This morning Josh, Angie, Gabe and myself went to shoot our interview for the Phoenix Film Project’s Screen Wars.
I’m not sure if I can even say anything about it. They made us sign this whole disclaimer and asked us not to talk to the press. I didn’t ask if I could blog about it. Whatever. I’ll just give you the low-down on our interview: It was weird. Very weird. I’m not sure if we were any good, (and I darkly suspect that I was very bad) but I’ll have to wait and find out. The whole thing is just a blur now that I’m home.
I’m sure the show is going to be great however. I’m very excited to see the films and interviews involved. Everyone at the interview kept telling us how much he or she liked Intense Math, but we just kind of shrugged it off. I hope they didn’t think we came off as too aloof. I’m sure they understood we were more bowled over by the whole experience then anything.
-Brock
My woes aren't so bad regarding my film anymore. Matter of Chance came to the rescue in the form of Josh and Angie. They helped me gather props, costumes, materials and other items for the film. In fact, I think we've got a surplus on props...some of this stuff...actually, a lot of this stuff can be used again in future films. A nice big credit is in store for Angie's family, who donated some outstanding items. They've taken this thing to a whole other level.
Also, I've managed to get a fog machine for this venture. I think it'll add a nice layer to my cinematography. Thanks to Chad for that contribution.
The acting side of the piece will have to work itself out. I've found that one thing generally has to work itself out before the shooting date of a film. Last semester, it was locations. This semester seems to be actors. It's like a running theme chosen at random; maybe next semester I'll have a drought in costumes and props.
I've got a lot of friends though, at the school and everywhere else, who can fill in roles. I'm not worried.
Friday night Josh showed me George Lucas' first film, THX 1138. I'm ashamed to say that I hadn't seen it until now. But, let me just comment that I was completely astounded by it, all in terms of story, directing and cinematography. As you probably know, THX was a take on Lucas' student film (of the same name I believe) that took place in the grim, yet sterile future. Consumerism reigns, humanity is quaffed. Finally, one man decides to break out of the constrictive system and attempt to regain what humanity lost.
Some of the shots in this film were incredible. And I mean, just outright picturesque. Lucas really had some dynamic imagery in his youth. That's not to say that he hasn't remained powerful in his use of images, but I think he was easily at his strongest with this film. The story, like most Lucas stories, borrows from popular myth and fiction, but is so nicely executed, that it replaces those myths and fictions. It's a warning against consumerism for the sake of consuming. And I think it holds special weight in this time.
I went online to the Internet Movie Data Base and checked out the trivia for THX, and I found some interesting things:
The underground chase near the end was shot in a not-yet-completed segment of the BART subway system in San Francisco.
I commented during this part of the film that the location Lucas found was really unbelievable. Josh mentioned that he believed it to be the incomplete bay area transport. He was right.
George Lucas claims that the scene where technicians mess with THX's nervous system, sending him into comical spasms, was drawn from his antipathy towards the doctors who treated him after his near-fatal car crash as a youth.
Probably one of the most bizarre scenes in the movie and one of the most disturbing was this scene. It was almost comical. These two attendants were watching THX and playing around with his nervous system, switching around controls and twisting dials, all without scant a clue as to what effect it might have on his body.
To provide the large number of extras required, George Lucas contacted the Synanon drug rehabilitation facility. He found many recovering drug users who were quite happy to be shaved bald for the movie.
Is that all I have to do to get extras?! Sign me up.
To provide the voices of the unseen overseers and announcers, George Lucas contacted San Francisco-based theater group The Corporation. He gave them brief character outlines, and allowed the actors to improvise all the "overheard" dialogue in the movie.
That last bit is of special interest, because Josh is currently working on announcer voices for our film AGTC. I find it ironic that the group who did Lucas' voices was "The Corporation", a name that we used in early story outlines to reference the umbrella organization that would later become AGTC.
I’m incredibly worried at the moment.
Yeah, it’s the usual production woes – but the thing is, this time around my big gripe lies in casting. Oh yes, casting. I received e-mail today from a student at the college who is serving as my casting director, and he’s told me that he hasn’t really gotten the word out yet about my film. Yes, the film that’s shooting in a week and a half. Yes, The Subject.
I was worried that I might be rushing into this thing, and it would appear that I might have been right. Casting takes time: time to get the word out, time to set up an interview, and time to review the applicants. I can still do it, but now I’ve got the pressure of doing it myself. (Yeah, I had the entire job shoved off on my shoulders.) By the time I’m done filming, I’ll also be the cinematographer, editor, and who knows what else. It’s a film that demands a 5 to 10 man crew and I’m working most, if not all of it.
And it’s annoying. I don’t expect people to come running at my beacon call whenever I have a film, but I also don’t like doing ten jobs at once. It doesn’t help when I’m trying to smooth over my cinematography/directing skills. Dealing with every task in-between can be a real burden.
I think I just need to keep my cool. If it gets too stressful I’ll just take a moment for myself, let the situation glaze over, and then jump back into the fray once I’m straight. I have links to a couple of talent agencies in the valley. Now, all I have to do is peruse the talent and pick out a few key faces to feature in my film. I like how I said “all I have to do” in that last sentence. It underplays the value of what I had hoped to mine out of the casting experience.
I had hoped to spend some time shuffling through talent and finding an actor who could serve as a crazy person. A person who could take the role with all seriousness and tonality, yet, all humor as well. I wanted an actor who could link up with me on my thought process and story nuance (I think that generally, the actors I've gotten out of casting haven't been able to do that. They don't get the "punchlines" so to speak, or they just don't like them). But, it just isn’t going to happen.
I have faith. I still believe that things could turn out all right as long as I spend some time working over these selections. But I’m not going to hope for anything special.
Thankfully, I think Josh and Angie might be able to help out with two of the roles. Soooo...that's two down, and four to go.
And here’s the big kicker about the whole thing; I was going to spend the day working on shot sheets, production schedules, ordering film and catering arrangements. I guess those things will have to wait.
I'm sure you've heard the news by now. I gotta say, it's very cool. First of all...kudos to Gabe for writing the great script, and kudos to all the performers for making it a very enjoyable film. And thanks to Josh for taking the helm on this one. I'm pleased with the fruits of our hard work.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
