So, this script has kind of taken on a life of it’s own. I visited my Dad’s side of the family in Buffalo earlier this week and they mentioned that life at their house would probably make a good sitcom. They were pretty dead on. I may incorporate some of their crazyness in to the Dead Girl script. They have a dog named Boo Boo Messiah. I’m serious. I can’t write shit that good.
So, Nice Guys Finish Last is almost done, however, there are some scheduling conflicts for the shoot this weekend. If I don’t shoot this weekend, I’m going to have to wait another week after that which will suck. This sucks. I can see the finish line. Seriously, we have like 4 scenes left. This is sort of as if you were running a 17 mile marathon and with the finish line in sight someone stopped you and told you, you have to deal with some BS paperwork before you can proceed.
I’m going to try something new here. I’m actually going to blog to God to see if I can get a little help here. Here goes:
Dear God,
I’m very grateful for what you’ve given and provided for me. I have to extend a special thanks for the creation of breasts. I don’t think you’ll ever know how much I truly love them. Every pair is different and I’ve gotten so much enjoyment out of them. Thanks again. While you were more then gracious in the creation of breasts, I need a favor. I need you to kill the people that are preventing my actress from shooting on Sunday. I mean, this is an overpopulated world anyway. Thank you in advance, God.
P.S. No rush, but if you could get this done by Wednesday, so I would have time to schedule everything, I would really appreciate it. Thanks.
So, as some of you may know, I’m back East in Maryland visiting my Dad. Tomorrow we leave for Buffalo to watch the Ducks play the Sabres on Tuesday. My Dad is a Sabres fan and I’m a Ducks fan. It’s going to be freezing as hell in Buffalo, but I’m kind of looking forward to it. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment. Anyway, luckily I can still update the web site from where I’m at. Apparently this whole Internet thing was an awesome idea.
I’ve started working on a new script roughly 3 days ago that I’ve code named Dead Girl. That probably won’t be the final title of it, but whatever. It’s sort of just me letting my mind wander and seeing what happens. It’s up to 9 pages so far and it shows no sign of ending any time soon, so I have no clue how long it’s going to be. I used to always try to make short films as short as possible, but screw it. I want to write this story and I like it, so it’s going to be as long as it’s going to be. I’m really enjoying writing it. It’s fun to just let things go. I’m also working on Nice Guys Finish last. I should have the final script for that one done by the time I get back.
Right now, it’s kind of a strange eerie calm before the storm that’s about to occur on Friday and Saturday. I’m going to be running around trying to finish up shooting Nice Guys Finish Last this weekend. I gave Gabe the footage that I had so far. It’s weird to let this go like this. I’ve never had someone else totally edit a short film of mine before. I think it’s for the best though.
So, I found out that the reason we can’t shoot on Sunday is because the main actress is trying out for American Idol. Why does American Idol hate independent film makers? What the hell is their problem? It really makes me glad that I blogged to God Tuesday to kill the people responsible for tieing my actress up on Sunday. No offense if you like that show, but that show blows so freaking much. I tried to watch American Idol a couple times to see what all of the fuss was about. I would rather punch myself in the face then watch a season finale of that show. I know true fans of the show who Tivo it and just fast forward through all the crap, just to get to know who won. I do give them credit for being able to stretch out a 20 second long punch line for 2 mind numbing hours though. That’s kind of impressive. Hey, if you like American Idol, that’s cool, but I just don’t get it. I know, you would expect me to mention Ryan Seacrest at some point in an American Idol rant, but I hear that guy gets more tang then the astronauts. I would probably douche myself up too, if it got me that much trim.
Moving along, I figured something out and I can make the scheduling work. I guess if it were a fight between me and American Idol, American Idol would have won this round and it will probably win the war. American Idol will probably be around for another 30 years or so. Whereas, I plan to get famous next year and go out in a glorious blaze of cocaine, brandy, and hookers.
P.S. I was having way to much fun with the tags on this one.
Every once in awhile I see a movie that reminds me why I love movies and film making so much. Last night I watched a foreign film called Once (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0907657/). If I can ever make something half this good, I’ll be doing back flips. The movie is just an absolutely gorgeous story. There is a scene shot in a music store that I could not stop watching because it was so beautiful. I watched the scene like 7 or 8 times in a row and dragged my room mates in to my room to watch it. I’m pretty sure it was shot digitally. Which probably means that it was a low budget film, which is awesome. Not that I have anything against big budget pictures but it’s just a beacon of hope for all aspiring film makers. I rented it from Blockbuster online, if you can get your hands on a copy, watch it.
Yesterday me and Gabe worked on some green screen stuff for Red Hood. What we did was got some green paper and a big piece of wood. Then Gabe cut out some letters using a scroll saw. Then we put the letters on to the green paper, which was attached to the wood for stability. Then we poured fake blood down the top of the paper until it hit the letters. Gabe is still working on it, but I’m thinking we are going to have to shoot it again. It’s a learning process. Here are some pictures. They make us look official.
It’s hard to believe this, but every time I do a short film I seem to have some sort of breakthrough revelation in terms of film making. On Saturday we shot some more of Nice Guys Finish Last and I got my best take out of Caine when I just told him to do whatever he wanted. I gave him some adjustments here and there along the way, but we didn’t get anything truly amazing until I gave him that freedom. Caine is a funny guy, it’s one of his talents. I should just let him be funny. I told him at one point
“You’re a funny guy, go with it.”
To me, this is a breakthrough. My favorite part about film making is working with actors, so this is a really exciting to learn for me. Actors are fascinating people. Acting is something that looks easy, but isn’t. As an independent film maker, you often pull people from your group of friends when you need actors. Most of them say the same exact thing too:
“I can act.”
They really do think they can to, it’s kind of adorable in an ignorant sort of way. Then the camera gets on them, you yell action and they go blank. Either that or they fumble over their lines, look at the camera, and giggle like crazy. News flash, acting is really hard. You think you can act? Get about 6-7 of your friends, have them all stare at you, then, what you do, is cry. Don’t laugh, don’t say anything to them, just cry. Serious actors can do that. I can’t do it. I could with some practice, but I belong behind the camera, not in front of it. Whenever I attempt to act, I just giggle like a stoned school girl. If I were playing a stoned school girl, I could probably pull it off quite nicely.
So, my breakthrough revelation this time is that I need to start a new career as an actor who plays stoned school girls. Just kidding, really it’s that sometimes, all an actor or actress needs to act is freedom to do it.
The shoot went great on Saturday. I transferred it all on to my computer today. That’s always a fun process by the way. It’s kind of exciting to watch all of your footage from a shoot while transferring it. It’s kind of the moment of truth. Sometimes, you see something that you didn’t pick up while shooting. Like an obvious boom mic or the reflection of my stupid ass in a mirror or window standing there with headphones on, next to a camera man. Stuff like that. When something like that happens, you need to do pick up shots or fix it in post. I fucking hate pick up shots. They are such a pain in the ass. I try to avoid them at all costs. Maybe that’s why I always have so many takes of each scene. Because, I want to make sure that I get everything right. I think I hate pick up shots so much because on the last shot, when I say “That was the last shot, we’re done!” Everyone cheers and it’s just an awesome feeling of accomplishment. Everyone is all happy and anxious to see the first cut. It’s almost like a graduation party for like an hour because everyone just sort of hangs out and congratulates everyone else. When you have to do pick up shots, all of that is taken away. And when you finish your last pick up shot, you don’t get the same response at all. It’s more like “awesome, lets get the fuck out of here.” A pick up shot is kind of like if tomorrow, you got a letter in the mail saying that you actually failed PE in high school, so now you have to go back in order for any of your college degrees to be valid. O, and they’ve notified your boss of this so your job will be docking your pay until you finish the class.
Imagine what that would feel like. That’s what I feel like whenever I have to do pick up shots.
So, I’ve always had a difficult time getting music for short films. Red Hood is no different. I feel like all I’m missing is a music composer. I know that’s a tall order, but whatever. Music is a total mystery to me still, but I think I’m starting to come around. After spending a couple days listening to soundtracks I’m starting to get a grasp for what I like. I think I know a guy that knows a guy that does music. That’s the way this sort of works though. It’s cool to meet people like that. I think I want to get involved in an acting class or something to meet some more actors. Plus as a director I think it would give me a lot of insight on how actors work.
Gabe showed me some of the footage that he’s working on. It’s insanely awesome looking.
Gabe showed me a bad ass intro that he made for Red Hood today. I’ll post it soon. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted though. So, we are going to get some more footage and work on it some more. Really, there’s no reason for us to settle. I don’t want things to be just “good enough” anymore. I want to get past that. I want to do a short film where everything is absolutely how I wanted it. So far, Red Hood is shaping up to be just that.
Ever since I dumped that big chunk of footage off for Gabe I haven’t even looked at Red Hood. There’s only one more small scene to work on. Last night me and my room mate were talking about that big scene that I dropped off for Gabe, my room mate jokingly said “I bet you could recite that entire scene word for word.” It’s a huge chunk of dialogue and I did it like it was no problem. That’s kind of scary, but I guess that’s what happens.
Nice Guys Finish Last is still there. I’m just having trouble juggling Red Hood, the web site, and Nice Guys Finish Last. One thing at a time I suppose. Although, my work flow works in a very weird way. Most of the time, I’m working on three or four things at a time. When writing my last post, I was working on Red Hood, writing an E-Mail, and writing the web entry all at the same time. I had Premier Pro, Internet Explorer, & Outlook all running at the same time and I was cycling between the three of them. I would write one or two things in the E-Mail, go back to editing, think of something to say and switch back to the web site, which would remind me of something to say in the e-mail, so I would go back to the e-mail. Then I would switch back to Premier and that’s how it went for 2-3 hours. Why I choose to do things that way is beyond me. I would think that I would end up confusing myself at some point, but nope, that’s how it always goes. This time, I decided to focus on one thing at a time. Although, I am keeping the hockey game in the corner of my eye while I write this. Speaking of hockey I heard they are working on a remake of Slap Shot. One of the greatest hockey movies of all times. I don’t know why they chose to try and perfect perfection, but I’m still interested to see what they come up with. The scene where one of the Hanson brothers jumps in to the stands and starts a riot in the stands is one of my favorite scenes of all time. I’m not one of those people that worries if the remake is going to suck. If it sucks, it sucks. I’ll still have the original.
So, I finished up editing a big chuck of Red Hood and handed it off to Gabe today. He looked at the footage and said “Dude, this is going to take a lot of work.” I only have a small portion to finish up, so I’m taking this opportunity to work on the web site. There are a lot of things that I want. First off, I want the videos to be able to go full screen. Alyssa found a way to do this, but I have to re upload all of them. That should take me awhile. Second of all the Crew section isn’t exactly complete. I need to figure out who all needs to go up there and who belongs where. A lot of people help out on many levels. That’s about it really. I suppose this didn’t require a “first of all” start, but whatever. Anyway, keep an eye out for updates to the site.