The 505 411

Recent Developments

505 Films — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:29:00 +0000

So, I've been pretty negligent about updating this blog. Truth be told, there hasn't been much news to report lately. This past weekend, though, we filmed the first scene for the long-awaited Duke City Nights Chapter 2, starring Steve Pinzone and Alisia Downing! Check out some stills from the filming here:

http://505films.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=68#68

I've had to make yet another modification to the forums to attempt to stave off the interminable hordes of spambot registrants. I added a mod called Textual Confirmation that requires people attempting to register to type in (and spell correctly) the answer to a question. Honestly, I'm not sure how the bots get past the gestalt-scrambled numbers and letters thing, but they do. I've had about 10-20 spambots registering every day lately. Just now I went to clear out all the fake accounts, and in the weeks since I last did so there were 250 or so that had registered. Fortunately, I implemented a thing that prevented them from posting until I approved their accounts; now that I have this textual confirmation thing, I've reset it to the normal e-mail confirmation process; hopefully this will keep the spam-bots out while allowing you, the real people, to still get in.

Finally, Necroville is starting a weeklong run this weekend:

Necroville starts THIS FRIDAY at the Guild Cinema

February 22nd through the 28th
9:30pm Daily
Guild Cinema
3405 Central NE (across from Starbucks in Nob Hill)
Albuquerque, NM

$7 regular tickets
$5 for students w/ID

That’s a Friday through Thursday week long engagement. Full sized Necroville
movie posters featuring art by Harry “Zero” Morris will be available for $25 a
pop. Assorted other C.R. Productions goodies and general niftiness will be
available as well.

End of an Era

505 Films — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:44:00 +0000

Yes, I've finally replaced my controversial voicemail message with one far more banal and unremarkable. As fun as it was, I ultimately decided that professional considerations must prevail. Also, it was just time. It was no longer fresh or original, and it certainly did nothing to stem the onslaught of unwanted calls I'm subjected to on a daily basis. Anyway, if you're interested in hearing it again for old times' sake (or whatever) it has been preserved for posterity here.

A new gathering place...

505 Films — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 13:32:00 +0000

So I was reading the Daily Despair the other day and saw that Scott was closing down his message boards. Way back when I first put up 505films.com, long before I'd even met Scott, I decided against putting up my own boards because EDP's were already the staple of Albuquerque online forum life. I always kind of thought it was too bad someone had beaten me to the punch, but then again that's all part of being the new guy. I've been a big fan of online forums for years and years, ever since joining Ars Technica's forums way back in 2000. I'd always kind of wanted to have and maintain my own, but never had a real reason to... until now!!!

The 505 Films Forum is all set up and ready to go - head on over there and sign up! I'd like to make this the new online community for Abq z-budget filmmakers, and that means getting butts in seats (metaphorically). Scott was generous enough to link to us from his page, and I'm hoping that we can get all the old participants to join up over here. While, at the same time, keeping the spammers out. So take a break from reading this and go sign up now!

So, you probably also noticed the new design of the page... I've been meaning to do it for awhile, actually, because I was never happy with the left-hand button menu layout. It was so... 1998. No, literally, I copied it from a webpage I made in 1998 (actually, '97. Eek!). I wanted to move to the "center column with navigation buttons in a row along the top under a header image" style almost since I built the site, but just didn't get around to it till now.

Partly I was also waiting for inspiration to strike artistically, since I never really had a good idea what the site should look like. Lately, with all the thinking I've been doing regarding Duke City Nights chapters and their future, I've had my mind on early 20th century art and architecture. It was only a matter of time before I connected my need to redesign the website with art deco.

I'm very pleased with the results, myself, although I still have some loose ends to tie up. One of the biggest "problems" is that alpha-layer transparency in PNG files isn't supported in IE 6 and below, so the site doesn't look right in those browsers. Of course, the natural response of all thinking people should be "Who the hell still browses with IE 6?" I mean, seriously people, get Firefox. Now. But I strive for widespread compatibility when I make a site, so I'm trying to figure out a workaround. I briefly switched the images with transparent areas to .gifs, but they looked pretty terrible. Bleh.

On another random note, while I was building this layout I discovered a color that's one of my new favorites. Because I write all the HTML, CSS and Javascript code for my websites by hand, I sometimes have a hard time troubleshooting when elements don't appear where they're supposed to. In this case, I was trying to position the div for the navigation buttons properly before I'd actually made the buttons. A div with no properties and nothing in it is invisible, so I often give them a random background color so I can see where they are when I load the page in Firefox. When I say "random", what I mean is that I slap in whatever six-digit hexidecimal number that pops into my head. This time it was 34567c. The result, as you can see, is a worthy color indeed:

I liked the color so much I was tempted to throw out my original concept of using black and white only for the site. Ultimately I decided to stick with my first idea, but I have taken special note of that color code and may well use it next time I redesign the site. That will truly be a glorious day.

Now I think I'm gonna go post some threads in the new fora, to hopefully encourage people to start posting there...

No Business Like Show Business...

505 Films — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 19:26:00 +0000

Hey all! Been a long time since I provided an update, I know. There are a lot of exciting things going on, though, so I figured it was about time.

First of all, in case you have been living in a cave in Outer Mongolia and hadn't heard, Land of Entrapment DVD's are for sale on our website! Check out the newly upgraded 505 Films Store, now with Paypal shopping cart! Now you can easily order massive quantities of your favorite locally-made movie and give them as presents to all your friends and family this holiday season! If you're more of a brick-and-mortar type, you can now buy LOE DVDs at Page One Too in Albuquerque, on the southeast corner of Montgomery & Juan Tabo!

Also, there are only four copies left of the Limited Edition DVD of Duke City Nights: Chapter One. I'm not sure if I'm going to make any more, because we're gearing up to film the next chapter in the DCN saga at the end of the month, and I may just wait until I've finished a few more of the chapters to make a compilation DVD. So this may be your last chance to get a DCN1 DVD.

I'd like to give a shout-out to Billy and everyone who helped him with Necroville, which won "Best New Mexico Film" at this year's Santa Fe Film Festival! If you haven't seen it yet, the movie is awesome. Keep an eye on the Necroville Gazette for further developments, and don't forget to buy it on DVD when it comes out! It'll be a key addition to any local Albuquerque film collection!

Speaking of which, have you heard what EDP is planning for their award-winning feature Gimme Skelter? They're going to self-distribute in association with Burning Paradise! With the distribution market the way it is these days, self-distribution is starting to look like the way of the future, and we'll all be watching Skelter's success closely. Best of all, the self-distribution model means that you can pre-order your Skelter DVD right now over at EDPMOVIES.COM! Get over there and order one!

As I mentioned earlier in the post, we're getting ready to film Duke City Nights: Chapter Two. While I'm not sure if it'll be able to live up to the pedigree of the first one, we're going to be putting a lot of effort into making it as good as we can. The main thing I'd like to say about it is not to expect more of the same - my whole purpose behind these shorts is to experiment with all aspects of the filmmaking process, which includes story elements and structure. This one will star Steve Pinzone in his first featured role in a 505 Films production!

Free at last!

505 Films — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 08:43:00 +0000

Well, the Premiere is over. Thanks first of all to those of you who came. We had a great turnout for the show - 101 tickets sold! That's over 70% of the Guild's nominal seating capacity! I thought it was plenty of people to feel like you got the "audience experience" without being too crowded either. I hope a good time was had by all. I know we sold out of LOE DVD's right quick, which I apologize for. I'll have more for sale at Tromadance, but if you can't wait til then or are just impatient, you can check out our new Store Page! I'm selling DVDs for both Land of Entrapment and Duke City Nights: Chapter One. The DCN DVD's really are a "limited edition" in the sense that once we make a the rest of the chapters, I will probably compile them all onto a single DVD and not make these anymore.

Here are some pics from the Premiere event for your viewing pleasure:

The line forms...

Wow, people actually showed up to this!

Who's that happy guy? No, it can't be Craig, he doesn't believe in smiling like that. Says it's "unseemly", whatever that means.

View from the line.

Wow, they put it on the sign out front and everything!

People hanging out after the show.

Thanks again for coming you guys, seriously. I found the whole experience... extremely cathartic. Finally, after three long, dark years I am free! Now, at long last, I can finally sit down and think about the future. We're going to be doing some cool stuff, folks. Stay tuned.

All the way to Santa Fe!

505 Films — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:25:00 +0000

Good news! I've just been informed that Duke City Nights will be playing at the Santa Fe Film Festival, which will take place from November 28 through December 2! Looks like November is going to be another exciting month for 505 Films, what with the LoE premiere on November 4, Tromadance on November 16-18, and now the Santa Fe festival at the end of the month.

I'm still scrambling to get the LoE DVD's put together in time to sell at the premiere. I've got a really cool DVD set up, with all kinds of deleted scenes and special features. So far the hardest and most time consuming part has been recording the commentaries. I just don't, uh... talk... um... good. I can get through a couple sentences at most before I start scrambling for words. I've had to resort to cheating, by writing down what I want to say and just reading it, and then cutting the best takes of that together into a coherent narrative. And that's not even dealing with the problem that even with heavy editing, I sound like a douchebag sometimes. Ugh. This is why I stay behind the camera. Next time I make a DVD for one of my movies, I think I'll hire an actor to play me on the commentaries.

Almost there....

505 Films — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 22:37:00 +0000

WE HAVE A PREMIERE!!!

That's right, at long, long last, Land of Entrapment is nearly finished and we've scheduled a showing! The premiere will be at the Guild Cinema on Sunday, November 4, at 1:00 p.m.. Tickets are $7 general, $5 for students. Most of the cast and crew will be there, so bring a few friends, check out the flick, and meet the people who made it!

Here's the blurb I'm sending out to summarize the plot. I simultaneously hate and am terrible at summarizing anything, but I'm pretty happy with this:

Clint is about to graduate from UNM and is looking forward to a dream job teaching English in Japan. But his plans hit a snag when he finds out that Jessica, his longtime girlfriend, won't be going with him. As he struggles to decide whether to follow his dreams or stay with his girlfriend, Clint navigates the perils of life in the student ghetto, from flaky roommates and dead-end jobs to empty one-night stands.

The movie's not quite finished yet, unfortunately - got a handful of sound issues I'd like to resolve - but it'll all be done in plenty of time for the showing. I've already exported the final cut of the video, and it looks like I've gotten it about as good as it's gonna get. The total running time, with credits and everything, is 78 minutes and 10 seconds, so if you don't like it, you won't have to wait long for it to be over!

There are 142 seats in the Guild. I'd like to fill them all. Bring all your friends. Call people you haven't talked to in years. Get your mom to come. Whatever it takes!!!

I'll see you at the premiere! :)

Necroville Weekend!

505 Films — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:23:00 +0000

So, it's finally here - the world premiere weekend of Necroville! For anyone who may not know, tickets are on sale NOW at the Guild for all five shows. It's playing at 10pm and midnight on Friday and Saturday, and 10pm only on Sunday. I have it on good authority that the 10pm Friday show - that is, the premiere itself, is over half sold out already, so if you want to see the movie with all the cool kids, get over there and get your tickets.

Every showing of Necroville will be preceded by local trailers and, most importantly of all, the 505 Films short Duke City Nights! Arrangements have been made to ensure that DCN will play flawlessly all five times! Don't miss your chance to see it on the big screen without it freezing up!!!

In other news, 505 Films has moved to a new web host, Sonic Whale! This is a local Albuquerque company started by a couple of really capable programmers. Their system allows an unheard-of level of customization and features, not to mention incredible speed - their servers are connected to the intarweb via multiple OC-192's. Best of all, they're among the cheapest web hosting services out there, with a monthly fee of $9.95 per month and a discount if you pay for the whole year! They even offer a free domain name (that's the part that goes between www. and .com). So if you need to get a website up and running, check them out.

DCN Wins!!!

505 Films — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 17:57:00 +0000

That's right, Duke City Nights: Chapter One won the Session 2 Movie Maker Pick at the Local Shorts film festival last night! If there's anyone on our friends list who was there and voted for us, thanks! Since Session 1 was the "all ages" session and Session 2 was the "Some material is not suitable for children" session, I consider this to be the best award of the festival. I guess it's not such a big deal, but it's the first time that a 505 Films movie has won anything (or, indeed, been publicly screened at all), so I guess it's okay to celebrate a little bit.

If you weren't able to make it to the festival yesterday, you still have TWO chances to catch a public screening of Duke City Nights: Chapter One this month! FIrst, it'll be playing at Bubonicon on Saturday, August 25th, in the film block that starts at 11pm in the main room. Details about the con can be found at www.bubonicon.com

Secondly, it'll be showing in front of the world premiere of NECROVILLE, the latest film by our good friends at C.R. Productions. This will be playing at the Guild Cinema on August 31st and September 1st at 10pm and Midnight, and Sept. 2nd at 10pm. Advance tickets for this event are on sale NOW, so go to the Guild and pick them up! They're only $7!!! More info about the Guild can be found at www.guildcinema.com

Hope to see you all at one or both of those screenings! And as soon as we get into any other film festivals I'll announce it here!!

Days of August

505 Films — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 14:59:00 +0000

So it seems as though August is shaping up to be a busy month for film stuff! First off, TONIGHT is the world premiere of Gimme Skelter at the Guild Cinema in Albuquerque. I'm going to be tied up with it pretty much all weekend, as I make myself available to help out Scott and Billy with whatever they need. Tonight's event is going to be particularly elaborate, with Gunnar Hansen, the actor who played Leatherface in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as the guest of honor, shaking hands and signing autographs. I have no doubts whatsoever that the showings tonight will be sold out, and I'll be surprised if every showing this weekend doesn't sell out. The movie itself is pretty awesome, and I think it's more than fair to say it sets the bar pretty high for what to expect out of a $5,000 movie. And I'm not just saying that; being the color corrector for the movie, I've seen it several times already and can promise that you will get your $7 worth out of this movie, so come see it!

After Skelter, every other weekend in August is full of movie stuff too. Next weekend, on Saturday the 18th, is the Local Shorts 5 Film Festival. I'm only mentioning this because we're on the schedule! That's right, Duke City Nights: Chapter One will be premiering at this festival!

It'll be playing again the weekend after that at Bubonicon, on Saturday during the EDP film block.

Finally, but not least, Duke City Nights will be showing in front of Necroville on the weekend of August 31st! Our little short is getting three public screenings in a single month! On the one hand, this is pretty awesome, because it means the public will be seeing a film of mine for the first time ever. On the downside, now I'm worried to death about what people are going to think of it. So far everyone who's seen is has had complimentary things to say, and they're slowly winning me over, but for the most part all I see are the things I want to do better next time.

Speaking of Necroville, it's another local independent film worth checking out on the premiere weekend. Again, I'm not just saying that because I color corrected it. Billy's done something really interesting here, blending slacker comedy with horror elements to create a very dynamic world. I think that's what really appeals to me most about it, the sense that this is a world in which so many other adventures could take place, since it's a world that any monster could fit into, yet humans and monsters essentially live side-by-side without disrupting the normal drama of life. I highly recommend it.

Anyway, it's about time to start getting things ready for tonight's premiere. Try to make it this weekend if you can!

Keeping Busy

505 Films — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:45:00 +0000

Lots going on in the Albuquerque Z-budget world right now. First and foremost, Duke City Nights is starting to get a lot of attention. Everyone I've shown it to so far has really liked it, and I've had two great offers to show it: it's going to play in front of Necroville, which premieres August 31-September 2! It's also going to play at Bubonicon, the local fandom convention, which is August 24-26. Not sure on the exact day it'll play there, but as soon as I know I'll update the site with that info. I'm also working on planning a premiere party for it at The District, which they wanted us to do in exchange for filming there. They were incredibly accommodating and I'd really like to repay their generosity as much as possible.

August is going to be an exciting month for z-budget movies in Albuquerque. As I just mentioned, Necroville, Billy Garberina's latest feature, is going to premiere at the end of the month. Not only that, but Gimme Skelter, written and directed by Scott Phillips, is premiering on August 10-12. I've actually seen both movies already, because I color corrected them! I like both of them, and think that each of them raises the bar for z-budget feature-length cinema in Albuquerque. I'm starting really feel bad about how LOE is going to look in comparison to these two. Nevertheless, finishing LOE and getting it premiered here in the near future is still my top priority. And as soon as that's done, we can start on our next project and see if we can't raise the bar a little ourselves.

In other movie news, I'm going to be working on one of the 48-hour Film Projects, as part of "Team Ultimatum", led by Brandon Scott Jensen and the guys at InViVince Productions. Hopefully, my involvement will have a net positive effect on the film. I've never worked on one of these projects before, and never tried to make a complete short film in only 48 hours. It'll be really interesting to see how it goes. I'll be sure to share any insights or revelations I have during the process!

Making History

505 Films — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:53:00 +0000

Awesome... I was able to recover all the old blog posts from the old website and post-date them into this blog, so that you, my loyal readers, can peruse the pages of history once more! It was actually kind of a humbling process, since I got to relive all the trials and tribulations of LOE's seemingly endless post-production. It also helped reinforce just how long it's actually been. According to the first blog post, the last day of production was September 22, 2004. I think that's my new deadline for finishing it. September 22, 2007 is a Saturday. That weekend is suddenly looking really good for a premiere...

First Post

505 Films — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 16:58:00 +0000

So, here's the new 505 Films website. I finally got so infuriated with the old one that I scrapped it myself and built this one old-school style. I've had a couple people remind me lately of the fact that I actually know how to build websites. I even found a pretty cool one I made in 1997. That's ten years ago. I've spent the last couple years waiting for a lot of things to be done for me that I could have been doing myself, which is no way to get a movie done.

Speaking of Land of Entrapment, there really is no excuse for it not being done yet. It's hard (and more than a little disheartening) to believe that we're rapidly approaching the three-year anniversary of production on it. I won't got into the nasty details of what's been (not) happening, but basically things got stalled in the sound mixing process. We're taking a different approach on that now, and I'm confident we'll have the movie done before long.

In fact, my tentative plan right now is to get it done in time for a September premiere. I'll post an update here when I actually get it scheduled. Til then, take a look around the new website. One thing that never got done on the old website was that because of the terrible gallery system it had, we were never able to get all of the Land of Entrapment snapshots uploaded. They're all here now, as well as some shots from the filming of Duke City Nights. Check them out in the "pics" section. Stay tuned for updates!

Tell Your Friends...

505 Films — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 19:22:00 +0000

Hey everyone! Yes, we're still alive! The post-production on Land of Entrapment is taking far longer than anyone expected (or wanted!), but there is finally light at the end of the tunnel! We're making good progress on the foley and music recording stuff that has been holding us up. We've got a firm deadline in mid-November for getting everyting to our final sound mastering guy, and as soon as he's finished we'll be ready to put the movie on DVD and have our long-postponed premiere!

In other news, I've put together a trailer for LOE! The reason that we haven't had one until now is that, basically, I couldn't think of what a trailer for this movie should be. I mean, for an action movie the trailer would be easy: show some people shooting at each other, an explosion or two, throw in some kickass music, and blam, you're done. But, I just couldn't envision for myself what an LOE trailer would look like. So I outsourced it to a couple friends (who shall remain nameless, *ahem*), who have been busy with other things and haven't gotten around to it.

Then, on Monday, I woke up with the concept for this trailer running through my mind. It just kinda came to me all at once. Not every detail, mind you, but the basic structure of it and the desire to make it happen. So, my project for the last couple of days has been putting it together. This is the first movie trailer I've ever edited together, so constructive criticism would be appreciated! I know Adam will hate it, because it sounds horrible, but honestly I'd rather have a trailer that sounds bad than no trailer with fantastic sound. The only purpose of it is to get people interested in seeing the movie, and I hope it succeeds at least a little.

We're also planning a complete redesign of the website soon. One of the reasons it's been left a little barren lately is that the back end is all screwed up, and the webmaster we had who put it together hasn't had the time to fix it. So, we're just going to completely revamp it... be looking for that soon!

I'm also hoping to get together a meeting during October to start talking about our next couple of projects. The next feature I want to do is pretty ambitious, but I think it's within the realm of feasibility. It's going to be a big step up for us both technologically and logistically, but I think we can do it. I know we all learned a lot working on LOE and other projects. For awhile, I was thinking of doing another slacker comedy on about the same scale, to verify that we knew what we're doing. But then I thought, why spend all the time and energy on making a feature unless it's one we can all be really passionate about? Besides, what's no-budget filmmaking without some insurmountable obstacles?

Until then, the main thing is to tell all your friends about this trailer! And get everyone you know to add 505films to their Myspace friends list. We've only got like 36 friends here, and that's not right at all. Over 100 people worked on the movie, if you count all the background talent! It's time to start getting the word out about LOE, because finally, the long-postponed premiere is approaching!

Credit Where Credit's Due

505 Films — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 20:18:00 +0000

So, it's been awhile since the last update. Don't worry, you haven't been missing much. Work is slowly progressing on the post-production side. I'm making my final tweaks to the video portion of the film and hope to have it locked in another week or so. Once that happens, I've got all kinds of sound people lined up and waiting to get their hands on it.

So, while there's nothing new or dramatic on that front, we did approach a fun side of things today - the credits! And we desperately need your help!

As anyone who was in the film remembers, we had y'all sign personal release forms. I wasn't really worried about being sued by anyone, since I'm poor as hell, so they served as our way of keeping track of who should be in the credits. However, when I finally dug out those old release forms this week to get them all organized, I discovered a few discouraging facts.

First of all, not all of them were labelled as to what scene the person was in. I'm bad with names, and I don't know that I even talked to every extra we had at each shoot, so I have no way of knowing now who was where. So there are some extras that we're not sure where to put in the credits.

Secondly, I can't read a lot of the names! I think in a lot of cases, people were writing quickly on the backs of books and things, and of course everyone has to write their name so often that we get used to a certain familiar scribble that may or may not be legible at all.

So, click below to see our current working draft of the cast list. If you were an extra on the film (or know one of them) and:

your name is in the wrong category (or the "Extras" category), or

your name is misspelled, or

your name is missing entirely,

Please e-mail me with the proper information and I will be sure to make the correction. Thanks!

Clint Leland Evans

Andy Aaron Work

Davis Richard “Rabbit” Boehler

Alex William “Billy” Garberina

Jessica Anna Baragiola

Riley Crystal Thomas

Amy Dusti Miller

Printer Hog Kari Converse

Annoying Student Ben Liberman

Route 66 Waiter Beau Carey

Cute Waitress Catalina Rey

Cop #1 Daniel O. Winkless

Cop # William Roybal

Ditzy Secretary Monica Hafer

Clueless Student Peter Henne

Unlucky Pizza Delivery Guy Jason Gage

PARTYGOERS

Steve Pinzone

Conan I. Rienhardt

Andrew Gerken

Jason Gage

Christine Villegas

Jose Villegas

Daniel Ingram

Rachelle Ellis

Angelica D. Torres

Samuel Pahmer-Simon (sp?)

Akita Bright-Holloway

Greg Ekburg

Adam Hoeft (sp?)

Craig Butler

Monica Hafer

COMPUTER POD STUDENTS

Ziggy Chavez

Patrick D. Chavez

S. E. Hammett

Angela Hampton

Sallie Phipps

John P. Kallman

Bentley Clark

Lewis Liu

Monica Hafer

Wesley Furman

Jennifer Thomson

William Aaron Tates (sp?)

Leah Vermont

Jennifer Williams

Sandra Keeton

FRONTIER RESTAURANT

Andrea A. Januskiewicz

Jackson Pressley

Shawn Mader (sp?)

Gina Mitchell

Jeremy Mitchell

Nirvana Callaghan-O’Brien

Julia Roll

John Varoz

O’NEILL’S

Kerry Cait Winkless-Hall

Daniel O. Winkless

Tabitha Hall

ROUTE 66 DINER

Ana I. Christian

Michelle Palmer

Rachelle Ellis

Lisa Carol Gregory

Anton Bilal

Bernadette

Monica Hafer

SWING DANCING

Desi Brown

Paul “Chops” Griego

Sarah Levner

Katherine Sharp

Derick Montes

Emily Haff

Maychel Putero

Natalie Valdez

Naomi Chavez

Jennifer M. Singer

Juan Carlos Holmes

Jackie Wilson

Daniel Dean

Kathleen Fitzpatrick

Coral Massoth

Lochlin Farrell

Lupe Massoth

Shawn Weeks

Kassi Marshall

Rebecca Lucero

René J. Rutan

Crystal Myers

Aaron A. Cobral

Jenelle Casias

Jessica A. Padilla

Amanda Stehwien

Chris Torres

Scott James

Christopher Beldina

Rachel James

Jennifer Phillips

Wesley Villescas

Eva Robinson

Charles Lightle

Alysea Aranda

Rebecca Cain

Lisa C. Butler

Emily S. Burton

Andrew Keim

Lana Rousom

Billy C. Dancel

Caci Gallop

Jesse Gallegos

Jonah D. Cain

Nathan Gambles

Nick Smith

Amber Malm

EXTRAS

Vibhan Kulkarny

Chessa Scullin

Juliana Chavez

Cory Cheshire (sp?)

Andrew Rhodes

Jans (sp?) Garcia

Chase Cheshire

Ian McMaster

Robert Muller (sp?)

Paul Middleton

Holly Brister

Tina Nguyen

Seth Grant

Elizabeth Martinez

Robert Oliver

Tamara Montoya

Elizabeth Ferris

gang initiation or some such

505 Films — Tue, 13 Sep 2005 19:17:00 +0000

Well, sorry it's been so long since I've posted an update. Here's what's going on.

I got a bunch of new footage when I was back in Albuquerque the other week, and I'm working on editing all that in. As you can see in the pic above, I finally got the "pizza guy" scene filmed. It's a little dark and grainy, but it's a flashback, so whatever. I also got some new desert stuff, a bunch of anodyne stuff, and some other "around town" shots.

Right now the plan is to put together a final cut of the movie in order to fix the length. Once that's done, the sound guys can get to work on their part of it. I may still change some shots, and I'll definately be adjusting the color, but after I get this cut done, I won't be changing the length of anything. I'll be stuck with it... and that's kinda scary, because there's so much room for improvement...

On the other hand, though, I sorta have to let the film be what it is; no amount of tweaking or messing around will add to the film's budget. I can't really reshoot scenes. And it's taken long enough already. It's time to just get it done and move on to the next project.

Although the sound guys can't really get started on their part until this cut is done, Tony has been composing some music, and he's got some great stuff already. In some ways I think the music is going to be a lot higher quality than the picture... but that's all to the good. As Kurosawa said, "Cinema sound does not simply add to but rather multiplies two or three times to the effect of the image." Plus, with a slew of good songs we can put together a soundtrack album and sell it for cash monies, which would be awesome.

Expect a report soon on the final state of the film! I leave you with these stills from the recent footage:

Once more unto the lift gate...

505 Films — Wed, 27 Jul 2005 19:16:00 +0000

We had the wrap party for Killing Ariel on Friday. The director's sister handed out pictures she'd taken of everyone during the shoot, and I thought mine looked particularly heroic. This is me standing on the lift gate of our grip/electric/camera truck when we were filming at a gas station in cajon pass, on the road up to Silverwood Lake.

It was an okay party. Like most "Hollywood" parties I've been to, not nearly as chic or exciting as you'd expect. Mostly just a bunch of people standing around and talking about movies. A lot of fun though, and definately nice to see everyone again in a social setting rather than in the frenzied chaos of production. I even handed a few of my cards out, so if anyone from the party is checking this out, hi there!!

Anyway, at present it looks like the plan is to head back to Albuquerque on Monday. I have a wedding to go to in Angel Fire on August 6 that's going to take up that whole weekend, but other than that I've got a lot of work to get done on LoE. I have to film a number of inserts, establishing shots, etc.. In fact, since I need to make a list anyway, I'll just write them down here:

Pizza Guy Scene - we never filmed this, but it turns out it's desperately needed. Hopefully I can recruit a few of the old crew to help with this. Need two actors, a pizza guy and a gang-banger. Need pizza boy outfit, pizza bag, a gun, and a house.
Establishing shot of Anodyne, and some shots of the interior if we can get them.
Desert shots, including a shot of a "welcome to Albuqerque" sign or something similar.
Shots of the coffee table in the movie house piled with trash and stuff, to use as filler in the Clint/Davis scenes.
Shots of the Sandias at sunset.
Other random shots around Albuquerque.

That's all I can think of at the moment... it's quite a lot, actually, so I'm going to have to get working on it as soon as I get into town.

The other major thing to do is get a meeting together of guys who are going to work on music. I want to get the "sound group" together one of the nights i'm in town to go over the movie, talk about what music we need, and get things rolling on that end.

It's starting to look like my mid-septemberish release date was way too optimistic, especially considering how busy I got working on Killing Ariel. We might be able to squeeze out a rough cut by September, but I doubt we'll get the whole thing done. And I know we won't be able to get the DVD all done by then, at least not the one I want to make with all the special features and whatnot. That reminds me, something else to talk about is doing some commentaries...

When... does the hurting... stop?

505 Films — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 19:12:00 +0000

So, yeah. Electricians and grips work hard. By the end of the Killing Ariel shoot, I was moving slower and slower each day. I think my body was starting to give out on me. I know for a fact that my immune system shut down, because I've been sick with a damn cold for a week now. After a few days of rest, I'm starting to recover, and it's time to start thinking about the future!

First, I wanna share a few more pics from Killing Ariel, just to show you, my faithful and beloved readers, what I've been up to. Shortly after my last blog post, we packed up and moved out to the San Bernadino mountains, in the vacinity of Silverwood Lake, to shoot some car scenes. To do this, we rented a professional car trailer rig, as can be seen in the following shots.

This is the car, a Porsche 912, sitting on the trailer. You can see our camera pointing through the driver side window, and two of our 1200 watt lights aimed to fill in the driver's face a bit. In the background on the left you can just barely see Silverwood Lake:

A different angle on the whole rig. The damn thing musta been 60 feet long all told; it was huge. You can't see the truck that's pulling it too clearly, but that's what the next shot is for:

This is the truck that pulls the whole thing, with our most essential crew members on board:

So yeah, the professionals have just a slightly more sophisticated way of doing these shots than we used on LoE, but I remain proud of our innovative solution nonetheless:

Later we were shooting a scene that occurs on the side of the road at night. We had the road blocked off by the police, so we just occupied the whole thing, which was nice. In order to light up such a big area, though, we had to break out the big gun: a 6,000 watt HMI PAR we rented just for the occasion. That sucker is DAMN BRIGHT, lemme tell ya. We bounced it off an 8 x 8 sheet of giffolyn, which is a nylon-reinforced plastic tarp. We suspended it on two of our tallest stands, called Mombo Combos. It worked remarkably well.

If it doesn't look very safe to you, well, it isn't. I don't have any pictures of this, but the next day we set up a very similar configuration, but this time the wind kicked up. A gust of wind caught that griffolyn like a sail and it pulled the two Mombo Combos down, right onto the 6k light. It was like one of those disasters you see on RealTV, where you just suddenly see this huge thing collapsing and people running around and shouting. The crash ended up breaking the globe in the 6k light, but we were able to cut power to it quickly. We had replacement globes, but the gaffer decided not to replace it because some of the internal components had been knocked around inside the light housing. So that ended up being our biggest semi-disaster of the whole shoot. Nobody was hurt or anything, by the way, but the sound mixer's car happened to be under the griffolyn when it came down, and he lost his radio antenna in the ensuing crash. Can't win 'em all, I guess.

Last Sunday, we set up for a bluescreen shot with the same car. I'd never done any bluescreen stuff before, so it was pretty educational. We had a huge 30' by 50' bluescreen that we had to hoist on three huge stands behind the car. We lit the screen itself with a bunch of KinoFlo lights, then lit the car itself normally:

The setup might look kinda messy, but it came out looking good on the monitor. At least, the background behind the actors seemed to be a solid, uninterrupted blue. I'm definately going to be interested in seeing how this looks when it's all composited together:

One last pic I wanna share, although it's not strictly movie-related. As I was heading home at 4 a.m. from our desert shoot in the mountains, I got onto highway 18, the Rim of the World highway, which heads down the face of the San Bernadino mountains into San Bernadino itself. As I got onto the road, I looked over and gasped in astonishment - the smog layer had vanished, and I was presented with an astonishing view of the city below! I had to take some pictures, if only to prove to myself that I wasn't crazy, and because it's such a rare event:

Anyway, we wrapped up production on Wednesday, so I'm officially out of a job again. The work schedule was so demanding that I haven't even cashed most of my paychecks yet, because I literally had no free time. We'd work 12 or 13 or 14 hours, I'd drive home at 4 or 5 in the morning, pass out, sleep 8-9 hours, wake up, drive back, and start working again. But now that I'm free (and slowly recovering) it's time to get on with some other things.

As far as Land of Entrapment goes, there's still a bit of editing I have to do before I turn it over to the sound guys. I'm thinking I can get most of that done in the next couple weeks, if I really put my mind to it. There's just a couple things I need to return to Abq to film, like a good establishing shot of Anodyne and the "pizza guy getting shot" bit, and then I'll be pretty close to calling the video side of things complete. Then we still gotta do sound, which is prolly gonna take awhile... I'm starting to doubt that we'll be done for Sept. like I was hoping. Might be more like a Christmas release, or something. Bleh. Anyway, we'll get it done sooner or later. Keep checking back here for updates!

Happy Fireworks Day!

505 Films — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 19:10:00 +0000

Well, sorry I haven't been updating lately. As you may already know, I got a job working as an electrician/grip on a horror movie called Killing Ariel. I refrain from calling it low-budget, because its budget is something in the vicinity of 50 times greater than what we had for Land of Entrapment; "independent" would be a better term, since it is being financed privately rather than through a studio.

I genuinely like the script, which is very convoluted and complex and Stephen King-ish. I have some hope that the final product will turn out the way the writer intended, mainly because we have an excellent editor lined up- Joel Negron, who just recently edited House of Wax. As you can see from his IMDb page, he has some other impressive credits under his belt as well.

Killing Ariel itself doesn't have an IMDb entry yet, which is kind of odd, but I guess without the studio connections maybe you can't get an "in production" movie on there. For that matter, I haven't gotten LOE on IMDb yet either, because I need to get it listed on a third-party website like a film festival website first. As soon as i get that lined up, by the way, I'll let y'all know.

The experience has been very enlightening for me, and I've learned oodles about the grunt work that goes into lighting and rigging. Most of our setups aren't too complex, but they're way ahead of what we were doing on LOE, which involved $17 tungsten-balanced bulbs from Kurt's Camera Corral mounted in $5 sockets-with-tin-reflectors from Home Depot and diffusion silks made out of white bedsheets and pvc pipe (also acquired at Home Depot). Working on Killing Ariel has acquainted me with professional lights and grip equipment, terminology, and use.

This is a picture the gaffer took of me and one of our sophisticated lighting effects. The printout got smeared a little, probably when people with sweaty hands were passing it around, so I need to get a digital copy from him, but hopefully you can make out most of the image. What we're doing here is shining a 1200 watt HMI PAR into a plastic tub full of water to create a "watery reflection" effect for a bathroom scene. Mirrors and pieces from broken mirrors line the bottom of the tub to increase reflectiveness, and my job was to constantly stir the water to keep the reflection lively. Note Tracer the cat investigating the situation (look just below my hand).

This is a lighting setup we did for an outdoor '70s party scene. It's a little hard to see the details, but basically a lot of what we did was shine lights into bounce boards in order to create soft, omnidirectional "moonlight" on the actors. A few smaller lights highlighted specific details of the background or action.

This is the "haunted mansion" location where most of our shooting is taking place. This place is a total trip - built as a mansion in 1908, the place has been owned by a Japanese-American family for the last fifty years or so. It's located on several acres of land, which are used for growing flowers (the family business). The house itself is pretty run-down and has actually been condemned, and is scheduled to be torn down in the near future. Kind of a shame, because it seems to me like the structure itself is okay, it's just a mess inside. The whole place smells like cat piss and cobwebs drape every corner. It's difficult to convey the atmosphere of the place through pictures, because pictures always seem to make it look nicer than it really is. Suffice it to say, though, it feels like a haunted house if ever there was one:

As an example of the kind of lighting effects I've been working on, we set up a fairly simple dolly setup for a scene where the she-demon glides into the room, scaring the crap out of our hero. The director wanted to use the dolly to give her movement the feeling of "gliding" rather than walking, and wanted it to be very backlit and atmospheric. Here's what the setup looked like:

And here's what it looked like with all of our lights on and the actress in place:

The view from the camera itself was truly awesome, I'm told. I didn't get to see it because I was sitting at this angle working a variac dimmer on a fill light as the dolly slid into position. Still, you can get a sense of what we were doing; strong backlights to shine through the plastic shower curtain smeared with blood, giving the actress a spectral and menacing appearance. We've done a lot of "lighting effects" shots for this flick, including fire effects, lighting effects, candlelight, etc... it's really a tour de force for me, exposing me to tons of different lighting situations and tricks. Next time I set out to make a no-budget flick (or help friends on theirs), I'm gonna have a whole new perspective on how to use light.

After I'm done with this gig, I'm going to head back to Abq (among other trips) and get some things going with regards to postproduction and sound. I have a few small shots to get filmed, and then I'll have the movie pretty well cut together. After that it's just a matter of getting the sound handled, getting some music, foley, and (possibly) dialogue ADR'd, and we'll be good to go. I'm still (very optimistically) shooting for a September release date, but we'll see...

The Movie is a Harsh Mistress

505 Films — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 19:09:00 +0000

Well, this has been an interesting week. Aaron (who plays Andy in the film) was in town with his buddy Steve looking for apartments. They're planning on moving out here in August to pursue their acting careers. At least, that was their excuse to come out to LA and party for a solid week. Not that I'm complaining, mind you...

I sorta rushed to get the rough cut done in time for their visit. We got together with Crystal (who plays Riley), her husband Loren, and Monica (official film groupie and occasional make-up artist) for a showing. They all seemed to like it, which I thought was a good sign. I've been showing the rough cut to some other people this week, and so far most people are saying the same stuff, which I consider a good sign. The most consistent comment I get is that what makes it a decent movie is that it has a good script. I find that very flattering. I hope it's true.

Now that this rough cut's done, there's still a lot of work to do. I have already decided on a few changes to make, mostly little stuff here and there. I also need to head back to Abq at some point to get a few shots to plug in. I need a good "Sandias at sunset" shot for sure. I also need an establishing shot of Anodyne, and maybe a couple establishing shots of the house. Only trouble is, I don't know when I'll be getting back to Abq, which brings me to my next bit of news...

I've been hired on as an electrician/grip for an independent horror flick called Killing Ariel. The pay sucks, but it is a paying gig, and it'll provide me with some much-needed experience in lighting and grip work. Plus it's a good chance to meet people, and of course I just plain love making movies. The script is pretty cool, about a sex demon who traps a guy in a creepy house for thirty years. The house we're filming at is a 100-year old run-down house in Pasadena somewhere, and definately looks the part. I haven't been there yet, only seen test footage, but supposedly the whole place smells like cat urine. I doubt that'll come through on film, though.

So anyway this job starts on my last day of school and runs for about a month. This means I won't be getting back to Albuquerque until mid-July or so at the earliest. I won't be making it back for my birthday; we'll be filming in an office building on Hollywood Blvd. that day. The good news is, it's a Saturday, and we get Sundays off, and it's a daytime shoot, so after the shoot it will be party time in downtown Hollywood. Oh yeah.

I'm still hoping to have Land of Entrapment done by September, but it's gonna be close. There's just a heck of a lot of work to be done. And while I'm working on Killing Ariel I'm going to be too busy to do much as far as editing goes. I think what I'm going to try to do is now that we have a rough cut, I'll try to get some of our sound guys going on foley work, songs, score, and that kind of thing. Hopefully some of that can get done before I head back to Abq in mid to late July.

One other random note. While we were wandering through downtown Pasadena on Thursday night, Aaron, Steve and I checked out a high-class cigar store (at the corner of deLacey and Green). You know, the kind that has a lot of comfy chairs and some chess boards so you can relax and enjoy a good cigar. There we ran into Bill Cobbs. Cool guy, very laid back. We also saw a locker with Mark Geragos' name on it. So yeah, this is probably a good place to hang out and meet cool people. It's only taken me two years, but I finally have a favorite cigar store out here! It's not too far from where we'll be filming in Pasadena, either, so I plan to stop by there a bit in the near future...

Of cabbages and Kings

505 Films — Mon, 30 May 2005 19:07:00 +0000

Well, the rough cut is done.

Well, the rough draft of the rough cut is done, anyway. I haven't posted an update for the last two weeks because I've been busy every weekend with stuff, but in between visits from old friends and trips to Phoenix, I've been chugging away at the editing. I spent some serious time this week working on the party scene and finished it all up on Friday. By Sunday afternoon I'd gotten it onto DVD, and Sunday evening I showed it to select group of people who were involved (somehow we're all ending up in LA... hmm).

Anyway, the rough rough cut clocks in at 74 minutes. That's going to change a little, since I want to cut out some stuff and add some other stuff, but it won't change too terribly much. It'll stay over 60 minutes for sure, since that's kind of the minimum running time for a feature, but I doubt it'll get up to even 80 minutes by the time it's all said and done. So it's kind of a short movie, but that's fine. For those who like it, it delivers its message quickly. For those who don't like it, at least it's over fast.

The group I saw it with tonight seemed to like it, so I take that as a good sign. There's still an awful lot of work to get done on it of course - color correction, filtering, rotating... and that's not even talking about the sound. The sound is going to be an adventure in and of itself...

Anyway I'm still hopeful we'll have our debut in Sept. or so. Stay tuned for further updates!

No Sniveling!

505 Films — Mon, 09 May 2005 19:05:00 +0000

I've been working on the O'Neill's scene this past week, and haven't quite finished it yet. This is the single longest scene of the film, and also the best-covered; we filmed a lot of angles for this. That's both good and bad. Good in that there are a lot of performances to choose from. Bad in that continuity becomes a problem, because we had so much to film that there's no way we could keep track of every little hand gesture and head movement. That's okay though. As usual, I'm up to the task.

Those of you in Albuquerque probably know that O'Neill's isn't there anymore. It's a tragic case of a landlord wanting to boot a successful bar to start their own in its place. I don't even know what the new place is called, but I for one am going to avoid it on general principles. Don't want to encourage such backhanded perfidy.

We had a bit of a tough time getting the O'Neill's shoot done, in large part because of some miscommunicaiton between Rob O'Neill and myself. I thought we'd need at least two nights to get the shoot done, because as I said it is the longest scene. He agreed to let us shoot on two consecutive Monday nights. While we were there the first night, I foolishly told him I hoped to get it all done in that first night. Getting to a location and setting up was a pain in the ass, as you may well know, and I was trying to encourage the cast and crew in the hope that we might actually be able to do the whole thing.

Of course, we didn't, so I planned to go back the following Monday. Around the Wednesday between the first shoot and the second, I got a call from Rob (or maybe I called him, I don't remember now). He was pretty upset; apparently four customers had complained about us on Monday night. I asked what we should do differently the next Monday night. He was shocked. He thought we had finished in one night, and given the complaints didn't want us to come back. So I managed to negotiate a filming time on Saturday morning before they opened, from like 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.

So, like most of the scenes we filmed parts of on wildly different days, the final product turned out wildly differently. The main problem is the lighting; the first time we shot, it was night. When we came back, it was morning, and blue light was flooding in from the front windows. I think we also had less crew on the Saturday morning, and somehow or other the lighting ended up a lot diffrerent. Finally, but certainly not least, the white balance was set entirely differently.

So here's what I'm trying to get at: check out the color differences between the shot of Billy & Aaron and the shot of Leland:

As you can see, big difference. Thank the Lords of Kobol that we're doing everything digital. Part of the reason I didn't get this scene finished as far as editing goes is that I got sidetracked messing with color-correcting it. I finally got it to a point where the color correction was pretty decent:

Now, at first glance you may think the two don't match up. If you look at their faces, it's a pretty close match; the problem is our primitive lighting job. What we basically did (and I don't have any memory of why) is point a light directly at the side of Leland's face, apparently without even diffusing it. The result is an overly-bright wall and a clearly visible Leland-shadow:

Thankfully, high technology offers a solution. What we're going to do to fix this is create a static matte. What we do is export a frame from this part of the scene to Photoshop. In Photoshop, we edit the offending part of the scene - in this case the part of the wall that is too bright and that Leland's shadow is on. We can only edit the wall in places where there is no movement, because the matte is going to be a static image pasted on top of the video; if an actor's hand or face moves into the matted area, it will look cut off.

By creating a matte in Photoshop, we can fix a lot of image problems that there's just no other way to deal with. We may end up doing mattes in several scenes that are otherwise just hopeless. Here's what the shot looks like with the matte:

It's not totally perfect yet - if you look closely at the above image you can probably spot some of the matte image's edges. Fear not, in the final film the matte will be pretty seamlessly merged with the video. This screenshot is from a test of the matte process before I had finalized the color correction. The final matte we'll use will probably be a little bigger to more fully cover the wall, and will be much more carefully blended. You won't be able to tell it's there at all.

So technically, using digital mattes counts as a special effect. In a way, this means that we can brag about Land of Entrapment's digital special effects. Of course, the digital special effects in this movie, as in any movie I ever create, should blend in seamlessly with the live action. In my humble opinion, the best special effects are the ones that never make you think, "hey, that's a special effect!" Once upon a time, George Lucas knew this. Alas, the lure of 3D computer animation has corrupted him and so many others.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for computer generated effects. What I'm opposed to are the ones, like a lot of the stuff in the first two Star Wars prequels (among many other recent films) that are so obviously computer generated. Look, if you're going to make a computer-animated movie, then make it! For example, I just recently saw Appleseed at a recent Midnight Movie screening, and thought it was great. I wasn't entirely impressed with the lip movements available to cell-shaded animation, but that's a different gripe. The point is, in a movie that is straight-up an animated movie, you accept it when the 3D CG effects look animated. When it's supposed to be a live action movie, CG effects that look animated look seriously out of place.

I'd love to do a sci-fi movie someday. I could almost do it right now, except the version of Avid I have (XPress DV) doesn't support .avi alpha channel matte keys, which you need to do bluescreen effects. The thing is, I'd want the special effects to look really and truly real... none of this cartoony stuff.

Just to continue my special effects rant, because I think about this kinda stuff way too much, one of the biggest problems with CG effects is that they tempt directors to do things with their virtual cameras that are impossible with real cameras. That can be nice, especially because it lets them do effects with the computer that would be very expensive to do in actuality. It's really bad in that some directors (Lucas) go too crazy with the concept, and start having the camera swoop and zoom and fly around and through things in ways that physical cameras could never do.

The problem with that is that, whether you realize it or not, you have a subconcious awareness of the camera's physical orientation in relation to the other objects in the scene. The camera, in effect, is you - most of the time, in most movies and TV, the camera is oriented in ways that are comfortable and familiar to us. It's horizontal, near normal eye level, and pans, tilts, and strafes in ways that are instinctively familiar to us. Ideally, you should never think about the motion of the camera while watching a movie; it should just seem "natural." But when the camera starts out at a normal eye level and then suddely shoots 40 feet in the air, all the while keeping perfect focus on a variety of exotic spaceships and creatures, you are immediately jarred out of that normalcy, and you realize that what you're seeing is a special effect.

Ironically, it was Lucas who originally inspired me to understand this philosophy. In his original Star Wars films, he went out of his way as much as possible to create special effects that you accepted as real because they fit so well into what we are used to accepting in movies. For example, one of the biggest special effects innovations in Star Wars was the ability to "pan with spaceships." The blue screen effect had actualy existed before this; Stanley Kubrick used it (albeit without the aid of computers - ugh) on 2001: A Space Oddyssey. But in all movies prior to Star Wars, the camera never moved during space shots; the camera was always rigidly locked into place while a spaceship moved in and out of the frame. What ILM did was come up with a way to make it look like the camera was panning to watch a spaceship zoom by. It was actually quite simple - instead of locking the camera in place and moving the spaceship in front of a bluescreen, they locked the spaceship in place and moved the camera around it. When superimposed on a field of moving stars, this made it look like the spaceship was flying past the camera. Brilliant stuff.

Anyway, the reason it's important to my point is that this panning was both new and old. Panning has been common in movies since... well, since motion picture cameras were invented. It's also a very natural, familiar movement to us; we turn our heads all the time. So along comes a movie where the camera does something for the first time ever - pans to watch a spaceship zoom by - and we instantly accept it as realistic even as the geeky side of us says, "coooooooool!" Sadly, a lot of directors, including Lucas himself, have forgotten why that was a realistic shot. They get so giddy over having the power to place a virtual camera anywhere that they have forgotten that the audience has an inherent sense of 3D perception and will instantly realize the camera is doing something entirely unnatural.

I don't meant to indict all sci-fi directors. There are a few who feel as I do, that CG special effects should be handled by naturalistic camera angles. One of my favorites at the moment are the "handheld" spaceship effects created by ZOIC Studios for Firefly and Battlestar Galactica. In fact, some of the comments on this subject to be found in Ron Moore's blog are so similar to the arguments I've just laid out that I think he stole them from my brain.

Speaking of Firefly, have you seen the new trailer for Serenity, the Firefly movie? Basically Fox cancelled the TV show on Joss Wheedon but still retained the exclusive rights to it as a TV franchise. So rather than let them destroy his story, he said screw them and turned it into a feature film instead. It wouldn't surprise me if he went on to make a whole series of them. I'd happily gobble up each installment as it came out, but I'll be really disappointed if he doesn't get it back on TV somehow. I cried when that show got cancelled. Anyway if you haven't seen the trailer, check it out: http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/serenity/

And if you are truly hardcore, check out this 1280x544 Xvid version of the QT7-only high def trailer: Serenity Trailer Torrent

Well, that's about it for this update. Sorry it turned into a rant about special effects, it's just that it's a subject that's near and dear to my heart. See you back here next week, same bat time, same bat channel, etc.

Like a Thief in the Night

505 Films — Mon, 02 May 2005 19:03:00 +0000

Welcome to your Monday morning update. A lot's been going on, and I'm done up through scene 23 now. As I mentioned in the last post earlier this week, I'm not sure whether I'll be keeping Scene 21. I went ahead and edited it all together, and as I feared it is definately the weakest scene in the film. Unfortunately, it is pretty necessary to the story, so ditching it is kind of tough. It's referred to in several later scenes, and not having it in the movie may be confusing. On the other hand, it's pretty easy from those later references to guess what the scene was about. Bleh.

Scenes 22 and 23 present special problems. Both of them are fabulous scenes, but there is going to be a lot of color correction work. Scene 22, the truck scene, came out remarkably well, even smoother than in some professional films I've seen. Quite astonishing, considering how we did it:

The main problem is that the two angles were shot on different nights. We filmed Leland's angle first, and by the time we figured out how to make the scene work right and got a couple good takes, it was after midnight. Aaron had to work or something the next morning, so we did his shots a week later. By then, we'd figured out the whole process a bit better, and so his shots ended up with better lighting. The problem now is making them match, which I believe is definately possible, it'll just require some long nights spent fiddling with the color correction tools.

The next scene, #23, was a blast to shoot. Billy delivered his heavily improvised comic monologue a dozen times, each time adding further embellishments until finally the tale of Alex's roommates involved school busses, nuns, and "donkey ass clown porn," whatever that is. I didn't end up using any one take of this rant, instead mixing and matching the best parts from different takes. The end result is a scene that I find funny, and I consider that a good start. In any event, the unused outtakes from this scene are going to make a fantastic set of DVD features.

Like Scene 22, this one needs a lot of color correction work. I'm not sure what we were thinking, exactly, but the way we used gels got us a blue Leland and Aaron and a red/orange Billy. I've started to think that on future movies, we should just avoid using lighting gels at all, since I have the power to give things a blue tint in post if I decide I want to. Actually shooting the scene bathed in blue or red light really kind of limits the options, because I have to try to un-colorize it before I can do anything else to it. This is usually possible, it's just a major pain in the neck. These shots, like the ones above for Scene 22, are the un-color-corrected ones, to give you an idea of what needs to be done:

Next up: Scene 24. O'Niell's. I've heard that since we shot this scene, both O'Niell's have gone out of business, so watching this movie will be like a trip back in time. Crazy huh? Well, at least we got in while it was still there. O'Niell's was a damn good bar and I'm sorry to see it go. I hope Rob O'Niell finds a way to reopen somewhere new or at least start up a new business of some kind.

Anyway, the O'Niell's scene is the single longest one in the movie, so I don't know how long it'll take me to get it all put together. Fear not though, I fully expect it to be finished by next week's update if not before. I'm still deadly serious about getting this thing cut together ASAP.

In other news, I finally got around to completing a shot I'd wanted ever since we filmed the scene originally. In Scene 4, when Clint goes into the job interview, he posts a "roommate wanted" flyer on a bulletin board. But we don't really get a closeup of the flyer, and I worried that people who weren't paying close attention wouldn't understand what he was doing. That, and I think it's neat to give people a chance to read it. So here's the new addition, and you can tell me how closely you think I was able to match the bulletin board detritus, and how well I was able to impersonate Leland's hands:

(keep in mind, this will be cropped to 16:9, so you won't see my hair lurking at the bottom of the frame. Oh, and needless to say, the bulletin board pages I whipped up are not the exact same ones that were actually there, since I have no way of remembering that. I just tried to make similar pages... the content of these pages can be considered one of the 'easter eggs' of the film.

Thanks for reading, and see you all next week!

Tales from a tilted perspective

505 Films — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 19:01:00 +0000

That's right, an update in the middle of the week! Who'da thunk it? This is what you get when things are actually happening at their proper speed.

So, a lot's been done since that last post. First off, the morning after scene is all done, and it came out great. Both actors delivered solid performances, the sound was good, etc. The only thing that was weak about this scene was it really displayed my utter failure as a set decorator - I really need to get someone to help me out with that on the next one:

The only part of this scene that I'm not sure we'll be able to keep is the dropping-off scene, because the audio is really bad. Between the wind and the cicadas, you can barely hear the actors. If I can talk them into dubbing their voices for this scene (and it's only one line each) then maybe it can be saved:

During this shoot we left the camera rolling between some of the takes, and got a lot of really funny outtakes that may someday be found in the special features section of the DVD (if we can find someone who can scrub the sound enough to make the voices easy to hear). One of my favorite bits was this exchange between Tony (boom mic operator), and Crystal (actress) talking about the sound of the nearby cicadas:

Tony: It sounds like the end of the world in my head!
Ameer: It does!
Crystal: Is that what the end of the world sounds like?
Tony: Yes.
Crystal: Wow. I wanna hear that. I wanna hear the end of the world.
Leland: Yeah, give her the headset!
Crystal: Please? can I hear the end of the world?
Tony: No.

Another time we spent about five minutes throwing rocks at the tree that the loudest cicada was in, trying to shut it up. No such luck, of course, and it was driving us crazy at the time, but it's funny when we look back on it now. :)

I've been dealing with another technical issue the past few days, which you may have noticed in the screenshots in the last post. Namely, in a lot of our shots the image is tilted. The exact reasons behind these errors remains under investigation. However, as I know of no method for traveling back in time to adjust the tripod, I've been looking for a post-production solution. This proved a little harder than I expected, because Avid Xpress DV doesn't actually come with a rotate filter. You have to buy Pro for that, and while it is very annoying I couldn't see spending the disgusting amount of money it costs for the upgrade. Fortunately, I managed to find a free Emboss filter by Boris that includes a rotate function, so now I'm going to be able to fix all those tilted scenes! For the record, that filter can be downloaded here.

Here's some before and after pictures of the shots that were tilted.

Original:

Rotated 3 degrees counter-clockwise:

This one was a little tough, because that wooden pillar just left of Crystal is bowed in a funny way. However, if you compare the door behind her in the before/after images, you can clearly see how tilted it was. Now, rotating the image obviously produces those empty corners, but fear not. Once the scene is cropped to 16:9 and scaled just a tad to fit, those will completely disappear:

Here's part of Scene 17:

Original:

Rotated clockwise 2 degrees:

So, lesson for next time: spend an extra few seconds making sure the camera is actually level. Thank #deity we are doing this all digitally so that it's actually possible to fix this kind of thing in post. Someday we'll be doing a project on film, and while it will still be fixable once the film is telecined into an editing machine and digitized, it will be a pain in the ass. Plus, it's just a total rookie mistake, the kind we won't be able to afford to make when 35mm film is screaming through the camera at $90 per minute.

Right now I'm working on scene 21, the scene where Clint goes back to Jessica and doesn't quite tell her the whole story about what happened the night before.

I'm considering cutting this scene out entirely, for a variety of reasons. It is kind of necessary to the plot, but it has three main problems. First, it wasn't all that well written to begin with. Second, the actors weren't able to bring life to it (probably due to time constraints, stress, and poor direction), and finally the technical aspects are in terrible shape. I think every single shot is out of focus, and the sound is awful. This is because this was one of the scenes hurriedly shot on the day when I was running both the camera and sound all by myself.

I'll still edit the scene together, even if I decide not to use it. It'll end up in the DVD special features alongside the computer pod classroom scene and some of the other stuff I've cut. Although I knew this already, I am developing a new appreciation for why scenes get cut out of movies, and why the "director's cut" isn't always better...

After Scene 21 comes the inside-the-truck scene, which I'm really looking forward to. Stay tuned for more updates!

A New Beginning

505 Films — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 18:57:00 +0000

So I had a very enjoyable trip back to Albuquerque last week, and came back to California with a renewed sense of purpose. I took back a DVD of what I've gotten done so far and showed it to a number of people, and got positive feedback from them all. The fact that they were all positive about it is mildly suspicious, but since they're my friends I suppose I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

So, as promised, now that it's a new school quarter for me and I've gotten some feedback on the movie, I'm forging ahead with the rough cut. I'm also sketching out the course of the post-production and recruiting the necessary crew to make it happen. Here's the plan:

First, I have to finish the rough cut. I really have no excuse for not having it done already. Nothing else can really proceed until it's done, and it's something only I can do. Thanks to the ego boost I got while in town, I'm ready to get this sucker finished. Since getting back on Monday, I've finished three major scenes. By the end of this week, I expect to hit the halfway point, and I'm hoping to have the whole movie edited together by the 14th of May.

There are still a couple of things that need to be filmed; mostly filler stuff like shots of the mountains and so forth. I'll need to come back to Abq to get that stuff done, and I'm not sure when.

Besides that, what needs to happen is sound mastering, foley work, and music. I'm working out the exact details of how each of these will be done and by whom, and I expect it to take all summer. Extra shooting and video cleanup/perfection will also be done this summer.

Ideally (meaning it won't happen) I'd like to have the movie just about done by mid-August. That way, we'd have enought time to design the first DVD and get some produced before the debut.

Speaking of which, the news you've probably all been waiting (anxiously on the edge of your seats) for: the premiere date! I want to shoot for mid-September, say Friday, September 16 or so. This will put the premiere almost exactly a year after production wrapped (September 22).

Go ahead and keep checking this blog every Monday morning; I'm going to keep updating on a weekly basis as we get things done. I apologize for the slow rate of progress thus far, and I promise things are going to speed up from here.

So, the scenes I've finished this week:

Scene 14 went together pretty well. This was the scene I decided to re-shoot, because the original set was a drab interior. We took it outside and I like it a lot better this way. This was also toward the end of production, when I realized we had way too many tripod shots with no sense of motion in them, so I insisted on filming Leland's angle as a handheld shot as well as a tripod shot. This let me switch between them during the scene. The scene starts and ends with the tripod shots; in the middle, when Clint is hit with this scene's surprise, it switches to the handheld shots, reinforcing the sense of confusion and high emotion he's feeling. It also helps that, for whatever reason, Leland really pulled out the emotion during the handheld shots, and delivers some of his best acting of the film as he's yelling at Anna.

Clint (Leland) tries to deal with what Jessica (Anna) has just told him.

"Do you have any idea how fucked up that sounds?!"

"Let me know how it goes."

Scene 15 was filmed on our absolute worst night for sound. Thank #deity that Ameer and Tony were both there to help us with the sound, or we'd be seriously doomed with this one. As a result of their expert sound management, this will probably not be the hardest scene to fix soundwise: that honor goes to scenes 2, 7, 8, and 21: the ones where I was doing all the camera and sound work. This one'll still require some work though, as the wind was really bad and the sound of our rustling lighting gels fills the scene like the sound of many tiny bones being eaten.

"Try not to sound so upset about it... a girl might get the wrong impression."

Scene 16/17: The Route 66 Diner scene! Oh how I have waited to get to this scene! How I knew it would put to shame all the scenes I'd had to edit before! This scene came out GREAT. The sound was excellent, the lighting was good, the setting looked great, the acting was spot on, everything! The only problem I had was that we didn't get perfect coverage: for some reason when we filmed Crystal's closeup, we had her start about halfway through the scene. I think it's because we were running out of time and decided to rush it, but that really limited my options for how to put together the first half of the scene. I think it worked out okay, though. And compared to the spotty coverage of some of our other scenes, I have nothing to complain about here.

"They have fantastic milkshakes here."

"Try. . . appealing to my intellect."

Riley (Crystal) listens intently.

"Say someone was writing a biography of Caligula..."

Scene 17B wasn't actually in the script, but we decided to add it after talking over the script with Leland and Crystal. I seem to remember it was Crystal's idea to add a scene between the diner and the next one, and it turned out that Leland went to swing dancing at the Heights Community Center all the time, so we decided to do that. I was happy to do it; back when I lived in Abq I used to go down there on Tuesday nights, and it was nice to reconnect with that history.

I'm actually pondering the idea of going back to the community center to film a band playing on the stage to intercut with the dancing... it would be nice, but of course not entirely necessary. Depends on who we get to do the music for this scene and whether they'd want to go to the effort of being in the movie.

Next up: The Morning After Scene!

On another note, if you're in Albuquerque and looking to work on a movie, Billy is in the middle of filming his next movie, Necroville. Check out some pics from the set here. You can keep up with the haps here and here. If you get in touch with Billy, there might still be time to play a zombie. :)