Post-Production Diary: A Break… in a FORD ESCAPE!
Posted by Jeremiah on July 25th, 2007 @ 05:51 PM | Comments (3)

We spent the last couple weeks editing the film for about 4 hours a day. The rest of the day Josh spends doing paying work. I don’t have a lot of paying work right now so I’m helping our producers get ready for the pickups. And I’m lazy… Just kidding.

We’ve finally set the dates. August 23rd thru August 31st. Eight more days of production. I’m actually getting excited to be back on set. It’s definitely a kind of high. Being on set is so much fun. And it will be nice to fill in the blank spaces in the time-line. Right now, for scene 22 all we have is a black screen with white words that say “Nora walks out of the chicken house.” Not very exciting.

This past week we cut together 5 minutes of the film to show to our investors. It’s a sequence toward the end of the 2nd act and it’s packed with excitement. We’re very proud of it and I think the investors are pleased as well. We’re going to have a really good film. Again, I wish I could post footage.

I do have some exciting news to share. A few weeks ago, we were approached by the FORD MOTOR COMPANY and asked if we’d like to come out to Los Angeles and see a taping of the TV show ON THE LOT. They offered to pay our way and give us a new FORD ESCAPE to drive around in. We said YES, of course.

So apparently we get to go out and meet the cast and crew and hang out in LA for a couple days. Thank you FORD!

The really weird thing is that the main picture car in our feature, Dangerous Calling, is a red FORD ESCAPE. Strange coincidence.

I’m really excited about the trip and I’m looking forward to meeting the directors on the show. I do have my favorites but all of them are doing great work and it’s exciting to see how America is really picking the best filmmakers. Its so opposite of film school. The “ARTSY” filmmakers are being weeded out and the “COMMERCIAL” filmmakers are still there.

(I wish it had been that way in film school. I would have been a lot more popular - both with the students and teachers. Film school teachers HATE commercial films - especially Spielberg movies. But I love them. On my first day of class, I told the professor that I thought Spielberg and Lucas “hung the moon” and I never recovered. And no, I don’t know why I said “hung the moon.” It’s called sticking one’s foot in one’s mouth.)

Anyway, we will be sure and write about our LA trip. We leave July 31st.

Jeremiah

Post-Production Diary: The beginning
Posted by Jeremiah on July 16th, 2007 @ 06:53 PM | Comments (1)

So it’s been 2 weeks since we wrapped production. I’ve spent that time resting up and logging clips. We have about 700gig of footage that has to be imported into Final Cut pro. (We upgraded to the new version and I really like it.)

This is a VERY tedious job but someone has to do it. And that someone is me… because I don’t have a job right now. And it’s actually quite relaxing. You just zone out for hours at a time.

Let me update you as to what I’ve done with my time while in post-production mode.

I watched National Treasure on the 4th of July… and logged some footage.
I turned 27 on July 8th and went camping with my family… and logged some footage.
I went to see Transformers… and logged some footage.
I went to see Evan Almighty… and logged some footage.
I attended a mini-wrap party with some of the crew… and logged some footage.
I cut the grass while my dad was out of town… and logged some footage.

(Check out my awesome design work.

I hate cutting grass. I had to do something to make it fun. Just a spoonful of sugar…)

Today, we actually started the editing process. We spent about 5 hours sitting in my room at the old G5 and cut together the first 4 scenes of the movie. That’s roughly the first 3 minutes. And I must say I’m pleased with those 3 minutes. There are things we wish we had like that 30 foot gib shot we wanted or that steadicam shot that turned into a pan. Hehe. Oh well. Filmmaking is about compromise.

But even without those things, the film is coming together. We just want everyone to realize that when you watch these scenes and you think to yourself, “This would be so much better with a 30 foot gib” just remember that we had intended to have that shot, but didn’t have the money. Hehe.

I’ll try and keep you updated as we plan for the pickups in August and continue editing the film. I wish I could post some footage but Josh said no.

Production Diary: Last Three Days
Posted by Jeremiah on July 4th, 2007 @ 01:19 PM | Comments (0)

So we wrapped the film on Tuesday, July 3rd. But we have another week of pickups to do. We would like to have extended production another week but our lead actress is going out of the country to work with orphans. It’s kinda hard to put a guilt trip on her for that. Hehe.

Let me give a quick recap of what happened the last three days.

Sunday, July 1, 2007

We began the day at a pool in Cave Springs, Georgia doing underwater shots. The pool has a stone bottom and I think is spring fed. They say it is in the shape of the state of Georgia but it seemed too elongated for that to be true.

The water was really cold. I felt bad for the actors and crew who had to get in the water. Josh and I didn’t get in. We couldn’t be of any help. We had several safety people there plus two guys operating the camera.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have any sort of video feed so we had to trust our DP, Chris Campbell. Fortunately, we trust our DP. And the footage looks great.

I can’t really say much about what we shot without giving away key scenes in the movie. Sorry.

That evening we drove to a home in Rome, Georgia where we shot a night scene. I can’t say anything about that scene either. But someone dies in that scene in a pretty cool way. And he’s killed by someone pretty creepy. It’s a great scene.

Monday, July 2, 2007

We spent the night in Rome and then made our way BACK to the lodge in Ellijay to shoot a flashback scene. I can’t speak of this scene either. But I can say that it was fun to shoot. It was another death scene. And again it was a pretty cool death and the person doing the killing was also pretty creepy.

After we finished up the flashback scene, we had to shoot a short scene where one of our characters is being thrown in the back of a truck. He’s dead. Wow, there was a lot of dying on set this week.

We finished the day by shooting the infamous scene 100. We’ve already shot that scene. We shot it the first week. But it started raining and we couldn’t finish it.

As we began to shoot the scene, it began to storm again. That’s TWICE. I’m starting to think that this scene isn’t supposed to be in the movie. It’s pretty weird. We’ll have to get it in August. I can’t belive it - A THIRD TIME!!!

On Monday evening, we went home. Because of the rain, we wrapped around 4:30pm. We only had exteriors to shoot so it was over. We packed up and drove back to Buford. I was feeling kind of stupid and decided to go with my sister and our 2nd AC, Alan Melling to see Live Free or Die Hard. About 30 minutes into the film, I fell asleep and didn’t wake up. I do remember seeing flashes of action sequences and I did hear Yippee Kayee (or however you spell it) but I missed the entire plot. (Was I dreaming the scene where Bruce Willis jumps on an f-16?) I also remember a lot of witty one-liners from Justin Long but wasn’t aware of why he was saying them.

I need to go see that movie again. How could I have slept through a Die Hard movie you ask? Try shooting a feature in 3 weeks. It’s exhausting.

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007

We had 1 page to shoot on this day. We shot it at Carrie Walrond’s house (she plays Nora, the pastor’s wife) which made a 7AM call time a breeze for her. We only had her for 3 hours so we had to move. The problem with rushing on the last day of production is that every one is tired and burned out. We were dragging. And then it started raining. So we rushed to finish.

The scene was near the beginning of the movie where the pastor and his wife pack up and leave Atlanta on their way to the North Georgia mountains and their new church. Tiffany Morgan, an extremely talented and experienced actress in Atlanta, plays Nora’s sister. She did an amazing job. We love working with Tiffany. She’s been in a couple of videos we’ve produced for local organizations.

At 10:00am, we wrapped production. We were planning to film some driving scenes but it was overcast and it wouldn’t look right. Plus we were all beat. 20 days of 16 hour days just wears you out. It was nice to go home early.

So that was production. We now move into post-production.

Production Diary: That’s a Wrap!
Posted by Josh on July 4th, 2007 @ 11:48 AM | Comments (1)

We are done with principal photography.  The past three and a half weeks have been the most challenging of my life.

While we tried to keep the shooting hours to 12, Jeremiah and I have easily been working 14-16 hrs a day this entire time.  We had our longest day last week, it was about a 16 1/2 hr day with a company move and about an hour afterward to load the truck.  Our crew was amazing to work with.  We’re really grateful to them for their willingness to get the job done, especially on that day.  It was rough on everyone.

On Sunday we rented an underwater housing for the camera and shot some underwater footage at a natural spring pool in Cave Springs, GA.  It looked like a lot of fun, but we wouldn’t know since we basically just gave storyboards to our DP and AC and they got in the water with the actors and stunt guys and got the shots.  We basically just sat by the water for 8 hrs.  The footage looks cool though.

Here are some highlights of the shoot:

- Shooting in Covington, GA.  This is the closest thing to a hometown that we’ve got.  Our grandparents lived there and we’d always watch “In The Heat Of The Night” being filmed there when we were kids.  It has always been a dream to shoot a feature in Covington.  Now we have.

- The rattlesnake.  That was fun.  For a kid who wanted to be a director and a herpetologist (someone who studies reptiles and amphibians) this day was the best of both worlds.

- Getting to know the crew.  We enjoyed working with everyone.  Making a movie is hard work and it’s nice to have a fun crew to do it with.  MELLING!  The inside jokes are fun too.

- Goose Sh*t Island.  Yeah, it was nasty, but I have fond memories.

- Working with my brother.  I’m happy to say we’re still best friends.  I don’t even think we got upset with each other too much.  I think we snapped at each other a couple times, but nothing major.  I can’t wait to do the next one with him.

I’d say we have about 90-95% of the film in the can.  We’ll be finishing up in August with a week of pickups.  I know I’ll be ready to get back at it.  I’m already forgetting how miserable I was at times.  I love my job.  Now if I could only get paid to do it!