"The Longest 3 Minutes"

Making of The Longest 3 Minutes

Here's how we produced The Longest 3 Minutes from a technical standpoint.

Picture	Shot with the Panasonic DVX-100A. We shot using the 24P. Original shooting aspect ratio was 4:3. One shot isn't actually possible in the space; it was made into a mirror backed up to the wall. Cheaper than tearing out the wall or building a set!
Sound	Sennheiser MK67 shotgun on boom and MK66 on the camera. Since the camera-to-actor distance was rarely greater than eight feet, this was a simple shoot from an audio design standpoint.
Post Production	All editing done in Final Cut Pro; letterbox matte (1.78) applied in post. We love the ability you get in post to cheat the vertical framing ever so slightly with the letterbox matte. The finished sequence was then rendered as 16:9 and output as anamorphic for the DVD. The DVD is 24P also. Our research shows very little visible difference in resolution between the letterbox in post and the original footage in "squeeze" mode. Either way, you end up with with about 70 lines less vertical resolution.
Lighting	We wanted the feeling of natural light and our location had a wonderful window which we gelled to balance our fill and bounce which was tungsten. The weather cooperated nicely with a high haze the entire day.
Location or "Can I Use Your Bathroom?"	We figure that a dozen Bed & Breakfast proprietors in central North Carolina thought we were crazy because we were only interested in the bathroom, not the room. Anyway, the room we found was large enough, square enough and had a lovely Art Deco style which we had to mess up a little bit to achieve that Twenty-something look and feel. If you are ever in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, we recommend the Mineral Springs Inn and Garden!