1/25/ 06 -
The completion of "Days Like This" is on the horizon. John Iglecias is currently working on the Foley for the film, and Andrew Rose will be composing the music. I'll be recording the final voiceover in mid February, and hopefully the film will be completed and being shipped off to film festivals soon there after. Stay tuned for premiere dates and info.
11/26/ 06 -
As I've been adjusting to the City of Angeles I've been attempting to finish up "Days Like This". It's getting closer all the time and it's getting kinda exciting. Not that it's been easy working on it, between the gigs I've been doing and trying to settle and everything, but it's getting there. I threw up some screenshots on the DLT page from the timed footage so you guys can get an idea of what it's gonna look like.
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9/10/ 06 -
"Days Like This" has been coming along nicely. I got back the 2nd unit stuff from the lab, did a little bit of my experimental trickery on it, and sent it off to Boston to be telecinied!
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8/ 24 / 06 - August '06 newsletter
""Days
Like This"
is hopefully going to be finished by October, and
probably the first place I will show it will be at my annual
screening-a-majig in Portland that I have yet to really plan or set up
or anything, but will most likely happen. All the much needed second
unit stuff has finally been processed and will hopefully be telecinied
next week. yay!"
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6/ 26 / 06 -
"Days Like This" trailer is now online. Check it out, tell your friends. Some of you may also be happy to know that we went and got some of the long missing second unit shots this week, which is exciting.
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3/ 12 / 06 -
"YES, "Days Like This" is still coming. As some of you may know, my original composer has "vanished", and it's been relatively difficult finding a suitable replacement but, one may have been found, and if that falls through, I might have a couple other ideas, but regardless it is one of the last pieces of the puzzle that has yet to find its place. I'll keep you updated (no, seriously)"
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11/ 01 / 05 - In other news, I finished a rough (rough) cut of "Days". It appears as if I am going to finish on video.. which.. yes.. I know.. is a little disappointing. But originally, the main reason I was going back to film for Days, is because I was using it as an excuse to learn cinema tools so that I could use it to cut the negative on my first feature (at the moment, titled "The Final Moments of Michael Parker's Life". But I think by the time I finish that film, or even by the time I start it, It will be cheaper, and I think better quality to do a DI transfer, (transfer from video, to film, from the telecinied 16mm), as opposed to cutting the super16 negative and making a 35mm blowup from it. Thus defeating the main purpose for going back to film on this short (all of my short films, each in their own way, is some form of "practicing" in my eyes at least, trying to get a little better and properly expressing myself and effectively telling my story, so that by the time I get to making a feature or two, I'll know what I'm doing and know how to do it right, not to say that I don't think my shorts aren't valuable in their own right but there's a reason they get progressively better and hopefully they'll continue to do so) Anyway... So it looks like I'll be re-telecining some of days, as well as timing the whole thing sometime within the next couple of weeks. I still need my opening title shot, but that'll come sometime this month.
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9/ 26 / 05 - The bad news is, i've been contemplating not going back to film with "Days Like This". It has always been really important to me to make a print of it, and I still might go for it, but regardless of the whole cinema tools holding me back a ridiculous amount, I'm not even sure if it's worth it festival circuit wise. Not to mention it would give me so much more freedom with the sound design and editing. But we'll see.. I haven't given up on the print thing yet, but it's not lookin' good.
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8/
22 / 05 - No updates? blame cinema tools. I don't really know what i'm
doing with this drop frame stuff but I kinda sorta made this film the way I made
it to learn, but I have hardly had the time. And on the days when I do
finally have the time, i'm too pooped to figure it out. Oy. Whining
aside, I'm done teaching for the summer, so I have all kinds of allotted time
for Days, right? yea, well, again this is where my inability to say no to
work gives me trouble. This last weekend I was working on in one capacity
or another no less than 4 films. Anyway, hopefully sometime this week I
can at least post a couple screen shots. .. now back to the cinema tools manual
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7/ 17 / 05 - The "Days Like This" footage has been processed, transferred, etc etc. Even all the synchable audio is synched. yeeha. It's always hard to detach myself from the unattainable images I get in my head before/during shooting, but with each film I make/shoot I think I get closer, and this film is definitely a step in the right direction. Editing this film should be a snap, but this being my first film I'm making a print of, I'm a little worried about messing something up somewhere. But no worries, I'll figure it out. This also means a long awaited wrap party for all those involved, I guess people have been pretty psyched about seeing some of the footage so I can't wait to show them. I'm rarely completely happy with the footage I shoot, but the few people that have seen some of it so far have been pretty impressed, but I have a hard time letting myself enjoy any of my films till it's completely done. I'll put some stills up after everything is captured.
6/ 19 / 05 - Sweet Jesus... principal photography is finished. There's still a couple shots left but all the actor requiring shots and such are finished. woohoo! So thanks to everyone involved, and an extra special thanks to everyone who stuck with it all the way through. I will be sending up all the film shot so far to the lab tomorrow, so hopefully i'll be able to have it telecinied in a week or so. Everyone, myself included, can't wait. It's hard to believe that i'll be editing this film that a few months ago was just a stack of paper that had been laying around my house for a little over a year, but thats how it goes. I think one of my favorite parts of film making is being able to show people all these images and stories that had just been floating around your head. Post production for this film is going to be huge but I can't wait.
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6/ 10 / 05 - "Days" unfortunately hasn't made a lot of progress in days of late, but I'm hoping, hoping, to get the majority of my final shots this weekend. I should be going up to Seattle to have the film processed in the first part of next week and I am fucking ecstatic about it, because there is not one shot that we put in the can that I'm not excited to see. I can't wait to start editing that sucker. I've also started talking to my friend who will be one of the ones taking on the music for this sucker and he can't wait to see the footage either.
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5/ 14 / 05 - "Days like this" is chugging along. I'm still missing a couple shots due to problems securing a couple locations but hopefully we'll be able to get that taken care of soon. I'm going to start getting stuff processed regardless because I can't wait any longer to do so. Bleh, but there's a lot of stuff in various degrees of organization so Wendy and I have started kind of trying to figure it out. Anyway, hopefully I'll be sending the bulk of the film out to be processed next week and will have it telecinied soon there after. There are also some more cool stills which you can check out to whet your appetite.
Photos by Amber Smith
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5/ 04 / 05 - All the car shots are (or should be) completed. On tuesday we got the trailer shots, as well as some cool following shots. Still need an elevator and lobby but we shall see how that goes. I should be sending the first of the footage to be processed early next week. I've also got some more stills to post which I shall do soon.
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5/ 02 / 05 - Another small group of shots finished. I wanted to get shots with a hostess tray on the mustang for the driving sequence, but it just wasn't in the budget. Luckily, on another shoot i'm working on some car shots for a van were required, and a hood-mount (cheap rental) wouldn't work, because of how slanted the hood was, so I suggested we check out the Hostess Tray (3x the price) since we'd be able to shoot in from the side and it'd look better anyway. I ended up getting the rental discounted since it was a teaching related shoot thingamajig, and since it was a weekend rental we'd have it on sunday so I got together Alan and Jonason and Jim and we got some pretty cool shots with it on sunday. Funny thing is we ran out of time on the shoot it was intended for so it'll have to be rented again. When I rented the try I figured I'd be able to figure it out and the guy that rented it to me figured someone on set had used one before but that wasn't the case. We opened the box and it was just a clusterf*ck of parts that we had to figure out how to make work. Luckily w/ jim's help we figured it out (by practicing on my rental car before touching the mustang with it) and I think got some really cool shots. Tomorrow (tuesday) we'll be getting the trailer shots and some POV shots and we should be done with the driving sequence.
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4 / 11 / 05 - One step closer to getting this film finished. Finished filming at least. We got our exteriors, and I think they're going to be pretty hot. All thats left is some city stuff and some elevator shots and some shots in some office building lobby and it's on to post production!
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4 / 9 / 05 pt. 2 - In true manic depressive fashion, my energy is instantly revitalized after seeing some of the first stills from the first "Days" shoot, thanks to the work of Miss Amber Smith. Check em out. Now that I've gotten that negativity out of my system, I have mentally regrouped and am once again my overly optimistic self. Whohoo!
4 / 9 / 05
"Since I have yet to post very much information on the film on the site, and I'm not exactly sure who is reading this... I'll keep it simple. Basically the film has three or four locations. The first being the main character's apartment. This stuff was shot the first weekend of production with relatively few problems. The following weekend was supposed to be the driving/city shots, as well as the exterior of the office building of which the third weekend's shoot was supposed to take place. Thanks to Portland's seemingly random weather, that weekend had to be cancelled, despite the equipment my crew and myself had to gather, which believe me wasn't at all easy. So, fine, we'll shoot that stuff later, simple enough. The next hurdle was to find the office in which we'd shoot the third weekend (this being that ever so important 3rd location). And while location scouting for this office that following monday, I got in a car accident. Despite minor injuries to myself and my car, It wouldn't have been the end of the world... except for the fact that in order to secure some $ for the purchasing of film and renting of equipment and etc, I had to give up car insurance for a couple months.
"boo, chris" you may say... "how irresponsible" you may say... but when you are shelling out close to $200 a month into car insurance that has yet to come in handy and this is $200 a month that could be going towards your film that you and your majority of friends are busting their ass to get made you gotta make sacrifices. Anyway... So needless to say my car got impounded. And to get it out I have to A: have insurance, B: pay the base fine/tow fee, and C: pay $18 for every day it has been impounded. Now my car is worth maybe 6 or 700 bux, and it may very well be a year before I can get insurance thanks to the fact that I am young, male, and just got in a car accident w/o insurance, plus the fact that I have no money for the other stuff anyway, let alone to get any kind of insurance, plus my car is pretty beat up now anyway... so just give up the car, right? Yea, well, the car may only be worth $600 or $700 but in true ghetto fabulous fashion, my stereo/subs/etc are worth well over $1500, so giving those up will not be as easy, especially since the subwoofers in question do not belong to me, but instead belong to a good friend of mine whom I cannot talk to about the situation because he is currently incarcerated.
anyway... due to my lack of transportation, I am losing work... and therefore losing ever so precious money, and am also in danger of losing my main source of $ (and stress, I might add), my assistant teaching job. So.. now.. I am having a hard time paying rent (of which I still have yet to do this month), let alone get myself out of this ever mounting trouble with my car, and let us not forget the cost of making this film!
And in addition to this, due to schedule/weather/financial problems, etc, the shooting of this final 2 days worth of shots keeps getting pushed back, and pushed back. And every time it gets pushed back it appears that I lose a key crew member.
Fuck it, I'll do what I gotta do, I'll get the film made, It'll be fucking fantastic. No worries, thats my job. "