Float On, Kids

This is sick, and quite hilarious.

Matter of Chance

2nd Place - Best Cinematography

AGTC

Best Story

AGTC


Huzzah

Post Mortem

I think it’s time for a recap on my feelings regarding the Oscars. Speaking of which, did anyone watch them? I was over at Gabe’s house briefly on Sunday night with Josh, Gabe, Micah and Alex, but we just watched some of our Matter of Chance films. (We also watched the new 48-Hour flick and some basketball.)
Hence, I didn’t get to see any of the Oscars until I got home around 8:00 or 8:30…which is fine with me. The award ceremony itself bores me. I’m merely interested in the ramifications of who wins.
It was a no-thrills bunch however. In fact, I’m not shocked that Scorsese was duped again, or that Eastwood pigeonholed the top awards. And yet, I can’t say that I’ve seen all of the movies and performances entered in this year’s races. But the choices seemed logical enough, if uninspired.
In face-offs like Best Supporting Actor, the only thing I can really offer is my support of Alan Alda. And the only reason I’m offering such support is because I haven’t seen Morgan Freeman’s performance in Million Dollar Baby. But hey, it’s Morgan Freeman. He’s earned that Oscar and I’m greatly interested in seeing the film that earned it for him.
Cate Blanchett’s Supporting Actress Oscar was noteworthy to me however, simply because her performance was unbelievable. I really enjoyed her lucid tenaciousness in portraying Katherine Hepburn.
And then we had Jamie Foxx’s unrelenting portrayal of Ray Charles, earning him his first Best Lead Oscar. Was it deserved? I think so. His ability to mimic Ray Charles, right down to the nuance unseen by his peers and contemporaries, is uncanny. Leonardo DiCaprio also deserved, but he can’t compete with a performance like Foxx’s. Interestingly enough, I was relieved that Depp didn’t win. I mean, come on, he deserves to win, but not for one of his most understated, autopilot performances. No, an actor like him who crafted a career out of performances the Academy shied away from should win on the basis of such bizarreness. Depp deserves recognition for one of his future freak performances, like Willy Wonka or Edgar Allen Poe.

Finally, we had the best director and the best picture, neither of which I can comment upon. I would have chosen The Aviator, but I haven’t seen Million Dollar Baby yet. I’m unsure of what I would think after such a screening, but I’m betting that I’d be satisfied with Eastwood’s sweep. As for Scorsese? Well, he never needed an Oscar to vindicate himself anyway.

You think about yourself too much

Gabe is right, Digital Ash in a Digital urn is great.

We just may have a new champion.

Oh, and check this out, a possible prop from what could be my next movie. Yes, there was a safari club. No more. But hey, this will be a subtle wink to that era.

Mission: AGTC - Timeline: 48hours

Pre-production at the Matter of Chance offices

I was going to update the blog over the weekend, but I got caught up in the aggressive shooting schedule for Matter of Chance’s new film, AGTC. Josh however, managed to blog an extensive post, after the shooting had commenced, with screencaps and a bit of commentary behind the narrative.
Even though the workload was difficult, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
One of my teachers said that filming a movie is much like going into battle with your own personal army. You have your equipment and weaponry (camera) and you have your soldiers (the director of photography, director, actors, gaffer and so on). To further the analogy, another teacher of mine said that whenever you shoot outside a controlled setting like a studio, you are shooting inside a hostile environment. This means that the elements within the location may not provide amiable backdrop or conditions for your composed image.
Since I have exclusively filmed projects outside a studio environment, I can well attest to this statement. In fact, this weekend seemed to confirm that analogy all the more in my mind. Yes, we were a small task force that moved in to secure the required footage. Our base of operations was Josh’s computer room and our map to victory was a screenplay that he, myself, Micah and Angie brainstormed over late Friday night. With our soldiers in check and Josh at the helm, we combed over a hostile location for the larger part of our Saturday afternoon.
I think what made the location so hostile was the vast number of people swarming in and out of the public library. That made it difficult to film and I think personally, difficult to concentrate.
Yes, this time I filled in as an actor. I have to say, I was reluctant to do it, but Josh had told me that it was his preference for me to play an acting role. In retrospect, I’m glad I acted in the film. It helped me to see how difficult it is for actors to establish an interesting character for the duration of a film. And I was only playing a role for a short 7-minute movie!
At any rate, it is difficult to develop a character within a 48-hour period. Much less, develop a character when you aren’t an actor, but merely an aspiring director with more technical knowledge then acting knowledge. But, I tried.
I think that overall, the movie works very well as a group piece. Yet, the film does have great photography, score and CGI post-production graphics. The story is also interesting. However, in my opinion, I am not sure if the audience is going to appreciate the overflowing detail we loaded into the film. We’ll see…

I think that the two most awkward moments during the filming for me was having to shoot in a bathroom stall (as other people were coming in to use the facilities) and having to run up a flight of stairs right in front of library personnel.
While running, I had to stop for a moment and catch my breath. When I stopped I apologized to Josh and prepped myself to tackle the steps once again, but Josh told me to wait up. In fact, he said: “I think we’re freaking the library people out”. Sure enough, I looked over to find one of the librarians and a couple attendants looking in our direction with a hint of malice and discomfort.
I can’t blame them – we were running full-tilt up the center staircase in a library for crying out loud.
When the day had come to an end, we all regrouped at Manuel’s for some Mexican food and a well-earned break. After that, Josh and Micah flew headfirst into an ambitious editing block, with Josh at the computer keyboard editing footage and Micah at the piano keyboard composing music to the film.
I will always remember our work on “I’m Not Crazy” fondly, but I think it is safe to say that we stepped it up several notches with this year’s 48-Hour Challenge.

Between the hectic shooting schedule over the weekend, Josh and I briefly discussed plans to launch a new website devoted to Matter of Chance Productions. This website was brought into consideration for a number of reasons, one being that we’ve finally begun to amass a number of nicely constructed projects for ourselves. Moreover, we have had several people approach us with ideas for music videos and other projects. So, this website is a natural step.
We didn’t talk a whole lot about content, but Josh tossed around a few ideas that ought to make the website worth visiting. I think it’s safe to say that we’re getting a nice beginning for ourselves.

Sick of Being Deep

Well, The Casket Lottery has, pretty much, finally made it official.

its been awhile. while some say, no news is good news, this might be quite the contrary. its been said, and pretty much determined that the casket lottery has "broken up". it may be true. we never really talked about it, but it seems like that is the current status. we all still get along swimmingly, but got sort of tired of the routine i guess. maybe we'll play again sometime, but that doesn't look like anything that will happen in the near future. we are still playing music in one form or the other. junior has been playing drums and rehearsing for a new appleseed cast recording. he's also teaching quite a few young drummers how to fall in love with music and not go to college. stacy is living the married life and currently making a video game with some friends. he's also playing music with me on some of my own songs that i'll be recording this summer. as well as said tracks, i'm also playing in a very loud band with sean ingram, of coalesce, sam hoskins, of the elevator division, and quite possibly another handsome dude, from another cool band, playing bass. more news on all of those projects as it comes.

I'm glad Nathan will be working on his own music. I'm going to go sulk now...and listen to some Casket Lottery.

Details

I gotta say that the amount of details we've put into this 48-hour film challenge is scary. Matching costumes, ID badges, a secret pen to hold microchips...it's gonna be crazy. If Josh doesn't at least get a 2nd or 3rd for Best Cinematography, I'll be peeved.

Geek Love

You must check out Try Avoidance to see stills from our upcoming movie Intense Math! Peruse the screenplay at http://members.cox.net/gbloyer/IntenseMath.doc if you like.

Productions of Grandeur

Tonight I had a quick little meeting with my art director for my up-coming school film project. It went pretty well and I think she’s starting to feel the vibe of the piece.
Last week when I began discussing the scope and enormity of this new film with her, she practically had a complete shutdown. She was interested in the project, but was unable to fathom the number of people we’d need to recruit from among the school ranks to make it work. It didn’t help that she wanted two people to help oversee the art direction.
I think her biggest worry was trying to match the continuity of the environment shot to shot. Shooting on location is always easy in that regard because the environment is self-preserving; you always have to work around it, but you never get the feeling that elements have changed as the story has progressed. But, since I’ll probably be working in the studio and creating an environment from scratch, she feared matching the continuity of each shot into the entire mosaic the environment represented.
Soooooo, I basically just took a few hours every day this week to sit down and plot out the entire environment for her. I did it from how I saw it in my head. However, I didn’t take into account camera movement while doing this; instead I envisioned the environment as a complete entity that actually existed in the real world.
Then, I went in and broke this environment down into sections. Each section referenced a point in the script where the character was. These sections represented the vast whole of the environment that I had created.
After that, I plotted out overheads of each section and how they could be created in the studio environment. I listed camera and light positions, character movements, f-stops, and what not. By knowing where everything was, I was able to block it out to show her how much we had to show on the camera, what had to remain continuous throughout the film, and what we could leave out. Some parts of the environment that I created in my initial projection didn’t end up being shown on the camera.
Once I showed all this to her she began to realize how easily and economically we could create it. She knew the grand environment, what was involved in it, and how she could break it down into manageable chunks for the various takes.

Sometimes, convincing people is tough, especially these days. Last semester no one knew me. But after shooting a few films and becoming familiar with my fellow student body, I’ve earned the reputation of being a “challenging” director who comes up with ideas that are “difficult to execute”.
My Director of Photography for Pantomiming, Chad Einwalter offered me some support over this issue. He sympathized that it’s terrible when no one wants to take on a tremendous challenge, yet urged me to continue creating challenges, if only to test my own boundaries. That was encouraging for me to hear.
My upcoming shoot is very difficult however. If I cannot get required elements and contributors aligned up in the next few days, I’ll probably trash it and move on to my secondary idea. That’s a tough call to make, but I feel that my secondary idea is very strong. It would also be easier to execute. In that sense, it wouldn’t be like I’d be giving up anything.

I think its of interest to note how I’ve become accustomed to night blogging. Could this become the normal routine? Possibly. For some reason I’ve just grown distasteful of blogging during the day. I have absolutely no problem reading other people’s posts and commenting on them, but I just don’t feel like writing my own posts. I think it’s more of an unloading process at night. During the day I often feel like I need to come up with topics and various subjects to discuss.
In the here and now, my ideas are free flowing. I just write and fill up the blank.

Now, I don’t want to present some overkill on the much analyzed Super bowl game of last weekend, but I do want to offer some thoughts about the various trailers shown during the game’s commercial break.
Two in particular caught my interest, War of the Worlds and Batman Begins:

Batman begins is going to be a very motivating film. It has a great look, yet at the same time it has managed to leave out the stylized edginess that Burton used to characterize his take on the series.

Yet, I worry that the character of Bruce Wayne is going to loose something in this new translation. Wayne is supposed to be brooding, dark, intense. Yet, in this trailer he’s making wise cracks about the Batmobile color. That may only be a comic relief moment, and one of few that actually make it into the final cut, but I felt that it was a tad inappropriate for a character of Wayne’s concentration.

I’d like to finally note that the cinematography for the Bat-Cave is breathtaking, absolutely stunning.

And then we had the trailer for War of the Worlds, which was very unimpressive and rather meandering. I know that Spielberg was trying to capture the feeling of the moment, which was obviously a feeling of terror, but I under whelmed. He could have said so much more in the limited space he was given, yet he didn’t. Don’t get me wrong however; I respect the director’s decision to keep so much unsaid. I can admire his choice to keep his best stuff under wraps until the film actually comes out. But, I just felt like Spielberg showed way too little.

Even some rapid, quick cuts of tantalizing images would have been neat because it would have had the net buzzing for days with screen caps and dissections. Oh well.

This weekend is the Intense Math shoot. We’re shooting in the Phoenix Library. Josh has been stocking up on lights, gels and a dolly. We ought to have plenty to work with. Hopefully, Gabe will be satisfied. I’m especially excited for this shoot because it will be the first time we’ll all be working together. Gabe and Josh have done some great things while working together, so I can only hope to add something to the team and learn to work from their creative process.

Lately

Ohhhh man, tough night at the races.

I can’t believe how tired, and yet at the same time, how energetic I am. I think all these late nights have conditioned me into sleeping later and later. Before you know it, I’ll be one of those people who wake up and do everything at night and then sleep during the day. That must be terrible for your skin. But it wouldn’t really matter; I have pale skin already.
I have been making some progress during these late nights however…writing.
Writing, thinking, blocking out angles, all kinds of things I might normally be adverse to doing during the day. Actually, I have been working hard during the day as well. Either way, it’s all coming around to my benefit. I feel like I’m really learning a lot. I’ve been reading tons of books, plotting out numerous short films, writing screenplays, developing new ideas and honing my abilities. And yet, it’s been very pleasant as well. It’s almost like a solitary existence.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to get into contact with some plant rental houses in the valley. Yes, you heard me, plant rental houses. Never mind what for, what matters is if they can help a student trapped within his own destitution. I think they can, but we’ll see.
I also feel ashamed that I haven’t blogged in a while. Truth be told, I haven’t had much to blog about. I could write out posts to numerous different things I’m working on, but that would merely be histrionic. And you’re sick of histrionic Brock, I’m sure.
I am gearing up for some shooting this weekend with Josh and possibly Gabe. We’re planning to work on this short screenplay that Gabe wrote a few weeks back. It’s really a nice little story with plenty of good lines and interaction between the characters. I think it’ll be fun to block out, shoot and edit.
And then next weekend of course is the 48 Hour Film Challenge. Gabe will be gone, but Josh and I will take care of that one. I may even call up a few schoolmates (if Josh thinks we’ll need more people) and try to get them involved.
Ah, see? I went and became histrionic.

That’s that: I don’t know when I’ll blog again, so don’t expect anything.

Ghost of Jimmy

My silly little story on Mr. Stewart is up at The Study of Leonard Hughes. It was inspired by a conversation in Hollywood with my wife and Brock. It originally was to be longer, but I got stuck where I left off. It's probably better that way.

Inspired by True Events

It’s been a while since I last posted. I feel like I’ve been gone for a long time. I feel like a recluse. I haven’t even shaved in over a week. I’m grizzly.

I’ve been super busy since my Grandmother passed away. I’ve been working on the baby’s room and then flew to Mississippi for the funeral the last weekend of January. Despite the air of sadness, we came back to the house after the funeral and had a good time. I hadn’t seen my cousins in over a decade. We released tension through knife and flame throwing. No exaggeration. The flame throwing involved some Bacardi 151. That should give you an idea of the atmosphere.

A few days after returning, it was back in the air for me to Salt Lake City. Rebekah, Sara, Joel and I went up for the weekend. Joel and I did some snowboarding at Brighton. It was the best snowboarding I’ve ever done. The trip was much needed for me.

Not this coming weekend, but next, I’ll be going back to Mississippi to drive back a U-Haul of stuff. Marco has generously offered to come along. We’ve both done it before. When I bought my Eclipse on eBay, it was located in Mississippi. Marco and I flew over and drove it back. I can tell you right now, it’s not that exciting of a drive.

I’m depressed I have to miss some filmmaking because of everything going on. But, with everything I’ve been experiencing, there may be some life-inspired scripts in the future.

Love You Gone

Sadly, you have probably heard by now about the disbanding of Hey Mercedes. It is an unfortunate event to witness when a favorite band breaks up. Gabe and I have had to experience it several times over the last few years. The Great Casket Lottery scare back in the day nearly tipped the scales, but I think the harshest we have had to cope with recently has been Small Brown Bike’s dismantling. But this…this is a blow without recourse.
Hey Mercedes was a band like no other. They did not boast the popularity of The Get Up Kids, or the fame of Saves the Day, and they most certainly did not rake in the money like numerous other Vagrant bands. But, if I have noticed one singular assessment among their loyal fan base over the course of their breakup, it has been the respectful
acknowledgement that they had class. Hey Mercedes belonged in the pages of The New Yorker. Their dialogue seemed to fit right in step with the picturesque pentameter of famous authors such as Schickler and Salinger. Groups like Saves the Day waxed pre-pubescent anguish over girls they had met in High School. Hey Mercedes was the band that spent its evenings in the smoky parlor over a few lamented tales of bitterness and revenge. They were easily one of the best groups of musicians to grace my collection from the moment of their conception, and they will be missed.

Action

Last night was my first night of Motion Picture Directing. I can’t say that anything terribly life changing happened during the class, but I think it is going to be fun. It is a very different atmosphere from my last semester. So far, I’ve only got one of my former crewmembers in this class, Brandon Steed, the 1st AC for Pantomiming. I’m also supposed to have Pantomiming’s casting director, but he was absent the first night (doh!).
The really interesting thing is that our teacher is actually a member of the Directors Guild of America. His professional name is Johnny Dust. I looked him up on the DGA website after class and found out that he directed commercials for Intel, Pepsi and McDonalds. In fact, one of the things he commented on during the class was his ability to get students freelance jobs with commercial agencies. Who knows?
Anyway, he started the night off with a little anecdote for the class. He once saw this documentary in which the director interviewed a serial killer who was on death row. He was a decidedly bad fellow – a rapist, a murderer, a sadist, sick and brutal in every way imaginable. In his lifetime he had done unspeakable things, and here he was, locked away because of the crimes he committed. The filmmaker rolled the camera and asked him point blank: “If you could do it all again, would you do it differently?”
The criminal sat there for a while, thinking to himself. Then, he looked up at the camera, and said: “If I could do it all again, I would like to direct”.
Some people in the class laughed, but a couple took on disgusted expressions. The teacher said that it was a nice illustration to introduce the world of motion picture directing and what kind of a mentality people believe directors as a whole have.
Regarding our curriculum, he said that he would teach us how to improve our skills in handling actors, but that he wasn’t an actor’s director. In fact, he said that the most indispensable tool a director has is cinematography (and he expects us to be proficient in it).
Overall, it will be an interesting class. Brandon and myself are the two youngest students in the class. Everyone else seems to be in their mid to late 20’s. And since we’re fresh out of production, I think most of the class sees us as snotty upstarts. I’m sure I’ll get to know them in time though.

On a different note, I rented the Village today and watched it for the first time since I saw it in the theater. I think I appreciated it a little more, but I’m still not a fan. However, I did pick out one element of the film that I think was the best in comparison all other films released this year. You’ll know what it is when I give my “best of 2004”…

…Whenever that is.

Game, set, match

Interesting night...interesting night indeed. More tomorrow.

I see skies of blue...

So, let’s talk about this new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie. As you may or may not know, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a popular book series written and developed by Douglas Adams. Adams, who frequently dabbled in both television and video games as mediums to explore the story, was adamant before his death about getting the stories translated into film. He had even penned a screenplay for such a movie. Now, here we are, sadly without Adams, yet with the presence of the first Hitchhiker movie looming upon us.
Without a doubt, considerable attention has gone into the creation of this film. Months, nay, years of preparation have preceded its conception. Endless debates and ponderings over the need for such a film have perpetrated even Adams’ most loyal of fans. And yet, here it is.
After watching the teaser trailer and reading extensively on the film, I have a number of positive expectations for the movie, but a couple of concerns as well.
First and foremost, the best thing that can be said about this movie is the extraordinary casting. Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent seems to be coolly calculated, Zooey Deschanel as Trillian is nicely played, and Sam Rockwell is always a welcome presence. Throwing in a few seasoned professionals like John Malkovich and Alan Rickman is smart. Overall, they seem to be playing their cards right in this area. The names are recognizable, but thankfully not overtly so.
The second best thing the movie has going for it is the director, Garth Jennings, who is a virtual unknown to mainstream film. Gabe pointed him out to me as the director of Blur’s ridiculously hilarious Coffee and TV music video. Aside from that, he hasn’t really had much experience in the industry. The most notable thing that could be said about the last few years of his work has been his job designing title sequences. However, if the sense of humor and style present in Coffee and TV is any indication, he just may be the right man for the job. It’s also nice to know that the film will not emerge from Jay Roach’s questionable talents (who is now only a producer). Roach, who directed Austin Powers and Meet the Parents, was formerly a concern I nurtured over this film. He is a funny enough director, but in a purely mainstream sense. The Hitchhiker brand of humor tended to stray away from that realm and into the bizarre.

Those being the good things, it’s time to move into the bad.
The first bad thing is the occasional change having taken place, differing the film (rather annoyingly in my opinion) from the book. Most notable among these changes is the alteration of Sam Rockwell’s character, Zaphod Beeblebrox. Formerly, he had two heads, which was quite amusingly played out by Adams numerous times in the prose. Yet the producers and director have thought it apt to change his dual head into a much smaller head that comes out of his nose. I’m sorry, what? Adams’ concept of the character was absurd, but this interpretation is so far, unfavorable. If they are so willing to completely and utterly slaughter one concept, who is to say that they haven’t already abolished others?
The second thing that bothers me is the mindset behind the creation of this film; basically it stands like this: Since Men In Black worked, this will work. Which is an unfortunate way to approach the film. If they’re trying to mold the humor around the style of the Men In Black films, then it’s safe to say that they’ve completely missed the comedic styling of the book, and to a greater extent, Adams. Adams was self-depreciating, mocking, off-color and politically correct to the point of being incorrect. Men In Black was simply concentrated buzz, absurdity for the blind. Very little of the humor was rooted in cultural implications, which the Hitchhiker humor seemed to thrive upon.

Of course, the teaser trailer and poster have raised my anticipation. And there is a singular beacon of hope that might very well propel this film into being a very successful endeavor: Douglas Adams’ guidance. The fact that he begun working on the film, laying the groundwork, before his death is a very comforting thought indeed.

Back to the grind

Tonight is my first night back in school. I’m elated to be back, but I’m also unsure of what might lie in store for me. Whatever the case, I doubt that it will be as harrowing as last semester was. The first class tonight is Motion Picture Directing. There is no actual filming that goes on in this class. Rather, we are given actors and an outline and spend the rest of the semester overseeing various responsibilities, building up to the creation of a film. I imagine that once the class ends and we don’t have any footage to detail all of our hard work, the experience will feel very anti-climatic. Yet, it’s nice to know that I won’t be producing two films at once…again.

Tomorrow night is Cinematography. I suspect that it might be the most difficult class of the semester. However, the arguing principle behind this logic goes like this: Cinematography could be boiled down to a science, but Motion Picture Directing lies in what can’t be measured and tested. I guess it’s more of a touch and go thing with Motion Picture Directing, which might make it an exceedingly difficult class that could very well dwarf Cinematography.
And then, next Monday I have Screenwriting II. I expect this to be the easiest class of the semester, since all we have to do is write.

Good enough

Over the weekend I saw In Good Company, staring Topher Grace and Dennis Quaid. Now, I’ve recently stopped reviewing movies and stuff here on the blog, but I felt like I had to mention this one in passing, only because it came very close to being very good. Yes, it was actually a very ambitious film. The themes explored in the story are thematic narratives that Gabe and myself have attempted to explore in our own stories and screenplays. Yet, while he and I made noble attempts, this film comes very close to nailing the subject of corporatism and cutthroat business practices to the wall. The subject is very darkly explored in the first half of the film, which takes delicate time to lie out the difficulties corporate politics and over-ambition have on marriage and family life. It also sketches out the current climate of lay-offs and empty kindness in the workplace. I think what really sold me on the theme of the film was the direct reference to major companies and firms taking on the visage of self-propelled, self-governed countries. That fear has been predicted for a long time, and now that it seems to be coming to a full-realization, the filmmakers have decided to waste no time in pointing it out.
In Good Company isn’t a great film, but it has a respectable amount of substance and it comes dangerously close to the mark of being memorable.

Weezer

I just heard that the new album single goes by the name of "Beverly Hills".

Drop in

Hey everyone, what’s new? Or should I say, what’s shakin’? I haven’t posted over the last few days, but I will. I just wanted to drop in and let you know that I hadn’t forgotten to blog. I’ve got a few topics I’ll post before the weekend.

Super Element

If you guys didn't already know, The Fifth Element: Ultimate Edition came out today in celebration of Brock's list. Actually, it's release is not related to Brock's list.

Just picked it up during my lunch. I was always dissapointed the original didn't come with any features. Best part? This comes with the SUPERBIT version. Nice. There's an informative review at DVDFile.com.

Oh yeah, The Village came out today also. ;-)