Where we are now and where we've been

Six months ago I made one of the best choices I ever made. I can't.. and I refuse to think how I would be if I didn't. If its been this awesome, I can't wait for what the next six months has in store.

Best girlfriend ever.

last weekend.

So last weekend was another 2 fun filled nights of shooting. This time in Sonoma and this time I worked on 2 separate projects. TTBC and the short Pit Stop. On saturday I had to pick up Melissa, the lead of TTBC, from the Oakland airport. Then I had to bring her to the set which was in a really nice house up in this little town right next to Sonoma called Agua Caliente. It was dark as shit and we totally got lost.

After that, we got out by 10 cause Melissa is a sag actor and she needed a 12 hour turn around between work days. I travelled over to Sonoma to do some pick ups of my friend Zack's short.

Sunday was a little more of the same except we were pressed for time. Since we went over the night before we then had to start later. I kinda feel bad cause if me and Melissa didn't get lost then we wouldn't have lost like an hour. We had to rush cause Melissa had to go straight back to the airport and go home right when we finished shooting.

Crazy weekend.. I'm glad class was mostly lecturing today cause I am so tired. At least I got some cuddling in today.

I'm in full swing this year as my services are still in high demand. I have to thank George for everything he's done for me. He always refers to me for everything that he's working on. I can't thank him enough. He is truly one of my most valued friends and kinda like a mentor.. kinda like Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid, except swap out the karate for some, (said in a the gayest way ever) Faboulous!!!

sooo busy

Today I have to work on a couple of scenes for Tick tock boom clap. Yesterday I got a call from Sara the Director and was like, "our driver hurt her back so can yo pick up Melissa from the airport?" Aint no problem for me but damn i need five bucks for toll money haha. In preparation for wrangling the talent, I cleaned out my car. that thing was a mess. I found a banana underneath the passenger seat.. no, not a banana peel... but a banana. I guess that was the smell that everyone that has ever been in my car was complaining about. I guess I just got used to it.

So my girlfriend brought over season one of Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Damn, why didn't I ever watch that show before? Like 5 minutes into the pilot episode I was hooked.

drunkumentary and hope

A lot of stuff has been going on. Damn I almost feel too busy. I'm afraid that I'm going to get burnt out soon. I had a 2 hour meeting with Adam and Matt about this little project called Drunkumentary. Its a doc about a film crew trying to complete a short film, from script to screen, all under the influence of alcohol. this is going to be really insane. We all feel that this is a project with enough juice behind it to really get done and have a good chance to get into a real festival like sundance.

I started to get some work doing real estate videos, basically its a quick video to help sell a house and pretty much its just a bunch of panning inside the house.. I did two so far but damn I have to redo them cause I kind of fucked it up. I never did a real estate video before in my life but I went to the guys office and he played the video and told me all the changes he wanted in it. fuuuck. Well now at least I know whats they're looking for.

Damn I gotta work tomorrow for my class and then head out and do the house shots again. I'm gonna be busy.

As for projects I have a few going. Like a rap video (hopefully), try to reshoot Googley eyes (hopefully with electricity). and the theres the Jane Grim script with Dyan and George. Hopefully they'll have time to do it. And there is one more week left for Tick Tock Boom Clap. hmmm... theres a lot of hope in this last paragraph haha.

Tomorrow is gonna be a busy day, hopefully there will be some cuddling and maybe some Ben And Jerrys. haha

shooting the sex scene

Shooting a that short in Sonoma made me realize that this was technically my first sex scene. Pretty much the guy comes home and finds his gf in bed with another guy. pretty simple. Everyone on set was of course as professional as our funny bones could handle.. theres nothing funnier about making your younger brother act in his first short film by having to fake hump a half naked girl. He answered his phone in between a take and said "Bro, I'll call you back , I'm in the middle of my sex scene"

Blasting light across the hall was working wonders in contrast with the dark room. The thing with cameras is that to achieve the look you want you can blast as much light as you want in a scene then stop down the camera's aperture to compensate and get that tone just right. in the picture above I blasted a 2k down the hallway. He was getting silhouetted so with the help of movie magic I frosted a small 300 with the barn doors cracked just a bit and shot it into the doorway. Silhouette gone and problem solved. its trickery I know but in actuality it makes sense cause the white door could easily reflect and make the light seem to wrap around onto his face.. I hate how movies are so fake.

I was really digging what I managed to accomplish with my lowell pro kit. I really took the time on this short to really mess with the lighting when I could. So for this shot above Zack (the director) wanted them to look illuminated by the doorway and everything else in shadow. at first I thought I could get both effects by having the 2k but I felt a little mentally handicapped (the PC term for retarded) after I was fiddling around with the the lamp for like ten minutes. Eventually I settled for the 300 and flagged off the areas surrounding them.

Geeking out on gaffing stuff is hilarious to me. It was pretty much a comfortable mood amongst the crew but eventually everyone was laughing after everything started to become "thats what she said" jokes.

I just noticed a lot of the lingo would lose some of you the numbers like 2k and 300 refer to a light's wattage. the higher the number, the more powerful the light. Yeah film has an entire language to it. Its kinda like Italian, but dirtier.

Oh yeah, Bamboo Chimes... a little inside joke for the girlfriend... love you.

another short

I got lost coming home from Sonoma.... i know thats like one town away from Vallejo haha. Downtown Sonoma is a really nice place. It seriously felt like Hill Valley in the 50's. That was a Back To the Future reference if that blew over your head.

I really enjoyed this short cause I had a blast lighting the scenes. I finally bought bulbs for my kit and I was ready to go.some of the stuff came out really nice. Also that slider I bought is so sick. It just adds that little cinematic look without taking away from the point of the story. Something I feel a lot of amateur/aspiring/student/dumbass filmmakers are overlooking.

I got a lot ahead of me. I can't wait to get burnt out. (insert sarcasm)

a few days off is good... but wait.. school is starting. Noooo!

So we wrapped the first half of the film. We actually shot the second half of the script first. No film is ever shot in chronological order anyway. I finally have another day off to just relax. I think I might be filming another scene tomorrow but I have to keep checking my emails for the exact call times. It'll be way more chill cause we'll be dealing with smaller casts.

Got some cuddling in lat night, looking more for some of tat tonight. Watched The People under The Stairs last night. One of my all time favorite movies.

I probably mentioned in other posts before this but I am really looking forward to this new years schedule of projects. hella awesome.

I'm gonna eat spaghetti.

This is the cast and crew. I'm not in it cause im taking the picture. But thats ok, thats how I like it haha.