In The Reel World

Looks like the Writer’s Guild might strike soon in hollywood.  Movies and tv shows may come to a screetching halt thanks to the guld.  Screen Actor’s Guild is going with the writers it seems.

I have no problem being a scab!  Look me up in event of a strike!

For those of you who don’t know your lingo, “in the can” is a good thing!

Yesturday was our last day of filming. It was a long one and had a few snags along the way.

THE DAY BEFORE: First I got a call from my cousin, Dan. He has been acting as our boom operator for most of the shoot. He was SUPPOSED to have had Sunday off, so there wasn’t any forseen problems. But as they say, “expect the unexpected”. Turns out one of the people at his work quit, and he was being forced to work their shift on Sunday! He informed me though that he had 2 possibilities of getting out of it (1) switching with his GM for her later shift, 2) getting a manager from another store to cover for him.). We was supposed to call me by 8pm.
So, I went to work while waiting for him to call. I then got a text message from Tommie (one of the actors, he plays “A Friend”). The text says he has no way of getting down here for the shoot.
I call Tommie and tell him that I can pick him up as long as he doesn’t mind having to wait all day for his part of the shoot. He said he was cool with that, so I got his address and directions.
8:30, still no call from Dan. I call him, and get a voice-mail.
8:45, no responce, so I text him.
9, I call his mom and ask her to try and call his store for me.
10:30, Dan texts me back saying he can’t come, that both plans fell through. DAMNIT!
I get home and there’s an e-mail for me from the guy I’ve been talking to about possibly being my editor. He’s sent me a link to somthing that he edited in a day and then compressed and put on youtube for me to check out. I watched it over and over again! It was pretty damn good, so I called him and told him that yes, I want him as my editor. We make arrangements for me to come to his place after the final shoot to get all the footage captured to his computer.
I then go to sleep.

SUNDAY: I wake up, take a shower, get dressed, go to my glasses,wallet,keys,cell,phone,paperwork.
My glasses are gone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every night when I go to bed, I have a routine. I set my alarm clock, take off my glasses and put them in the small space between my alarm clock and tv, turn out the light, and go to bed. My glasses weren’t where they should have been! I didn’t panic….at first. See, every once in a while I’ve been known to knock my glasses on the floor while flailing my arm about trying to stop the alarm clock’s annoying beeps. So, I figured this must have happened again. So I checked where they usually fall to. They weren’t there. I looked around the general area. Not there! Now I started to worry. I got my dad and asked him to help me find them. We both tore the room apart. He kept insisting I must have put them somewhere else, which I explained was rediculous because I have had the same habits for many years. He decided to go look for a spare pair and I went to print up some paperwork. My mom walked in my room, was there for only 1 minute or two and finds the glasses! But, they were on the OTHER side of the room, under my bed!!!!!!!!! The only possible way for them to have gotten there would be if I knocked them over as I thought, and then one of the cats picked them up and carried them over to where my mom found them. Damn animals!

I drove up to Detroit and picked up Tommie and brought him back down here to Monroe. Along the way, we discussed that he would run the boom mic during the parts he wasn’t in, and that I’d do it for the part he was in. We also discussed Whitewood At The Movies. See, Tommie is a director as well, and owns his own production company called Whitewood Entertainment. In an attempt to raise money and gain investors to help make their first feature film, Whitewood Entertainment is holding an event on December 20th called Whitewood @ The Movies. It’ll showcase many of their short films and music videos. He is planning on having a couple of never-before-seen shorts make their debut at this event. However, due to his time constraints and the fact that he’s doing MUCH more work than one man should ever do alone, he’s going to be a movie short. So, he’s decided that since he’s associated with my movie, that he’d like to screen it at his event as a “Whitewood @ The Movies Exclusive”. Of course I said yes to this, as it would mean 1) getting to see something of mine shown on the big screen, 2) it might get me some fans (or enemies), 3) I’m a fan of Tommie’s work, so I was happy when he agreed to be a part of my project, and I definantly want to help him out in any way I can!

We got to the set. Allen, my DP, was there waiting already. The three of us walked along the playground and discussed various places we could shoot the main portion of the scene. I was still tossing a couple spots in my head, so while I figured it out, Allen and Tommie went to get something to drink from a gas station.
While they were gone, I started having parents and kids arrive and I got to work having them sign release forms while I worked out what I wanted in my head.

11:30 I had David and Mat and had them go over lines with one another while I took care of stuff and waited for more child extras to arrive. I had told all extras to be there by noon. I was expecting around 35 kids total.

Noon Had about 10 kids. I hate how extras never show up. While I was discussing things with parents, Allen shot some footage of the kids playing.

12:30 we got started rolling. We ended up doing a LOT of takes of each shot I wanted. We restarted for reasons such as dropped lines, kids in the background moving to parts of the playground off screen where it looked like the place was empty behind the main scene, and the biggest offender: THE WIND! All day long we have to keep stopping and waiting for the wind to die down because even with a heavy windsock on the shotgun mic, the wind still maxed out the volume meter when nobody was even speaking! At one point, we noticed that the wind seemed to die and then would suddenly gust when I yelled “action”. Apparently God wanted a role?

I had my dad bring water and pizza for everyone. After about a zillion takes, we broke for pizza. During the break, I informed the parents about how the contest worked on myspace, informed them that they could all get DVD copies if they wanted them, and told them about Whitewood @ The Movies. I had Tommy come over to tell them more, and he showed them a sample… he had his newest short film “KEYGEN” on his iPod.
One kid asked me how long the movie was going to be. I said “Probably about 6 minutes.” He and some others were shocked by this, and one girl pointed to the playground and asked, “What about that?!” I answered, “Oh. Well, all of this today that you guys did for me was for…oh… maybe a minute.. minute and a half of the film.” This brought more shocked disbelief and a couple of groans. I told them to have more pizza. They did.

When we finished shooting the last couple of angles I wanted of Franklin and Dylan, and did the part with the teachers, I let everyone go home… well, except for me, Allen, Tommie and David of course. We then set up for the Franklin/”A Friend” part and started rolling, with me on boom. We did this quite a few times, partly because of the wind, and partly because Tommie kept dropping lines. At one point he said, “This is why I don’t act in my own movies!” But it was all good. We ran out of tape, and popped in a new one to finish up.

I was HOPING we’d be done rolling for the day at 3:30… all the other locations were wrapped in about 3 hours time. We didn’t finish yesturday until 5:30. So yes, the natural lighting we used moves a bit (5 hours of sun movement) but I don’t think you can really notice all that much because of where I had us placed… under the shadow of 2 very large trees.

After we wrapped, I paid my lead actor and my DP. Allen gave me the camera and the tapes so I could hike it up to Mike (the editor).

I drove Tommie home and then went off to meet my editor and have him capture the footage.
Mike was a lot younger than I thought he was. On the phone, he sounds like he’s probably in his 30s. In actuality he’s 23, but looks a bit younger.
We introduced ourselves and got to work. He had a little trouble at first figuring out what settings he should capture on, but after about 20 minutes found what he was looking for and started capturing. We started talking about various stuff: movies, music, tv, aspirations, backgrounds… bunch of stuff.
His girlfriend came home and she started playing video games. She would eventually start getting silently annoyed the longer I was there…. and I was there for a long time… after all, I had 5 tapes of footage!!!!!
All was going well on the capture until we hit the footage we JUST shot. Then something went screwy with the picture….
“Um… did you guys have some inconsistancy with your frame rates?” Mike asked. I didn’t know. Allen was the one setting up the camera for each shoot. When I asked if Allen goofed, Mike said, “Well, I can’t really say for sure. It might be something with my stuff. Final Cut is weird like that. you could be capturing footage from something the same for weeks, then need to restart the computer [like we had to at one point during a tape change] and the program suddenly doesn’t remember what you were doing before. It just goes ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about!’”
Either way, Mike fiddled with the settings again and found one where the footage looked like the rest of it, and we finished capturing the last tape +5 minutes.

Before I left, we talked about a couple things that I wanted him to do for sure with the footage. A few cuts that I am firm about wanting. He also played around with some of the coloring of the footage and found a couple of cool looking filters that I liked. He informed me that his favorite thing with editing is playing around with the color. I asked him about the footage he showed me on youtube, because it had a cool yellow tint to the whole thing. I asked if that was done on camera with off-white balance, or if he had done it in editing. He showed me the uncompressed version (which looked FANTASTIC) and then showed me the original footage! BIG difference!!!!
He said depending on how much time he’s able to devote to it, he could have a 1st edit done for me to look at by as early as Thursday, but by the weekend for sure. He estimates we should have our final cut (the perfect one) by no later than the 2nd or 3rd.
However, he said he MIGHT need me to re-shoot the short bit with the teachers… I won’t say why. I KNOW why… but I won’t say (you can just guess).

So now I just have to wait for Mike to finish the first edit of the film for me to take a look at tell him what needs to be tweeked and/or outright changed.
I’m excited… though I’m also REALLY nervous about turning my work over to someone else to edit… just like I was nervous about letting someone else run the camera….. I’m used to writing, then directing WHILE bing dp/cameraman, and then editing… all myself. I was a bit nervous about having a dp other than myself (though I still got to say the framing I wanted)…. but letting someone else edit with me watching and giving my input cut-for-cut as it happens?!? I’m pretty much balling my fists and gritting my teeth with the anticipation and nervousness I’m currently feeling. Is this what all directors go through during the beginning stages of post?!?!?!?!

Tonight we had our third day of filming.

It… was a little hectic.

We first had some issues with the lighting.  I borrowed a blue gel from the local stage theater for the purposes of getting my moonlight.  I figured we could do the blue gel and then the softbox.
That didn’t work, because the white lite bouncing around in the softbox was too hot and overpowered the blue gell completely.  It was my lead actor who figured out the problem.  Way to go, David, you rock!
So, we got out a smaller dome and it worked wonderfully!

Then, I had what I thought was a continuity problem.  Having the lead actor NOT wearing his coat (that he wears through the rest of the movie) and it not look like we just forgot to have him wear it.  Couldn’t figure out if he should have it draped over the table… or change the blocking I had in my head from him already sitting to show him sitting down….
We finally got it worked out… and with what I think was some very cool framing!

Then one of the extras.  This extra wasn’t planned… but the waitress in the movie happened to bring her boyfriend with her, so I made use of him!  But, he didn’t really want to do it.
His part was to take a final sip of coffee as the lead sat down, and then get up, throw a tip down and leave.
He was SO nervous to be in front of the camera that he looked like a robot… very rigid.
David showed his greatness again when he talked to the guy.  He went over some tricks with him, and told him a joke about a priest…..
After that, the guy was very fluid, and it worked well!

As per the rest of this film so far, all my shots took a BUNCH of takes to get the way I wanted it.  We did a lot of coverage… keeping up with our usual timing, we finished in just under 3 hours.  If this happens again on day 4, I’ll essensially have filmed for 12 hours for a 6 minute movie!!!!!  Crazy.

Day 4 is Sunday.  It’s gonna be a long one, I think.  It’s the biggest scene with all the dialogue, and KIDS!

I asked David how I’m doing.   After all, I’m accustomed to doing almost everythng myself and just having a couple of friends or family members as actors.  He gave me some tips that he thinks I should improve on in the future.  Such as pre-planning (apparently, a) We need more than 30 minutes before actors arrive to figure out shots and lighting and blocking. b) I shouldn’t have ALL actors involved show up at the same time if some of them will be sitting around with nothing to do for a while), story-boarding (which… kinda goes with storyboarding), And working out how to verbalize what I want better…

So we’re 3 days down, 1 to go.

We had a rocky start with our extras.  I had told everyone to be there at 8am.  There were supposed to be 12 or 13 there (I can’t remember which).  By 8am, there was 1.  EEK!

There were numerous customers already in the place, so I had a quick flashback of Detroit and ran off with release forms.  After getting everyone in the room to sign one, I had Allen go start filming people drinking, reading, checking e-mail, etc.

Afterward, we set up some lighting, but we were forced by the owner to put a softbox on it, as she complained it was too a)bright, b) hot.  *shrugs* once we adjusted the f-stop it actually looked better with the softer light anyway, so it worked out well.

It just so happened that a couple of the customers were actually people who came to be extras in my movie.  I’m not sure why the video camera wasn’t a clue that they should come speak to either me or Allen to let us know… but I didn’t find out they were with us until I asked them to sign the release form.

Along with geting permission to film customers, some of them gave me business cards too.  Includding a multi-media company, a resale shop (the woman who gave me the card is the owner and offered to let me film in the shop sometime), and a home construction company (who the owner mentioned he might be able to build me a small set/flat sometime!)

The extra who had a speaking part FINALLY showed up at like 8:40.  *frowns*  No excuse.  Just “sorry I’m late”.

We ran lines (lead and the two small bit parts).  The guy who had been late seemed VERY nervous giving his lines… and all he had to do was order food!  On a whim, I had one of the other extras read the part (the one who got there EARLY).  He was great.  Very natural sounding.  So, I transferred the part from one extra to the other.

We went over the simple blocking and got to shooting at about 9:15.  All the angles took between 5 and 8 takes to get right.  Except for two… each of those only needed two takes.  I was happy.

Even WITH having to stop every now and then so that a new customer could get served, we wrapped on the filming day at 5 to 11!  Rock on!

Bought everyone food, and we all went home.

There were a couple of small snags… a few small clashes of ideas (which me and my lead talked about because it DID get slightly out of hand when even the Boom Operator and one of the extras threw in their 2 cents each.)

All-in-all, with the exception of once again having a lack of planned extras, we mannaged to avoid murphy’s law (and I really hope I didn’t just jinx myself by saying that!).

Tomorrow we have day 3.  It’s a short scene tomorrow… very easy blocking and framing.  Only problem is the lighting.  The scene tomorrow is at night… in a darkened restraunt… with what’s supposed to be moonlight streaming through the window.  It’ll be tough, but I think we can figure it out!

alright. Day one is done! WHEW!

Here’s how it went.

I met Allen (my DP) at a little before noon.

We drove to the elementary school we’ll be filming at on Sunday. He went to check out the location and I went inside to give the principal an announcement to make and a small stack of release forms to give to kids who are interested in being in the film. I figured this would help me get more kids for the playground scene. The principal was in a meeting, so I gave the stuff to the secretary. I suggested that they have the teachers make the announcement in class, and she suggested they actually make the announcement over the PA at the end of the day.

We drove up toward Detroit and stopped to get my cousin (who is doubling as a PA and a Boom Operator) for the shoot. It was about 12:30 when we got there. He knew I was coming as I was up there reminding him about it last night. When we got there he was STILL SLEEPING! Lazy-ass! I woke him up, and he got dressed and we left.

On the way, I called my lead and asked if he could get there at 1:30 instead of 2. He said he’d try.

We got the location and started setting up for the various shots, figuring out framing, focus, f-stops, etc.

My lead got there a couple minutes before 2. I breifly discussed the day with him, and looked over his wardrobe options and picked out what I wanted to see him in.

Then extras started showing up.

I was GOING to film the stuff with the extras first, so they could go back to what they were doing, but by after 2:30, we still only had 3 extras!

While I had them sign releases and discussed the scene with them, Allen went to work filming some local life, and got two locals on film and had them sign releases.

I realized I forgot to get some shopping bags for one of my extras to carry, so I sent my cousin to a store around the corner for some bags. He came back empty handed. When I asked what happened, he told me that he went in and had the following conversation with the shop owner:
Dannie: Hi, how you doin’?
Shop owner: Good day to you sir.
D: Hey, um, I was wondering if I could get your help. We’re shooting a movie just down the street, and we need a couple of shopping bags. Could I get two bags from you?
SO: No.
D: uh…. ok… could I get just one bag, then?
SO: No, I’m sorry, I can’t do that.
D: Oh, alright. Um… how about if I buy that pair of socks, then I can get the back you’d put the socks in for me.
SO: No, sorry. Get out now, please.
…….. wow… so, apparently you can’t even get a BAG in Detroit!

Our first taste of Murphy’s law came when the battery in Allen’s truck died! Had my cousin call AAA and they came out during our shoot.

When 3:00 rolled around and we only had 4 extras, I told those that were there that I’d start by filming the stuff with just our lead to give other extras a little more time.

We shot all the stuff with just the lead. A couple of the shots we needed took a LOT of takes. We had one shot… a close-up of the lead’s work ID falling to the ground… that took almost 20 takes. Stupid gravity!

One of my cooler shots… an ECU of the ID with a mirror in the back out of focus, and racking focus to the mirror with the lead’s reflection in it… too FOREVER to set up! First we had to get the mirror in the right spot, then put the actor in the right spot, then the id… by the time we got the angles JUST RIGHT, it started getting really cloudy! I didn’t want to take the time to set up lights (because we’d need to find a building that would allow us to run stingers from) so we got out a reflector, I pulled an actor and had me and him hold the reflector and we waited a little bit for a small break in the clouds . It worked, it just took a while!

In theory, I was going to have about 20 extras. By the time I needed them, we had 5. See? It’s a good thing I tried to get way more than I actually needed. Tommie Green (CEO and director of Whitewood Entertainment), who was one of my extras today and has a speaking role later in the shoot, asked why I needed so many extras for the scene. I answered, “I don’t! But I need SOME extras. I figured I should get way more than I need because most won’t show”. So, there apparently are instances I actually know what I’m doing!

We did a little blocking planning for each of the extras, and the lead, and the DP. It seemed though that with 5 people only, it wouldn’t be enough. Then a newlywed couple walked by, and the husband jokingly asked, “Hey, can we be in you’re movie?” He stopped laughing when I answered, “Sure, actually, I need a couple more people!” They signed a release form and stuck around to help for the scene on two separate takes. I took their place myself when they had to leave, because it took 4 more takes before we got it just right… and even then there were a couple in the front door of the building we were in front of who stood there staring watching the whole thing… so we had to do one more take! BAH!

We shot the last angle I needed and then I told everyone, “Ok, time to get you fed!” But most decided they had to get out soon, so most of my money stayed in my wallet, and I only had to feed 3 people besides myself. Rock on!

Then, my DP and I went around downtown. He took the camera, and gave me an audio recorder. He collected various footage while I gathered wildsound.

Then we went home!

All in all, a pretty good day (not PERFECT, but *shrugs* what can I expect when so far I’ve only spent $50).

Day #2 will be Wednesday morning at Cafe Classics in Monroe. If any of you in Monroe reading this want to be an extra, we’ll be arriving and filming from 8am to 11 am.

Tonight, I held my auditions for the child lead of Dylan in my new, upcoming film “Frankie”.

We (Allen… my DP) and I decided on a boy named Mathew who’s mom drove him down all the way from Columbus, MI!  Wow!  Talk about dedication!

I was actually surprised by Mathew.  I mean, sure, he LOOKED the part, but I wasn’t sure what to expect since he was the only one with no acting experience.

He was GREAT!  He apparently practiced at home enough to memorize all his lines by the time he got to the audition!  He did most of the lines wonderfully.  There were a couple of lines that he said kind of awkwardly, so I stopped him and asked him to do it a different way.  And then he did the lines again… EXACTLY as I wanted him to!

I’m gonna love working with this kid!  He’s got great inflection, and takes direction well.  And he’s a pretty cool kid.  He was totally unafraid of the camera and when I talked to him he was totally natural and just himself!  It was great!

I called his mom a \ couple hours after everyone left and asked to talk to him.  She gave him the phone.

Mat: Who’s this?

Me: Travis.

Mat:The movie guy?

Me: Yep!  How’d you like your first audition?

Mat: Good.

Me: Did you have fun?

Mat: Yes, but it was a long drive.

Me: Well, you still want to be in my movie, right?

Mat: Yes, it would be fun!

Me: Well, how would you like to play Dylan?

(long pause)

Mat: Oh my god!  Are you kidding?

Me: No, I’m completely serious!

Mat: Oh my god!  This is… the most… exciting… thing in my life!

Me: So…. yes?

Mat: YES!!!!!!

I know I’m supposed to give updates from OTHER filmmakers, but this is too good.

I found a DP for “Frankie”… we’re going to shoot HD!  WOOT!

Results are in on views for the month!  This blog revieved almost 1,500 views!!! Thankyou so much to everyone who’s reading my blog, and get out there and spread the word to movie lovers everywhere!

Dashboard Confessional is having a video contest to make a music video for their new song “Thick as Thieves”.

Here’s my entry!

I was working on this video all day Tuesday and all day wednesday, which is why I didn’t post blogs those two days.