Well, I'm wrapping up this project as a lessons learned. The acting of the project is good, but the lighting is marginal at best and the directing confusing. In my exhaustive state I crossed the 180 degree line of sight too many times... real amateur type errors. No excuse.

It didn't get accepted at the Microcinema Fest.

I'm going to send out the copies of the DVDs this week and thank everyone and move on. I have to do better next time.

July 14, 2005

I've burned 15 DVDs for distribution. I don't think we'll need many more than that. I burned them on my computer onto DVDs with a white printable surface. Next, I have to find someone who has a DVD printer. I also reworked the poster a small bit. The picture I used for the original poster I got off of the internet and was not the best quality. On the DVD covers it ended up looking pixelated and cheap. So, this past weekend, during Hurricane Dennis, Dea took my picture in our kitchen in a suit, in the original pose. I then removed everything but me and pasted it over the other guy. I also fixed the gray area at the bottom, the "floor" so to speak.

Here's the latest and (hopefully) final version of the poster on the left and the original one on the right:

    

The final edit is complete! Thank God. Overall the project is a nice little project, especially considering all of the obstacles we had in front of us. Of course, the audience won't care about that. They just want to be entertained, and rightfully so.

I sent the DVD out today to the Microcinema Fest, being held in Chicago this year. I hope it gets accepted. I think Brian could win an award for his performance in the short. Last year I sent THE BOX to Microcinema Fest and was certain it would get selected, but it did not. So, I won't count my chickens, as they say.

There are still parts about the project that bother me... the primary ones are when I broke the 180 degree line of sight. What that is, is when yoiu shoot someone, for example, over their right shoulder. You should shoot the person they are speaking to over their left shoulder. Basically, you keep the camera on the same side of the action. There were times, mainly due to the blocking and, on one instance, due to lack of sleep, where this line of sight was broken. Bothers me a lot. Don't know how much it will bother others.

I read through 10 REASONS short last night. I liked it. I think it is another project we can do in a weekend. Could be very powerful with the right actors. And, in order to make the triology, I'd have to reshoot RAW FOOTAGE or come up with another idea to complete the triology of hitman shorts. I don't know. I'll have to think about it. But 10 REASONS seems plausible.

I want to start working on some SONLIGHT PICTURE projects as well, mainly commercials. But those have to be done very well and I consider doing these other projects as stepping stones in that process. But I'm so impatient and all of these things are taking longer than I'd like. I hate it when life gets in the way :)

Funny thing about this project is that I was able to work getting my best friend Tim into the film. He's been in just about everything I've shot. He's certainly been in every project from Local Talent. He was the husband hiring the hitman in RAW FOOTAGE, the main character of the cheating husband in JUSTICE, the FBI Agent in THE BOX and the blurry image of William Palmer in THE BUSINESS TRIP. I have to find out a way to get him in all of my projects.

Until next time...

May 24, 2005

The first pass of the edit is now completed. I was very surprised to find out that we got almost every shot we intended to get... amazing, considering how exhausted we all were. Everyone really came together and made it happen.

I showed the first pass of the movie to Dea and, to my surprise, she really liked it, even without music or sound effects. Dea is the most honest critic of my work and will (and has) tell me when something sucks. I still have sound effects, visual effects and soundtrack still need to do, but considering the limitations, she liked it quite a bit.

"Considering the limitations..." Lets look at that statement for a minute. The limitations, time, money, resources, did hurt us in this project. The one thing I've come away from with this project is that we really need a cinematographer. We had to use available lighting with the occasional splash of light from a flood light, but that really doesn't cut it for me anymore. Granted, we went into the project to do something quick, but, in the end, it doesn't matter. People don't care what had to happen for the movie to get made, they only care about the movie that got made. There are no excuses.

I want each project to be a stepping stone in one fashion or another. Originally, TBT was intended to try out some interesting dolly shots and the like, but with the change in schedule it became "what can we get done in the time we have." So, the fact that we got it done at all is an accomplishment. But, in the same respect, I've proven through THE TERM PAPER, HOMESICK and other projects that I can shoot a project in a very short timeframe. What I need to prove now is that those projects are of higher quality.

If my dream to fill my faith through my work with Sonlight Pictures is to come true, then the Lord will have to provide a cinematographer in short order, or else I'll never be able to sell our work as something of quality.

I want to finish the soundtrack this evening and the sound effects. Then I have a small amount of visual effects required (making a blank TV fill with static). Then, I'll be done. Oh, and I have to record the lines from the cast that leave messages on the answering machine in the movie. Then we'll have a small premiere party. I'll submit it to Microcinema Fest and see what happens.

May 19, 2005

Well the shoot day came and went in a hurry. The shoot was originally supposed to take place over up to 3 days. Thanks to Tim, we had booked our hotel location on Sunday, May 15th and 16th with a backup date on May 22nd in case we were running behind.

Due to late changing scheduling issues, we lost both the 16th and 22nd as shoot dates. That left us with a dilemma... attempt to shoot the 23 page project in a single day or delay the shoot completely. Delaying the shoot had the real possibility of shelving the project indefinitely. I arrived at the hotel Saturday night with all of the equipment. I stayed up until 4 a.m. going through the storyboards and attempting to figure out what he could keep and what he would have to cut.

By 7:30 a.m. that morning, cast and crew began to arrive. Once everyone was on location, we discussed the challenges ahead and whether to go ahead with the project or not. After some discussion, everyone decided to give it their best shot. I was both impressed and inspired by everyone's committment. Attempting such a project in a single day automatically infuses limitations into the process, but we did our best. Fourteen hours later, the project was in the can and everyone left utterly exhausted.


February 16, 2005

Well, this is the first journal entry for the short film called The Business Trip. The idea for the story first came to me back in 1998 when I first started with the company for which I currently work. My first year there I had to spend three months living in a corporate apartment in Auburn Hills, Michigan. As they are corporate apartments, the tenants change as business needs change. Whenever you would move into one for a few weeks at a time, you would find the remains of the previous tenant. Also, being in a town in which you don't know anyone, you find yourself spending a lot of time just sitting around, getting used to the order of channels on the cable box, playing solitaire, etc.

During one of the extremely boring weekends, the original germs of this story popped into my mind. What if you were to take over the identity of the previous tenant? Then, me being me, it quickly turns to murder... so what would happen if, once you've convinced people you are the previous tenant, it turns out that the previous tenant was being hunted by a hitman.

Flash forward to a few years later. I decide to start Local Talent Productions with the intent of writing three shorts revolving around hitmen. The first is Raw Footage, which didn't turn out to well, but was a good experiment. The second is The Business Trip and the third is a short called 10 Reasons, about a terminally ill hitman who offers his target life if they can give him 10 reasons why they should not be killed.

So, I sit down to draft out The Business Trip. I write the first draft, but am not overly happy with it. It just doesn't work. My own personal convictions interfere with those of the characters and they have weird discussion about "thou shalt not kill" and stuff like that. In the end, it just doesn't work so I shelve it. Well, we shoot Raw Footage. We shoot Justice. We shoot The Box. Then life gets hectic. Insanely busy. Flash forward another eight months and I've done nothing but work and sleep and work on our house and I'm feeling completely and utterly frustrated by not exercising my creative juices.

Then, out of the blue, an old friend, Roz Potenza, calls me, begging me to be in a one-act play called Live Alligator Wrestling at the Ruth Eckerd Hall theater. I had given up stage acting 13 years ago because my Crohn's disease had become too unpredictable and I couldn't guarantee any production company I could survive a run of a play without the disease impacting me to the point where I could not perform.

So, I focus my energies on writing, working in television and writing. Then I find the DV microcinema scene growing, start Local Talent and we're back to this moment.

After Live Alligator Wrestling opens, I am invigorated. The entire rehearsal process, though exhausting, has re-energized me creatively. It's like I'm on Prednisone, but without the non-stop hunger, pimples, thick sweats and fat face. In quick order this week I've finished the latest draft for The Business Trip and another, darker short called Distant Angels.

Looking for a film project I can shoot quickly, I pick The Business Trip because I think I can shoot it in a single weekend. I chat with Brian Shea, who played the new Chemist in The Box and tell him about it. He's up for it. I ask my fellow actor in Live Alligator Wrestling, Susan Alexander, to play Amy Baker... it's a small role but Susan has not done film before and wants to start small. This should be an easy role for her to understand how it all works. The only role left I have to cast is the hitperson, Nicole. Susan, who is also directing one of the one-acts called Blood Suckers, has an actress, Emelia, in her play. I watch a rehearsal of their play and think Emelia would be great as Nicole. I've chatted with her about it and will get the script to her this week. I hope she likes it. If not, I'll find someone.

I've updated the website with a really slick teaser poster.