Tonight was the biggest, most stressful shoot of all I Give Up shoots that we have had so far. The difference between the scenes that we have already shot and the ones that we had to cover today was the fact that it required a lot more people to do their jobs and get everything organized the way it should be compared to before. We had to deal with extras as well in this shoot whereas the previous shoots didn't need any extras.
The most stressful part of the entire day was that our actress who portrayed the part of Sophie in I Give Up was absolutely terrible, and didn't know any of her lines. This set us back an entire hour until we just decided to let her go and find another Sophie. Luckily, Alessandro brought along his friend, Cassandra, which played the roll beautifully. In the end, everything turned out pretty well, but the stress began to boil through all of the cast and crew today, which is something that we are trying to keep to a bare minimum.
I had just finally finished my first music video I've ever attempted to make. The video was for a guy named William Barry, who is a local singer/musician that wants to get his name out there for people to see his work. I told him that I would be willing to help him get out there my making several music videos for him, so that he can upload them to youtube and obtain an audience. I charged him little to nothing to create the videos; one being that he is not made of money right now, and two is because I just wanted a couple more videos to add to my reel.
Well, this past weekend was one of the busiest yet for the production of I Give Up. Saturday was scheduled to specifically finish the rest of the apartment scenes that we didn't originally cover on our first shoot. Since there were a LOT of scenes taking place inside the apartment, this shoot was imagined to be a long one. It turned out that the shoot from beginning to end on Saturday was a total of 13 hours, which is an incredible amount of time to shoot all on one location. The footage turned out to look really well. Unlike our first shoot, we decided to just light the scenes as best we could, and we will alter the look that we are looking for in post. This will give us the best possible picture in the final product.
Sunday was another major day for I Give Up. Sunday was scheduled for three major scenes taking place in three different locations. The first location was at a place called Wine Down. This is a little cheese and wine restaurant that provides that elegant look that we were looking for our scene. The footage from this shoot turned out really well as well. As for the next scene, we shot at Hair on the Avenue, which is the hair salon that Zach currently works at. I loved the way a lot of the footage turned out in this place, and it was so well lit inside the salon that we didn't need a lighting kit for this location, which helped us out a lot for time. The last location was scheduled to be at the Wyomissing fitness and training gym, but the actress we orginally had scheduled had canceled the night before the shoot. What our whole team was trying to do from then on was to find another actress or any girl that looks the part to play the role of Sophie in the film. We were searching all day, but had to end up canceling at the gym because we had no luck in finding someone. In all, the shoot dates this weekend were a success and we will work out the kinks that got in our way in the near future.
Last night we had our very first I Give Up shoot. It was a small scene, but it still gave us the chance to see how we will work together and what we need to improve on for the shoots to come. The scene is the very first scene that Chester pictures Connor in his mind and they get to know each other and what they are all about. We started the shoot around 5:30 and expected to be done in a couple of hours, but instead we didn't finish the shoot until 11:30. This shows that we need to improve our time management on this production so that everything gets finished on time and easily.
Yes, the shoot may have taken 4 more hours than what we expected, but that was mainly because we were working out the kinks and making sure that we knew how to properly use all of the gear. We also made sure that everything was organized, where each scene was slated and labeled properly. Alessandro didn't inform me that this particular scene was a night scene, so I had to adjust a couple of things I had in mind when we were shooting this scene. Alessandro wanted the scene to be as dark as possible, and I tried to explain to him that you can do all of that in post so that way you have a clear image, but that isn't what he wanted, so I followed his direction and did the best I could. We will make it work, and I can't wait for the next shoot.
Chronicle is all about how 3 high school students discover a force of energy that had given them the ability to wield superpowers. Rather than using the superpowers for good, the younger, more immature high schoolers use their abilities to pull pranks on others for fun. Sooner or later, their powers grow stronger, and they begin to lose grasp of each other as friends as these superpowers take over their lives. This results in complete chaos between them, causing destruction throughout town and tragic events to occur. I personally think it is a great movie that you will have to go see to understand what I am talking about. It is well worth the trip to the theaters, so please check out Chronicle if you haven't because you will not be disappointed.
I Give Up is the next feature film that my team and I will be working on. It is a dark comedy about a guy named Chester, who had recently been dumped by his girlfriend, Beth, for a theater major named Brad. He feels like there is no purpose in living without Beth back in his life, so in order for him to win her back, he creates an imaginary friend named Connor who is the stereotype of a perfect man; the kind of guy women wish they were with and the kind that guys want to be. The film will go into production two weeks from now, and we are planning on finishing the entire film by April.
My roll in this next film is portraying the roll of the Director of Photography (DoP), which is the key Head of the Department on the production, and they are one of the major creative roles. DoPs work closely with the Director and Production Designer to give a film its visual signature. I will be in charge of the camera operator, the audio technician, and the lighting technician to make sure that they are doing their jobs properly and that they are getting everything recorded properly. I am really excited to work on this next film because I can tell that it is really well organized and the story behind the film is really well done as well.
On Sunday, January 22, I had met a new client that I will be working with during these next couple of months. William Barry is a very talented musician from Reading, PA and is looking for someone to help him get the word out about his incredible talent. He has professionally recorded several of his own pieces as well as a couple cover versions of current songs. I am going to be filming Will singing three to four cover songs to put onto youtube, such as Rihanna's "We Found Love", "Not Over You", and "Paradise". These three songs will be his own rendition of the original piece, so that the viewers can see what Will's own original style is when singing.
Will also is a part of a band that performs live concerts all over New York, Philly, and Jersey. He had also mentioned me recording him at one of his live performances in these upcoming months to also show people on youtube what Will is all about. Just from meeting him for 30 minutes, I can tell that he is a very talented musician that wants to pursue his talent as a career, but he just needs my help to get noticed. I feel like I can get him out there for people to see and I am glad that he had chosen me to be the person for the job.