|
|
 |
Production Log:
The 16mm Projects - 12-29-2003
This is the two short films Anthony and I plan to film on 16mm in the near future. I will be updating on the progress of the script and info on costs for equipment, film, etc.
posted by Eric
___________
|
New Outlook - 01-15-2004
After watching 'Once Upon a Time in Mexico' and coming to the realization that film really is (or should be) dead. It just isn't the most practical cost effective way to make a good movie. Especially at this point in my life when I am now starting to learn the importance of a good story as a backbone to the visuals. The '16mm Project' is no longer going to be the '16mm Project'. Instead we are going to do what we have been doing on all our other projects and work with digital. The film will be transferred to tape to edit and be viewed anyways so why not just skip a step.
The first of the 2 stories we have will be 'Redemption'. I finished filtering out the kinks today at school and it is just waiting to be filmed. Showed it to a few people and they love the idea. The movie calls for a large boat so Anthony and I talked to the good people at Denison Yacht Sales and it looks promising we might get a very nice yacht in our movie. I hope to shoot this movie in 2 weeks.
posted by Eric
___________
|
Things to follow Forgotten Heroes - 02-01-2004
So Forgotten Heroes has only been done for less than a week and I feel the best thing to do now is leave it, no more tweeking, and immediately move on to the next project which will be Redemption.
Last night Anthony, Vino and I went and saw Lost in Translation(good movie) and went to starbucks and went over what is going to be needed for Redemption. We are hoping to get started on this by this weekend. Jake is most likely going to be the lead role. I have the whole week to figure out the rest of the details for the movie.
posted by Eric
___________
|
Redemption Shooting Schedule - 02-03-2004
Here are my thoughts as of now to how we are going to schedule 'Redemption'. Jake is going to be out of town on the 3 day weekend coming up, so we need to shoot it this weekend instead. On Saturday Jake works from 12-6. So in the morning we'll film stuff at the beach. He'll go to work. We'll work on special effect plates to replace greenscreen. Then that night when he gets off we'll film the flashbacks. Sunday morning we'll start on the boat(if we can use it then). That will take most of the morning, so that afternoon we'll then finish the rest of the chase on the bike etc. That night we will do the scene in the bar and then do greenscreen stuff during the week at school. The almost Perfect Plan.
posted by Eric
___________
|
1st and 2nd Day of Filming Redemption - 02-08-2004
Last night was just supposed to be devoted to scouting out locations for today's shoot. When we left the house we noticed the bright full moon and realized we had to film a scene that night. So we grabbed everyone and went to the bridge on A1A with the lighthouse. The scene came out great, when I got home I cut it together. While filming some guy on a motorcycle thought Jake was really beating the crap out of Tim. He called the police, 3 patrol cars showed up. The 1st one asked us what was going on and said have fun, he was cool. The 2nd didnt say anything just drove by w/ his lights flashing, and the 3rd was a citizen patrol car which I now know stands for senior citizen patrol because it was occupied by 2 old bags. So that was that night.
Today I got up at 7:30 and got everything ready to meet at 9:00. We first filmed the day half of the flashback scene we shot the previous night. Everything went good, it was a very simple sequence, mainly just me riding in the back of the Hummer filming Jake on the bike.
After that we proceeded to the beach to film Jake coming from the ocean, then running from the 'bad guys'. We found a perfect parking space that was at a part of the beach that was really deserted for a Saturday. We were in the middle of the setup where Jake sits up and the jeep pulls into the space behind him and the 2 guys get out. When we left the space after the first take to do it again, a new yorker pulls into the space and refused to leave. We then just moved the Hummer out of it's parking space so that we could have him take the Hummer's. On top of this just when we were about to do it again, the jeep started to steam and was leaking coolant. After examining we found that the clamp on the hose was ripped, only spirting out a little at a time we said 'screw it' and kept on filming. What a POS car. We finally finished that scene in the perfect amount of time to get Jake to work by 2:00.
We went to Anthony's house afterward and watched the dailies in his media room before we went over to the 'mob boss' ' scene later that night. Due to many complications that occured with this, we are now going to film this scene tomorrow night instead which is fine cause the 'bar' scene got pushed back a day as well. It is taking all the energy I have left just to write this.
posted by Eric
___________
|
Day 3 of Redemption - 02-08-2004
This morning we started off a bit sluggish. We got to Dave's house at about 11:00 and went out to hollywood where the boat was docked. This became a problem cause we had to shoot it to give the feeling it was out on the water. So we just shot around the trees and houses to later be cut together with the on the water setups on the much smaller boat. The inside cabin ended up being perfect. We put garbage bags all over the place to set dress it. There was a long pause in the middle of shooting where the gun wouldn't pull back. After filming there we headed up to Pompano and went on the 10/15 foot smaller boat that could be taken out. It got really cold and the wind factor made it even worse for Jake to swan dive into the ocean. We were filming right next to the Coast Guard station with our realistic looking pelet gun, which we kept hidden until the moment the camera was rolling. We called Mike and had him meet us by the bridge to pick up Jake so he didn't have to do the 30minute boat ride back to the dock while covered in water.
Later that night we went to the guy's house we were supposed to film at last night and did his scene. This was the first time I had seen this location and it was awesome. Perfect for the scene. We spent about an hour there and we were done by 9:00. We are now about 85% done with the movie, we are doing great.
posted by Eric
___________
|
Finished Filming Redemption - 02-12-2004
Yesterday it was 'Senior Skip Day' at school but I went for first hour anyways, then signed out after 2nd hour and finish filming all the stuff where Jake it riding the bike, and the big payoff effect with Katie for the end of the movie. After that I returned to school and captured that footage and started working on that special effect, worried it wouldn't come out good at all because of the fact I didn't measure anything out and it was all handheld. To my suprise it came out VERY good. It's crazy how simple this stuff can really be if you are just creative and don't over complicate it.
Later that night we met at 'Alligator Alley', the bar on Commercial that we were set to film at. That was a very short scene, but a very crucial one because it signifies Jake's character's decision to 'put the cigarette out' on his line of work and to be with the girl. So it took a lot of practicing to get it how I invisioned the scene, and I'm still not sure if it's what I wanted. We'll see how it turns out in the final cut.
posted by Eric
___________
|
Late News... - 04-07-2004
It's been quite a while now since my last entry and a lot has happened in that time.
We finished up Redemption in time for the Miami Film Festival deadline, though it wasn't a cut I was happy with, a couple effects still needed some work and there is always room for improvement w/ sound and editing.
We received a phone call from West Palm Beach requesting a head-shot of me because both films I entered are top finalists(we weren't really sure what that meant) which sounded awesome, so in my excitement I spent 50$ on chocolate cigars to give out to everybody.
Just this Monday I got a phone call from Miami telling me everything that we were nominated for. She figured she'd call me first on her list because we have the most nominations in the whole festival: Best Original Score(both movies), Best Videography(both movies), Best Male Actor(Jake for Redemption), Best Director, and Best Overall Film. Things are just beginning.
This Monday I received my package from West Palm Beach w/ my information about the film festival. While reading through the catalog I was looking for my movies and to my amazement saw that Forgotten Heroes was listed as 1st Place winner! and on top of the Anguish was listed as 3rd! This is some awesome news and I still can't get over it.
posted by Eric
___________
|
|
|
|
