production blog

Today, I’m shooting the last of the pick-ups for “Dead Air”. It’s about a dozen shots. Here the one I thought was the most fun. They needed a shot of what appears to be blood flow.

↑ A snippet of the footage.

Here’s the “home-brew” way I did it. Into a good quality, clear freezer bag goes:
_ 25 ml red food dye
_ 250 ml of water
_ 150 ml of rice bran oil.

Use a good quality bag because if any of the dye gets out, it’ll ruin just about anything it touches. Also, you can use just about any oil - I chose rice bran oil mostly because I like the color. Get as much air out of the bag as you can. The bubbles you see are from the air but also a result of the old adage, “oil and water don’t mix”. To get a more convincing look, I folded the bag with each half getting part of the mixture. This gave it depth.

Once that was done, shake up the mixture a bit to get the oil to breakdown into smaller drops. Then slosh mixture from one side of the bag to the other. (If you have a Food Saver, try using that to get all the air out. You’ll need to then make your oil/water mix more 50/50.)

I backlit the bag using a LIte-Panel - if you front light it, you’ll likely get reflections on the bag. In this example, I put the Lite-Panel on a table. Over it I put a clear plastic box, then a sheet of 250 diffusion (to diffuse the LED lights), then the bag of “blood”.

On the lens goes a 10x macro lens adapter. The camera was set to ƒ2.0 and the shutter ranged from 1/48 (180°) to 1/250 (35°).

← Me with Red.

If I had a crisp C-note for every time I’ve been queried about shooting with the Red I would have owned one by now with all the accessories. Today, beyond mere testing of the camera, I actually got to shoot some footage. I shot a couple of vignettes/skits for director (and in this case, actor as well) Greg McDonald. Simple stuff really, all outside under reasonably contrasty conditions. The shoot took place in the Great Burbank outdoors (97° and humid).

So how did the camera perform. We did get a several warnings about the heat level of the camera which were solved by shading the camera and turning it off when possible. But, by and large the camera worked wonderfully. As would be expected, batteries didn’t hold up as long as they would if it wasn’t as hot as it was. The camera’s layout and button functionality perform very nice under practical conditions. I’m still a big fan of the False Color metering system but I need more time under various lighting conditions in order for my interpretation of what’s on the monitor to become second nature. We did have a problem with the audio board (couldn’t record to some tracks) but that will soon be addressed when the camera gets a new audio board. The lenses we used were both Red Lenses - 18-50mm and 50-150mm both ƒ3. I look forward to seeing the footage under better conditions to better evaluate their performance. We shot using the Red Drive - no lost footage to report, which is good. We did shoot some slow motion footage at 72, 96 and 120 frame-per-second. And for what it’s worth, we shot in 4K, 2:1 aspect ratio (protecting for 16:9), using RedCode36.

All in all, it was fun and educational. I can’t wait to have a longer project to really put the camera through its paces.

↑ Photo taken durning playback. Like in “Austin Powers” , the skits played with framing that gave the, er…, wrong impression of what’s going on. Don’t read too much into the fact that we shot in the Valley!

2008 Sept 21:

← (far left) Director/Actor Corbin Bernsen // (far right) Jim - Corbin’s personal assistant // (middle) Jim’s girlfriend whose name evades me - opps! // and some girl who happens to be looking at them.

It was a good night for a screening.

“Donna on Demand” screened tonight as part of the Temecula Valley International Film and Music Festival. We, unfortunately, had to screen from a DVD via a less than optimal video projector so the image was soft from the blowup, a bit too much contrast, somewhat washed out and was distorted a bit. That said, it looked better than expected and none of the shots look egregiously out of whack so it’s likely no one in the audience was the wiser.

Like every screening with a new audience, it was great to here them respond to the film. At the end, Corbin was pummeled by questions from the audience.

Can’t wait for what’s next.

2008 Sept 7:

Donna on Demand” will be screening at the Temecula Valley International Film & Music Festival. (That’s a mouthful!?) The festival runs from 17 - 21 September.

Our screening will be on Saturday the 20th.

Can’t wait to see it on the big screen with the cast, crew and an audience that knows little about the film.

“Donna” is a movie I shot last year. It was directed by Corbin Bernsen, who is also the lead actor, and also stars Adrienne Frantz, Susan Ruttan, Jeanne Cooper and Dan Lauria.

Done and Fun.

The short film I shot with director Clay Delauney is finished and soon will be off to the folks at Sundance for their consideration. Visit the demo reel page of my site and select watch | NARRATIVE REEL clips.

Both “The 20 Second Rule” and “TomThumb” have been recently uploaded and revised. We still have a few minor tweaks to “The 20 Second Rule” but watch it now and enjoy where it is.

Like I said, this project and “TomThumb” are now on there way to the Sundance Film Festival. Wish us luck.

One last thing, watch the credits at least until the section about “No animals were harmed…” near the end!

Click here to read an earlier post about this project.

At long last, it is finished. “TomThumb” - a short film I shot for director Clay Delauney - finished up sound a couple of days ago in anticipation for submission to Sundance. Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

The project can be found on my narrative demo reel page. Just click on the thumbnail image that looks like our boy in this frame-grab.

Otherwise, here’s a direct link to the project: CLICK HERE

Click here to read an earlier post about this project.

Isn’t comedy funny!? Or I hope it is.

Anywho, the last day of shooting the short film of “Bruce Lance” (the title is still a work in progress) is done and now let the editing begin!

We got more funny stuff and the anticipation is building to see the final project finished. Here are some frame-grabs to hold us all over in the meantime. I’ll try to get some more in the coming days.

These shots are from Magicopolis in Santa Monica where we shot some interviews and these “performances” on stage.

Above, “Bruce Lance” (Sorin Bowie) and his beautiful “assistant” (Regan Alvord).

Here are some frame-grabs from this weekend’s shoot of “The 20-Second Rule” directed by Clay Delauney and written by Josh Nicols. It’s gonna be great - really great!!! The fantastic cast was led by the very funny Jay Laisné.

The three-day shoot was shot using two Panasonic HVX200 cameras both with Letus35 lens adapters. We used Nikon lenses (25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, and 135mm) rented from Sammy’s. Just about everything was exposed for ƒ2.0 and framed for a 2.35 aspect ratio.

I’ll write more in a next couple of days. Till then, thank you to all the nice folks who gave of their time to this project. I think it’s gonna be fabulous. Ah, the questions you’ll have after seeing the following frame-grabs!

Favorite quote from the show’s call sheet:

“They won’t let me return the ball gag!”

And now after quite a long absence, that moment of Zen:

From my phone after the second day of shooting. It still hasn’t been found!

6 Sept 08: Follow-up to the case of the missing scorpian…

I can’t wait to get more images from this show. For now these will have to suffice. Bruce Lance is a short film about a magician who doesn’t do magic. It’s a bit of a spoof on the “Mindfreak” - punk rock magician who you either love or hate. Shot like a “Behind the Music” episode, using a Panasonic HVX200 camera in and around the Los Angeles area. The project is directed by Justin Viar and co-written by Justin and lead actor, Soren Bowie.

A mySpace page has been created (click here). Take a look, post a comment and get ready to have your mind blown. Snippets from the show and a trailer will be available shortly. The episode one should be done in a month or so.

↑ : Jessica preps the “stub” // → : We’re about to interview “Lance”

↑ : That’s some dandy coloring!

↑ : The “real” magicians - frame grab.

This is the “hush-hush” project I posted about in June. It’s called “Coeds” and it’s a 1/2 hour pilot. A short teaser has cut and posted on YouTube - here’s the link:

You can, of course, watch it here.

It’s going to be pitched around town. With luck, you’ll see it on you television very soon. Until then…

Visit the YouTube link and watch it, tell your friends to watch, and don’t forget to leave lovely comments with pretty words and glowing plaudits.

So far the response has been very positive. Congrats to Andrew (director).
Let’s get ‘er done, home biscuit!!!
Whew, whoo… Go Me!

“The Real Reason Guns are Dangerous” (AKA “Go Fish”) is up on Cracked. Cracked is a comedy website and Guns are Dangerous is a short/skit directed by Justin Viar (a name you’ve seen before on my blog). We shot it in one day using a Panasonic HVX200. Many thanks to Josh and Tom for your help with the show. Funny stuff and more to come.

You can also watch it on Funny or Die:

// watch Go Fish

// watch All Broken Up
It’s another skit, this time with the ladies. Check it out and don’t forget to vote.

While things have been painfully quite, there’s still things to do…

I just finished shooting a presentation for a pitch, one that I can’t reveal too much about just yet. What I can say is that It’s a comedy, being shot like a reality television show. I did a bunch of research watching shows like Campus Ladies, Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Hills, Reno 911 and of course, the Office. It’s quite a thing to think in terms of how to make it look “live” and real while capturing comedy which is by it’s very nature a contrivance. I especially got a kick when shooting some of the scenes and adding a little bit of camera movement to make sure that you can “feel” the camera’s presences. Other times the aesthetic meant shooting with one of the actors, a prop or set dressing placed at the edge of frame to give the shot a more voyeuristic feel. Another device we used was when panning from on actor to another but slightly behind the delivery so as to be catching up with what’s said as would normally happen in real life - reacting to the scene instead of having forethought as to who will be speaking next.

We shot 24 pages in roughly four days using three Canon XL2 cameras and shooting handheld. One day at UCLA, half a day at one home and two and 1/2 days at another home in the Valley. The grip/electric package was very simple: Kinos, 1200HMI, Arri light kits (practical and as props), shiny boards, China lamps with 250W photo floods for daylight and 200W clear utility lights for night, etc. As part of the storyline (the story includes an element of a college news cast), we incorporated Flip cameras. They’re small video cameras whose footage can easily be plugged into a computer and downloaded as quicktime files or viewed on a television directly. The idea for using them was that while our cameras captured their interactions from the outside looking in, these cameras would capture their going-ons from the inside looking out. It also gave some of the actors comedic “business” in the background while other action happened in the foreground.

↑ Mike Wade (Miles) just before
→ Aaron (UPM) awaits the results - sorry, no big money, just whammies!

↑ Sound department: Pyxz & Chris H.
→ Actors Ryan Michael Oman (Bryce) and Mike Wade (Miles) having fun before the start of day one.

↑ Tess Lynch (Chaz) looking smashing!
→ Nick Pasqual (Jimmy) and Bear Badeaux (Sleestack) dink around with the Flip cameras

↑ China lamps in full force
→ Sarah Rodenbaugh (Cindy) preps

↑ Me and director Andrew Powell prep a scene
→ The monitor room - Andrew (dir), Reg Powell (producer) and Chris Powell (composer)

↑ Sarah (Cindy) readies for her net newscast
→ Rosie R. & Justin V. (camera operators)

↑ The cast
→ Krista G. (production designer)

↑ The cooking head cams. Nice!

↑ Roll your mouse over the picture.

(more…)

As I mentioned some time ago, the short film I shot for director Mark Mollenkamp called “Night Light”. It’s currently screening as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. I’m in New York and I’ll have an update in the next couple of days. In the meantime, you can check out the trailer here.

↑← Me and Mark at the Short Film party. I love the fact that Mark was “whoring” me out to the other directors.
↑→ Mark just before making a strike at the SAG party. Nicely played and the free drinks were great too! Oh so many free drinks.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience for both Mark and me. Lots of great contacts and hopefully some opportunities for the future.

Ah, your moment of Zen…

I think that this time it really is finished. The last shot of an all night shoot ironically turns out to be a sweet golden sunrise and a start to a bright, hot summer California day. Right now I’m so tried it hurts to keep my eyes open. On the drive home, I would swear that all the cars around me were driving at least 30 miles faster than me. Home long enough to pack and then head out to the airport for a light to New York for the TriBeCa Film Festival.

I’ll write more in a couple of days - I’m still recovering.

OK… it’s been a couple of weeks now and I think I’ve recovered. So here are some pictures and some info on these end of days. For these last two days of shooting I ended up operating the camera so I didn’t get to shoot very many photographs.

First off, here’s a little press that showed on Reelz Channel show, “Dallies”.

↑← Wow blood… cool. That’s Makeup Artist, Jessica, putting on the final touches.
↑→ It was an ice bag for a banged up knee, but for me, this photograph looks as though it’s life-sized.

↓← Here’s the sunrise I mentioned. That’s the last shot of the show’s photography.
↓→ Me and 1st AC Delfina calling it a day.

For anyone really geeky (like me) here are the locations where we shot the movie.

View Larger Map

So, that’s it — it’s all done. Now just waiting for the final color correction. Till then, a million thanks to the crew that stuck by the show and by me. You guys are great and I love ya.

The short film “Night Light” will be screening at the TriBeCa Film Festival at the end of April. This will be the second film the director, Mark Mollenkamp, and I have worked on. I’ll be in New York during that time to be present at the screening and support the film. There’s a trailer on the festival’s website and you can see shots from the short film on my demo reel. I’ll try to post entries during the week I’m there.

http://www.tribecafilmfestival.org/filmguide/16736411.html

Project: “Dead Air” - feature film - session 2

PRE-PRODUCTION

After nearly a year, here we are again making the final dash to the finish line. For various reasons, the show wasn’t finished shortly after the stoppage last year. But we’re back and I’m ready to go. For those of you just joining us, when we last left off, the show was two weeks into shooting. For this, what I’m calling “session 2″, we’re shooting six day. We still have two day (or so) left of shooting after this - this is to accommodate actor’s schedules.

So far, we’ve been able to get most of “the band” back together. For my crew, the chief lighting technician and key grip are back as well as one electric who is now the assistant CLT. The camera department is seeing some changes. My first assistant camera is now going to be the operator and because of schedules, we’ll see three 1st ACs and one 2nd that’ll be with us for the run of the show. My dear friend and commercial director, Justin V., volunteered to help on B-camera - hugely beneficial to a show like this. How we got him is humorous (if only to me).

He called me one day after attending a discussion with a leading director and his crew. The talk focused on how director works with his immediate colleagues. Justin is in the process of moving on from commercial work to features and wanted some time on a feature set. Luckily, we were just about to start and I wanted a B-camera operator I could trust. As much as I love operating, having my hands free to focus on the director and the set was liberating. I’m very grateful to Justin for setting in as he did. If he and I only knew what he was in for.

Back to pre-production. I think we went through about six script changes over the three weeks of pre-production. Some changes were logical (corrections to the original script) while others were logistical (changes to locations and accommodation to available resources). What I found interesting is that many of the changes that came up, often made the changed scene stronger or more to the point. Here’s an example, albeit a minor one. We had one scene where the script called for a lamp to be dropped during a scene where one “maniacs” enters a house. There was the risk it breaking make a second take a bit difficult. Instead, the lamp was replaced with the actor’s helmet - he had just been riding a motorcycle when he “turned” upon arriving at the home. The change worked better because it served as a better indicator that that actor had been in that room - important since our hero enters the house at the end of the movie and discovers the helmet. Another example is that the original script has one of the last scenes taking place at a military triage center. The cost of doing that scene right would have been monstrous. It was instead done on the helicopter pad at the top of the building we were shooting at. A big vehicle that flies with the downtown cityscape in the background - how cool is that?!

During pre-production Corbin (the director), the producer (Chris A.), and I worked out the shot list. As you can see from my notes, I love diagrams (see photo below).

↑ ↑ Click to see my script notes for one scene.

I also love 3×5 cards, especially the ones with grids on them. During “Donna on Demand”, I started making floor plans to map out camera placements, camera moves and lighting diagrams on sheets of paper. This time around I wanted to do a little less work but still get the benefit. I still plotted the sets using Illustrator, but instead of printing to 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper and then cutting them into fourths, I printed to 3×5 index cards. I like to buy myself a little something new before big shows. This time around, to carry my collection of 3×5 cards, I bought myself a Levenger 3×5 leather case. (Very sexy in black leather and red threaded trim.) It can hold about 80 of my cards plus business cards, which is good because needed about 50 cards plus blank cards. While not directly useful on set - it was great to carry around (it fits in the back pocket) and helpful when talking to other departments about that’s planned for a scene or as flash cards!

↑ ↑ My new toy.

I’m enjoying the notion that our “little horror film” has enough thought put into it to have a defined visual arc to it. Here’s how it worked out. The movie is mostly takes place at a radio station. The look of that radio station is neutral (i.e. not stylized). Over the course of the story, it evolves at key points in the script from static shots on the tripod, to smooth and steady dolly shots, to dolly shots that have the camera floating lightly, to more aggressive dolly shots with more aggressive floaty-cam. When the danger reaches the station, we move to handheld shots either static or on dolly. With all the events outside the station, the look is much more stylized, the camera is handheld by what I’ve termed “handheld 1″ and “handheld 2″. By stylized, I mean either a strong backlight/hard edge light, under fluorescents we’re letting or boosting the green or cyan or green-cyan tone, some scenes are very warm (golden) while others are cold (blue-ish), all of it will be high-contrast, and a contrast to the neutral look of the radio station. When outside of the radio station but not where any of the “infected” are, we used “handheld 1″ which might be static or on dolly, with a little float to the camera and occasionally some in manual zooms which change the frame no more than +/- 10mm. When the “infected” are in the frame, the operation of the camera changes to “handheld 2″ which is a much more aggressive handheld style, occasionally with fast pans, walking shots and the camera gain set to +6dB with a higher shutter speed (usually 1/125 depending on the amount of light I could get into a scene). One last note. I used a net behind the lens for just about all the shots this time around. It was a black, silk net with a tight pattern. The glow effect on very bright edge lit objects or from specular highlights is wonderful.

It is a modest budget so time and resources played a big part in which shutter I could use. I came up with a cheat sheet that let me know quickly what was the fastest shutter I could use given the amount of footcandles I had on. Upon accessing the needs of the scene and the time we had to light it, we’d aim for a certain amount of footcandles and then dial in the shutter based on that.

↑ ↑ My need-footcandles-to-get-cool-shutter-effect cheat sheet.

After numerous discussions to secure an availability date with one of our actor’s representative, it was revealed that he currently has a full beard as part of a role he’s in on another show. A beard, really! Someone didn’t think that was important information to reveal during the preceding calls? It’s not like it’s something that you might not see like a temporary tattoo on your ass! I guess, to quote from a skit from “Kids in the Hall”… “it slipped my mind!”

The phrase that kept creeping up was “our little film”. What makes it humorous is that we have motorcycle stunts, a scene with nearly 100 extras, and a helicopter. Nice.

Early in pre-production as the discussions about the behavior of the “maniacs” was being defined, the term “mythology” was proposed as a short cut for all the behaviors that define them. To expand on that notion of the mythos, I started calling the various elements that make up the overall aesthetic of the show the “construct”. I’m going to explore this idea more in the coming entries.

PRODUCTION:

Here are some pictures from the shoot.

↑ ↑ 1st AC, Nicole, preps the camera (Sony F900R)
↑ → Overhead shot with the TechnoJib - it really was a nice shot.

↑ ← Anthony Ray Parker during his final scenes of the show.
↑ → Corbin leaning on downtown - I love this stuff.

↑ ← Like I said, big flying vehicles and a view of downtown - very cool.
↑ → Top of the world (L > R: Ron, 1st AC / Koji, Operator / me)

↑ ↑ What’s wrong with this picture?!

↑ ← I love this shot.
↑ → The infected Will - you lady killer!

↑ ← Stunts are fun.
↑ → James (2nd AC) having a little fun on the slate and showing he can draw.

↑ ← Dawn starts to rear its ugly head.
↑ → This was a very exciting scene. Let’s just say sexy shots and flying brain matter. Two great tastes that taste great together.

OUR VENDORS - a million thanks for the support you’ve given us.

Camera:
World Wide Digital
Sony F900R / Fujinon 4.5 - 59mm T1.8 & 7.8 - 172mm T1.9 / Astro Test monitor / Panasonic LCD monitor / et al.

Grip & Electric:
Luka Grip & Lighting : +1 (818) 565-5580
10-Ton Truck - Lighting package ranged from Maxibrutes to 300W Peppers, Kinos, Lekos, ParCans, 500A Genie.

Moment of Zen:

This one will be a little different - no pictures, just terms. When I met with the CLT and the Key Grip, they talked about another show that they worked on and Josh (CLT) said two things which I found hysterical:

1) Un-gaffable - a show where a gaffer can find no safe quarter

2) He described a particular DP’s lighting approach as “at your feet there were flower petals of shadows“. If I can only work that into a haiku.

Well it’s done. We shot the last of the footage this weekend for the short film, “TomThumb”, directed by my friend and colleague Clay Delauney. I’m crawling out of my skin like a heroin addict in anticipation of showing this project. I’m very proud of this little movie and can’t wait to share it with all of you. I consider it the embodiment of the very best Clay and I have to offer and it might just be some of the best stuff my friend and I have done thus far together. The reactions we’ve gotten when to a short edited snippet have been wonderful. There should be something to look at in the next couple of weeks. Till then.

↑ ↑ Frame grabs for the beginning and ending of the film.

↑ ↑ Clay finishes dressing Michael’s gauss compacted hand. It looks disturbingly authentic as someone who’s lost his digits.

↓ ↓ As part of the story, a computer chat room was need. Clay asked if I could design an animated one using After Effects. After some back and forth, here’s what we came up with. It looks fairly legit. (This is a compressed version.)

: : click here to see movie.

Friend and director Clay Delauney talked to me about shooting this short film with him late last year. Schedules and the holidays all conspired to make that an impossibility. That is until this month. The project is “Tom Thumb” - a story about a internet predator that finds himself prayed upon.

I can’t wait to write about this shoot but I’m packing for another trip to the Big Apple. I’ll do as much writing on the plane as I can and upload my thoughts tomorrow. Till then, I couldn’t wait to post some pictures. To my friend Clay, great job buddy. To the cast and crew, thank you for a wonderful job and for all your hard work - I think it shows on every frame.

↓ ↓ Jeff (Producer) show’s off Clay’s creation (silicone prosthetic). I’m not gonna lie, it’s a bit disturbing.

↓ ↓ And speaking of disturbing… the aftermath. The photo on the left is taken at the end of the shoot and has a bunch of Clay’s make-up voodoo. ↓ → The photo on the right has two rubber tubes attached to syringes that ejected Clay’s special batch of blood.

↓ ↓ Frame grab of the hand… Nice! During the shot the prosthetic stretched out three centimeters but looked more than real. Again, disturbingly real.

↓ ← Clay preps the blood gag. ↓ → Frame grab from the final shot.

↓ ↓ We shot the fights scenes with a 1/120th shutter speed (film equivalent of 72° shutter angle). In this shot, the dripping blood from the knife is a little more staccato.

↑ ↑ Clay directing Brian. Is Brian really listening?

↑ ↑ Clay making movie magic.

↑ ↑ This shot of Clay I really would rather wait to explain.

I will give you a clue though… “You’re ‘n trouble!”

This was a very cool series of 60 fps dolly shots down a dark and creepy hallway. We lit it with a some 650w tweenies with the ones backlighting the actor having opal gel.

These are some of my two favorite shots. ↓← There’s something about the handcuffs that’s compelling, sinister, captivating (pardon the pun) and graphic. In this shot we placed a reflector left of camera and to the right of camera, a Kino Diva 200 shooting through a 2×3 silk. The levels were about two to three stops below the key of ƒ/2.8. They were angled to maximize the highlights from the chrome. ↓ → The use of these fluorescent fixtures was originally a practical one. We hoped to shoot with a degree of freedom from motion pictures lights, so the lights were placed to fill the center of the scene space. Because of the need to have enough light to shoot at either slow motion (maximum of 60 fps) or with a reduced shutter (1/250th or 35° film equivalent), I asked if four units could be purchased. The happy accident of that is that the lights placed in pairs created a very graphic composition especially in this shot.

↓← For this close-up of actor Michael Garbe, we used the Lensbaby 3G with the ƒ/4.0 iris ring which produced a wider “sweet spot” that’s in focus.

↓ ← Actor Michael Garbe ↓ → Actor Brian Lloyd

↓ ↓ The previous images were pulled straight from the raw footage. The following two images have been color corrected only slightly - although not necessarily what the final images will look like. ↓← This is a four meter long dolly shot with a two meter jib arm and with the camera underslung and about five centimeters off the ground. It was shot with both a 24mm and 50mm lens. We tried a couple of variations but the one I like best is one where Clay set the focus to about two meters in front of the camera and what you get is a foreground that’s soft and the back ground that’s soft. ↓ → It’s great when you find a director whose visual aesthetic complements your own. In this shot we used a 50mm lens at ƒ/1.8 at about 30 cm. The depth of field is nothing. We kept focus on the plane where the key is inserted. As the actor walks up to the door he’s radically out of focus. Then all you see is the key and hand in focus for a brief moment until he’s dragged off which is seen in the reflection of the door handle. It’s an incredibly beautiful shot.

Vendors:

Lenses : Samy’s Camera
Nikkor lenses: 14mm (ƒ/2.8) / 24mm (ƒ/2.0) / 35mm (ƒ/1.4) / 50mm (ƒ/1.8) / 85mm (ƒ1.4) / 300mm (ƒ2.8)

Camera & G&E: Jeff Cole Productions

A moment of Zen with the best shot of me.

(more…)

Some good news might very well be on the way. We’ll know more very soon…

Till then, a great trailer has been made for this feature movie and is now available for viewing. Visit the Antibody Films website or the “Dead Air” website (it’s a very cool site worth visiting on its own merit). You can also view it at this link.

If you live in Los Angeles or New York City and you have Time Warner Cable, you can watch “The Utopian Society” for the next 30 days on Pay-Per-View. It’s true. The movie is finally getting out there. If you can order it, it’ll go a long way to helping the film. It seems that if enough folks order, it might get a longer play. If you do order it, thanks for watching.

UPDATE: It might be on more cable systems then just Time Warner Cable. Check your cable or satellite provider’s pay-per-view listing and see if “Utopian Society” is being offered in your area.

Update:

Color grading took place at Roush Media in Burbank, CA with colorist Keith Roush. We’re grading the HDCam footage using Apple Color and so far, it’s looking very good. Reference images were pulled from the movies “Shoot ‘em Up” and “Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang” - the later happens to be a film that Corbin appears in. This is my first real world experience with Color and I’m very pleased. (I had done two short film previously with Final Touch, the predecessor of Apple’s Color.) It does primary and secondary color correction, still store, key-framing, power windows, etc. etc. etc. - all the base stuff you’d expect.

So what did we do? Well, mostly we crushed the black levels and brought up the mid-tones giving it a “crisper” look. The saturation on many scenes were brought down and several scenes, namely the outdoor shots, were given a blue/cyan or gold/green look. Since there are many televisions and monitors in the movie, a few “power windows” were needed to balance the monitors with the scene. Other than that, it’s balancing the levels from shot to shot. Keith has done a great job with the coloring of the show. I look forward to the screening when everyone on the crew gets to see it.

The score for the music is also fantastic - it’s little bit California beach music meets 50’s bossa nova. I’ll try to find out who the composer is in the next couple of days.

Posted: 18 January 2008: 4:07PM
The editorial is finished and now it’s time to color grade the film. I’ve got a copy of the film and I’ll be viewing it all weekend long, working out my notes for the coloring session.

We’ll be finishing on HDCam and grading on Final Cut Color. It’ll be my first long form project with this version of the software. (I did a couple of short films that were colored on Silicone Final Touch before Apple bought them and made an acquaintance of mine very well off.) I’ll be playing with the software this weekend as well to better understand what to expect.

Not much to report beyond this except that, yes, Toby and Melissa (opps, and yes, Supercop Jessica) you did make it into the final cut. Nice.

Finally it’s arrived and finished. Truly finished. No more phone calls about needing something to be done on the film. Done. Finito. Tetelestai! Consummatum est! (Don’t believe me, I’m sure there’s more.)

THE UTOPIAN SOCIETY

It’s a hell of a thing to see that big WB logo show up at the start of the DVD. Even after all this time it’s still a fun, well put together and very good looking film for such a small budget and limited time and resources.

Utopian Society tells the tale of six college kids whose path cross to finish a class assignment. Think “Breakfast Club” just not high school and not detention but plenty hijinks, sentiment and discovery just the same.

The excitement of its arrival and viewing was tempered with some disenchantment. While our crew may have been small, it was efficient and busy making the shots look as good as can be given the circumstances. In the commentary track, the director makes a few comments that particular scenes were naturally lit when in fact much work went into lighting those shots and making them look very natural. I understand it comes from both A) it’s been several years since we shot this film and B) a lack of the technical knowledge that went into making those shots possible and look as natural as they do. It would be like someone making the comment that the “the actors were so good that they didn’t need any direction” - a statement that would completely discounts all the time and input the director actually did invest into steering their understanding of their characters. I wish I could have attended the recording but work keep me away.

Regardless it’s a great show and I am happy about the end product. I hope everyone gets to see it (the soundtrack is included with the DVD. Maybe I’ll set up a movie night at my house and we can all enjoy the show (but we’re not listening to the commentary track).

My heart felt thanks to everyone who worked on the film and to all of those who have stuck by it over the years.

At long last it’s final being distributed in America. The Utopian Society is being released on January 15 by Warner Home Video. (It’s a feature length movie I shot more years ago than I care to admit.) The movie features Malin Ackerman (The Heartbreak Kid, 27 Dresses) and Austin Nichols (John from Cincinnati, The Day After Tomorrow).

I’ve pre-orded my copy through Amazon (hopefully, I’ll see a free copy come my way very soon after also).

Six days and counting, tic-toc-tic-toc…