Hi Justen,

I'd love some more details. Can you elaborate?

Thanks,
Ryan

Thank Ian- apologies for the delay writing back, just seeing this question now. First, thanks for the kind words! The sound quality was due to the great work of our location sound team of Justin Harrison (JBH Sound) and his assistant Nicole Aleles, the beuatiful score from singer/songwriter Sonia Montez and the excellent mixing from Justin in post. I don't know what gear he used, but you can email him directly for bookings and advice (justin at JBHsound dot com).

The sound was a HUGE prioirity for us for two reasons- 1, it's true what they say, there are no indie movies only movies that sound indie (this is not literally true, but the message is important), and 2, in this tiny space, we did not want to make a tiny film. We wanted to add as many layers as possible through the mix. So we got great location sound and Justin of course did a lengthy and focused mix. Lazy filmmakers like to skimp in this area, and that is a huge mistake. Put the money into good sound.

Thanks!

Hi Kirk, not sure how to do that on here but email me and I'll respond: ryan at believeltd dot com.

Welp, definitely upvoted that. Thanks man, glad it was helpful.

From my DP Andrew "Tank" Rivara, in response to the lighting questions we're receving (must-read!!):

"I mainly used the desk lamps that were in the room because we didn't have the time to move around a fresnel unit, not to mention the space and heat issues. We controlled the desk lamps with lighter diffusion grades and black wrap, and all practicals were hooked up to dimmers. We swapped out bulbs regularly. Notably, we used clear glass bulbs for Noopie driven scenes later in the film to get harsher key lights. Sometimes this came out a touch uglier, but these bulbs felt right. We rewired the top fluorescent fixtures and rigged up a China ball that we jammed into the ceiling panelling, which was then controlled by the switch on the wall that actors could control. This was our main ambient light for the beginning of the film. We grip armed in 10'-18' China balls often, including a red polka dot one from Pier 1 that gave us a heavily saturated red fill light. We used small bounce and neg fill items often. Another interesting lighting issue was keeping out the daylight from our window, but still slow for Noopie to throw the phone out this window. All dorm room scenes were shot during the daytime, so this was a problem. Fortunately, the dorm room was located on the first floor, so we chose to build an 8'x8'x8' duvetyne box outside the window so that Rob could interact with it."