12 Films In 12 Months

The people have spoken! A couple of you commented that you wanted more Sven, so I give to you: more Sven. Here’s a deleted portion of his interview from the beginning of the film. Fox Clark did a great job as Sven and ad libbed this entire piece. Enjoy.

At long last, here’s film #3 of the 12 Films in 12 Months. It’s my film for March, “Paper Covers Rock”. Enjoy.

I have the picture edit finished, the music score finished, and I’m working on mixing all of the sound right now. I’ll hopefully have the film finished within a couple of hours. Of course, even though I will soon have Film #3 done, I don’t have much time to slow down. I’m now a week into April and I need to seriously get moving on Film #4.

But for now, one thing at a time: Film #3 first.

The shoot for the third film last week went great. I felt more prepared for this one then I had for either of the prior two films. I had a production schedule, a full storyboard for the whole film, and a shot-list; which all proved to be invaluable as I had more then 100 shots to get over 6 locations during the course of one day. But, thanks to some semblance of organization as well as a great cast and crew, we were able to make the schedule and get the entire film shot in a day.

The film stars Allison Welch, Fox Clark, Todd Tolson, Tom Clement, and Derek Emery. Derek also doubled as crew along with my friend Chris to slate each shot and help me stay on top of the shot-list and storyboard. My wife Christina and I filled in as extras in the crowd scenes.

We got started at 9:30am, shooting a dinner scene between Allison and Derek at my apartment. Fox showed up around the time we finished up that scene and we headed over to Journey Community Church (where Christina works) to shoot the rest of the film. We primarily shot in the middle school room, using the stage and some side rooms to create the different locations. We spent most of the rest of the day in that room shooting the majority of the film. We finished up in there around 6:00pm and went to a back parking lot to shoot the training sequence with Allison and Tom. The shoot was finished and wrapped by 7:30pm. It was a long day, but good!

I posted a few photos from the day on Flickr here. Be sure to check out the one of Fox as “Sven” posing with our Great Dane, Darby. Classic.

I have a full cut of the picture. The editing still needs some tightening before I call it locked and move on to the sound, but it’s looking good. Speaking of sound, it’s going to be really important in this film. There’s a lot of empty space where action is happening with no dialogue or other sounds to hold the tension so I feel like the final sound effects mix along with the musical soundtrack are going to be key in ratcheting up and maintaining the emotion.  More coming soon…

I just wanted to give an update on my film for March (yes, I realize it’s now officially April). I’m in the process of editing it and it may still take a couple days to finish. I got slammed with work over the last few days and didn’t get a chance to do much editing on the film. I’m making some progress now, but there’s still a good amount to do. I’ll keep posting updates on the progress here and in the twitter feed. Stay tuned, new film soon!

I just want to thank everyone for all the great suggestions for sports this month.  I seriously was tempted to try to use as many as possible and tell the story of a former frisbee golf-loving horseshoe champion, disgraced because of an unfortunate stationary bicycle accident involving a marching band, who struggles to reclaim his glory by competing in a dangerous tournament involving thumb wrestling, pencil fighting, pogs, badminton, and bocce ball against the worlds greatest hurling player and curling enthusiast….  How’s that for a pitch?  However, now that I think about it…perhaps a later film.  Although, I’m not sure I can do a more entertaining thumb wrestling video then these guys.

But seriously, for anyone actually wondering which direction I decided to go with the film: I went with a play on the Rock Paper Scissors tournament.  We’re shooting it today and I’m excited for it.  I’ll post some pictures in the next day or two.

It’s March and it’s time to make another short film. In thinking about a genre for this month I’m becoming partial to the idea of playing on “March Madness” and doing a sports film. Because really, who doesn’t love a good inspirational, underdog-against-all-odds sports story, right? I mean, you’ve got great films like Rudy, The Natural, Remember the Titans, Rocky, etc. But I’m trying to land on a sport to feature in the film. Any suggestions?