Filming in an Elevator Near You

When trying to make a movie with an incredibly small budget the best policy is often to double up. In the independent Double Negative, which just finished shooting Friday in Evanston, the film’s screenwriter and co-directors make up the entirety of the cast, playing opposite one another as two strangers trapped in a broken elevator.

The shoot cost about $13,000, an incredibly tight budget, even for an independent local film.

“It’s a dramady but it gets kind of dark and dire towards the end,” said Director/Actress Dana Scott, describing the film.

The two characters are a pregnant woman (Scott) and a businessman (Mischa Ayoub) are trapped in an office elevator that is slowly lurching downward. The entire film was shot in a soundstage owned by the director of photography Bill Burlingham of Burlingham Productions, 1904 W. Greenwood.

Scott is a Barrington native and former Chicago theater actress who now lives and works in Skokie as commercial producer and editor. She is subcontracted to produce corporate videos with Covert Creative Group, founded by her former director John Covert.

Before taking an acting hiatus to raise her a family, Scott appeared in several local independents, including Covert’s Shut-Eye, a gangster drama from 2003 and Three Flat, in which she appeared with her Double Negative co-star/screenwriter Ayoub.

Ayoub is an actor/screenwriter and graduate of Northwestern University’s Radio, Television and Film program. Originally from Toronto, Ayoub moved back to the North Shore recently after spending eight years in Canada, “mostly working on a few film scripts that never saw the light of day.”

Scott and Ayoub met eighteen years ago when she waited tables with Ayoub’s future wife, Katie O’Mara Ayoub, a professional editor and food writer.

Three years ago Scott founded 24 Truth Productions out of her Skokie home. Her company is producing Double Negative along with Evanston’s Burlingham Productions.

 A commercial video firm, Bill Burlingham and his son Eliot played host for five days to a crew of around twenty-five entirely Chicago-based technicians, production assistants and cameramen. As Scott spends a good deal of Double Negative on-camera much of the directorial work was divvied up between Scott and Burlingham. This is both of their first efforts at filming a drama.

“From my perspective it’s a huge challenge,” said director of photography Bill Burlingham, “after all, it’s 115 pages in an elevator.”

Burlingham shot Double Negative using Canon EOS 5D Mark II, an affordable and innovative solution for small-budget filmmakers.

“It’s not a video camera. It’s a still camera that shoots high-definition video, but this full sensory video can maintain depth of field better than anything else,” said Burlingham.

The Canon EOS 5D Mark II, which has the appearance of a still camera, has been used in such television projects such as the Saturday Night Live opening sequence and an entire episode of House, as well as a number of independent film projects. Burlingham described the camera as “revolutionary.”   

David Kraus of Big Works Inc. constructed the wooden elevator that dominated Burlington’s soundstage. The structure, held up by hydraulic lifts, had to be shaken by hand to create the effect of the elevator falling. Financial concerns also led the crew to light the entire film using modified standard fluorescent lights and construction “clamp lamps.”

Scott, who is now beginning the long process of post-production expects to see the film out by fall of 2011 when she hopes to show it at area film festivals such as the monthly at the Landmark Century Cinema, 2828 N. Clark St.

Though Double Negative is trapped inside it’s elevator setting, Scott expressed interest in on day using the North Shore more directly as a location.

“You have such a variety of ‘looks’ in the area. There are places that look very urban, places that look very suburban and even places that have kind of a country or nature feel.”

Evanston has been used as a filming location for such recent films as The Weatherman and the upcoming Contagion.