Magic Hour Approaches

No, it's not the time when David Copperfield comes out on stage and amazes everyone on the film set by pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

First off, Magic Hour is a bit of a misnomer. Not really an hour at all. (Usually you've got about 20-30 minutes. Regular people would call that a half-hour.)

And in the world of filmmaking, it's Magic Hour; "that magical time of day" after the sun sets (or just before sunset, depending on who you talk to). Before the sky has gotten dark.

We tried to shoot one of the key scenes for our film Dear J at Magic Hour. Our big rooftop scene. But, unfortunately, the weather didn't really want to cooperate that day... (That was the day of the tornado... which is another story... for another post).

In any case, we later reshot most of the scene indoors, moving it to none 0ther than... the furnace room.

Oh, well. It seemed to work out. Didn't have that great New York City skyline in the background--at least not as we planned it. (But we did have lots of cleaning supplies handy!)

P.S. There's a movie, called Days of Heaven, that was apparently shot (almost) entirely at Magic Hour. Since sunrise and sunset both count as Magic Hours, what that means is they must have had somewhere around 40 minutes to 1 hour of shooting everyday. What a schedule that would have been!