Casting Call
Diggin' A Hole is a short dark comedy. A person is digging a hole that looks suspiciously like a shallow grave in the middle of nowhere. This sparks a conversation with a passerby.
We require three actors. Gender and age are variable for all three roles.
Auditions are being held at Ed Video (40 Baker St. in Guelph) on Saturday, September 4th between 1 and 4 PM.
1. Matter of fact, short without being abrasive, and sarcastic. Believable as someone who could reasonably dig a waist deep grave by themselves.
2. Happy but not all together there. Takes what people say at face value and doesn't spend a whole lot of time thinking before responding.
3. Laid back, calm, and curious. Smaller role.
Shooting is scheduled to take place the weekend of September 18th and 19th. All cast and crew are under a no-pay/deferred contract.
The roles require travel as the shooting location is in Walkerton. This is an outdoor shoot in the woods.
for more information contact: director@heavyliftingindustries.com
Ramping Up To Film Again
Diggin' A Hole is quickly progressing. I went to check out our available filming location. Since we're filming outdoors and I needed to be able to dig at least one shallow grave I was a bit limited in where to film. Luckily, a family connection came through and I've got a location.
The downsides are location and layout. It's in Walkerton, an hour and a half drive north from Kitchener. It's also pretty heavily grown brush. It's still fairly young, a farm reclaimed by nature, but it's definitely grown thick enough.
Originally I had intended this to be shot in something a bit more akin to a field in a public park. Perhaps with a nearby line of trees for some texture and depth. I'm actually getting the reverse in this scenario, lots and lots of trees with a small clearing. This still works quite well though.
It buggers up the sun a little for me. We'll be shooting with direct light and there are some potential issues with shadows but the crew should be masked by the surrounding tree shadows while the actors will be out in the sun.
In either case it's a good example of remaining flexible with your expectations. As much as I envisioned it with a field this location works nicely despite not being what I would have initially considered. We'll get some nice colours and textures out of the trees as we'll be getting in to the season for it start changing.
Next challenge, getting a cast and crew together that's willing to travel and hour and a half north and be ready to shoot in less than three weeks. Yup. Three weeks. I'm looking at the weekend of the 18th and 19th to film. Not leaving a whole lot of time to get ready.
I'm still finalizing the audition time and space. Looking like it'll be this weekend. I'll update when I have it.
Slow busy week
Piecing together Cassie's dialogue from the ADR work we did last week has been going exceedingly well. I'm really happy with the work she did for me and it's syncing up really nicely.
I'm looking to bring Sue in to do her ADR work (likely) next week. The script for The New Face of Security was lopsided. All the emotion was written for Cassie's character while the dialogue was squarely on Sue. Depending on how smoothly the process goes it could take us three hours or it could take us six. All for a six minute short.
I'm heading an hour and a half north tomorrow to see about my location for Diggin' A Hole. I'd prefer not to have to travel so far, since it will make getting a cast and crew more difficult, but I think this is going to be perfect for my needs. The perfect location trumps the benefits of being local.
Heading out to Guelph on Wednesday for the first night of Ed Video's Cinematics program. I've offered to come out and help where I can over the next three months. I'm hoping to get to at least three nights. Then I'm back in Guelph the weekend after to help Ed Mochrie, who worked as a PA on New Face, with his shoot. He needs a second sound man and I like any excuse to get some miles on my rig.
Shot List with Celtx
Created a quick demo on how to create shot lists with Celtx to answer a question brought up on the Celtx forums.
Diggin’ A Hole
Out next project is lining up. Called Diggin' A Hole, it's a dark comedy slated for around four minutes complete run time. A woman out for a walk crosses paths with a man digging a large hole in the middle of a field. She inquires to his motivations and receives very little useful information in return.
We're still really heavily in preproduction on this with a lot to be sorted out yet, not the least of which being cast and crew. The hardest part, an appropriate location, has been secured. It's looking like, if the pieces fall right, we could be filming as soon as a month from now.
Post Mortem with Dave S
I got around to doing an audio post mortem for The New Face of Security of myself. I recorded this almost a week ago. At that time my birthday hadn't come yet, nor had I really gotten in to editing too deeply.
I ramble on. Forewarned and all.
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Flat Tire
Flat Tire, a short film shoot I worked on last summer, has been posted on YouTube. I spent two days working on this shoot as the boom operator. The rig I was running with is very similar to the one that we have for use with HLI. I believe it was a Sennheiser MKH running in to a Samsung Zoom H4. We're running a Sennheiser ME66 (not as nice) and a Samsung Zoom H4n (slightly nicer).
It was a rough shoot for audio as it was never really considered when locations were being chosen. The vast majority of the shots were in high traffic areas around downtown Guelph. I'm sure there was a good percentage of the audio that simply wasn't usable at all. Luckily it's fairly light in actual audio recorded with the shoot.
Flat Tire @ YouTube
New Face Editing Continues
Had a wow moment last night while I was continuing working toward a picture lock cut. I have a ways to get yet before that happens, by the way. It was when I stopped and realized the current film length. I was really shooting toward a completed six minute run time. I was kicking around eight or nine pages throughout my drafts and was worried I'd overshoot my target.
Without credits the rough cut I put together last week runs 6:09. With the edits that I still have to make, some general tightening of the shots, and then credits I don't imagine this will end up too far out from that six minute window I was looking for.
Rough Cut Complete
There are a few things I know about myself as a filmmaker with stunning clarity. First, I'm much better with words on paper than I am with images on screen. The second, in direct relation, I will hate all my footage when I see it. I haven't shot a lot but I have never been satisfied with my footage. Ever. There's always a momentary panic as I sift through shots that I simply don't have enough to cut together. Even if I do it's going to be terrible.
I'm not alone in this. I've spoken to other filmmakers that feel the same. They need separation from the project before they can come back and look at it again. Footage gets better over time. Another issue is the size of the image I'm looking at as well. I remember watching a close to final cut of Plan Z and absolutely hating it. For giggles I watched it again on a 32" LCD TV. I quickly went from hating it to being very hopeful that I hadn't completely fucked it up.
With The New Face of Security I need to suppress the instinct to give it time to breath. The first reason being that I really need to have some kind of cut ready before September to show my cast and crew. The second is that I really need to get over it. The longer I let a project sit, and this one has sat long enough, the longer I have to wait before my next project. So I dove right in.
I started my first cuts this afternoon and finished a (very) rough cut this evening. It's a little rough and tumble at the moment but the basic structure is there. I'm fairly confident not all of the shots or takes that I'm using will survive further edits and there are segments that I have to tighten up but it's a good first start.
Some segments have already been cropped out. There were a couple lines of dialogue that I simply didn't have a good shot to use. Since they weren't absolutely vital I chopped them. Of course, being the diligent writer I am, I referenced the lines later on. With the context gone the repetition no longer made sense and needed to be chopped as well. All together? Probably about a dozen seconds trimmed out. The film will survive the loss.
I grabbed a couple of screenshots directly from the footage. The ones that are posted here are straight from the source. I didn't bother doing any colour correction or clean up at all. There will be more than enough of that to do once I get a picture lock cut together. Then the fun of ADR, foley, colour correction, soundtrack composition, and clean up can start.
It promises to be a fun time.
Post Mortem with Dave Z
Another The New Face of Security crew clip with boom operator Dave Zuch. Yes, getting the boom mic in to the right position is commonly referred to as, "jamming the mechanical penis in to someone's face," on our sets.
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That's my little girl chirping at the beginning of the clip.