The Look of AV CLUB

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 16:11:36 GMT

Greetings! Yang Miller here. Director of Photography and Editor of AV Club. I'll tell ya a little about creating the look of AV. When we met in the preproduction stages of AV Sarah, Rebecca and I talked about how we'd like it to look and how to approach it. We had very limited time to shoot as the location, Poly Prep in Brooklyn, had specific chunks of time available. And the actors had crazy schedules that needed to be accommodated. Also, the original script was a beefy 35 pages while the final pilot was 22 minutes; we left a lot on the cutting room floor. We had a fast and furious shoot schedule so we decided to shoot handheld run and gun style, we used mostly available light and minimal additional lighting except in the AV Room scenes which were relatively tediously lit, by the great Neils Dachler, to achieve the "cavernous eerie noir look" we were after. Having been a documentary videographer and editor for several years I was comfortable shooting quickly with a handheld camera. But to study handheld camera moves and how to intercut them in over the shoulder dialog scenes, which doesn't come up much in single camera doc shoots, I watched 2 seasons of my favorite show Arrested Development RIP, a pretty good homework assignment! The Poly Prep location was amazing! It was already art directed with great kid made fliers for activities and cool kid art everywhere. The great work by Production Designer John Pollard only made it that much cooler. The location was so diverse and had tons of cool places to shoot, only a handful of them actually made it into the pilot. But after our initial visits to PP I watched Wes Anderson's Rushmore for the 20th time. The shooting style in that piece and ours was completely different but the "vibe" of the spaces seemed very similar, again a nice homework assignment. Super stoked to be in the NYTVF this year! AV Club was an amazing experience; I hope you come check it out on the screening days. Also, check me out in The Calderons, where I play the voice of an animated toaster and an infomercial host named Jim Summerville. www.yangmiller.com

AV Club: Entertainment

The Look of AV CLUB