Back from Sundance, and with our new Lana signed on, I quickly began to work very closely with her and Bobby to try and cram 4 months of work into 1 week.
But before that could happen we had a shoot scheduled for Saturday on campus. This was our first day back on set since our NY shoot, so it was exiting. We were all looking forward to it because the scenes we were going to shoot were on campus. We were going to be on the quad with a full dolly rig and crane/jib... we were all really exited at all of the attention we were sure to get.
The day was planed to be relatively easy; it was mostly comprised of montage shots of Bobby walking around campus. We had two scenes that we knew would be technically complex, but Zach, Josh and myself had practiced the camera moves the day prior and we were confident we could pull the complex shots off.
The first scene went off with out any hitches, it was the second scene that caused us some problems.... sorry...again... Opportunities :)
Essentially this was our first big scene with extras. Zach and I had planned out a really sick dolly crane-slow-motion shot that was sure to look baller. Unfortunately, we found out that the shot was just way to complex to pull of with the crew, time and equipment we had. We quickly adapted, and kept revising the way the scene was going to play out... ultimately we finished the scene, unfortunately with great expense to our scheduled day.
*** I want to give madd props to our wonderful extras (Kristen, Bianca, Vikki, Vin, James, Claire and two other random guys) They all really pulled through the cold weather and waited around for Zach and myself to finish shooting the scene***
After we had finished with that "Opportunistic" scene I had to meet with Brianne and figure out how we could piece the rest of our day together given the bumps we hit. We figured out we could shoot everything except the other big newspaper scene and a few shots at our second location. Zach and I both acknowledged that we messed up and planned an un-realistic shot. We learned a lot from that.
We moved on pretty smoothly with the rest of our day, shooting the rest of the montage shots and stuff.
We ended with our usual "producers/heads" meeting (Vin, Vikki, Zach, Brianne and myself) and went over everything that happened, and talked about things we needed to improve on... Things such as extras management and a set-in-stone shot list.
The next week was pretty intense for me... Bobby, Jess and myself met pretty much every night for 3-4 hours to rehearse, we really had to bring Jess up to speed for her first shoot which was in a week.
Over the course of the week Bobby and Jess both made monumental strides, it was really good for the three of us to meet so often and for so long, it really pushed the actors to get into character and feel comfortable. Bobby of course had been in character for months now, however both Bobby and I were amazing at how fast Jess got into character. We definitely had work to do that first day rehearsing, but she progressed extremely well.
On monday we went over how we were going to transform Jess to look more "Lana like" with Claire our wardrobe and makeup expert. Claire and I picked out a really good hair style and color. On thursday after Jess got back from the salon we saw the finished product.... She looked amazing, it still amazes me what a good hair cut and dye will do to transform the way someone looks. We finished our rehearsals, and by thursday night, Jess had caught up and nailed it, it was a really awesome feeling, seeing them hit their marks, especially Jess, considering she was still on her first week!
During the week, in the mean time I was meeting with Zach a lot to go over shots for this extremely jam packed weekend we have in front of us. We came up with some really good stuff, we also found out the best way for us to record our shots.
Originally we had been making a shot list and also story boarding complex shots on paper. Now we are creating a shot list and drawing a blueprint of the set and marking camera positions for shots. This is much more efficient for us, and clears up any questions about where the camera will be during a particular shot. It has been really amazing working with Zach on this project. On set we work as one and we have a really good flow to the way we work together. Yes, we have run into some opertunities, but I couldent ask for a better DP, and since Zach and I have been shooting projects together for the past 3 years why stop now?
With all that said I need to get up in about 11hrs for the shoot tomorrow. I want to get to bed, but i have a ton of stuff on my mind (both TMC related and other stuff). Everyone is ready and prepped for tomorrow, and I am confident that we will make some sweet movie magic.
Night,
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
It's Catch-Up Time!
Ok guys its catch-up time!
I haven’t had the chance to write in this thing for some time now. But I can tell you one thing, a shit load of stuff has happened.
Let me see if I can crystallize the past few weeks for you.
Ok, so…. Everybody arrived two days prior to the start of principle photography to set things up, and make sure everything was ready to go for our first day of principle photography. Josh (our lead camera op and engineer), Zach and I went through all of the equipment and started doing tests. We quickly ran into many problems… sorry… “opportunities” regarding the monitor and lack of parts to our follow focus rig. We dealt with it and figured out a few work arounds.
In the mean time myself and the other producers were on the phone on and off with Megan, trying to figure out this situation we were in. On my drive up to NY, I was under the impression that the Meghan situation was all resolved, unfortunately, I was dead wrong. What transpired over the next few days still boggles my mind, and for the most part I have tried to forget it ever even happened.
Essentially during those first two “set-up” days in NY, what I will now dub the “Magner Situation” quickly turned into a pile of shit. After many phone calls back and forth with Meghan it became apparent that her father being in the hospital was not the real issue, the issue was her mother. Unbeknown to us, Meghan never really told her mother that she was working on a feature length film, until, you know, three days before principle photography started. Basically her mother had no idea what this production was, who we were, and why Meghan was involved. With this now known, myself and Vinny, many times offered to speak to Meghan’s mother, father and whole family about the situation, to try and put their concerns to rest. They ultimately didn’t want anything to do with it.
So it came down to many long conversations between Meghan and I, talking about responsibility, commitment and acting like an adult. I told her that we had open arms for her, and that she needed to stand up to her mother, and let her family know that this was what she wanted to do, that it wasn’t the end of the world, and that this was such an amazing opportunity for her. We then came to an agreement that her mother would speak with Vin’s father (and amazingly generous, and kind man) about the movie and the shoot in NY
*** I would like to let it be known that during this whole time we were completely blindsided by the fact that this, Magner Situation, was even an issue, this was absurd, having to deal with an actresses mother?! Over something like this? It just seemed very un-professional and a little awkward, however, we were more then willing to take the time to resolve the situation in a professional manner, and try and keep Meghan on the project.***
The morning came when the call was supposed to take place between Vin’s father and Meghans mother. To put it short, it did not go well at all. Apparently as soon as the call started Vin’s father was greeted with some nice swearing and cursing. Ultimately they said they wanted to shut the production down, and they wanted to sue us, they even asked if their daughter was going to be in any nude scenes…. This completely blew us away and was such a childish and horribly disrespectful display by Meghans parents that we were just flabbergasted.
After this event took place we had an easy decision to make; we had to drop Meghan to protect ourselves from her psycho family.
I called her up and told her that we had to cut all ties with her. She didn’t really seemed phased… I don’t think she fully understood how much she had fucked us.
With this over with, Brianne, Vinny, Vikki and myself decided we would continue on with all of the scenes in NY that did not include Lana. We told the crew the bad news, and then we all got back to work. Since the next day was the start of principle photography I knew we needed to do a mock scene to practice. So everyone set up in Vin’s kitchen and shot one of the NY scenes to test out how we all worked together.
The mock shoot went well, we ran into a lot of things that we had to work on, and afterwards we all sat down and talked about it, we had an open flow of ideas and how to use them to fix the problems we encountered. It was an extremely good learning experience for everybody.
The next day we shot for 17 hrs straight. It was an interesting day. Everyone worked together as a group, the actors came together and pulled through the cold 12 degree night shoot (big ups to Bobby Ceriello and Jason Upchurch for weathering the storm) Bobby blew us all away with his amazing acting. I guess all of those 4 months of rehearsals and prep were worth it. J-Up did an amazing job as well, he really captured the essence of Calvin (despite the cold). We actually had to stop shooting for periods of time to allow both of the actors (and the crew) time to warm up inside. Greg Nutcher did an awesome job playing David’s father Tom. Those glasses looked truly baller!
All in all it was a great learning experience. We ran into many “opportunities” during those 17 hrs… we worked through them and we overcame them, but most importantly we learned from them… all of us did.
I want to say that I am truly honored to have such and amazing and wonderful crew supporting me and working with me. This movie would be nothing without their hard work and dedication.
The next day we got some pick up shots and a few other scenes out of the way and then everybody was able to go home early.
But wait it’s not over!
Vin, Vikki, Claire and myself went back up to CT to do auditions for the newly opened role of Lana. To put it short it didn’t go that well, most of the people didn’t show up and those that did were either waaay to old, or just not what we were looking for. Over the next week or so we had some good ones, had some prospects. Vikki and I then had to fly out to Utah for Sundance with a bunch of other QFS members, so that put a hold on things.
To shorten things a bit, after a few good choices, and a few deal breakers we found our Lana: Jessica Merigan a talented budding actress from Rhode Island.
*** Looking back on it now I am glad we were able to get rid of Magner, she was loose baggage on the production, and could have cost us more pain and heartache if this had happened later on. I think we all learned a lot from the situation. You just gotta take everything one step at a time. And since we were prepared for the worst we were able to find a new, better Lana.***
Then it continues - - -
I haven’t had the chance to write in this thing for some time now. But I can tell you one thing, a shit load of stuff has happened.
Let me see if I can crystallize the past few weeks for you.
Ok, so…. Everybody arrived two days prior to the start of principle photography to set things up, and make sure everything was ready to go for our first day of principle photography. Josh (our lead camera op and engineer), Zach and I went through all of the equipment and started doing tests. We quickly ran into many problems… sorry… “opportunities” regarding the monitor and lack of parts to our follow focus rig. We dealt with it and figured out a few work arounds.
In the mean time myself and the other producers were on the phone on and off with Megan, trying to figure out this situation we were in. On my drive up to NY, I was under the impression that the Meghan situation was all resolved, unfortunately, I was dead wrong. What transpired over the next few days still boggles my mind, and for the most part I have tried to forget it ever even happened.
Essentially during those first two “set-up” days in NY, what I will now dub the “Magner Situation” quickly turned into a pile of shit. After many phone calls back and forth with Meghan it became apparent that her father being in the hospital was not the real issue, the issue was her mother. Unbeknown to us, Meghan never really told her mother that she was working on a feature length film, until, you know, three days before principle photography started. Basically her mother had no idea what this production was, who we were, and why Meghan was involved. With this now known, myself and Vinny, many times offered to speak to Meghan’s mother, father and whole family about the situation, to try and put their concerns to rest. They ultimately didn’t want anything to do with it.
So it came down to many long conversations between Meghan and I, talking about responsibility, commitment and acting like an adult. I told her that we had open arms for her, and that she needed to stand up to her mother, and let her family know that this was what she wanted to do, that it wasn’t the end of the world, and that this was such an amazing opportunity for her. We then came to an agreement that her mother would speak with Vin’s father (and amazingly generous, and kind man) about the movie and the shoot in NY
*** I would like to let it be known that during this whole time we were completely blindsided by the fact that this, Magner Situation, was even an issue, this was absurd, having to deal with an actresses mother?! Over something like this? It just seemed very un-professional and a little awkward, however, we were more then willing to take the time to resolve the situation in a professional manner, and try and keep Meghan on the project.***
The morning came when the call was supposed to take place between Vin’s father and Meghans mother. To put it short, it did not go well at all. Apparently as soon as the call started Vin’s father was greeted with some nice swearing and cursing. Ultimately they said they wanted to shut the production down, and they wanted to sue us, they even asked if their daughter was going to be in any nude scenes…. This completely blew us away and was such a childish and horribly disrespectful display by Meghans parents that we were just flabbergasted.
After this event took place we had an easy decision to make; we had to drop Meghan to protect ourselves from her psycho family.
I called her up and told her that we had to cut all ties with her. She didn’t really seemed phased… I don’t think she fully understood how much she had fucked us.
With this over with, Brianne, Vinny, Vikki and myself decided we would continue on with all of the scenes in NY that did not include Lana. We told the crew the bad news, and then we all got back to work. Since the next day was the start of principle photography I knew we needed to do a mock scene to practice. So everyone set up in Vin’s kitchen and shot one of the NY scenes to test out how we all worked together.
The mock shoot went well, we ran into a lot of things that we had to work on, and afterwards we all sat down and talked about it, we had an open flow of ideas and how to use them to fix the problems we encountered. It was an extremely good learning experience for everybody.
The next day we shot for 17 hrs straight. It was an interesting day. Everyone worked together as a group, the actors came together and pulled through the cold 12 degree night shoot (big ups to Bobby Ceriello and Jason Upchurch for weathering the storm) Bobby blew us all away with his amazing acting. I guess all of those 4 months of rehearsals and prep were worth it. J-Up did an amazing job as well, he really captured the essence of Calvin (despite the cold). We actually had to stop shooting for periods of time to allow both of the actors (and the crew) time to warm up inside. Greg Nutcher did an awesome job playing David’s father Tom. Those glasses looked truly baller!
All in all it was a great learning experience. We ran into many “opportunities” during those 17 hrs… we worked through them and we overcame them, but most importantly we learned from them… all of us did.
I want to say that I am truly honored to have such and amazing and wonderful crew supporting me and working with me. This movie would be nothing without their hard work and dedication.
The next day we got some pick up shots and a few other scenes out of the way and then everybody was able to go home early.
But wait it’s not over!
Vin, Vikki, Claire and myself went back up to CT to do auditions for the newly opened role of Lana. To put it short it didn’t go that well, most of the people didn’t show up and those that did were either waaay to old, or just not what we were looking for. Over the next week or so we had some good ones, had some prospects. Vikki and I then had to fly out to Utah for Sundance with a bunch of other QFS members, so that put a hold on things.
To shorten things a bit, after a few good choices, and a few deal breakers we found our Lana: Jessica Merigan a talented budding actress from Rhode Island.
*** Looking back on it now I am glad we were able to get rid of Magner, she was loose baggage on the production, and could have cost us more pain and heartache if this had happened later on. I think we all learned a lot from the situation. You just gotta take everything one step at a time. And since we were prepared for the worst we were able to find a new, better Lana.***
Then it continues - - -
Monday, January 26, 2009
The Beginning
01/06/09 12:03am
Ok…. So this is my first journal entry for The Mercury Cycle. Wow, where do I begin we officially “start” tomorrow (or later this morning) however, in actuality we started many many months ago. I am not going to talk about pre production much, I am just going to say that it has been quite an experience. I have learned a lot of things, and have had some good an bad moments. Forget all that jazz, now we start principle photography.
Today was a busy day for me. I am extremely nervous for this whole movie, I know a can do it, and I know it is my calling in life but, like anything exiting and new in life this is a worrisome time for me. I am directing, everything falls on me, everyone hides behind me, so I have a lot of responsibility on my shoulders. But I'm exited to do it. As I said today was busy busy; I started off by making sure most of my equipment was packed an ready to go, then I got some last minute errands done, re-printed the script and bought some organizational stuff for my directors notes.
The real main problem today was we received the news that Meghan Magner’s (Lana) father is in the hospital. So there was some question as to whether she would be able to make it to the shoots in NY or not. It was a tense day, I had calls back and forth with Meghan and Vinny, and Brianne, we were all trying to sort this problem out. I wanted to make sure that we adapted to best suit our actress, and ultimately come to compromise that would benefit both parties. It was not until later at night that I became really worried…
I received a random call from a random number in CT and it was some lady who asked for me and then put me on hold. A few minutes later she came back on a told me she was just talking to Vinny and then said she would call me back… very weird. I immediately got a call from Vin explaining that that was Meghan’s mother and she had apparently bitched Vin out saying that Meghan couldn’t do the movie and all this shit. So we all got very worried and later on I got in touch with Meghan and we smoothed it all out, I was assured that Meghan would pull through for us and we just needed to work the scheduling out. I sent her over to Brianne and they talked it over for a while. Then Brianne called me and it came down to this: Meghan wanted the most possible time off on the weekend so she could be with her father at the hospital. After looking at the schedule for a while and mulling over possible ideas we came to the conclusion that nothing would work… until I found it.
We didn’t have to change anything, I saw a gap in the already made schedule that allowed Meghan to go home early Saturday and spend time with her father. Brianne called Meghan up and it all worked out. Crisis averted! I just want to say it is really awesome having Brianne on board and my 1st AD. It is a huge help to have her input and insight of the schedule to help me make the tough decisions. I then talked to Zach for a while about the shot list for NY, and we smoothed some stuff out with that. Everything is looking awesome for the shots, and Zach did a really awesome job putting the shots in alphanumeric order, in terms of lighting setups and stuff. Zach is 100% on his shit and I am so grateful I have his “eye” and insight on board to make this movie.
All in all the day came to an end and now I am writing these words. Looking back on it, today was really the first time we all really worked as a team in unison; we had a crisis, everyone who needed to did there part, and it worked out. I was figuring out the logistics talking with Meghan, Vin and Brianne, then Brianne worked on re-tooling the schedule, meanwhile Vin and Vikki were busy making plans for a worst case scenario (making new Craig’s List entries for Lana’s role, just in case) and in the end everything had a “flow” and we found a solution to the problem… opportunity and it all worked out.
Ok…. So this is my first journal entry for The Mercury Cycle. Wow, where do I begin we officially “start” tomorrow (or later this morning) however, in actuality we started many many months ago. I am not going to talk about pre production much, I am just going to say that it has been quite an experience. I have learned a lot of things, and have had some good an bad moments. Forget all that jazz, now we start principle photography.
Today was a busy day for me. I am extremely nervous for this whole movie, I know a can do it, and I know it is my calling in life but, like anything exiting and new in life this is a worrisome time for me. I am directing, everything falls on me, everyone hides behind me, so I have a lot of responsibility on my shoulders. But I'm exited to do it. As I said today was busy busy; I started off by making sure most of my equipment was packed an ready to go, then I got some last minute errands done, re-printed the script and bought some organizational stuff for my directors notes.
The real main problem today was we received the news that Meghan Magner’s (Lana) father is in the hospital. So there was some question as to whether she would be able to make it to the shoots in NY or not. It was a tense day, I had calls back and forth with Meghan and Vinny, and Brianne, we were all trying to sort this problem out. I wanted to make sure that we adapted to best suit our actress, and ultimately come to compromise that would benefit both parties. It was not until later at night that I became really worried…
I received a random call from a random number in CT and it was some lady who asked for me and then put me on hold. A few minutes later she came back on a told me she was just talking to Vinny and then said she would call me back… very weird. I immediately got a call from Vin explaining that that was Meghan’s mother and she had apparently bitched Vin out saying that Meghan couldn’t do the movie and all this shit. So we all got very worried and later on I got in touch with Meghan and we smoothed it all out, I was assured that Meghan would pull through for us and we just needed to work the scheduling out. I sent her over to Brianne and they talked it over for a while. Then Brianne called me and it came down to this: Meghan wanted the most possible time off on the weekend so she could be with her father at the hospital. After looking at the schedule for a while and mulling over possible ideas we came to the conclusion that nothing would work… until I found it.
We didn’t have to change anything, I saw a gap in the already made schedule that allowed Meghan to go home early Saturday and spend time with her father. Brianne called Meghan up and it all worked out. Crisis averted! I just want to say it is really awesome having Brianne on board and my 1st AD. It is a huge help to have her input and insight of the schedule to help me make the tough decisions. I then talked to Zach for a while about the shot list for NY, and we smoothed some stuff out with that. Everything is looking awesome for the shots, and Zach did a really awesome job putting the shots in alphanumeric order, in terms of lighting setups and stuff. Zach is 100% on his shit and I am so grateful I have his “eye” and insight on board to make this movie.
All in all the day came to an end and now I am writing these words. Looking back on it, today was really the first time we all really worked as a team in unison; we had a crisis, everyone who needed to did there part, and it worked out. I was figuring out the logistics talking with Meghan, Vin and Brianne, then Brianne worked on re-tooling the schedule, meanwhile Vin and Vikki were busy making plans for a worst case scenario (making new Craig’s List entries for Lana’s role, just in case) and in the end everything had a “flow” and we found a solution to the problem… opportunity and it all worked out.
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