I had just recently filmed another wedding this past friday. Jackson Kitchell accompanied me in filming the ceremony as well as the reception. We used a total of four cameras to make sure that we had enough coverage to work with in post. The only problem we had with the wedding was that the priest didn't want us to pass the middle of the room, so we had to shoot back really far from the actual wedding ceremony which was a difficult thing to do. It's a good thing jackson had a big enough lens to get close ups of the ceremony. Overall, it was really well done and went smoothly, so I can't wait to get the edit finished.
This past weekend, I had the pleasure to film a promo video for the cover band, Burnt Sienna. I originally met the lead singer of the band while working with Zach Gaus on a lot of previous work. After meeting Tony, he was impressed with the quality of some of my work, so he decided to bring me out to his local performance at Building 24 out in Wyomissing.
At the club, the band was absolutely amazing. I was a VIP for the night, so I was allowed to do anything and everything I could possibly do in order to film the band. I was running around on stage, up in the balcony, in the pit in the front row shooting up at them. The location was extremely dark, but I was really impressed and happy as to how well the 50mm f1.8 lens was while shooting footage for the promo. Overall, I had a great time, and would like to film there again in the near future.
This past weekend was the weekend of the annual 4500 Digital Video Competition. Last years competition was a mad house with all of the drama that was caused between the two BCTC teams. This year though, was the complete opposite. The team consisted of just two people, Jackson Kitchell and I. We decided to have Aaron Meehan included on the group as well, so just a total of three guys with a complete stress-free weekend. No drama or arguments of any kind were created amongst the members of the group, which was amazing and I was surprised that it actually went that way.
This experience, whether it will give us The Best Picture title or not, really allowed Jackson and I to get to know each other personally and be able to become close friends. This will benefit us in the long run because we will be able to work together more efficiently when we go to states this week as well as any future assignments that we decide to tackle together as a team. I am glad of the outcome of the competition this year and I hope that next year will be another year of relaxation without stress.
Today, I had shot all of the studio footage for the very first episode of Backlot. Originally, the shoot was supposed to be all done live in the studio, but with all of the other things falling behind and getting in the way, we decided to edit it in post rather than switching it live. Overall the shoot went really well. Zach Gaus, the host of Backlot, did an excellent job for his first time, especially when not given the script ahead of time to look over.
There are some technical difficulties while trying to shoot the footage today. The first was the the teleprompter was faulty and would constantly shut off and not work properly, causing the shoot to last longer than expected. The other main situation was audio. No matter how hard I tried, Zach's levels in the audio meter seemed to be distorted. The reasoning was because of a frequency issue with the wireless lav, so we decided to use the other microphone that was wired rather than wireless. This gave us absolutely the best audio that we could get. I really enjoyed the shoot today. It wasn't too stressful and at the same time, was really easy to fix the minor mistakes. Tune in next week for the release of the first episode.
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.
The song that Will had covered was called We Found Love. The original song was written by Rihanna, but Will had taken that version and made it his own by creating the song from scratch again, using all pieces of equipment he had available to him. The video will be uploaded to youtube soon, so I will post a link on my blog at a later date when it comes out.
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.
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