The Daily Journal

Today I combed through my current screenplay, completing a second draft. It went from 15 to 20 pages. Wow. I've been manic the past couple of days, and it really throws gas on my creative fire. I was able to connect with the characters to the point where they did the writing- I just formatted it for them. It sounds a bit crazy, or artsy-fartsy, but I feel possessed when I write the stuff I end up being proud of. I'm getting prouder of this new draft.
The first draft was 15 pages on the nose, because I wanted it to be. This one, I said fuck the rules and regulations, and let it be free to be whatever. And it picked some interesting new directions.
Tomorrow, I'll go back and start rearranging things- planting hooks, paying off older hooks, removing information to reveal later, adding information, etc, etc. I love writing.

Watched the Lost season finale today. Love that show. They really mixed it up this time! Brilliant! It's more like crack cocaine than television.

Tomorrow, after I've gotten too frustrated to work on my script, I'll start making plans for the weekend shoots. I'm hoping to shoot for the Poke Show on Saturday and my other other project on Sunday. I've got so much going on right now, I wonder how I'm going to be able to squeeze my main project in there! It's essentially a feature length project, over 5 episodes. I'm planning on shooting the first two before summer ends. Pre-production begins next month, aiming to shoot in July. That means I have to LOCK my first AND second episode by the end of June. Oh my. Better get cracking!!!
 
Will Picked up gels today, some CTO, CTB and minus green.

I tried duplicating the annoying (IMHO), over-saturated look of the DVX ;) in camera on my XL1s (got pretty close). I set that on custom preset 2, preset 1 is my normal settings, preset 3 is my B/W setting. Lined up a writer on a project I'm working on. I'm going to try to move to the next level of filmmaking and get a budget and hire people.

I've contacted a writer outside my normal cadre of writers to enable an unknown company to move forward (they're all busy with other projects I've set upon them too). The writer offered to work on upcoming projects, so I jumped: ( http://www.stcloudstate.edu/theatrefilmdance/film/facstaff/philippecostaglioli.asp ). His name attached (I got to say attached in reference to one of my projects!) will lend credence to our project making the daunting task of fundraising and talent acquisition a little easier.

The story concept is a really great one (I think it has great commercial potential) that came to me about 3 weeks ago. I won't talk about it yet, but Spat and Poke, you'd be so proud of me! I intend to market using larger festivals, targeting the festival going crowds specifically, but making it broad enough in its' scope that a larger audience won't mind watching it...and it's a musical with plans for full orchestration with live people playing live instruments and dance numbers!

Awesome day for YAFI!
 
Good News Knightly.


I was asked to do a music video. It is very cool that they wanted me to do it, based on what they saw in my demo and Happy Birthday Jack. SO I have some planning to do.

My script is coming along nicely. I have to try to set a time now that my schedule is getting back to normal. I want to do the 4 pages a day
 
I set up a project tracking tool on our website so that our group can always have access to the latest status of projects we're developing. It would be cool if we actually end up using it.
 
knightly said:
The story concept is a really great one (I think it has great commercial potential) that came to me about 3 weeks ago. I won't talk about it yet, but Spat and Poke, you'd be so proud of me! I intend to market using larger festivals, targeting the festival going crowds specifically, but making it broad enough in its' scope that a larger audience won't mind watching it...and it's a musical with plans for full orchestration with live people playing live instruments and dance numbers!
Click to expand...

I'm already proud of you, young skywalker. I can feel your passion seeping through the computer screen. Music and Dancing!!! Awesome!
 
Met with the singer, songwriter last night (across a poker table) and made plans for a ballad to go along with my narrative short in the form of a music video. He will contribute to the project in exchange for another music video for a song of his choosing that I will also produce and direct (and likely shoot, edit, etc.). This is going to be a busy year. Already I have another interview-style documentary, two music videos, a narrative short, and a "making of" documentary slated. I may have to push the other music video into 2008.

Ordered a collapsible background for the upcoming interviews.

Read a hundred posts on DIY lighting.
 
wee hoo! hundred posts on lighting, 50% of which were probably mine...I tend to wax pathetic on DIY lighting all over the net.

I'm currently converting my Average Joe footage from QT reference movies I used to concatenate camera angles into self-contained movies so final cut won't take 4 hours to open that project anymore (apparently, reference movies keep links to render files from FCP - I switched machines and ditched the render files figuring I could just re-render...DOH). Had an initial script meeting on my Musical...we'll be convening when Phillippe gets back from europe in the fall...exciting stuff.
 
It's been long enough, I'm still not finished by any stretch of the imagination, but here's proof that it's coming along...Just an assembly edit so far:

http://www.yafiunderground.com/Video/AJ-2007-05-25.mov

it requires quicktime...it's compressed with h.264 codec. it's 34Mb or so

I haven't put together all of the off screen voice stuff yet...and other stuff you can see the recording setup for doing VO work. Painfully rough...nothing to critique here yet.

Play the drinking game...everytime Joe has a fake beard take a drink...he shaved in the middle of the shoot and we had to replace his beard, so half the time it's real, half the time it's fake.
 
Did half the chroma-keying for the greenscreen stuff in one project. After this one, I'm hoping to never see that color again. At least, I'll use it sparingly. A lot of shots "work", but not as well as I had hoped... and it takes SO LONG! Also, I should've used the tripod more... I just love this shiny Glidecam!!!

Found an old idea and rewrote it for the Poke Show. I'm gonna shoot it tomorrow, but I've already got my other sketch for the week after next finished. I'm hoping to shoot 1-2 more next weekend (realistically 1), and I'll be set for a while... then I can focus more on writing my main screenplays.

Self-set deadlines are nearing... I've almost finished Draft #2 of my main project's episode 1 screenplay. Pre-production will be starting next month... by that, I mean gathering cast and crew, locations, equipment, costumes, props and breaking down the script. Also, of great importance, is starting up the website that will be the platform for the episodic shorts. I'm hoping to start shooting by the end of July. Right now, I have ZERO dollars for budget. There's been a hiccup getting the Macbeth 3000 DVD online for sale, and I was hoping there'd be a bit of income there. I'm gonna have to figure something else out... I was toying with the idea of having a rock-concert for a fund-raiser, but that's an endeavor in and of itself... I'm gonna have to get creative there... otherwise, I'll be selling my body for medical experiments...
Not to mention I have to have episode 2 completed by the end of next month, because there'll be overlapping locations!!! GAH!
5 episodes. Feature length epic. No budget. Big aspirations. That's how we roll, folks. Right into an early grave.. ugh..
 
Let's see....

Today I shot a sketch for the Poke Show. It took me from about 2pm-4pm to shoot it, with a break for a greenscreen test (just for one shot) in-between. Spent the rest of the night editing, collecting sound effects, and finally exporting. I just finished an hour ago. Then I realized, it won't be released for almost 3 weeks. That's weird. I'm used to the instant gratification of making, finishing, uploading, and sharing. I like this though- it builds my own anticipation. Like the days counting down to a premier. Nice.

Tomorrow's shoot has been rescheduled for Tuesday evening, so I have more time to edit my other project, and do some more chroma keying. It's cool stuff- I'm just learning how to do that. I want to learn effects, because they're a cheap way to impress people. While I've been concentrating on building up my directing skills to tell solid, believable stories, I want to regress a bit, and try some "movie magic" as well. It's what inspired us to really get into filmmaking... I remember when Hamlet: The Original Motion Picture (the first Supergun project) was made... we showed it to our class in high school... it was basically a back-yard sword fight with wooden sticks, but there was one shot with lightsabres and force-lightning, which caused such a stir we HAD to make a sequel (king lear 2000)... that led to Macbeth 3000, and the rest is history. Geoff was doing all the editing and visual effects, but he's been traveling a lot lately, so I figured it'd be fun to learn. The plus side is, as a director, it gives me a great understanding of the post-production needs for effects. I don't want to overuse them- then it's not filmmaking, it's just "illusionism"- but they can really add production value. Rather than talking heads.

The "effects" shot I tried today was a "blowing off my head with a gun in my mouth" shot.
I enacted the scene in question (no crew except myself- a real solo project), and then took a video of the wall behind me, framing the "splatter zone" on the left. I laid down rows of scotch tape on the wall to prevent my girlfriend from murdering me, and then filled a small glass with ketchup. I rolled tape, and then launched the ketchup on the wall, making sure to keep my throwing hand on the right side of frame. Then, I assembled the greenscreen on my wall, lit it, then did the "gun in mouth" bit , keeping my head to the right side of the frame. I put the clips in Chromanator, and hue-shifted, contrasted, and chroma'ed the clip. It looks pretty decent. You'll have to wait the three weeks, but I think it's an effective shot. Once the sound effect got in there, I was quite pleased with it. In fact, I'm pleased with the whole thing- it turned out as good as I had hoped, for the most part!

And that was my day. It's 4:20AM, and I'm gonna probably go to sleep now. Tomorrow, I'm seeing Pirates 3, doing laundry, finishing my second draft of my first episode of my main project, and then editing my other "sketch-ish" project to prepare for the final day of shooting.

Wakka wakka!
 
We begin taping a new project today. In our typical fashion -- we're only half prepared, but hoping for magic to come together when we get there.
 
Today I went and saw a cool little flick called "Chalk" that was filmed here in Austin. It's a mockumentary, in the style of Christopher Guest's films, but it actually looks more like a DV Doc. hence it looks and feels real. Seeing it gives me hope for a mock-doc I've been thinking of launching about a French-American who betray's his family's wishes and sets out to become the next Lance Armstrong.

Also, I wrote a sketch for The Poke Show about a certain sandwich from DQ.

And speaking of TPS, we entered a few sketches into the YouTube Sketchies contest (each YouTube user can enter one sketch, we entered sketches under our The Poke Show username and our personal usernames).
 
Can't wait to see those...I was getting footage cut up for Average Joe last night and came across 45 mins of BTS footage from it that my AD had shot one day...cool stuff too. I'm going to chop some of that up into bite sized pieces to post on my website.
 
Today, I procrastinated. Yesterday, I grilled steaks, drank myself into a stupor and played Nintendo Wii until 1:00 AM with friends (actually, most of the cast of the project). Got reminded at 1:00 AM that the ending of the project as it is currently written was a bit "twisted". Talked briefly about the plans for the rewrite and the proposed changes.

You know, I can probably recollect dozens of movies that were twisted. I have a few on my shelf. Event Horizon definitely fits this description as does most of the Hellraiser franchise. Heck, I've even watched a few from filmmakers on this site. I mean, you don't see a knife in the nut every day. That was wonderfully twisted. I am beginning to realize, however, that the majority of moviegoers just don't want to see things that remind them of the bad things in the world. And many of them like profound messages and morals as much as they like going to the dentist. Maybe I should just write another script about Penguins. Problem is, I'd just have to blow a few of them up or else I won't be true to myself, and that wouldn't go over too well. :lol:
 
Finished the first rewrite tonight. Script still needs some polishing and shot breakdown, but it's almost ready for digital storyboarding. I'm going to take the Digital Rebel and gather the cast for a visit. This will also give them an opportunity for a read through. I plan to capture still photos of the shots I want and will cut them together in a timeline with dialogue captions. I may even record the talent's voices (hopefully they have talent - I may need to screen test them all) during the reading and cut in voice overs. I should be able to see the movie as a whole before running any footage through the DV camera. This process should help facilitate production planning, camera placement, lighting needs for each shot, etc. It will also give me something visual to show the entire cast and crew what we're trying to achieve.

I also bought a cine light meter tonight and a few other gaffer/DP toys. Here's where the fun begins.
 
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