Alkali Flats — Desert Road Movie Director's Look Book

A director's look book for an indie road movie across the American desert: key frames, dusk light, locations, wardrobe, palette and references.

Updated

This board is the director's look book for Alkali Flats, an indie feature that follows an aunt and her teenage nephew south from Ely, Nevada, to the Salton Sea in late September. It was put together for the first meeting with the DP, production designer, costume designer and locations, so everyone starts from the same pictures and the same few rules. The first section is the key frames, laid out as a photo grid like a storyboard wall, with the shot list beside it. Each frame carries its scene number, and the table gives the lens and the light for each one, so the grid is something the camera team can work from rather than a mood. A short note of frame rules is linked to the grid with an arrow: horizon low, the truck never centred, every wide held past the action. Light and tone come next, because the film is shot almost entirely at the edges of the day. The director's own words on the feel sit beside three pictures of last sun, cab flare and blue hour, with a palette pulled from those frames, the camera and light brief with its sun windows for each location, and a clip of a car on the open road at last light. Locations follows the route south, with a recce table of scenes, light windows and permit status, and a checklist arrowed to it that tracks what is still to lock. The alternates from the recce are kept in their own cluster so they are not lost if a permit falls through. Wardrobe works from sun-faded textures rather than outfits: dusty boots on a dirt road, faded plaid flannel, washed denim, a second palette, and the fittings still to do. The last section holds two film references and what to take from each, a one-page look document, and a room tone recording of open desert for the sound team. If you are building your own road movie look book, the order matters less than tying every image to a scene, a time of day or a decision someone on the crew has to make. Photos by Brett Sayles, Artūras Kokorevas, Ron Lach, Adsach Bello, Mohamed Elshiekh, Toni Ferreira, Francesco Ungaro, Sergei Skrynnik, frank minjarez, yunszyveli, Jonathan Borba, Dubang chang, Alex Quezada, Daniel Shapiro and Rino Adamo on Pexels. Sound: "Perseverance rover's SuperCam records wind on Mars" by NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/CNES/CNRS/ISAE-Supaero (Public domain) on Wikimedia Commons.
Explore the serene desolation of a rustic cabin in the Nevada desert ghost town Rhyolite.

A × visual grid — Key frames (4 images) — view it on the board above.

Train on railway tracks at sunset in an industrial setting, conveying travel and direction.
Two vintage trailers in the arid desert landscape of Taos, New Mexico, at sunset.

Late September

  • Playa white — #e8e1d3
  • Sage scrub — #8c9277
  • Rust tailgate — #a4532e
  • Last sun — #e39a4c
  • Blue hour — #3e5470
  • Motel night — #1c2330

Locations — route south

  • Location
  • Sc.
  • Best light
  • Status
  • US-6 east of Tonopah, NV
  • 3, 5
  • 18:00–18:45
  • NDOT permit filed
  • Gas stop, Tonopah NV
  • 7
  • Night, canopy on
  • Owner yes, after 22:00
  • Sagebrush Motor Lodge, Beatty
  • 12
  • Blue hour, 18:55
  • Owner yes, 6 rooms
  • US-95 south of Beatty
  • 19
  • Night, headlights
  • NHP escort quote out
  • Roadside diner, Baker CA
  • 24
  • Dusk, practicals on
  • Closed Mon, we shoot Mon
  • Cima Rd, Mojave Preserve
  • 27
  • 17:55–18:35
  • NPS permit in
  • Bristol Dry Lake, Amboy
  • 31
  • 18:05–18:30
  • BLM permit pending
  • Bombay Beach, Salton Sea
  • 40
  • 18:00–18:35
  • Confirmed
18:40, long shadows
18:40, long shadows

The feel — in my words

Two people who don't talk, so the light has to. Days are flat and white and we don't shoot them; we shoot the edges. The last forty minutes of sun through a dirty windshield, flaring, then the blue, then dark where the only light is what the road gives us: a pump canopy, a motel lamp, the dash. Warm skin, cold sky. Late September: heat still in the ground, evenings getting short, nobody in a hurry to arrive.

Cab flare
Cab flare

Recce — still to lock

[ ] BLM permit for Bristol Dry Lake (Sc. 31)
[ ] NHP escort quote for the US-95 night drive
[ ] Backup motel in Beatty
[x] Generator spot behind the Baker diner
[x] Sun path check at Bombay Beach
[x] Night scout of the Tonopah pumps with Ada

Sc. 27 Joshua trees
Sc. 27 Joshua trees
Sc. 40 the shore
Sc. 40 the shore
Silhouette of power lines against a vibrant desert sunset with mountain views.
Blue hour, pink edge
Blue hour, pink edge

From the Sept 9–12 recce, passed on or held as backups. The trailer at Amboy covers Sc. 12 if the Beatty motel falls through; the tracks at Kelso could take Sc. 19 if the US-95 escort costs too much. The Wonder Valley cabin is held for Ruth's father's place. The wrecked sedan and the power lines on Amboy Rd are held as montage inserts.

Includes a nested board (open it from the canvas above)

Shot list — key frames

  • Sc.
  • Frame
  • Lens
  • Light
  • 3
  • Wide, truck enters frame left, tiny
  • 40mm
  • Last 20 min of sun
  • 5
  • Low 3/4 on truck, Ruth at tailgate
  • 50mm
  • Backlit, sun behind cab
  • 7
  • Pumps through the windshield
  • 50mm
  • Sodium canopy, cab dark
  • 12
  • Ruth at the window, one lamp on
  • 75mm
  • Blue hour out, lamp in
  • 19
  • Dash POV, road in headlights only
  • 32mm
  • Headlights, no fill
  • 31
  • Two figures on white ground
  • 100mm
  • Sun 10° above horizon

▶ Road at last light (plays on the board above)

Frame rules

- 2.39 on the Kowa anamorphics, nothing wider than 32mm
- Horizon in the lower third; the sky carries the frame
- The truck is never centred. It drifts in from the left, always heading south
- Hold every wide 4 seconds past the action
- Faces in the cab lit by the road, not by us
- No drone. Wides from a tripod at road height or off the ladder

Wardrobe — sun-faded

  • Washed chambray — #8fa3b5
  • Pearl-snap cream — #ede4d0
  • Boot tan — #9c6b45
  • Dust rose — #c49a8e
  • Faded olive — #7b7c5a
Paris, Texas (film)
Two-Lane Blacktop

What I'm taking

- Paris, Texas: wides that let people be small against flat land, and night practicals glowing green and sodium against a dark sky. Watch the opening walk
- Two-Lane Blacktop: the car as the only room, nobody explaining anything, road noise under every line
- Not taking: neon. Our nights are sodium, headlights and one motel lamp

The look in a page

The film

Ruth, 41, drives her father's pickup and her nephew Danny, 16, from Ely to the Salton Sea in four days, with her father's ashes in a coffee can on the bench seat. They barely talk. The film is the road between them.

The light

We shoot the edges of the day: the last 40 minutes of sun, then blue hour, then night lit only by what the road gives us

Midday is for driving and company moves, never for frames

Warm on skin, cold in the sky. No grading toward teal; let blue hour be blue

Night pra

♪ Room tone — open desert, dusk — 0:40 · 0 BPM · M4A (plays on the board above)

Danny's jacket wash
Danny's jacket wash

Wardrobe — Ruth and Danny

Nothing new, nothing pressed. Everything has been in the sun.
- Ruth: her father's pearl-snap western shirts in faded plaid, jeans worn white at the knee, the boots
- Danny: one band tee he sleeps in, a denim jacket two sizes big, high-tops gone brown
- No black, no saturated red. Colour comes from the light, not the clothes
- Three of everything for sweat and dust; from Sc. 31 on, playa salt in the hems

Fittings

[x] Ruth fitting 1 — shirts, jeans, boots
[x] Age six pearl-snap shirts: sun, wash, sand
[x] Danny fitting 1
[ ] Second jacket in the same wash for Danny
[ ] Camera test, both leads, at golden hour
[ ] Salt and dust breakdown kit for Sc. 31–40