We're Oscar Mike!

Happy Memorial Day folks! I certainly hope you all are enjoying your day off. Maybe you're BBQing or drinking (in my case, I'm doing both). Regardless, take a moment to reflect on the many who have given the ultimate sacrifice to ensure you enjoy your BBQ and beers. Maybe you can take the time and watch "Band of Brothers", which is one of the best mini-series EVAR! While you're at it, watch "Generation Kill" too. Since we're on the warfighter path, I've got my eye on:


I'm just going to pour through a couple more things for your viewing pleasures. First, I don't think I ever posted the pic of the actual award we won for the Orlando 24 Hour Film Fest. I know, you're probably tired of hearing about it by now, but dammit we won an award! Marinate, participate, salivate, but don't hate. Here's the award (thumb optional):


In my last blog, I talked about my bro-in-law Chris Moore (CMo) taking to photography like Pookie to that rock. He got himself a Nikon D90 and he's very happy with it. Check out what he's been doing with his new toy here and here. Yes, he got a shot of a bee on a flower and he's doing pretty good on the color correction. I think he is ready to leave the Shaolin Temple.

This past week, we've been really busy playing with the Canons. I really can't explain how very cool these cameras are and how much they change the game. I've shot the stuff of my imagination on the 5 and 7D. Spectacular tools for film making! I'll work on getting a demo reel pieced together over the next couple weeks. Just got a crapload of footage to go through and damn near all of it is good!

Here are a few embeds to send you on your way. I've got to get back to drinking beer and watching "Band of Brothers" on Spike (even though I do have the DVD set...the commercial breaks are a good time to get a fresh beer).

This was posted on Andrew Kramer's blog. Very cool what you can do with Action Essentials 2:


This time lapse was shot with a 5D.

Google Chrome is kinda fast:


Phillip Bloom is one of my new heroes. Santa, I want a Pocket Dolly for Christmas:

New Jersey State of Mind

A couple weeks ago, I went to visit my sister in New Jersey. It was a great trip but this isn't a blog about my travels. It's about what I did to become a better user of film. Before I start, let me tell you I have the utmost respect for Andrew Kramer. Not just because he's a mad scientist with After Effects, but because he loves to share his knowledge with others.

Teaching someone about your passion helps to fuel that same passion. I didn't have any expectations when I visited my sister. Just needed a breather. I did take Ken's SLR, because I figured there would be some nice photo ops. My brother-in-law, Chris, took me around Montclair (where Stephen Colbert resides) and it's surrounding townships to indulge in my shutterbug.

After taking a few shots, Chris expressed some interest in how to take pictures in manual mode. If you don't know, that is where you can manually set the aperture and shutter speed. It gives you a ton of flexibility when taking pics and you can get some REALLY good shots. If you don't already do it, learn how. Anyway, I taught Chris how to shoot pics in manual mode. After he took a few pics to figure out the math, I set him free unto the world to use this new power for good. Here are some of his results:











The kid has some skills. He took to depth-of-field like a fish to water (not in the Gulf of Mexico). He's been shopping for a dSLR since I left. I'm sure you'll be seeing more of Chris and his photographic ability in the near future. Stay tuned.

Here are a couple I took, when Chris let me have the camera for a few minutes:








Y'all have a good one.

Everything Changes

I'm not saying that like it's a cliche. Mine hands hath gracefully embraced the plastic obsidian of photographing (and now film making) equipment which completely changes the game for us filmmakers. The Canon EOS 5D Mark II and the 7D. Wow wow wow. Seriously. That is all I could say for 4 hours straight. A never ending torrent of facial expressions associated with disbelief, shock and sincere awe. There is too much to tell, so I'll save it for a different blog. Plus, I'll have some footage to share with you. For now, here's an appetizer:



Just need to touch on a few things. Our award winning short film "Not So Far From Perfect" is now available for your viewing pleasure via this izonorlando.com link.

The last blog, I talked about the Inception movie dream documentary thingy they're doing. Take a look at Brenda's creation:



I've run across a lot of cool stuff on the web, I'd like to share. First, this is one of my favorite new photo related blogs. From Me To You, has some really remarkable, yet simple, photography. Just look at her pics and you can learn a lot about how effective depth-of-field and color correction are to a still. Not to mention, she lives, and takes most of her pics in Manhattan. I heart you Jamie.

This pic is crazy cool. Look down and read the description as well as scroll down to see more pics. Then you'll understand why I said the pic is crazy cool.

Ken shared with me that the season finale of "House" was shot entirely on a 5D. From that link I found this video which was also shot on a 5D.



I've said it before. These cameras are going to forever change film making.

Finally, I'll leave you on a very funny note:

It's Been A Long Time...I Shouldn't Have Left You...

Since I did karaoke this past weekend, I keep thinking of songs I should have requested. Sorry it's been a while since I've blogged, but had a lil vacation and 'twas good! So, let me stuff your visual and mental pie hole with some goodies.

Christopher Nolan kicked ass with his Batman reboot as well as the damn near perfect The Dark Knight. He and his team are currently working on the next Batman project, but for now he's releasing a pretty cool film called Inception. Looking forward to seeing this one. Well, Joe Gordon-Levitt (co-starring in Inception and from 500 Days of Summer), is spearheading this project where people can submit anything for a documentary they are doing in conjunction with the upcoming release of the feature. Here's my contribution:



And here's Ken's:



Go out and upload your own! It doesn't have to be video. You can do a still, music, spoken word, whatever you want. Show the world what a dream looks like to you!

I love it when big name studios and actors take a chance on a concept. Sure this isn't an original idea, in fact I just watched Dark City recently, but it looks pretty cool:



My hero, Andrew Kramer, posted a short movie demonstrating a new tutorial. One day I'm going to do a vid and he'll post it on his blogpage, just you wait and see!

Super Punch is one of my new favorite websites. They post some really cool stuff. Here's something that is crazy cool. This guy took the famous elevator-river-of-blood scene from The Shining and re-did the whole thing in CGI! He did it for fun and in order for him to make it match, he had to research on how Stanley Kubrick did it on half scale miniature for the original. In the CG version the blood particles alone took a month to compute and render. That's insane! Go to the YouTube link and expand the description for the incredible details. Check it out here:



Something else I got from Super Punch and I should have blogged about it yesterday when the view count was only 303!



That's all I got for now. Chew on that for a couple of days while I sort through 500 pics taken over my vacation by my brother-in-law. It is always cool to teach folks something new and they rediscover talents long forgotten. Of course now, I've got to keep an eye over my shoulder as he's going to be competition. Look for the upcoming blog and you'll see what I mean.

Excuse Me Miss. I Seem to Have Misplaced My Congressional Medal of Honor...

...and I'm an award winning filmmaker. Talk about the best pick-up line EVAR! Seriously though, I am an award winning filmmaker...again. Yesterday, we did the premieres and awards ceremony for the Orlando 24 Hour Film Festival and we won Best General Public Film for our movie "Not So Far From Perfect". Yay us! I know you wonder what "General Public" means, but it was one of the categories. High School. College. General Public. It wasn't Best Overall Film, but it's a win nonetheless.

Before you get to the embedded link to the movie, let me tell you a couple things. At 9AM, at the start of the competition, we looked at our elements and we had to choose between Chick Flick or Western. I don't know if you know already, but we've done a Western.



Aaaaannnnnd, we won't be doing another one. Once Ken gets the bloopers for "Shortcreek..." uploaded, I'll be sure to share it with you. Those are better than watching the actual movie. Anyway, we already decided if we got Western, we were going to take the other option...no matter what it was. So, Chick Flick it was.

When I wrote the script for "Not So Far..." I wanted to ensure we used all of the talent who volunteered to help us. We had a total of seven actors and actresses (I later found out one of them drove all the way from Tampa to help us...crazy she did that for us). If they committed their time to our little endeavor, then dammit I'm going to make sure they have a role in our film. It's the least I could do. Lucky for us, five of the seven cast members were female of the species. Chick Flick indeed.

Wrote the script. Made the calls. Set up the first shot by 1PM. 20 hours to go. Shot the first scene. Set up the second shot at the lake. Shot it. All of the shots were done by 7:00 PM Saturday. 14 hours to go. Rough editing while Ken did ADR with David and Flavia. Finished a basic rough by midnight. 9 hours to go. Picture lock by 3 AM. 6 hours to go. Was apprehensive about what we had, but Ken said, "Let me clean up the sound." I took a shower and 20 min power nap while Ken worked his magic. 5 AM and I'm feeling a lot better about the film and we add sound effects and titles. 6 AM and we have our first version of the film ready to burn. 3 hours to go. Burned the first DVD and Ken let me play with some color correction since we had time. Color corrected, tossed in a glow and a vignette here and there. Minor tweaks to titles and burned the final version by 7:30 AM. QA'd it and headed to the turn in spot at 8AM. Handed ours over with 30 mins to spare. Enjoy:



It was very cool to win another award and it shows we're still headed in the correct general direction. Stay tuned kids. There's more goodness to come.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Found out CLP got selected as one of the top 24 finalists in the Orlando 24 Hour Film Festival! Very cool (although I'm not really surprised because our film is pretty damn good). The winner of last year's 24-hour is also a finalist, as is the team that won the Orlando 48 Hour Film Project, so we've got some competition. No matter what happens, I'm very proud of the film we made and very appreciative of all the people who helped us pull it off. I'll be sure to let you know how things pan out after the premiere this weekend, and post the final movie so you too can enjoy it!

In keeping with Cinco de Mayo as well as the filmmaker-ish nature of this blog, I present to you this:

Can't wait for this movie to come out. I love when they do throwback films very well. If you haven't seen Black Dynamite already, then you need to get on it!

As an added bonus, my son Jordan passed this on to me and I'm passing it on to you. Sorry it's mirrored, but that seems to be the only way youtube will allow the vid to be posted otherwise the copyright infringement police puts the hammer down. I'm not a fan of the song, but I LOVE The Simpsons:


Okay, I've got to get back to my day job now...booooooring. PEACE!

Best 34 Hours Awake EVAR!

When I woke up at 5AM, on Saturday Morning, the first thing I said was, "The alarm doesn't go off for another 45 minutes and you know you aren't going to go back to sleep. [Expletive]!" Watched the news about the oil spill and didn't think about what the day was going to bring. Or at least, I tried my best to. No point in harping on the things you really have no control over, ya know?

34 hours later, when my mentals finally shut down for a few hours to give way to dreams, I know I did it with a big smile.

There is something about the spontaneity of an insomniac film competition. It isn't really an energy build up of anticipation and angst. At least it isn't for me. Not anymore, I guess. I just know, no matter what happens in the next 24-48-72 hours, we're going to have a film. Sometimes we have a good film and sometimes we have a bad one. Regardless, we have a film.

Words usually come easy to me, but I am at a loss for them right now. I guess it is kind of tough for me to explain the experience from my perspective. How do you describe a finite number of intricate details all falling into place at their appropriate time and you're left with something really...cool? If you can figure out how to put that into words, please share them with me. I'll buy the beers.

Thanks to everyone who helped us this past weekend. You all know who you are and I've thanked each and every one of you. I can't wait to share with you the creative piece of magic, you all assisted in making.

To everyone else...this is just the beginning. You wait and see.