I hope this blog can serve as a resource for ideas to other ambitious filmmakers and as a window to my experience for fellow collaborators. If you have a project that you would like me to be involved in I can be reached at (205) 441-4392.
Dec 22, 2006
CUP OF JOE (an insane comedy)
Cup of Joe is my latest creative endeavor. I wrote this short with my friend Stephen McClurg over the fall of '05 and went into production during the spring of '06. I am currently in editing with this project. It will run around 20 minutes when complete and I believe will make people laugh hard. These behind the scene stills were taken during production over summer '06 by Julia Lewis.
Dec 21, 2006
MUCKFUPPET
Muckfuppet is the latest project I have worked on as of now. I did lighting (not a surpirse - one day I want to do lightning...one day - oh wait I actually did do lightning for "Sewing a River" - well geaaaooollie...what do ya know).
To read and look at more accounts of this shoot go to Muckfuppet.com and then click on the updates link up top. Wade and Kenn have a really nice account of the day with pictures too.
Anyway, it is a 15 page script that we shot in 1 day. It is a conversation over a couple of cups of coffee about unconfessed love. It is written and directed by Ken McKracken, shot by Chance Shirley and stars Scott Ross and Melissa Bush. This shoot went really smooth and I feel that the footage obtained will work great to tell Ken's story. I'm excited to see it whenever it gets back from the lab. Oh yeah we shot it on Super 16mm 500T film stock with Chance's "old reliable" Aaton. Chance never used sticks. It is all shoulder/handheld "Law andOrder" type material.
All of theses stills were pulled from footage shot on a DVX that day. These are not from the movie. We have to wait on the lab for those.
Enjoy!
Dec 19, 2006
Deep Focus
Here's a candid frame I pulled off the DVX stuff stacey was shooting. You can see a 1K in the top right frame. That's Melissa's hairlight. I almost put up a hairlight with CTB for scott but decised that the windowlight was taking care of it for me.
An approxiamtion
This may be similar to what the Super 16mm footage will look like color wise and framing(?) Above Scott I rigged a 300W with diffusion, the sun is coming through the window to blue the back of his neck and a 1K with CTB is sidelighting the extra's back (frame right).
Scott is in "the zone"
Here's Scott waits for his lunch date. And Chance warms up his shoulder for a long day with the Aaton.
Melissa doin her thang
Here's Melissa Bush during the first few takes of Muckfuppet. I framed this up with the DVX and set the white balance to 32K so it gives an idea of the color's we may could expect to get out of the film stock. Of course those colorist fellows can make it look neon pink if they want to. You can see the bluer blind shadow playing in her hair. That CTO 1K is popping her ear a little. I suspect that the white glare on the coffee cup is sourced by the 1K shooting through the blinds. Nice smile.
Nov 2, 2006
LIVE BURN - OCTOBER 29th 2005
As it happens, I share a passion for filmmaking with one of firefighting. I've been a volunteer firefighter off and on since 1992 starting in West Nyack Fire Dept, New York (2 years) then
Duncanville Volunteer Fire Dept, Alabama (3 months), then East Milton Fire Rescue, Florida (6 months) and now am about 10 months into service here in Rocky Ridge Fire Rescue, Alabama.
This past weekend our department participated in what we refer to as a "Live Burn" with Harpersville Fire department. This is where a house that has been sold and/or donated to the city and slated to be destroyed is used as a fire structure for training purposes.
Instructors lit controlled fires in certain portions of the house throughout the day and rotated groups of trainees through different evolutions of the firefighting process to help familiarize them with conditons one can expect during aggressive interior attack/rescue operations. Yes-it's hot. But after an excercise such as this a firefighter has a little more experience in reading smoke, fire and heat conditions inside and outside the structure to know where the fire is, when to put water on it, how it will react to water and air and when it's too hot. It is a discovery of behaviors and threshholds.
Due to a very frustrating arm injury I was unable to partcipate with firefighting operations. That is unfortunate. Instead I made the best of that limitation by filming the experience. So the unfortunate has fortune after all!
I shot this with my friend's DVX 100A. I have been using the 100 for the most part and must say - there is a difference. There are many more options for digital signal processing in the menu. I found that some of my standard tricks took a little extra sniffing around in the menu to make work. I would say that white balance is more important with the DVX 100A. It seemed to have much more of a relation to the color temperature setting in the menu than it does with the 100. The gain works during 24P photography with the A whereas it does not on the 100.
So what am I going to do with this footage?
That is a good question. Whatever I do with it will need to be cleared with my Chief out of respect for my department.
I have a few ideas about documentary and narrative productions painting the firefighter's tale from my perspective. Most movies I have seen about firefighting take the high road and focus on the glory, excitement and drama. Now that is there but, as with most things in life, there is a lot more to it than that. There is a lot of mundane activity and oblong psychology that goes along with it.
It is funny I mentioned glory, excitement and drama because I actually have cut a short montage of this footage and - oh boy is it OVER THE TOP but it sure is a fun ride.
So here's some still captures right off the camera - no color correction.
ENJOY!
