Notes From a Crew Member

I worked on "Meltdown" 17 out of the 21 filming days this past March and thought I might add some back-story to comments made re: the camera style of the production. The "24" look of the film was, of course, intentional. The rough edges, whip-pans, push-ins and over all news-style appearance was insisted upon by the director to the point of strict enforecement of two rules I've never encountered on any film set I've worked on before. 1. NO CAMERA TRACK TO BE LAID. NEVER! 2. NO FLOOR MARKS FOR THE ACTORS. Floor marks for camera we're tolerated but only barely. On one occaission, a stand-in attempted to use a candy wrapper as a temporary mark to hold his place during adjustments and this was promptly removed (with the toe of his boot) by the first assistant director.
One other interesting sidebar; there is no nuclear power plant in the Vancouver Canada area (where Meltdown was filmed) and even if there were, it's very unlikely it would be allowed for use as a film set. Instead, a sewage waste water treatment plant was utilized with cooling towers CGI'ed in post. Shooting days at the sewage plant we're,in fact, nights (dusk til dawn) so that meant two weeks of all nighters in the cold, wet, pacific northwest spring enduring a fragence comparable to a skunk getting a perm. At least it wasn't during the height of summer heat when, I'm told by plant workers, it's more like a DEAD skunk getting a perm.