Had a great brunch with Colton Lawrence the other morning. He directed THE SEX MOVIE that I cut for him a couple of years back. He’s down in LA looking to put together his next film, either a follow up to the aforementioned or a angst-ridden love triangle. Either way, he does have a way with words.
One thing is clear with Colton … he really understands the business of film making. He keeps his stories tidy and therefore easy to produce. His last feature was shot in nine days with plenty of coverage. Now it wasn’t a visual feast, more of a roundtable discussion. But the story fit the means and there were a couple of places where you stepped into “private areas” to have discussions where a more traditional setup could occur.
Our meeting was timely as the launching pad for THE SEX MOVIE was certainly the premier at the Frameline Film Festival … where FIONA’S SCRIPT is showing in a couple of weeks. Hopefully Florencia will be able to turn the business end of things toward her favor. She reported during our coloring session yesterday that she has a new script in hand to accompany on her voyage (and handy tool for filmmakers). And the new color is way more mainstream. There’s still a story line that supports her evolution, but it’s not so much of a visual leap. Theory vs. reality.
Fiona’s Script is having it’s official SF Bay Area premier at the 33rd Frameline Film Festival. Prior to this it played down in LA at MethodFest (bonus for the acting team). Our screenings are on Saturday, June 20th at 6:15pm at the Roxie in SF and on Monday, June 22nd at 7pm at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood in Berkeley. There’s drinks at Lexington Club on 19th @ Valencia in SF (I’m assuming after). I have yet to see it large (although I know from past experiences that the Roxie isn’t the best quality screening environment). Looks like they’re screening digibeta so that should help.
Florencia wants to revisit the color story a little. It has a pretty bold statement in it that we had talked about from the get go. But it seems (as happens) that the story has evolved for her in the process and requires more finesse. This will indeed be made easier with our recent hardware upgrades in the editorial department. A little more horsepower to help handle the Red material in realtime.
SIDE NOTE: I had written a post on this before (while I was waiting for my Duc to be fixed up), but it has been lost to the ethers of technology not working together.
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.
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 …
