This weekend was dedicated to a new character, Tommy. I don't wanna give anything away about the character or the plot, so I'll just make with a quick cut to the photo teaser:
This weekend also made use of interesting props. Props which we had searched high and low for and found only one. Props which used to be in such abundance we took for granted that we'd find one. And thus a bit of a script change was necessary. Below is a photo of said endangered prop.
Even as my cell phone sits next to my keyboard, I am still shocked at the absence of the payphones in a city. Where once fathers made sure their daughters kept a quarter in their shoe for emergency calls home, now cell phones exist even in the hands of the middle school set. Where once was a haven for untraceable nefarious calls, is now a necessity to re-write the goings on of criminal activity for the low budget filmmakers - us. The result actually did turn out pretty cool, though. It's funny how boundaries will turn out a better alternative than you would have ever thought about prior to said boundary.
New player in town
More of Archie's place
Qelsi focuses on her scene...
as our director, Chris Durham focuses on the shot.
Meredith and Eric run through their lines before we begin shooting.
And just so we're sure, What day is it Glenn???
It's Cowboys Game Day!!!!!!!
Production Stills from 9/20/08
Well, here are some production stills from Saturday's shoot. I'll post some more frame grabs later in the week.
Our willing subject.
So when the guys at the office asked "what did you do this weekend?" I have a fun show and tell session.
Glenn behind the camera.
Is Oatmeal checking out Elizabeth? Or is Eric checking out Meredith?
It just looks so official.
Robbie standing in for me, and squatting down about a foot to do it.
Why hold the boom when you're in a tight frame? I initially bought the telescoping stands for shooting musical performances for "Huzzah!" But they sure have come in handy pretty often otherwise. (not to disparage Robbie's boom operation)
Thanks to Damon for taking all these pics, but thankfully someone grabbed the camera and got a shot with him in it. He did a great job making the numbers on the clapperboard aesthetically pleasing too. (To give credit, I think Robbie took a some of these too).
Filming makes me happy.
How a Bill Becomes a Law
I've been meaning for a while to post a little bit about how I come to some of the images I've been showing off of our current film, "The Betty." I do all of this work in Adobe After Effects CS3, and in fact the way we shoot is geared toward a post-intensive process. This is nothing original, though. I really have Stu Maschwitz and his book "The DV Rebel's Guide" to thank for introducing me to this process, which is really ideal for low budget filmmaking. There's a lot to it, and when the Betty's done I expect the final render to take the better part of a week, but I've got more time than I do money.
Nothing in this post is final, of course. I have a preset look that's constantly evolving while I work on the picture so that I'll be prepared when it comes time for the final online. Having this preset also allows me to get these images out and share them with people pretty quickly. For this example I'll use an image that we shot yesterday and I spent a little time this afternoon working with.
The sensor image (off the camera) is purposely low contrast. This is to maintain as much detail as possible so that I can add contrast and saturation later on my computer which handles color a lot better than my camera. The parts of this image that are hot are mainly because of the lighting. We shuttered the windows so the brightness of day didn't go to pure white, which it almost does anyway in the images below.
First I use the Rebel CC tool to color correct the image. I do a 3 point color correction and then use the hue/saturation tool to de-saturate the reds which are really hot.
Now I apply my preset look. This is a little backwards from a typical workflow, but I like to start off from where I am, know where I'm going, and try to figure out the best way to get there. For "The Betty" the look preset has a couple of key characteristics. I use two photo-filter effects: a cooling filter and a sepia filter. The cooling is generally pretty subtle because it can make things really blue really easy. I adjust the curves with a very slight s-curve to bring up contrast in the lighter and darker portions of the image. In some cases I use grain removal, which is the case here, with temporal filtering, because the curves brought out some of the grain more than I wanted. Lastly I do a color profile conversion based on a film stock, bump the brightness a little, and letterbox it for the cinemascope aspect ratio I want.
The problem I now have is that I've lost some detail in the background, and our abductee just looks kind of dull sitting there, everything but Oatmeal is just too dark. So I relight the scene using the exposure effect, but I mask it so that Oatmeal isn't effected - and feather the mask so you don't notice the transition.
She's more present in the scene now, but I've blown out (overexposed) my windows, losing the shutters. So now I duplicate the initial image, mask the windows portion of it, feather that out, and place the layer in between the exposure effect (which is in an adjustment layer) and the Color corrections (which are also in adjustment layers).
I've also overexposed the TV and lost detail in its image, which just seems all kinds of wrong because the TV is a light source itself. So I apply the same methodology I just used for the windows, but with a smaller feathering of the edges.
And with all of these pieces finally in place, you have the image that I want you to see - or actually the conceptual image that I spent 30 minutes on. Like I said, this isn't final and the final cut of the movie will probably have another shot of the scene and a somewhat different look applied.
That's all for today, but I'll have more up later in the week. I'm excited about some of the footage we got. None of the shots were particularly amazing or challenging; but the flow of ideas as to how we use them to tell the story is really exciting.
Huzzah! update
Well folks,
I'm not nearly as eloquen as my partner Chris (god that sounds ghey every time i say it) but I figured I'd give an update anyway. Expect a new trailer in the next coming couple of weeks, and a 'cast of characters' coming even sooner. For now, here's a couple of outtakes I thew up during the editing of the trailer. Did I mention that editing a documentary is a VERY lengthy process, wowzah!
In this one we see why it's bad to have a ton of video production equipment in the hands of a drunk man trying to sleep through this fucking racket .. Ah, sharing a hotel room with Chris during out travels can be trying at times ;-)
The lady in the background doesn't seem too pleased about the honking, which was alot louder in person but the lav mic did pick some up ;-)
And in this one Chris's tells us about his favorite past time, skunk striping
The New Betty
Alright folks, here it is. We've finally re-cast the role of ELIZABETH in our short film "The Betty." Filling the role will be Meredith Adams. Meredith, as it turns out is the case for all actors in this movie, comes from REACT Actor's Studio. This isn't favoritism in any way. When we did any audition, it turned out 90% of the actors who were worth a damn came from my own school; which was pretty re-affirming. Meredith is pretty new to REACT, but she's very natural, comfortable in front of the camera, and a very nice fit for the part. If all goes well we'll be shooting the first scenes with her this weekend.
A Good Day at the Office
Well, all elements conspired to produce a good shoot today. The "dolly" wheels that Maggie talked about below are awesome. I have a problem with a lot of microbudget productions that rely on the "poor man's steadicam" to heavily, because it often looks like shit. I love moving the frame through space, but there's honestly a reason that steadicams cost thirty grand: shots on them don't look handheld! I'd much rather throw the camera up on sticks than run around with it if it's gonna be distracting to the audience. But these little wheels and Maggie's hardwood floors let us get a steadicam-like shot without looking like crap.
There were a couple of shots that felt food and I was anxious to check them out when I got home. One in particular was done so well that I'm at a quandry as to how it should be cut - or, rather, whether it should be. Take a look at the shots below. The continuous shot is really good and the danger of cutting it at all is disturbing the emotionality of the scene. The most important cut in the way the shot was conceived was the close-up shot of Archie (me) screaming at Oatmeal (Eric). So I did a sequence with a couple of close-up cuts in the beginning of the scene; but I didn't do any other cuts. The CU's at the other side of the room just didn't match the take and I feel no need to cut for cutting' sake. I am slightly torn between the continuous take and the scene with cuts at the beginning.
Anyhow, much credit and thanks go to everybody involved today. Everything clicked, it was a very easygoing shoot, and the results were awesome.
Archie's House
As you all know we're getting the ball rolling again on "The Betty". We got back to work last month and we're hoping to keep the momentum going throughout this month of September.
Today we assembled a small version of the crew and shot some footage of scenes taking place in Archie's house. We had a good day and by the time we wrapped we were very satisfied with what we accomplished.
I made sure to get a few production stills of the day, so here's a sneek peek at how we put things together.
Meet our new toy. We were fortunate to score this wheeling base for our camera tripod and it was beyond wonderful for the shoot today.
Two shots of Archie and Oatmeal thinking about their problem the best way they know how - with a case of beer.
Meet today's Set Supervisor. Maizy was gracious enough to let us take over her home for the shoot.
That's all I have for now. We'll continue to keep the sneek peeks going while we're shooting, so stay tuned for more.
Happy Birthday!
Today HateCity Pictures turns 2 years old.
In 2006, on my 32nd birthday, I walked into the Dallas city courthouse and obtained the DBA for "Hate City Productions." The name had been something I'd been tossing around in my head for a while, but that was the date that it was formalized. Kind of like naming a baby before birthing it. In the interceding 48 months, the name has changed to the sleeker "HateCity Pictures" and we've made a couple of movies and had a couple of changes to our "staff." Eric Padilla came in for a time as a producer and art director; but will be leaving after completion of "The Betty." Eric Gunter was on board for quite a while as resident director of photography. Maggie Smith, fortunately, has come on for "The Betty" as a script supervisor but has also taken on some production management duty. And then there's Glenn and I - running things in as good a semblance of tandem as two idealistic, competitive, headstrong alpha males can hope to and so far making a pretty good go at it. I'm proud of the work we've done, proud of HateCity, and ready to kick things up to the next level in year 3. Happy birthday HateCity!
Shooting Postponed... Again
Well, where we thought we'd have the shipping yard this weekend to finish out the couple of scenes left there, apparently that's not the case. And what's more - they're paving the place! So, assuming we're allowed to go back we face likely continuity issues.
Fortunately, our worst case scenario isn't that bad. I can change locations on one scene if I need to by rewriting to support it, and I can scrap one scene if it's really necesary, though it's one I'm kind of fond of.
That makes our next shoot the first weekend in September and in the mean-time I'll be storyboarding and working on a replacement for Elizabeth.
-Chris
Outtakes from "The Betty"
There's always shit to laugh at when I'm going through footage. If not, then nobody was having fun and the quality of the shoot is probably pretty low. Here are a couple from last weekend that I found a bit funny. Enjoy.
Qelsi & the Bee
Well, okay so it was a wasp, but bee sounds funnier. This damn wasp wouldn't leave Qelsi alone as long as the camera was on her. As soon as we aimed the lens at someone else it left her alone.
Watch her threaten to Kung Fu the thing.
Lion Face/Lemon Face
Don't know why this is so funny, but here's a little acting exercise for you.
Images from "The Betty"
I've been meaning to post frame grabs of pictures from "The Betty" for a while now. Well, shooting more of the opening scenes the other day got me playing around editing a rough cut, which of course led me to experimenting with the overall look of the film.
These grabs are just ones that caught my eye as visually nice, or, in some cases, challenging in a way that made me want to test the look and color correction on. Looking at these images, I'm really happy with the way this film is turning out. These aren't final by any stretch - just me playing with settings in After Effects trying to develop a style.
I hope you like what you see.
Greg Mansur as The Caesar
Eric Rhoades as Oatmeal - playing it tough
Qelsi Qualls as Thumper & Greg Mansur
Yours Truly as Archie, with Eric in the background
The Caesar's evil eye
Eric is the most facially expressive actor I know.
This isn't part of the scene; This is Qelsi holding a casual conversation with Marty Ezelle - a good friend and member of the crew.
Thumper and the Caesar
Me again. A fun trick for me in acting - and as the director I have this latitude - is to throw something out there in the first take that wasn't in rehearsals or wasn't expected by the other actors. Just kicking my legs up on the desk in the middle of the scene got reactions from all the others - two of which I now don't think the scene could do without.
A little money.
Oatmeal and Archie at Reno's Chop Shop in Deep Ellum. This is one of those scenes that, because of the lighting and the speed with which we had to get our shots, is going to be challenging to get right; but at least this test shows I can get a serviceable image out of it.
Rene Garcia as Hector the BookieThere will be more of these soon. I'm having fun with them. Postproduction is one of my favorite things in filmmaking. I may be getting a bit ahead of myself with this work since the movies only about half shot, but seeing these images is fueling my drive to get this thing in the can.
Back to the Yard
Our return to the location we started "The Betty" on was somewhat less grandiose, but nonetheless a rewarding shoot. This time we had a crew of three and knocked out a single scene. It was an exercise in flexibility for sure. I scrapped the shot list as soon as we got into the converted container "office" because there was no way to make the lighting work the way I had visualized it in my head. It was narrower than I'd imagined and more run-down than I would have liked.
Working to a schedule though, we shot till about noon and we'll have to make another trip out there. two more scenes (one very short) in the container/office and one outside it, with a few pickups and we can scratch that location off the list.
I started cutting together a rough cut to see how the shots played together and I'm pretty pleased with it. We shot entirely with available light, setting a desk next to one of the windows, and the results, particularly on Greg's face, look great. I'll post some grabs soon.