Chains is a UNCW Honors Thesis written/directed by Jillian Carney. What makes this film different is that this is a musical short film, something that students rarely attempt to make. This was the first musical I have ever gotten to work on. My biggest hill to climb with this one was figuring out how to shoot the musical numbers. My goal was to be able to watch La La Land (2016) and see how the numbers are done in that film. The only problem was that La La Land's release date kept getting pushed back and I didn't get to see it until January 2017, a month after we wrapped filming. Jillian wanted each musical number to appear different from each other. The first song would be very restrained and filmed naturally, the second would be a normal musical number with a bunch of extras, and the third was meant to be much more personal for the characters.
We had a fairly large and exceptionally talented crew for a student production. Being the DP, I had seven people I knew really well working in the camera and lighting department. In the head positions were Jillian Carney in the directors chair, Emily Soppe producing it, Kayla Joncich doing the production design, and Jordan Anderson editing the film. I think in total is may have been close to twenty people working on this film. As for the production status of the film, it's still getting some tweaks made and a final sound mix done. Overall this film was even more of a challenge than any film I've worked on as a cinematographer.
