On the heels of finishing up the color correction comes word that the feature I shot in August Fiona’s Script will be playing at Method Fest in LA on Saturday, March 28, 2009 9:00pm – 11:00 pm at the Founders Hall, Calabasas Civic Center. Triple bonus is that it will screen in HDCam which should make for a great transfer from the Red footage. The look was quite dialed in during color correction to accentuate the different story spaces in the film and highlight Fiona’s transformation of self.
If you’re in the LA area check it out. I know the director and a number of Actors will be there. Not sure if I can break away to catch it, but I’m sure it will be fun.
Two years ago I went to BendFilm with our short film FILTER where it (and I) was very well received. During the festival when people ask “what are you working on?” I had told them of this documentary film we were developing into a feature. The journey was a bit longer than I had hoped, but that film THEY TURNED OUR DESERT INTO FIRE has been accepted into this year’s BendFilm. I don’t know if I’ll have the opportunity to make it up there again, but I’m insisting Mark goes and has a great time. They had a lot of nice parties and fun packed into a short three days. And the hospitality of the festival staff and attendees was just lovely.
(Side note … I did have a local who was cocked out of his mind try and start some shit one night by slinging racial slurs at me. Nonchalantly, I told him I came from a mixed neighborhood and he’d have to try a little harder than calling me ‘cracker.’ He wasn’t quite sure what to do with someone who didn’t fluster so easily and had to process it … meanwhile I moseyed on down the street.)
FILTER had two scheduled screenings and I actually got three additional screenings by a number of different factors. The last happened while I was getting on the plane and someone said they played it right before the closing film (to much applause). One of the judges confided in me that I drew quite the split at the table. But a title that gets ‘Hell Yes!’ and ‘Hell No!’ is quickly tossed in favor of another title that everyone is mostly cool with.
I hope that THEY TURNED OUR DESERT INTO FIRE gets a good showing. The Executive Director Sandy Henderson finished watching the DVD and invited us immediately. That’s the same experience with Leon Cakoff from São Paulo, titles roll and email shoots out … hopefully we’ll leave an impression that lasts. Either way, I’m sure they’ll love Mark.
It’s in the can … or the drive rather. 18 days of lighting and camera and now Jesse (the editor) is off and running. He had a snippet of the film ready for viewing at the wrap party (and threw in some good humor as well). The Red held up quite well … only twice did it have trouble and that was just for a second. And I did give it and the rest of the equipment a good detailing after the beach day, so now it’s a bit sparkly as well.
The next round of fun for me will come in a couple of months when they have picture lock. I’ll need to spend some time in there giving it just the right look for each scene. Plus fix a couple of things I had to let go on set due to time / money / whatever. It’s nice to have the tech up to where it can help compensate for that.
Here’s a couple of pics (thank you Cristin) …
I’m two thirds in the can with one week left on principal photography for Fiona’s Script. So far we’ve been able to capture so great stuff, with some locations working out much better than I anticipated. Plus we had some great underwater materials thanks to Cliff Traiman and his handy underwater bag for the HVX200.
The 1200 par and the bug a beam with the 400 joker was the only think piercing the water. The pool was (thankfully?) dirty enough to get the light striations from the surface caustics (or ‘jesus rays’ as Cliff called it) to get a cool look. I was busy kicking up the surface with a set of borrowed flippers to get it rough enough. Should be nice for the opening credit sequence / dreamy stuff.
This last week, we have a couple of days in San Francisco with a few more visits to the location house in Emeryville. The kino / joker / Red combo has been winning time and again. Aaron and I have been dialing in the look augmenting with 1/4 stop silk for the exteriors.
The final looks will be dialed in during the coloring process. I’ve been playing a 1/4 classic black soft in the lens the whole show that has helped smooth things out a bit and smear the blacks a little. There may be some contrast issues caused by our schedule with the time of day we’ve had to shoot. But I think we’ve been 95% good. I’ve had total fun with some of the slo mo shots as well.
I’m actually just home from day three as I write this, but this first photo is from the first setup of the first day of the film.
Michelle is busy putting a lens on the camera as we prep for that primary setup. A quick couple of shots and we’re on to the next.
Here we are at day three, and the crew is spilled all over the sidewalk as we go for a take. As always, the outside of the building doesn’t match the inside. We’ve got two scenes on the “stoop” of the house. The gaggle of people lining the sidewalk was a little humorous for the shot. But we soon put them all to work with silks and flags and such.
The best part was I boxed Aaron in the van with the camera and he ended up directing the lighting from the comfort and safety of the Ford for a setup or two.
Tomorrow is our big prep day for both G&E and the camera department as we are heading into principal photography for Fiona’s Script. We’ll be organizing the shelves and van so we can quickly get ready for each day. Tungsten here, HMI there etc. We’ll probably pull a lot off the van and only put on what needs to be there.
Camera department is coming over later and running through the set up and break down so we’re down pat on the red. We’ll shoot a little something and deal with data wrangling. I’m going to make the decision on the data program … right now leaning toward R3Dmanager … I think we’ll have time to push the data around quite a bit.
I just went to the meet and great and put faces to names. It looks like we have a good team in place and this has good potential for a dynamic piece.
Details later …
Tech scout on a very windy beach …
