Trailer of the Week

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Release Date: 12/18

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Week 3 of Productions

Another week passes by and more and more stress keeps building, but in the end its worth it. Along with trying to finish the Rose, I was doing audio for another project, "Rabid." We shot on Tuesday night and it went pretty well. I had to go late and leave early, but did as much as I could. On wednesday, we had a 7AM crew call, which was brutal, especially working until 2:30 and going to sleep at 3. However, the shoot went really well and the crew and cast were kept happy with donuts, bagels, and coffee. Furthermore, the last shoot which was scheduled for thursday got cancelled due to power outage at the location, but rescheduled for saturday. Again, the shoot went extremely smoothly and every that needed to get done, got done.

As for the Rose, I began capturing and editing on monday. Since then, I have completed the beginning two scenes, edited and done with the exception of fine tuning the isolated red look. However, everything looks really good. Some of the rest of the film is edited like the montage and flashback and final scene. Furthermore, I had to reshoot the Grazie bar scene on Tuesday because of audio failure like I stated before, but it went really smoothly since it was only a couple of dialogue scenes. Overall, the project is almost done, but we have another shoot on Monday to hopefully finish the apartment scenes. Also, we need to do voice overs.

Now that production and post production have been talked about, I've had to preproduce for like a billion other projects, really only 5, but its extremely stressful. Jake and I have been meeting almost every day to discuss the majority of the projects. We pitched 2 Juliets (a working title), but in essence its an all girl mafia lesbian love story. We are both SUPER excited for this project and banged out a treatment on Tuesday in which we pitched on wednesday and every one was excited for. Jim talked about combining the class into one big group for the project. Furthermore, we have secured a couple of locations and are in the process of getting actors. We want to build a dolly for the project, which is definitely possible after looking at plans online. We want to make this project as great as possible and professional looking.

Other than 2 Juliets, we came up with a shot list for The Watch which is shooting this week. Also, we came up with 2 potential story ideas for the week after: a story about the life of a pen (based on a concept by Jim) and the portrayal of chess as a metaphor for life. After discussing it with Jake and Sarah we've decided to go with the chess short. Other than these projects, Jake and I are working on a commercial for the Doritos competition and a project for a photographer in town. Long story short, these next couple weeks are going to be insane, but in the end it'll be worth it. Thats all I got for now.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Audio Fail

So revieweing the footage today, I discovered that there is no audio for the entire bar scene. What this means is either we have to reshoot the dialogue scenes, or record voice overs in post. What an annoyance. This adds to the huge pile of stress of this project and classes and everything. But on a lighter note, the footage looks really good. The shots look really amazing with the lighting and composition.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Week 2 of Productions

WOW! I am exhausted. We have had 2 days of shooting for The Rose and it has been grueling. Yesterday, we shot at Grazie for the bar scenes. First off, Grazie has been so incredible throughout the entire process. They are extremely kind and very welcoming to us. They let us use all of the bar and any objects that we needed. Also, the woman who was in charge stayed until the end of our shoot, we were there until 1 AM. She was awesome. But... it was extremely frustrating of a shoot. We definitely should have been out of there 2 hours before we did. First off, my actor never showed. I don't know what happened, but he never showed. We waited for an hour, but thankfully we were waiting for some jack asses at the bar to leave. The restaurant closed at 10 but people were staying there until 11. So we couldn't get moving until then. So, I have an entire room full of actors, extras, and crew waiting and getting impatient. But, although people were on edge, people were still very accepting to the fact that we had no control over the problem. Overall, the process of the shoot went extremely well though. Once we got going, we got our shots and finished ASAP. We ended up with some really awesome shots. Also, I am actually happy that Phil never showed, because Drew, the person that filled in for him, is doing an amazing job. Through the 2 shoots that we've had, he has been spectacular. He is a born natural. Not to mention Keetin, our seductress, is doing a phenomenal job as well. I am extremely pleased with how my talent is performing.

Today, the 2nd day of shooting has been extremely taxing. We started setting up the studio at 2:30, when class ended. We got the studio set by 3:30 and were ready to shoot. All of the scene went smoothly. The first shot that we did took 20 min and about 20 different takes. We had a huge jib, a lighter that didnt work, and matches that wouldnt light. The combination of all of those, results in disaster! But, we got the shot that we wanted. After using 20 min of time, we needed to fly by with the rest of the shoot, and we did. The real tough part of today was shooting at Sarah's apartment. We had a bunch of complex set ups that needed to be figured out because of placements of lights, and camera movements, and blocking, and everything. The first shot took extremely long because of a small space and lighting issues. Also, we ran out of time to shoot at the location, so we only got about 50% of the things that we needed to get done. However, because we took our time on the lighting and everything, the shots should look pretty amazing. Some of the highlights of the shoot was using chromakey green (green screen green) liquid, putting a light above a fan to get the blades' shadows, having a real ruger (modeled after a luger) on set, seeing Ben have to climb up and down a 8 or 9 foot ledge to set up lights, and other things.

Like I said before, I am very pleased and happy with how my crew is performing. They are putting up with my snippiness and aggravation when things are taking longer than expected. And although everyone is on edge, there haven't been any fights. Lastly, Carrie was a great PA with driving around to all corners of Bloomington picking up last minute props that we needed or forgot or returning to the lab to check out more equipment, and did anything that we asked. Jacob is doing a SPECTACULAR job running the camera. The shots are exactly what I envisioned and he couldnt be doing a better job. Plus he's dealing with me the most when I get aggravated. Ben is a great gaffer. He has a good eye at what I want and when I tell him to do something, he gets it done and the way that I want it. I would name off everyone in my crew and say how great they are but you get the jist of it. They are doing a great job. But after shooting from 2:30-12:30, I must retire from the computer and go to sleep. I am extremely excited for the film and if you are reading this, you should be too.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Week 1 of Productions

So, I am nearing the end of the first week of production and its been a crazy one. I'm working on the pre production of my own project, The Rose, while working on the actual production of Happy Dance this week. It is definitely hectic trying to schedule time to do all of this, but I made it through the week. Furthermore, I have to do the majority of my producer's job such as contacting and getting actors, scouting and finding locations, and keeping the crew in the know. Juggling all of these acts is tough, but I got all of it done. The production of Happy Dance went pretty smooth. As a PA, I don't really do much. I got some real life experience though: I got coffee and picked up pizza. Overall, not that tough of a job. The real work this past week has been getting everything together for The Rose. We're shooting the bar scene at Grazie, office scene in the studio, Apartment scene in Sarah's apartment and other various locations. I met with Jacob to discuss a shot list for the film and we came up with a bunch of interesting and cool shots. I'm EXTREMELY excited to do this project.

For all of you that don't know the premise of the project, here it is. It is a private eye film shot in a film noir style. However, the catch is rather than the P.I narrating the story, the blonde bomb shell seductress tells the story. You go through her psychotic and deranged mind throughout the film with her dialogue, VOs and actions.

All in all, the work it tough, but this weeks work is going to be tougher. I have to juggle working late nights at my job, shooting 4 long shoots for the film, meet a client for an outside project, leave Friday for Wisconsin for a tournament, and not to mention at midterm on tuesday. FUN FUN FUN...

T436 Blog

Hey Everyone,

Haven't posted in a while and i'm sure theres pretty much noone realy checking the blog, but I'm back because of class mainly, but hopefully this will keep me posting for a while. It is a lot harder to keep a blog going than it looks. But oh well. I will be bloggin at least weekly about my adventures throughout the class. The class is TEL T436: Advanced Production - Cinematography. Pretty much, we're learning how to make our films look more cinematic and film looking. We're doing a project a week for 6 weeks. Its extremely hectic, but hey... a little hard work never killed anyone. So... I'll keep you posted on my whereabouts throughout the weeks.