I was driving through the countryside this evening at "magic hour" -- that time when the sun has set below the horizon but the sky is still illuminated by the lingering light. This special time of day is a favorite of directors and cinematographers.
It reminded me of a couple things:
I had recently watched Visions of Light, the 1992 documentary about the art of cinematography. Nestor Almendros was talking about shooting Days of Heaven, and how much of the distinctive look of that film was achieved by filming during "magic hour". He made the point that, despite its name, it's really more like a 20 minute time window that you have to capture your shot.
It also reminded me of a dream I had about filmmaking. This was a few years ago. I dreamed I was in Brooklyn, at the edge of the water where you can get a really spectacular view of the sunset. It was "magic hour", and was an stunningly beautiful sight. However, I had left the camera and tripod in the car, and I couldn't remember where I had parked. I had to frantically search for the car to get the camera before the light was gone.
That reminds me of another filmmaking dream I had. This was about ten years ago when I was directing the first episode of a straight-to-DVD series. We had a six day schedule to shoot the entire film. After we wrapped, I began to have a recurring dream that I was going over the script for the film and kept finding some scene that I'd forgotten to schedule and shoot.
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