12 posts tagged “film”

Films transport you to a new world and when you watch an old favorite again years later, you can enter the new world with a new perspective.

Songs [music] remind you of things in this world. The are like bookmarks to past experiences.

So when you hear an old song from a mix-tape you make an old girlfriend/boyfriend it reminds you of them and you almost bring back those emotions. You remember watching an old movie but it isn't the same because it doesn't remind you of how you felt outside the movie watching experience. I don't know if I"m making any sense.

This is quite a bit more philosophical than usual but I thought I would share a thought of little meaning with you all.

Well this weekend I booked a gig. It is basically volunteer status unless the film gets big and makes some money then I get something o the back-end. I don't have too many details, I'm meeting the director tonight. I won't be the 1st director of photography because I'm being brought on late in the project, but I am running camera.  We are shooting a big tournament scene for a grappling submission film and some of the the training montage.
  I'm still hoping my teachers at NYFA can hook it up with a TA job, but it has been about a week they have had my application so seems doubtful but I both my directing teacher and cinematography teacher said they would mention something about it.
  I finished a promo for GHOST BEAR and almost finished the 505/PICTURE THIS promo, just waiting on the final version of the song. I want to redo my demo reel with a new song add some more footage and cut some others and hopefully shorten it down by about a minute or so. I also still have that footage from washington heights that I shot and didn't edit yet. Then want to pick another area and do the same things, just a montage and maybe try to capture the life of the neigborhood then hopefully get overall feeling of Manhattan. This is a far off project that i don't really care if I ever complete but it is easy to do when I need to get ouf of the apartment and be productive for a day.
   I mentioned I was working on a few scripts, yeah haven't worked on them much the last few days (slap me on the hand)
   I need to start excersing too It just makes for a better day when you got for a run or something. Problem is that I used to have a hot tub to motovate me after a run at the gym, now I won't have that motovation.

  It has been a high roommate drama which I just find a little funny. Nothing really specific just little bickering about trash, dishes, loud music, lost keys and weed. I guess eight people in an appartment will make you see everyone's tiny flaws and quirks.

"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being
wrong."
-- Joseph Chilton Pearce

"The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do,
something to love, and something to hope for."
-- Allan K. Chalmers

"If you put all your strength and faith and vigor into a job
and try to do the best you can, the money will come."

-- Lawrence Welk

School is out. I miss it. I'm in NYC. Looking for work. Looking to stay longer.
Two days so far and I'm sick of sitting around.
Working on my demo reel. will be done this week.
Short sentences. Straight. To. The. Point.
Make Films.

Is that some kind of Haiku?

first time we were allowed to used music/sound. still black and white as you can see. 

this past week is about the halfway mark on my 8 week course at new york film academy. It has gone my really fast. I don't know where the time has gone. It seems like just a few days ago I was still trying to remember my classmates names. It has been an intense experience for all 18 of us. We were strangers and now we are all friends. We have a worldwide network of budding filmmakers now. England. Portugal. Brazil, Argentina, Denmark, India, Mexico and of course there are a handful of us from America. We got coast to coast, California, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma,Ohio,  Rhode   Island, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.
I think most of the class are hoping to make a career out of this whirlwind experience. Some might make it some might not but that is how life goes.
We begin shooting our final films in five days. It is pure madness. I don't even have a script in a final form. I think I like the story though so hopefully it will come  out the way I picture it in my mind. All I will say is that it is a superhero movie. I put out and ad on craigslist.org for scripts and I got a few actually scripts and a few pitches. The one that is my fall back plan is a basic coming of age story where the boy turns 18 and his father's gift is a father vs son boxing match. I liked the script but it needed a good amount of reworking/rewriting. I even found and awesome boxing ring that might look familiar because it is often seen on ESPN or HBO. So it is kinda of a bummer that I won't be using that location because it would be epic.
here is what the website says
The Look:- 80 foot long catwalk (ideal for unique camera angles)
.- Hard Wood Floors throughout.
- 2 gyms, each with it's own unique look.
- Each gym has a regulation size elevated boxing ring.
- Ceilings of over 20 foot with I beams running throughout.
- Rows of heavy bags.- Locker rooms.
- Gritty authentic Manhattan brick wall.
- Timeless black and white murals including an 18 foot high "Joe Louis".
The new superheros story will be less taxing on the locations, acting, and choreography
(I have never boxed so it would be hard to stage a match but it would look like an amature match for sure so that part would be authentic I guess)
So the new script is written by me I used celtx, which is a free shareware pre-production program. I have to say it is pretty slick. I think I would rather have celtx than the $300 competition. It was actually fun to write it out. Now I just need to comb through it a few times and fix mistakes and make the dialog less lame. I'm going to shoot digital instead of film for the simple reason that I can't afford to spend $600+ just on film. I wish I could though because film does look better, there is no question in my mind about it. 16mm just looks really cool, even on this shitty reversal film stock we have been shooting on.
here is one of the projects that I directed. this was a production workshop where we had a few hours to write and shoot something that was some type of allegory or parralle universe or supernatural power or something along those lines. 

With school coming to a close I have to figure out what to do from here. I no job to got back to and it sounds like SNCAT is about to close anyway so I jumped ship at the right time it seems. We are moving out of the apartment we live in now and are moving to washington heights which seems to be all the rage and is way cheaper becasue I will be sharing a room with Al. so rent will be half the price I pay now. I want to try and find some work here. I don't want to spend to much time working at a resturant or something if I'm not working on other film/video projects. If I could get a job at a post-production house that would basicly be the dream or something where I'm touching a camera would be nice. I know there is free-lance stuff that I could get for online newspaper stuff or something but freelance is kinda scary, spotty work. As long as I'm here trying to advance the carrer then that is fine with me even if I'm making my own web series while I'm working at blockbuster or something like that.
I also got a friend who is moving to LA and wants me to come with. He is going there for music production school and I know I would have fun there but again it is the same thing, I just need to be working(paid or not) at my craft. otherwise what is the point of living outside of Reno? So I have this debate going on in the back of my mind but my main focus right now needs to be my final film. A lot can change in a few weeks too. My final might come out really good and I might submit it to festivals and if not then it is still and awesome learning expirence. Once school is over I'll put together my reel and resume that should take about a week and then I'll send that all over the city, state, hell even the country and I'll take it from there.

BOTTOM LINE is that I'm out here to live the dream and so far so good.

it is my one satrurday that i don't have school. I have a small re-shoot(where I met Hugh Jackman[another story for another timef]) but the big thing is that I am going to wake up super early and stand in an line where hopefully I get a ticket to SNL(Saturday Niight Live, in case you live under a rock, or just not america) I get a standby ticket and thing hope that some people dont show up with real tickets for the live taping. it is a long shot but yeah you only live once right? Host:Steve Martin.

Surprise! I'm So Freakin Excited

1 comment

this week was pretty crazy too. the rest of the crew finished the mise-en-scene project and we started the continuity project. here is my mise-en-scene. the project is just one shot no editing the time limit was 45 seconds(no sound)

180 degree rule
30 degree rule to avoid jump cuts
get in late and get our early(edit on action)

I shot mine on friday, but we had a camera loading problem and ended up shooting nothing but now I have a nice basketball sitting in my room that I bought for the shoot that didn't get recorded on film. oh well. no harm no foul. Now we just have to double up and shoot twice as much on Monday.

School is demanding but that is what I wanted. I came here to get my butt kicked and hopefull make something good or at least learn how to. The poeple in class are awesome too. it has only been a 2 weeks and people are calling it a family. Here is a small portion of the clan[sasil, todd, ash, me, claira, and olivia[4 contries represented, still blows my mind])

Nyfa-part of the clan

Also this week we had 2 production workshops, where we break in to crews and write and shoot something and edit it before the next class. Production workshop #1 the assinment was we needed to create suspense and maintain it for 75% of the scene. Our crew worked well together and we had a pretty good outcome. Pedro was the director and I was just an actor. I'll post the results as soon as i get a copy.
Production workshop #2 was another story, I was the director because I somehow came up with the story. A few people on the crew were jackoffs and were more harmfull than helpfull. we lost 2 rolls of film because of the assistant cameraman was clueless. We wasted all kinds of time trying to get the actor to pay attention to anything other than the mindless babble of our director of photography. I tried to respect everyones job title for most the class until we had 20mins left of in class and almost nothing shot. So I took over everyone else's job and got it all shot in time. I had to cut a few moving shots from the shot list I had but we had enought to tell the story. It will get ripped apart in class but at least we will have something that tells a story. And that is how you learn from mistakes, right? I also learned some of the peple i don't want to work with again. I'll post it here next week when I get the footage back and edit into something.

I stay up to late and wake up too early, but that is what I have to do in "the city that never sleeps," I miss my family and friends but there is no where else in the world I would rather be. It is really weird to be in this position because i know that I am sitting here at a turning point in my life. I won't be the same afterwards. I will have friendships that will last a lifetime and expirences that I won't forget. It is also really weird to know that I'm in a moment that I was dreaming of years ago and have been planning for almost a year. I am literally LIVING THE DREAM but ironicly I'm wearing my KILLING THE DREAM t-shirt haha.

Bottom line is that I'm here, in new york, shooting films and I can't think of anything better. I keep myself up at night if I think about it too much.

the first real day of school was today
things went smooth
mostly just hands on camera. this is how you load. this is how you adjust focus.
we had like a 3 hour break
bunch of us went out for pizza
then geeked out talking movies for like 3 hours
and we all got offered jobs at Abercrombie and Fitch on 5th ave
then 4 more hours of class
teachers are cool.
class is full of people from around the world.
Brazil.
Argentina
Denmark.
Portugal.
Mexico.  
Norway.
England.
Wales.
We start shooting our first project on Saturday
did I tell you that some girls offered a few of us jobs at abercrombie and fitch?
meeting folks.
came home. got red beans and rice for dinner from around the corner(SOO SOO GOOD and super cheap)
told my sister that she should be a standup comedian
watched  nip/tuck
told you all about it