I had the good fortune to team up with Eric Shamlin on another project now that he’s made his move over to JVST from Goodby. As is happening these days, they had a campaign that needed the talents of both a photographer and director/dp. Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles for the Nintendo Wii was making it’s push out and due to the concept at the time, they needed someone who could shoot a range of styles and stay true to the vision. The funny / ironic thing was literally the day before, Stacey and I were talking about career paths and shooting Resident Evil came up. So, uh, check.
As the industry goes with combining acquisitions, this was for print campaigns in SF and NYC plastered all over the trains and subways with corresponding web banners with motion.
And as a bonus, they opened it up to worldwide and the UK tossed in a concept.
Each setup for the US was shot both still and motion. In the directing I found myself playing the roll of the zombie to get the proper reaction when there were two ‘normal’ actors in the shot. I’m sure it must have hilarious to be down the hall from us and here me doing repetitive zombie roars (or shouting some non sequitur). And due to the cross shooting, I again chose to go with a gaffer (Charles Griswold from Little Giant) and a photo assistant (Lauren Stocker) to shape lighting and ideas … plus they’re good company on set.
Here are some of the tasty fruit that came from our wonderfully fabricated arm pit jungle (thank you Stacey). First up is a link to our Old Spice Ever Clear spot on Poptent (where it currently vies for attention from OS).
It was sure fun creating and and at times we all had to excuse ourselves to go and get the giggle out. Nothing like arm pit goobers hitting an apple box to really set you off. Special thanks to Bob (the one with the hairy pits) for keeping it together while the rest of us lost our minds.
The last thing we went for on the jungle set was another fashion / editoral spread featuring make up by Don Tunnell, gowns by Cory Tron, Sydney from Stars and Soo Joo from Ford. The first image out is a beauty shot of Sydney looking stunning against the twisted and foggy background. There will be a bunch more served up on our website and at DA.
We’re finally getting to some of the desperately needed post production items on the list. The coloring for FIONA’S SCRIPT has gotten out the door just in time for a cast & crew screening next week and it’s first fest in LA later this month.
Next up, THE APPRAISAL is in the can and Stephanie and I have gone through the first cut. I have an email in my inbox with some more refinements after some extended online viewing, but the cut is certainly on the way.
And THEY TURNED OUR DESERT INTO FIRE is being packaged up and sent off to DER for the master … yes. Tucked in there nicely is a copy of WAR AS A SECOND LANGUAGE, Mark’s previous film that I also edited. And DESERT INTO FIRE has been selected for the Santa Cruz Film Festival in May which we’ll go down and check out.
And Monday is our final shooting day for LUCIFER’S CREWCUT. Green screen elements to assemble into the death sequences where the quartet meet their gruesome demise. Nice that it’s a lock-off shot which equals an easier day for me and we can focus on performance. I’d love to get this project in the home stretch so we can fully share this irreverent little film (be careful, you might get some on you).
Oohhh … and photos in the next post!
It’s been a busy couple of weeks at the ranch. Swooped in from Sundance to take care of a couple of gigs going through the studio. Finished prepping and then shot THE APPRAISAL by Stephanie Carwin. Have just set up casting for a video / photo shoot I’m planning in a week and a half. Found out our Doritos spot didn’t win a million bucks (one nut shot short), but the Bud DD spot did win over at poptent (yeah!). In the meantime, finally settled on the tattoo for my left arm and inked in the outline and some shading.
All of these need more explaining on their own … when’s that gonna happen. Cutting and coloring first.
Finally getting the chance to catch up on jotting down some notes. And I’m happy to say we are wrapped on principal photography on Lucifer’s Crewcut! This has been a long and awesome show. Just two more bits of shooting for fx and we’re done acquiring. In the meantime, I’ve been working a cut together to get into color. I should have some teaser clips up soon … especially the dolly shots through their cribs. Those were pretty tight. It will take a little bit to get them just right and I’ll have to do the color first and then comp the 10-bit pro res clips to maintain a consistent look and quality. I’m pretty happy working in Color to preform look surgery on the Red material.
But for now, I leave you with some of the photos grabbed by Mark Brecke that really capture the days.
The glory days of Lucifer’s Crewcut!
Jason talks the shot over with the amassing throngs of extras. Sal provides moral support (and comic relief).
You can see the finished spot here …
http://www.poptent.net/media/7033
and a little karma photo at the end …
The bud spot is finished (with a little ADR help). Spot is uploaded and awaiting judgement. I wasn’t totally clear if they were good with me posting it three ways to Sunday, so I posed the question before shot gunning it out.
Overall it turned out well and much like I expected. I briefly pursued another angle but it didn’t totally come together … first thought best thought. It’s nice to have a concept simple enough to be executed in six hours with some play on set. And the new Red / FCP / Color workflow is behaving for the most part. A little issue with handles, but it has never been perfect. Small projects like this are easy to muscle through.
Special shout out to all the participants … those on camera (Bob Brindley, Rowan Brooks, Erin Coker and Krysti Lozinski) and the awesome crew: Matt Boucher – sound, Jennevine Lee – hair/MU, Allison Cohen – wardrobe and of course Stacey pulling together the production side AND the design. Now she gets the studio back to keep working on the next phase of Lucifer’s Crewcut.
Stacey and I hammered together a quick spot idea to send off to a budweiser designated driver contest by poptent. Part of what made it quite easy was that it contained only three setups. In and out in six and a half hours. Plus, following the trail of if placing a light where the sound guy is … I dropped in a little kino through the open sun roof to help illuminate the inside of the car and flatten it out. This is certainly the beauty light spot. I’ll package it together and send it off to be judged. I’m mostly hoping it will resonate with more of the agency cats out there for projects they’re working on.
Here we have me working the angle while Matt Boucher mixes down the channels … he had to move his boom to the driver side window. Hey … maybe we should put a light in there?
