Film Musings

Disney/ABC Fellowship

2011-11-21T18:31:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm glad to have checked the Disney/ABC Fellowship program web page. I almost missed the deadline for applying. For those of you that don't know, Disney/ABC has several fellowship programs in which anyone can apply for. Writing, directing, producing. Unfortunately, the TV writing program seems to have become more exclusive. Two letters of recommendation from people in the industry became mandatory instead of optional. I think this is a little short sighted myself. There are a lot of talented writers out there who may have brilliant specs but don't have any industry contacts as of yet. But hey, that's just my opinion, I'm sure the folks at Disney have a reason for it. Probably because they just get so many scripts it becomes almost impossible to get through them all. After reading for the Austin Film Festival for a couple of years I can sympathize. At any rate, I sent in my application to the directing fellowship today, just under the wire. Wish me luck!

Succumb showing at the Rose City Steampunk Festival

2010-12-10T17:17:00.000-08:00

Exciting news for Succumb! It will be showing along with some other great steampunk films at the Rose City Steampunk festival. http://steampunkfilmpdx.com/ The screenings will be held at the Clinton Street Theater in Portland OR. There looks to be quite a few steampunk films showing, live action and animated.

Promotions, web hits, google analytics?

2010-11-09T17:42:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone,

Succumb is finished now and it's time to promote it. I recently attended the Austin Film Festival and handed out my card to just about every industry person I could. I have to say that all the industry people were super nice and took my card. They're really there to try to find new talent. A person from Sony did want to see my Winter Shaker script which is encouraging.

The big question is how to promote Succumb. I guess that's the difficulities all filmmakers go through. I attended a panel with Edward Burns and he still has trouble rasing money and getting distribution. His last film, Nice Guy Johnnie was actually distributed via Itunes! I don't think I could charge any money for a 14 minute short film, but maybe Itunes or Atom films would be willing to show it. I'll investigate and let you know the results.

Austin Film Festival

2010-10-24T13:20:00.000-07:00

Wow, fantastic time at the Austin Film Festival! I met a lot of talented writers and of course a good many industry people. Thanks to all the industry people who took the time to answer all my questions. Franklin Leonard, the Director of Development at Universal was paticularly nice and gave some super helpful suggestions on advancing your career. Now back to writing!

Done! Now off to a find a premiere space!

2010-08-03T20:39:00.000-07:00

Well, it's done. Hard to believe but we have finished post production and everything is finished. Well, almost done. Somewhere in the exchanging of hard drives and files, one music file got misplaced and we're still trying to hunt it down. Not to fear, it's still somewhere in there, and we can always substitute something else for it if need be. It's some background music which is pretty kick ass, but not critical.

So we're trying to find a big space for the premiere party here in Austin. A couple of ideas have been floated to me by my friends at AFM, but they'll cost money. Anyone willing to donate a space to premiere a kick ass Sci-Fi short?

Almost there!

2010-07-07T19:33:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,
Sorry for not updating more often, but we've been super busy with all the post production work on Succumb. It's really looking great! I just gave the file to Justin Durban to score. If you don't know Justin, you should! Check out his web page at www.justindurban.com. You have to hire this guy for your next film.

There are just a few minor tweaks we're making right now. There's a few lines that are still out of sync, and we have a few other minor editing details to smooth out. The VFX scenes are all but done, and I have to say they really look good! Our spaceship, done by Thomas Berg looks fantastic, I wish I could use it in more shots! Today is the 7th, and I'm hoping to have everything done by the 12th so I can submit it to the Austin Film Festival. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Trailer up on Facebook page!

2010-04-28T19:15:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, our fantastic trailer is now up on the Succumb Facebook page! Many thanks to Jerrett Wilson, our primary editor who cut the trailer. It came out beautifully! Thomas, our 3d guy in Norway just sent me some preliminary renders of the spaceship flying through space, and I gotta tell you, it looks fantastic. I think this short is gonna blow the socks off some people. We just have a few more things to get into place and then we'll be done. Many thanks to the people who are donating their time and energy for free for this project, you won't be disappointed!

cheers,
Jonathan

Ship is Done!

2010-04-10T08:31:00.001-07:00

Thomas Berg, our 3D guru in Norway has finished the spaceship! Now he has to render the sequence out. Now, to tell how how intensive this process is, it takes something like 8 hours to render one frame of video! So a lot of effort goes into a sequence that will last 5-7 seconds. Many thanks to Mike Pedro who designed and sketched out the ship. He is also sketching out our spaceport which which is going to look very cool! More on that later.

2009-12-08T20:21:00.001-08:00

Succumb Facebook Page!

2009-12-08T20:19:00.000-08:00

Alright! Succumb has a an official Facebook page! I'd post a link but apparently I am too technically challenged to get it to work. I'll figure it out and post it later, or do what I usually do and get my lovely and talented wife to show me how to do it. We just finished ADR this weekend. As I mentioned prior, Zilker Park was a bitch to our sound. So we had to go in and redub everyone's lines from those two days. And as I have finished the rough cut, I realize that we never shot the plate for our battle scene. Crap. Oh well, Todd Waldron, our sound guy has a great location behind his subdivision that looks great. Got a creepy devastated look to it. So as soon as I get sound from Todd, I'll give the files to Jerrett and he'll start rotoscoping the lightsabers.

Succumb Update

2009-12-02T18:22:00.001-08:00

I just realized it's been a month since I update the blog. Sorry to have been away for so long. Editing is coming along well on Succumb, the footage looks amazing and that's before color correction and special effects. The only problem I've run into is the audio in Zilker Park. I knew it might be problematic since Mopac runs right alongside it. And sure enough, you can hear it in the background of all the shots, it's just awful. So this Saturday we're going to have the actors re-record all their dialogue and redo some foley sounds as well. Looks like the film is going to run at right around 15 minutes. It's going to look really nice. As soon as the special effects team and 3D modelers are done, I'll be cutting a trailer for everyone.

Ah hah!

2009-10-28T19:44:00.001-07:00

Turns out Lucy in Disguise did not give us the missing boots after all! We checked out our inventory list and they were not on it. Thought I was gonna have to shell out some dough to cover some lost boots. I've been logging and transfering all our footage over the past couple of days and we've captured some great footage. A water mocasin lives in one of the ponds and we got a great shot of it swimming throught the water. Zilker Botanical gardens is a beautiful place to shoot. You just can't shoot on a Friday or a weekend, too many people walking around getting in your shots. I've got a beautiful jib shot that really worked, it was take 5 and we just noticed some people in the background. Might have to see if we can paint them out using After Effects.

4th and Final Day of shooting in the can.

2009-10-25T18:51:00.000-07:00

Whew. Finished greenscreen shots today for Succumb. Went faster than expected, had to actually. One of my lead actors had to teach a pilates class so he had to get out of there by a certain time. But we got enough shots off to edit the whole thing together. Last night was simply incredible. Many thanks to John, the owner of Elysium, a downtown dance club. He let us use the space for our bar scene. My set designers J.R. and Suzanne pulled off some amazing set pieces. They turned the Elysium into an incredible steampunk bar. It was pretty dark in the club, so I'm hoping that we're able to get some good shots of their handy work. Suzanne's daughter played a "living" fortune teller. Watch what she does when my lead actor walks into the bar. Also, a big shout out to Airship Isabella and the Hipnautica crew. Working together these guys played extras in the movie and then put on an amazing live show. We shot their music video "Exile" after principal film shooting was done. I'm not sure if a music video and short film have been done in one day, but we pulled it off! Gary Huff our DP, got some really cool shots. I'll put a link to both groups on the website, www.blueridgepictureshome.com.

Our two lead actors, Jonathan and Philip did an amazing fight. Unbelievable. Both Gary and I turned to each other and went "wow" as they were fighting. I only wish I had a couple more hours to shoot from a few more angles, but we were pushed for time as it was. But all I can say is they did an amazing job! Kudos to Jesse Crouch, our fight coordinator for putting the whole sequence together. A very inventive, very different fight and it's just gonna blow everyone's minds. Now to the editing!

2nd Day of shooting in the can.

2009-10-18T08:41:00.001-07:00

My 2nd day of shooting went much smoother than the first day. Got a lot of great footage. Zilker Botanical Gardens is a wonderful place to shoot. Our only problem was during the afternoon while we were trying to get our jib shot, we had a bunch of tourists walking around getting in the shot. Steve, our A.D., and Jen, our makeup lady, did their best with traffic control. Someone got their pants in a bind and complained to Zilker management that we weren't allowing them to walk around, which wasn't true. Anyway I had to smooth things over with them. Lighting also was an issue as they decided we couldn't use their electricity anymore. So our last two scenes of the day might be a little on the dark side. But I'm still happy with everything we got. My two boys, Winston and Blake were real troopers. Especially Winston, he's only 9 and went through a 9 hour day like a real trooper. Great little actors as well. I'm really looking forward to start editing the scenes together. Now the hard part, shooting the fight scene in Elysium. More on that later.

First Day of Shooting!

2009-10-15T20:17:00.001-07:00

Whoo-hoo! First day of shooting is complete. Went a bit slower that we intially had planned. And really the only reason for that was we couldn't find my lead actresses shoes. We rented them from Lucy in Disguise. We know we brought them home, we put them in the closet, and now they are gone. I mean they are nowhere in the house. Looked everywhere. I'm starting to wonder if we really brought them home with us. And my main actor did not bring any dress shoes. Both my actors were missing shoes. So, after my beloved, cherished, forever in her debt wife drove all the way back to the house to get extra shoes, we managed to get the first shot off at 11:30. Put us way behind, but if it had to happen any day, today was it, because the other footage we had to get was montage, and b roll stuff. Tomorrow is going to be exciting because we have three scenes, and they all have kids in them! Send up a prayer for me.

Sound and Makeup secured.

2009-10-06T20:48:00.001-07:00

Great news, I managed to find a sound guy for the filming in Zilker gardens. I didn't think it would be that tough to find someone. I can usually count on my regular sound guy, Todd Waldron (who is a fantastic mixer by the way) to record for me, but he just started a new job and can't take the time off. I also managed to secure Jennifer Fielding as my makeup gal, she's got lots of experience and I'm lucky to get her. On another front, I've been writing out the shot list for the fight scene that will happen in the bar. Bad news, I'm not going to be able to steadicam my main character's entrance so I'll have to use a dolly or just change the shot completely. I have a production meeting on Sunday with my storyboard artist and my camera guys and we'll go over the shots as well as workflow. We're using the Panason HVX and HPX cameras with P2 workflow. More on that in a later post.

Steampunk lightsaber

2009-09-17T18:58:00.001-07:00

My prop guy in California just sent me a rendering of the Steampunk Lightsabers he's creating for the film. And I have to say that they kick some serious you know what. I was very tempted to put up a picture of what he's working on, but I think I'll let the suspense build for everyone. But suffice to say, he execeded my expectations. Wow! I am seriously giddy with excitement now.

Production Meeting - Design Pass

2009-09-14T18:58:00.001-07:00

We had a great production meeting at my house yesterday. We did what's called a "design pass" for the movie. We went over sketches of costumes, locations, and special effects that I want to see in the final product. Marcus, my illustrator and my set designer J.R. did a fantastic job of putting together some preliminary sketches and designs for our actors and locations. Sound is going to be an issue in Zilker Botannical Gardens, it's right next to Mopac and it looks like I'm just going to have to count on doing ADR work when everything is said and done. I need to go through Zilker with my DP, and we definitely need to go through Elysium with the actors, Jesse our stunt coordinator and J.R. who needs to measure everything.

Airship Isabella

2009-09-12T20:05:00.001-07:00

Fantastic news! I had a meeting this week with the Airship Isabella crew. They are a local group of Steampunkers that make their own costumes and props. They've agreed to be in the film as background people. So we're looking pretty good right now. I just need to find a make up person and we'll be all set. Oh, and a web designer, my kingdom for a web designer!

Wardrobe Fun with Lucy in Disguise

2009-09-07T19:48:00.001-07:00

Kristen and I met my three primary actors at Lucy in Disguise to outfit them in Steampunk wardrobe. For those of you who aren't familiar, Lucy in Disguise is a huge costume rental facility on Congress Ave in the Soco district. That's fancy talk for South Congress district. The folks at Lucy were super helpful, especially Karen Katz. Karen gave us her personal attention for the better part of an hour trying to find outfits for my actors to wear. And she found some great stuff. I have to say that if nothing else, Kylie, Jonathan, and Philip are going to look great! I have a few more details to nail down like a make up person but it's coming together. I just found a great set designer and I have a meeting with her tomorrow night. She's going to be bringing some sketches to show me what she thinks she can do with the Elysium club.

Filming permit obtained- Proceed straight to go.

2009-09-01T20:07:00.001-07:00

Got some great news today. I received my film permit to film in Zilker Botannical Gardens. Whew, I was worried for a while that they weren't going to let me film there, but Jason at they City of Austin was super nice and very helpful. Best of all, they're not going to charge me. Now the fun part starts. I'm meeting my principal actors at Lucy in Disguise downtown and we're going to outfit them with wardrobe. And Sunday we're having a production meeting / design pass. Marcus Rice and J.R. Fleming, our artist and set designer respectively will be giving us their sketches and designs for our location shoots. Going to be a fun weekend!

Succumb Progress - Wilie turns me down!

2009-08-29T19:05:00.001-07:00

Well, it's been quite a week for the Succumb project. I didn't get permission to use Willie Nelson's ranch for filming, but that has turned into a blessing in disguise. Through a chance meeting with Sky from the band Hipnautica, I was able to meet the owner of a bar off of 6th Street here in Austin. This is a perfect location, great interior and close to where everyone lives. Also, we can help the owner and Sky because Sky and Hipnautica can play a live performance that night. If you get a chance, check out Hipnautica's website, www.hipnautica.org. They perform some really great music. Now I'm just waiting to get final permission to film in Zilker Botannical Gardens. If I can get that locked down, I can finally get down to the creative part of this whole endeavor and start storyboarding!

Succumb Auditions

2009-08-16T18:51:00.001-07:00

I held auditions yesterday and found some wonderful actors. The tough part was going to be matching up the kids to their grown counterparts. I had found some great adult actors and the kids were great, most of them seemed to be having a good time. There were a couple that seemed that they were doing it just because their parents had drug them out to the audition. So just when I thought I was going to have to have another Saturday of auditions, a young boy showed up with his mother at the very end of the day and just blew it out of the water. This kid was really good and he'll match up really well with the grown up actor I want to cast. So hopefully, they'll accept the roles and I can get on with the business of locking down locations!

Succumb Resurrected!

2009-08-11T18:38:00.003-07:00

My short film idea Succumb has been resurrected and we are now full steam into production. We had our second production meeting on Sunday and we agreed on several points. One, we don't want to cram a great story into six minutes. Let's do it right and give this story time to breath. I'd really like to see fully fleshed out 10-15 minute film. I'm re-writing the story now. I'm having auditions on Saturday so I'll use the old copy just for readings. Hopefully I'll find the right actors for the part. My difficulty is finding two young actors who resemble the older actors as older versions. That's probably the easy part. The hard part is nailing down locations. More on that later...

Dark Side of the Moon screenplay

2009-07-12T16:01:00.000-07:00

I'm finishing up a screenplay called Dark Side of the Moon. I got the inspiration from reading a book my brother had on global conspiracies. It's got a great plot involving Aliens and Nazis! I'm writing it especially for the SyFy channel. I started to write it in a typcial three act structure, but I trashed the first draft after reading another blog on the structure that the SyFy channel wants to see. Turns out they actually like a 7-8 act structure. Anyway, I've got to finish and polish before starting my retro steampunk short.

SteamPunk Sci Fi

2009-07-12T15:09:00.001-07:00

I'm in pre-production on a Steampunk sci-fi short. Think retro Star Wars before the Republic. A good buddy of mine, Will, who is also a filmmaker is heavily into Steampunk and is jazzed to help out with some set pieces. Now, if I can just get someone to let me film on their old west town set for free I'm set!

Mahlen - Short film with Justin Durban

2009-06-03T18:22:00.001-07:00

A buddy of mine, Justin is filming a short project called "Mahlen" for the current short film contest on Dvxuser. Justin is a very talented musician who has done soundtrack work for for a lot of dvxusers. He did the soundtrack to my short "Daily Special", which turned out great. You can see Daily special under the video tab on my Facebook page. Mahlen is a great script, and has some very cool special effects. I'm going to help out and hopefully learn a little about green screen work.

2009-04-25T08:31:00.001-07:00

Well, unfortunately Succumb was not to be. Technically there was just too much to over come. But I'm planning on revisiting this short later this year. On other news, a buddy of mine is planning on doing something for Quest Fest and I'll probably be helping him on that project.

I've just started attending a couple of Film Meet ups with some other indie film makers and it's encouraging to know there are other filmmakers out there trying to get projects done.

BlueRidge Pictures Presents...Succumb

2008-11-28T19:41:00.000-08:00

Twilight Fest is officially over, and so it's time for a brand new Fest, Loss Fest. The theme is Loss, and I expect to see a lot of overly dramatic break up flicks. But not us here at BlueRidge Pictures, no sir. We're going to be pretty ambitious on this one. This is going to be a film in the Star Wars vein as you can tell by the picture. Just posted a casting notice here in Austin, and I'm looking for a DP. We'll have to shoot this one in high definition since we're shooting green screen. Very exciting stuff, this will be the most difficult project I've tackled to date, but it could also be the most rewarding.

Short is edited and done!

2008-10-26T19:31:00.000-07:00

Whew. I just finished the short I had been working on and submitted it to dvxuser.com on Friday night. The shoot itself went very well. I had a fantastic cast and crew pitching in to help. My main cast of Adrienne Harrell, Lee Raymond, and Chris Humphrey were right on the mark with their characters and did a fantastic job. Adam Maurer who plays the thug was very gracious as he had to lie in an uncomfortable position for a while for our shoot. I won't mention too much more as I don't want to spoil it. After viewing is opened for the competition, I'll post the short here on Facebook so everyone can see it.

best,
Jon

Production meeting

2008-09-10T16:35:00.000-07:00

We had a production meeting this past Saturday and it went very well. Brad and Mike came up with some brillant ideas and are really helping take this 6 minute short to the next level. I'm going to be doing some experimenting with mixing fake blood this weekend. Oh, and I can't forget about the handcuffs...

Cast and shoot date are locked!

2008-08-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

I had auditions this past Saturday and they went very well. Mike Pedro, my DP helped out and gave great advice as always. In his day job, Mike is an very talented graphic artist at Sony Entertainment. Auditions went very well and I had a lot of talented actors audition. I'm happy to report that the actors I cast were all my first choices. We'll be shooting September 20 & 21, which gives me a little time to prepare all of our props and set design. I have an order in for the new Panasonic HPX-170 which should be coming out in September sometime. I'm crossing my fingers that I might have it in time to shoot on, but I'm not counting on it. Anyway, that's it for now.

Getting Ready to shoot a new short

2008-07-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

I'm in the initial planning stages of a new short film for the online film community, dvxuser.com. Dvxuser has quarterly film competitions, each one with a different theme. The last one my producting partner and I did was "The Knocking" for Time Fest. Since Halloween is fast approaching, the next fest is Twilight Fest. The inspiration is the old 60's Twilight Zone series. I couldn't be more excited because the old Twilight Zone episodes still give me the willies. I've had a script I've been sitting on for more than a year and now I finally get to film it!