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on September 7, 2010
Last Supper
Posted project update #14To Our Backers
Post CommentThank you SO much for your donation to our film! But unfortunately our pledge has failed raising the targeted fund. Since this is an all-or-none game, your account won't be charged any. Once again, million thanks!
If you still want to support us, you can go to here to donate directly to our account:
https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr...
The film is under editing now. The editor says it looks very good. The more he watches it the more he likes it. We just can't wait to see it.
We're going to submit to Sundance. Just to see what would happen.
Thank you again! Best of luck to all of you!
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on August 24, 2010
Last Supper
Posted project update #13In Retrospect
Post CommentSHOOTING MORE FOOTAGE TOMORROW
We have been getting test clips from the editor Robert Ferretti the past few days. Things are shaping up nice. Of course there are shots we wish we had had the time but we are equally confident that we have done our absolute best given the time and budget constraints of the project. The edits Robert's sent us look quite good.
Cathy and I are meeting with him tomorrow to discuss some of his ideas and we will also go over the script with him to detail our ideas and vision.
We rented a car mount and intervolometer at Samy's Camera in Playa Vista; they have a rental house there. Francisco will use the intervolometer to film a timelapse of the sunset tomorrow. Earlier in the day we will use the car mount to shoot more downtown LA buildings. The mount configuration that we have does not have the rod mounts that we had used before but it has been rigged with three suction sups and a stabilizing bar that will make it far more stable than what we had before. Francisco will take a break then return for the sunset shoot as well as some night time shots of Los Angeles.
AFTERTHOUGHTS
Cathy and I sat eating breakfast the morning after we wrapped production. One of the first things we asked each other, literally, was "so, what do you want to do next?"
Can you believe that? As exhausted and emotionally spent as we were, the first thought that came to us was doing it all over again!
And we intend to do just that! There are a few feature length scripts that we are working on developing. One is an adaptation of a short story that I had read and loved over 25 years ago(!). Cathy and I have talked about this story and how we would adapt it numerous times. I recently emailed every source I could locate to get in touch with the again author to ask about acquiring the rights to her story. And she replied to my email!
The next step is Cathy and I finishing out outline for the adaptation and having that ready to pitch the author. Hopefully the rights will be available and affordable. It's a story we both love and would love to turn into a movie.
As I said, we have a few more feature length projects we are developing also. And I would personally like to continue shooting more short films in the meantime. Much shorter in length than "The Last Supper," in the 5 minute range I think. This way we can continue to work on writing, the mechanics of film making and defining the "look" of the movies we will make.
In retrospect, there were some shots that I had clearly in my mind while shooting "The Last Super." But, alas, was not able to get some of these shots due to time, logistical or budgetary constraints. Moving forward we will use what we learned from our first production and continue to improve our film making and storytelling skills.
A COMPANY NAME!
Toward our commitment to film making and collaboration, Cathy and I have established an LLC. So it's official; we're partners in crime!
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on August 12, 2010
Last Supper
Posted project update #12It's A Wrap! Twenty-five pages in 5 days!
Post CommentWe've completed shooting "The Last Supper!" The first shots were captured midday on July 31st with the Canon 5D Mark II mounted onto the hood of my car. Later, we met at the location we call "Michael's Alley" and shot through the night. The acting, the crew and the experience were all fantastic!
The next day we started shooting early in the morning and continued at a second location into the evening until we started losing sunlight.
The following weekend was where things got really, really challenging. We hired out a restaurant for the finale and main obstacle our main character Michael was to face and overcome. The crew grew in size as did the number of extras. It was an organizational challenge to say the least. We shot from 7PM to 7AM on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And we had a LOT of pages to get through.
It was quite a challenge but even more exhilarating! I learned so much and always felt lucky to be working with such an incredible cast and crew. At the end I knew that we would not have succeeded in completing all that we had without the input, experience and dedication of everyone we worked with.
From the cast of incredible actors to the awesome crew to the tireless extras... we cannot thank you enough.
Now that we have all this footage it's time to dive into post-production. That means editing and color timing. Slipping in the time to cut a trailer. We also need to add some finishing touches to the music once we have the rough cut and final edit.
Our work is far from done but we've passed a major milestone by shooting twenty-five pages of images, emotions and dialogue in five fun-filled days and nights. And once again we are still looking for your help in funding what is going to be a great short film.
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on August 4, 2010
Last Supper
Posted project update #11Preparing for Next Weekend
Post CommentMEETING WITH FRANCISCO
We met Francisco tonight to go over the footage from this past weekend. The three of us agreed that things had turned out well and that we should have enough for the editing later on. The night time shots from Saturday look great. I'm pleased with what we were able to accomplish in those two days.
After reviewing the footage we talked through the schedule for next weekend. Most of the shots will take place inside the restaurant that we've hired out. Nevertheless, we have a lot of scenes to cover and a lot of work will need to get done. We've brought on a First AD to help keep things on track throughout the weekend. This will be a big help given how much we have to get done.
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on July 31, 2010
Last Supper
Posted project update #10DAY BEFORE SHOOTING BEGINS
Post CommentFINALLY, A TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF MURPHY'S LAW
It's just before 12:30AM and we are going to call it a night and get some sleep soon. This will be the earliest we've been able to go to bed during the last couple of weeks as a matter of fact. We both need to be rested for the first weekend of shooting on "The Last Supper."We've been making several arrangements in preparation for the shoot this weekend. And, of course, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong! But the silver lining was that no one completely lost their wits or temper and we were always able to make things work out someway, somehow.
We had a final production meeting last night at Literati Cafe on Wilshire Blvd. The crew got together and asked questions, voiced their concerns and worked out solutions. It was a productive meeting I think and I feel even more confident that things will work out well over the next couple of weekends. During the meeting Francisco mentioned that I pick up eight 50-foot stingers when I dropped by to rent the 3000 watt generator. He was kind enough to call ahead and during this call learned that the rental house did NOT in fact have the generator. So all of a sudden we were without the genny we needed for the first night of shooting.
But not to panic! I would simply call another rental house and take care of it the next morning. Right?
Well, the next morning (today) turned out to be insanely busy at work! As a matter of fact, the entire week was pretty crazy at work. One day I'll get my act together and either take a long period of time off from visual effects or quit altogether if I want to make a feature film. No way on earth it would work trying to work on a project that size and hold down a fulltime job. I can barely keep it together with this short.
Anyway, I called Wooden Nickel and confirmed that they had the generator and cables that Francisco needed. But the catch was that I was not able to get away from work until 3PM and I had to somehow make it to North Hollywood before 4:30PM.
I jumped in the car (I had skipped lunch so that I could run this errand and not feel too guilty), got onto the congested highway 10 east then transitioned onto the 405 north. It was at this point that I realized there was a snowballs chance in hell that I was going to make it to North Hollywood by 4:30PM. As a matter of fact, I had pretty much resolved myself to not making it there at all before they closed at 5PM so I would not even have a chance to beg them to let me rent the equipment.
But I drove on. And miraculously made it there a few minutes before they closed. They had the equipment waiting for me, I filled out the paperwork, handed over a copy of the insurance we have for the production then loaded the genny and stingers into the car. Of course the entire journey took two hours but I stay late at work to make up the extra hour I was away from the office.
Nevertheless, I came away with the generator and cables that we needed for tomorrow night's outdoor shoot.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
Oh, don't think for one second it stops there.After the production meeting I had to put out a pretty serious fire with one of the actors. It all worked out in the end but it was a bit worrisome for Cathy. I believed, as I always do, that things would work out and they have.
While I was on the phone with Wooden Nickel trying to find a replacement generator I got a call from Cathy. The permits had suddenly gotten a lot more expensive due to circumstances we had not been aware of despite trying our best as newbie filmmakers to perform our due diligence and research everything. But what else would we expect than last minute monkey wrenches to try to throw us off? ;)
LOOKING FORWARD TO A BUSY MORNING & PRODUCTIVE DAY
We meet Francisco and Kyle downtown at 2PM tomorrow to shoot some b-roll footage for the opening credits. I imagine we will also shoot additional b-roll throughout the production as time permits to have the extra footage for editing. But before then we have quite a few little errands to complete. Small things but necessary for what needs to get done this weekend.It's now a little past 1:10AM. Time for an early night's sleep!
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on July 27, 2010
Last Supper
Posted project update #9MEET THE DYNAMIC DUO
Post CommentVERONICA & MARIE
As we approach the beginning of the shoot we'd like to take time out and begin introducing our crew members in more detail. We'll start with two women who've worked tirelessly from the very beginning and continue to do so: Veronica McKenzie and Marie Rowe!
Veronica studied in both the UCLA Professional's Program and the UCLA Extension Producer's Program with Cathy. She was in the class where Cathy first pitched our story idea. Once Cathy and I decided to embark on the project, Veronica has been there with advice, hard work, research and encouragement. We would not be where we are now without her hard work. But lucky for us she has been there, so now we are days away from beginning the first weekend of shooting on our short film.
Marie joined the production early on as the Casting Director, helping us gather the great actors we've been fortunate to work with as we make our film. She has also been a fresh pair of eyes on our script, offering some helpful suggestions throughout. Marie's even going to step in and use her acting skills as one of the key characters in the movie, so keep an eye out for her. I doubt you will miss the shots that she will be in.
We are thankful and offer our deep appreciation for the hard work, professionalism and dedication from the "Dynamic Duo" from England, Veronica and Marie! Thanks.
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on July 26, 2010
Last Supper
Posted project update #8A DAY OF REHEARSALS
Post CommentREHEARSALS
We all met at a nice space for actors and held our rehearsal this morning. "All" being the entire cast of actors, the Casting Director, the Line Producer, Cathy (the co-writer and Producer) and myself (co-writer and Director).We rehearsed every dialogue scene in the script and also worked with Jon, the actor playing the protagonist Michael, on his pantomime of the violin solo performance.
I prepped for the rehearsal by first writing the "spine" or theme of the movie on the front page of the script. I wanted to clearly and most simply define the core message that we wanted the audience to walk away with after seeing "The Last Supper." Once that was defined (something Cathy and I had already done) I read through each scene and jotted notes on the wants and needs for the characters in those scenes. Once again, something Cathy and I had done before.
This preparation worked great as we went through the rehearsals today! I was able to use these motivations and emotional preparations to help the actors toward the believable performances we envision in our movie. So when an actor was lost or not quite giving us what we wanted I was able to turn to these notes and it was fairly easy getting them performing with the intent I saw in the scene. And it worked out quite well.
We also had the actors pose for a photo shoot that we will use for the poster of our movie. More on that soon as we work on the final image.
FINISHING THE SHOT LIST
Immediately after the rehearsal Cathy and I drove to meet Francisco, our Director of Photography. We finished the shot list, going through each and every shot, sketching out shot diagrams and detailing the coverage we will want for each scene.At this point we will create a list of the optimal coverage and a fallback plan of the minimal acceptable coverage for a given scene. Being an indie, low budget film we are shooting on a time time schedule. So we need to be as prepared as possible for all contingencies. Hopefully things will magically fall into place with our ambitious but achievable schedule, but just in case we run into an unforeseen hiccup we will be prepared with a backup plan while still maintaining the intent and integrity of the film.
We are basically shooting a 30-minute tv episode in five days. Things are planned out and ready to roll but we know it is going to be tight. So being prepared is our main weapon against the inevitable snafu while we shoot.
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on July 15, 2010
Last Supper
Posted project update #7AND YET ANOTHER REWRITE!
Post CommentI went through the script again tonight, making dialogue adjustments based on the table reading we had. We had told the actors that we wanted them to keep the intent of the dialogue but to make any changes they felt would make their words sound more natural. And many of their subtle changes did in fact make the dialogue flow more naturally, so I'm happy to fine tune what I had written earlier.
There was also one particular piece of dialogue at a pivotal scene that has bothered me ever since I put the words onto the page. We've written and re-written this dialogue so many times but have never felt satisfied with what we had.
I feel that I've arrived at a very simple and eloquent solution to the dialogue problem we had in this scene. Something that is most true to the characters and is not overly heavy handed.
I've emailed a copy to Cathy for her comments (although she was sitting beside me the entire time and I read the changes to her). And because I finished at around 1AM I've decided to read through the entire script again tomorrow during lunch, catch any typos my weary eyes might have missed tonight then email the script to the crew.
Hopefully this will be the final draft before shooting. As with most of the revisions, I feel really good about the changes and confident that it will make the story and emotion stronger.
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on July 15, 2010
Last Supper
Posted project update #6A PRODUCTIVE DAY
Post CommentWe had a very productive day today.
This morning Veronica and I went to the restaurant to talk with the owner. He was very nice to let us shoot in his restaurant and use their name and logo in our film. It's an Italian restaurant, having beautiful painting on the walls. When we got there today, they were playing the theme song from "God Father" while staff were getting prepared for their first guest. Such a nice start of the day!
After that, we went to a thrift store that I checked out earlier and thought it could be a good location for the filming. We talked with the manager. After the brief introduction to this project, she quickly promised that we could shoot in their store for free, BUT only for one hour. This is going to be such a task for us, because we're thinking to shoot two scenes in the store. One hour is really too tight. But this is what we got, we have no choice but to make it happen.
Then we checked out two pawn shops. It seemed neither of them was interested in this project. It was my first time walking into a pawn shop. Interesting experience.
After all that, we went to a small but very nice cafe making schedules for the week. Still have so much to get done. But we will get it done.
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on July 14, 2010
Last Supper
Posted project update #5ARE THE STARS ALIGNING?!
Post CommentWe had an AMAZING meeting tonight with an editor for our film! This person was referred to us by one of Cathy's instructors in the Producing Program. This person read our script, visited our blog and asked to meet with us to become involved with our short.
The meeting was great! Both Cathy and I walked away in disbelief, pinching ourselves that someone with his experience and success would choose to contact us and work on our film. Cathy literally smiled the entire drive back.
We'll post more details about the new crew members shortly!
Last Supper
Los Angeles, CA
Last Supper joined Kickstarter on June 18, 2010
