Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. ~Oprah Winfrey
Already the new year looks like it’s going to be a good one. I’ll post what’s going on next month after I’ve cleaned up all the wrapping paper and collected all the champagne glasses.
Just a reminder, my email changes. Just replace the “2k6″ in my email with “2k7″.
Many, many thanks to all the crew I’ve had a chance to work with this year. Thank you for your hard work and let’s make this next year even better.
4 & 5 December: “And out of darkness comes the light.” Another short film, this time with a darker bent. It’s a short called “Sympathy” about a priest who finds the devil incarnate, wounded in an alley and must decide to same him or let him die.
I did dark before with “Night Light” but not quite as dark as this nor quite in this way. One of the first notes I gave the show’s gaffer (Josh D.) is lighting continuity doesn’t necessarily apply to this show. If it looks appropriate, dramatic, visually strong, let’s do it. And we did. I can’t wait to get some frame grabs. A very big “thank you” goes to the show’s director/writer/producer Bill Solis. (Thank goodness he also didn’t direct.) It gave me a wonderful project, the means to shoot it and the freedom to give him my best. And many thanks to the crew that, in turn, made it all possible.
: : Devin L. (alter boy) rehearses a scene.
: : That clever monkey - Alan H. (Electric) finds yet another wonderful use for the clothes pin on set.
: : Father forgive me, I know not what I do - Craig Braun (Father Ramsey) discusses the scene the director, Bill Solis
: : the devil you say - Thomas Kopache (Devil) - it shows how dark we went.
: : This is a lovely shot that I can’t wait to see again. It’s a rack focus to the alter boy.
: : Marvin (1st AC) and Leigh (2nd AC) mind the camera between takes.
As a sign of the times, my brother and his wife made a little video of my nephew riding his cart racer and posted it onto YouTube. It’s not like we’re thousands of miles away (it’s more like 70 miles), still watching this video makes it seem like they’re very close. It’s also great to see the encroachment of videos making on the every man.
I look forward to seeing more from them. One word… iMovie.
I recently started buying more magazines and books with strong photography as reference material to aid in conversations with directors and producers. While looking for magazines, I happened upon a relatively new magazine called JPG. Its content is culled from the public at large through its website.
I subscribed and submitted a photo I shot a little over a year ago. The site and magazine are a great resource of global images and varied styles. The best part is that they’re relatively untouched by Photoshop trickery.
I saw a pre-screening of “Bobby” tonight. As part of my “getting back all the initiation fee I paid the Union” strategem, I’m again taking in a showing of a film offered by said Union. What an amazing piece of cinema. An enormous and distinguished cast, beautiful cinematography and an extraordinary script. Written and directed by Emilio Estevez and deftly lensed by Michael Barrett, the story revolves around the day leading up to Senator Bobby Kennedy’s speech the night of his assassination.
The experimental short film I shot earlier this year finally made it to telecine. I’ve been known to say, things happen for a reason and for this project, the delay meant waiting until The Post Group could do our telecine. In that wait, it was possible to have their DI Colorist work on our project. Doug is a friend of mine and it was great working with him again.
As a recap, the project was shot using a Canon digital still camera shooting bursts of about 9 seconds or about 65 frames. We recorded dialogue along with the bursts as a scratch track. The clips were edited together, the dialogue was recorded and added and then, the whole thing output as an uncompressed quicktime. We color corrected the final cut on a da Vinci 2K with an HDCAM output. I wish I had frame grabs to show you, but worry not, I’ll have a DVD of the project in a couple of days and I’ll get grabs then. It really looks great.
Camera phone - not great, but if you look real hard, you’ll see Doug working the controls.
Spring cleaning came REAL early this year. If you’re here, then there’s a good chance you’ve already seen the change to my site and, I hope, it’s a little more streamline and cohesive. It’ll take a few more days to clean “deep into the corners” of this site but when it’s done I’m sure I won’t revisit it for many, many months to come. Enjoy and let me know if something isn’t working quite right.
At long last it finally arrived. “It”, of which I speak, is my union card. Somehow it’s a little more official now that the card has arrived. I even got a shirt with it. The funny thing is that I woke up to find this package at my doorstep. I open it and find a t-stirt. As I’m thinking about throwing away the pouch the shirt was sent in, it dawns on me to take a look inside for any more goodies. When I see this envelope, I thinking, “I hope this isn’t a bill!” Instead, it was my card.
So what have we learned? Don’t throw envelopes away until you look thoroughly through it’s contents. Aesop should write a fable about this one.
Well, it’s finally going to happen - I’m getting married this weekend. Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you. My fiancé and I are finally getting married in Santa Monica on Saturday evening. For those of you have a odd curiosity, you can read all about it at: www.tacokisses.info
For those of you waiting for more info and pictures from the last shoot, I’ll try to finish that entry next week… after a really, really, really, long night sleep. Sleep sounds so good right now, I’m already snoring in my head!
Here’s the first of many pictures from last week’s shoot. I’ll post more this week as time permits, including some clips from the miniature set.
The 2nd Unit: L > R: Jeremy (Unit Gaffer) / Marvin (1st AC) / Grant (Key Grip) / Leigh (2nd AC) / Nick (Swing) / yours truly
[ Click on the image above to view a QuickTime. The first take is perhaps the preferred take. The second one is just cool.]
You can see my initial notes by clicking the image below:
Marvin (1st AC) keeps a watchful eye on the camera.
Watch those hands mister!
Maybe I shouldn’t have taken this one?
Peter helps our actors get ready for their role.
…and “action”! (And yes, those are little silver helmets on their heads.)
Miniature theatre. The round light on the bottom left is one of our searchlights in mid ballyhoo. We used Dedo lights form the sign and a Leko with an iris shut all the way down and on a dimmer.
A frustrated animator.
2nd Unit Director Peter S. hold up the first of three “little” accidents with the mannequins.
Grid on our girl. We used an LCD video projector running an image from our PowerBook laptop.
We shot a whole lotta this - creepy.
More of the creepy.
Another frustrated animators reaches for supplies.
Rigging the explosive.
Marvin (1st AC) - What can I say to explain this? Perhaps we should just consider this our moment of Zen?
The first images from the short film “Night Light” came my way today. Talk about playing in the “mud”. The only manipulation done to these images is an increase in brightness in the highlights and mid-tones and a slight desaturation. Otherwise, I do like it - the final color correction should be fun.
9-10 Sept. - I left my sleep in San Francisco. It was a weekend in Alameda and a few thousand feet closer to having a two-year old project finished. I was the gaffer on this show.
I’ll write more later - it’s a very late night in Ft. Worth and I need to sleep. I figured it would be nice to publish some pictures for those involved.
It’s a fairly close representation of what seven hours of driving and a pinched nerve feels like.
“The Jay”
Brad Bird does a cameo.
Brad Bird and director Teddy Newton. If I remember correctly, the conversation went something like, “have you ever been in so much pain that it started to be funny?”
Our fearless leader, Producer Aaron Rattner.
It was somewhere during the second day that someone other than the DP asked that some lights be adjusted based on the video assist monitor. What the hell - figure it out.
We are Devo.
Finally, finally, finally, a narrative production to work on and I can hardly wait. “Night Light” is the brainchild of director Mark Mullenkamp with whom I shot “Lure” late last year. It’s a fantastic idea that revolves around a child who’s afraid of the dark only to find that the darkness on one night ends up saving his life.
We’re shooting with my old friend the Panasonic VariCam provided by Alternative Rentals. It’s a nine page script and we’ve got two days to shoot it.
This is by far and away the deepest into darkness I’ve gone with regards to the image. We’ll see if it was too much. It reminds me of what Gordon Willis said about playing in the darkness when he remembers “Godfather II”, “I might have gone too far at times.” We’ll see.
At any rate, without a doubt it’ll be one of the best short films I’ve worked on. The story is simple but strong, the visuals dark but dramatic. This is definitely a project I can’t wait to see finished and soon!
Mark directs his young actor. He did a fabulous job working with someone so young.
The killer enters.
Clothespin art. Someone had way too much times on their hands.
.jpg "Night Light (man in doorway)")
.jpg "Night Light (kid in bed)")
.jpg "Night Light (kid and killer)")
