One of the most difficult positions on a film crew is the Art Director/Production Designer.  This person and their team is responsible for all of the visual elements in the frame.  Often times, they are working from a vague description in the script and are responsible for creating a believable place.  For instance, in a.k.a. Profile Glitch, the kitchen is an important space where the characters interact.  The description at the beginning of the kitchen scene states: "Intricately labeled kitchen containers, utensils and jars line a counter.  There are rows of herbs and spices, loose teas, signs for allergen-free, nut-free, dairy-free soy-free, gluten-free items.  There is a cookbook sitting on the counter with a page open to a tofu recipe.  And a tub of tofu on the counter next to the cookbook."  From this description, the Art Director is responsible for  creating the "look" of not only the counter that is described, but the entire kitchen where the action takes place.  Luckily for me, I had one of the best Art Directors on board for a.k.a. Profile Glitch.  

Meet Doris Lin.  She is a very talented filmmaker who has produced several of her own films while working as Art Director on several Temple University film productions.  She has a background in theater design, which helps inform her sense of what is necessary to create a realistic space.  For the preproduction phase of the project and for the first 4 days of the shoot, Doris was assisted by Malia Bruker.  Malia is also a talented filmmaker.  The two of them did a fantastic job with the props and set dressings for the shoot!

Below are some photos of the props they created.  We start out with photos of the fake poop needed for Scene 5, that takes place around a composting toilet.  Don't fret, the poop was made out of a variety of cake mixes and other secret ingredients.  

Then we have a photo of a book titled, "Gondel", by the Bronte Sisters. Lindsey Martin, the actress who plays Marty, owner of the book, provided this description, "[Gondel] isn't a published book. It's a fictional land that that Bronte sister's made up when they were young. They wrote it in scraps of paper, in letters and in notes. The main characters are all women so I saw some parallels between this piece of unpublished literature and AKA. I don't know if it's too obscure or weird for her to be reading it but I was thinking it would be a wink to those who might be interested in this type of mid to late 19th century gothic literature. We would have to make the book. I like the idea of it being kind of a shabby home made book."  See what I mean?  Doris and Malia had to create a book that doesn't exist. This is a tough job!

Finally, I am including some photos of the kitchen, the clothing exchange, the tent cabin (which Drew and Doris completely rebuilt), the "crafting table" where Marty is reading her book, the living room where the community members meet for "circle", and finally, the library, where Johanna finds Marty writing her novel.  There were a total of nine different locations, some of which I do not have still images of. All of the details in the foreground and background are the result of work by Doris and Malia.  I am incredibly grateful for their hard work! 

As a graduate student at Temple University I had access to a lot of professional film equipment for a.k.a. Profile Glitch.  Especially for our thesis projects, we are allowed to reserve all of the toys and gadgets we want.  In preparation for a.k.a. Profile Glitch, I asked my Director of Photography, Fiona Otway, my Philadelphia Unit Gaffer, Paul Hinson, Sound Recordist, Ellen Knechel, and Second Camera Unit, Brandon Watz and Alison Crouse, to help compile an equipment list.  With this many people, we were sure not to forget anything!

Cameras - Panasonic AF100

Yes, that is right, we used two Panasonic AF100 cameras.  The decision to shoot on the AF100 was in part because of the doc-fiction style of the project.  We wanted to shoot with a lot of moving camera, relying either on a steady cam, a shoulder brace or basic hand held camera.  The size and weight of the AF100 works well for this style of shooting.  Also, the AF100 works with interchangeable lenses, of which Temple owns a set.  We had the Panasonic 14mm and 45mm lenses as well as a Nikon 28-70mm and Tokina 16-28mm lenses.  This gave the camera crew a lot of options. 

Lights - powered by the sun and veggie oil

The lighting unit probably had one of the most challenging jobs on set given the fact that 2 out of 3 of our locations were "off the grid", meaning they generated electricity through natural resources.  Mill Creek Farm uses solar power and maxes out at 1500watts.  We tried to plug in an iron for the wardrobe unit and it was too much for the power supply.  Fortunately, there was a dry cleaners less than a block away who was willing to iron the costumes as a rush job.  The Dacha Project is also "off the grid" but they have both a solar power panel as well as a vegetable oil powered generator to charge their batteries.  I don't remember the specifics of how much energy the batteries held or for how long, but I do know we had to be mindful of how many lights we used at one time and to watch the green and red light indicator on the battery unit to make sure we weren't draining the power source.  So, although we had a bevy of ARRI's, Kino's, an HMI and accent lights, the power source at 2 or our 3 locations were not made to support them.  Paul Hinson and Zack Auron, the two gaffers on the project, did a great job using natural light, practicals and when necessary, strategic placement of the larger lights.  We did have a backup, gas powered, HONDA EM7000i generator from Location Lighting that we could have used, but the crew worked their magic without it and the backup generator stayed in the grip truck.  

Sound - 4 channels baby

Ellen Knechel, our primary sound recordist, did an amazing job learning a new Roland R-44: 4-Channel Portable Recorder on the spot.  Using 4 wireless sennheiser lav mics connected to the Roland and a shotgun mic on a boom connected to a mirantz PMD660, Ellen had plenty of coverage of the dialogue.  Mill Creek Farm was an audio nightmare because of the loud block party happening concurrently, but the other days went smoothly.  We recorded all of the lines for the Mill Creek Farm scene when we were in Ithaca, with hopes that we will be able to create some down and dirty ADR.  Otherwise, I will be sending video files back and forth to Chicago and Berlin to Julia and Doro who traveled a long distance for the shoot!  My other challenge in the audio department will be figuring out how to incorporate the sounds of the veggie oil generator, which makes a sweet put-put-put noise whenever it is running. For the last 2 days of the shoot, Ellen trained Mike Kirby to take her place.  Mike was a trooper and did a great job handling this complicated task.  He had one of the best teachers, and I'd use him again any day.

Monitor - Teradek Cube

In order for me to monitor the camera, we used a new spiffy gadget called the Teradek Cube. This hooks into the camera and transmits an HD Video signal via a wireless connection to any device with a wi-fi signal. We borrowed an iPad from Temple making it incredibly easy and mobile for me to watch the image. Of course, only one of our two cameras were hooked up to the Teradek, so I would often stand behind the second camera and try to watch the little LCD screen and the iPad at the same time. This was a bit of a challenge, but it worked!

Hopefully that is enough geek speak for you film techies.  And for those of you who are not as into the technical side of things, here are a few photos of the crew using the various equipment as well as two pics of the veggie oil used to power the generator at The Dacha Project.

The cast and crew of a.k.a. Profile Glitch have been hard at work!  We started shooting June 16th and 17th in Philadelphia, traveled to Ithaca, NY on June 18th, shot for 4 days, and then headed back to Philly on June 24th, completing a 23 page, 19 scene script in 6 days. Wow!!

As director and producer of a.k.a. Profile Glitch I can say for certain that this shoot would not have been possible without the generosity of many people, including you!  At every turn I relied on my community for emotional and financial support and you more than overwhelmingly came through. I feel incredibly blessed and am happy to share some of the wonderful behind the scenes photos with you.

(Written by: Lindsey Martin, writer and performer in a.k.a. Profile Glitch)

Writing Marty has been really fun. Sometimes when I’m in real life, I think “that’s such a Marty thing to say”. In some ways she is a manifestation of my own insecurities. She is funny, but not on purpose. She is smart and creative but doesn’t live up to her potential because she’s lazy. She is preoccupied with fantasy worlds and isn’t worried about living her own life. I admire her for being completely unaffected by societal pressures even if that pressure is something potentially important like personal hygiene. It’s not until she is on the commune that she starts paying attention to her physical appearance, her lack of relationships, and her inability to finish anything. Marty is a combination of a few different characters I had been developing so when Lisa Marie approached me about collaborating on a.k.a, I was excited to bring her to life.
 
Doro, Julia and Lisa Marie are three of the most hilarious, wonderfully creative people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. Every Skype meeting was a riot. I would leave a session feeling inspired, supported, and hoarse from laughing so hard. It’s also so much easier to figure out why a scene isn’t working when you have three other brains completely invested in the story.

A few weeks ago we shot Marty's family portraits.  We staged Marty at four different ages with different family members. Here is Marty in 1987, 1994, Marty with her Dad in 2004 and Marty in 2012. Finally, we have a picture of Mom in 1994.  And of Mom, Marty and Dad in 1994.  Marty's mom left the family soon after this picture was taken.