “Cold Souls” (Sundance 2009), starring Paul Giamatti, David Strathairn and Emily Watson, as well as Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s baseball odyssey “Sugar” (Sony Pictures Classics).  He produced “The Passage” (ThinkFilm), the Oscar nominated “Maria Full of Grace,” and co-produced Oscar nominated “Half Nelson” (ThinkFilm) among other prestigious projects. Walker is the director of acclaimed short films “Super Powers” and “Goodnight Bill”, which won top prizes at the Tribeca Film Festival and many others. “Super Powers” was among the inaugural films to launch YouTube’s premium channel garnering nearly 1,000,000 hits in its first week.