Public Service Web Site

Here's an informational site that my buddy Zig sent to me. It's just trying to get the truth out there. Everyone should know the facts, man.

Information You Should Know

Demotivate

You know, I check out a lot of blogs. I sort of reward myself from work by spending 10 minutes reading them.

But I notice that most of them have spiffy pics, whereas I mostly don't. 'Cause I'm lazy I guess.

So that ends here! From now on if I don't have a cool pic applicable to my post, I will post one of my favorite demotivational posters--just love those things. Many are very clever.

But please, if you can't spell, don't make one...nothing sadder than looking at one with a misspelled word.

And let me tell you, if Marvel wants to make a hit FF movie, all they have to do is use that as the poster. Believe that.

Snow...

So we got some snow today. I left work early 'cause the roads were getting ugly.

Got home, and the snow was really coming down. My wife said the heavy stuff was just starting. I asked her what the updated forecast was. She said, "Five to eight inches".

I smiled and said, "Hey, that sounds like YOUR forecast for tonight."

Yes, I am all class, baby. And her forecast was RIGHT ON.

Guess What I'm Doing...

I would bet all the money in the world that you couldn't guess...

I'm color-correcting FOC2...

I know, what?

Long story...short version is this: I've already had one of my original FOC2 hard drives go down. I have some exported versions of FOC2 available, but I did some bad early color correction in the "basement" scenes of FOC2 and I'd love to just go back and get the originals and redo that.

So I figure I better do some of this stuff before I lose another hard drive...

Anyway, I'm trying to up-res FOC2 so I can put it on a Blu and see what it looks like. I have a program for it. So I figure, if I'm gonna up-res it, I might as well color correct it a bit since I know a lot more about it than I did 5 years ago...

Man, it's time-intensive though...

Here's a couple of examples from the flick. Sometimes it's subtle(1st example), other times more noticeable.

-----------Color Corrected ------------------------------------ Not Color Corrected

Oh...yeah..

Gotta admit, this is pretty bad ass...

As the original poster said, "This is...BO-BAAAAAAAAA!"

Is Anybody Out There?

It's weird. I don't have a blog counter thing any more, and since I have a number of blogs, I'm not sure which ones are getting read.

So I'm not sure anybody's here to read my ramblings. So perhaps the blog has come full circle...it started as the Blog No One Sees and now it has returned!

Anyway, spent a week cramming together a "Making Of" Bounty...it's not great, but I'm uninspired and don't have a lot of time. Now I'm exporting it and keep getting a fuckin' crash(API Failure)...I'm having to export it in small chunks, and will later export it in one on the new computer.

We did our last pickup on GOH. For fun, here's my entry into the diary about shooting at "Murder Warehouse":


SCOUTING(TUESDAY)
So I emailed the Baltimore Film commission to find out if they had a warehouse we could use in Baltimore. Told them I only had $300 for location fees. This was before Christmas. They got back to me with a package of pics and said get in touch with someone named Fran to go check the place out.

I email Fran and say, “Can we check this out ASAP?” Fran says everybody’s off until January 3rd—that’s the soonest we can see the place.

Turns out to be the 4th that we can see it. I wanna shoot on the 9th, so this is cutting it close. I call Fran and am confused when a man answers. Fran’s not a woman.

Luke and I meet Fran at the warehouse. The neighborhood is ROUGH. Luke doesn’t want to get out of the car, and even if he does, he doesn’t want to leave his car because he’s sure it will get stolen.

Fran tells us he doesn’t have a key yet. We can slide through a gap in the fence to get in, and we do. Three warehouses set in the midst of a trash-strewn lot. He leads us into what can best be described as a heroin den.

There are a couple of rooms, but a big one looks pretty great for our purposes. Only problem is that the door is up on the 2nd level. I’ll work it out.

And oh yeah, there’s no power. We will have to use a generator for everything, which means we won’t have much light.

On the way out Fran asks if we have insurance. I say no. He says they can probably work it out.

THURSDAY
Get an email from Fran that we need insurance and he’s going to get the key later that day. Uh...what?

I tell him we only have $300 for the location rental and no more. He says the location is free, so we can spend that on insurance instead.

I email the people we got insurance from on FOC2. It cost us about $1450 for three weeks of insurance on that, so I figure, “How much can one day cost?”

Answer: $742

Not gonna work. I call someone local and ask around. Get a woman who says maybe she can work something out. I tell her I only need liability insurance(a lie). She calls me back and says she’ll have a quote for me the next morning and it may fit under our $300.

Gonna be close.



FRIDAY
She calls me back. The quote is $300 even. She can email me a pdf of the insurance certificate. It’s a “Special Event” insurance license. Not even close to what Baltimore wanted, and only has the one million in liability insurance they requested. The other stuff, not so much.

But I figure I’ll get the key from Fran before he leaves for the weekend at 4pm. I call and clear it with him—tell him that the certificate will be in my email by 5pm, and I’ll email it as soon as it gets to me.

He’s fine with that. By the time they discover it’s the wrong insurance, it’ll be Monday and we’ll be done.

I get the key and tell everybody it’s on. Call time is 6:30am for crew, 7:30am for cast. We’re only gonna have about eight hours to do over nine pages. After that it will be too dark to shoot with only the three lights that the genny will power.

SATURDAY

I’ve reworked the shooting script into something specific for the location. I’ve numbered the shots so I know what order I want to shoot in.

I run over to Luke’s to get the equipment and props and the contracts he made up. I take a look at the file cabinet that my dad went and picked up, and see that the files have no names or anything on them. We need to see names of people on them...

Also, the cabinets need to be labeled...

So I spend about an hour making labels, cutting them out, and putting them into little tabs(that I ran out and got from Office Depot) to stick on the folders that I then put in order in the drawers.

Just what I want to be doing the night before a shoot. Making props.

SUNDAY
Zig and I get there first. It’s so fuckin’ dark you can’t see a goddamn thing in the building. Luckily we brought flashlights.

First thing I notice when we find the main room we’re shooting in is that there’s a healthy puddle of blood in the middle of the floor next to two balloons. They weren’t there a couple of days ago when we came by.

Very encouraging.

I’m not scared, because I took my actual 9mm and my asp(a steel retractable baton). Seriously.

Jared and Nate show up and begin setting up the generator and lights. Richard is late, so we’re already going to start late but...the lights begin flickering. Then they go out.

Do you know...lights don’t run on magic, and neither do generators. I guess Jared thought they did. He didn’t fill the genny or bring gas. He has to run out and get some.

Skip ahead—we start shooting about an hour and a half behind schedule on a day we COULD NOT afford to start late on. Nothing looks great.

We start out of order because some shots simply can’t be done, and then others just make more sense given everything. Shooting out of order gets confusing...

I drilled our door into the wall of the warehouse in an attempt at continuity but it wasn’t wide enough to fill the gap. Made it hard to fake the whole “we’re kicking the door but it’s not giving” thing.

Bailey and Andrew show up and wait. We’re way behind. We call the FX guys and tell them to hold off until we call them—they’re close enough they can run down in 15 minutes.

We throw a door a couple of times, and it’s probably the only shot I’m completely happy with.

It’s so cold...I’m wearing two layers of clothing and I’m freezing to death. My actors can only wear their wardrobe, which doesn’t consist of any coats. Bailey forgot his buttons and has to use gaffers tape to keep his shirt closed, but it’s not working great.

He actually starts involuntarily shivering between takes. Later on I see Richard does too. I wouldn’t say that any of it is excellent acting, but I imagine it’s hard to act when you’re suffering from hypothermia.

It gets dark. We’re cheating big time. Not sure how it’s all gonna match. We prep for the gun shots, and we fire some full loads(ha!)—figuring maybe we’ll get some cops out. Nope. Nothing.

Then the head-smash effect. Andrew tries to smash the head between his hands so the brains come out the back. He does it four times but it doesn’t happen. I think it’s partially frozen. It’s a plastic head with blood packs and pig uterus stuck in it.

Jason says Andrew’s not crushing it hard enough. He wants to put the jacket on and try it. Andrew’s a bit miffed, but relents because we gotta get this shit done. Jason gets up and first time, bam, brains and blood squirt out.

Doesn’t look great, but I think I can make it work. Maybe. As I type this I realize I missed a shot that could have helped sell it.

We bolt out at 7:30pm. A 13 hour day for me and Zig. I have been awake for 30 hours at that point, so I’m sure I’m not high functioning. We go to Burger King with the crew and get some food.

That’s right, we worked 12 hours with NO meal break. Just a five minute break for some snack bags. Brutal, man.

We didn’t get any inserts, so we leave the file cabinet in the warehouse and decide to come back the next day for inserts. We don’t have permission or insurance, but you know what we DO have? A key.

If Luke knew we were leaving the file cabinet, he’d freak. But I ain’t gonna try to put that 100 pound thing back in the truck.

At home I pass out pretty fast. I have to take the kid to school at 7:30am, so I’m only gonna get about 8 hours of sleep. Sounds like a lot, but it isn’t when you’ve been awake for that long.

Bonus Blog Post

So this is funny. Been waiting for a user rating to show up on Bounty. Couple hundred people saw it at the premiere, some reviewers have seen it, and I've asked the cast and crew to rate it.

But somehow it still kept saying it was waiting for 5 votes. I even voted 3 times under different accounts. Nope, don't mind telling you.

A year later, here we are. Suddenly it says 11 people have voted. And take a look at that score! hahahaha. Yes, totally deserves that. It's probably the best movie ever created.

:)

I Answer You Beach Boys

I've always liked the Beach Boys. Their sound. Never thought much about the lyrics.

I'm a little saddened that I can answer the questions that they posed in this song, that I never really thought much about.

When I grow up to be a man
Will I dig the same things that turn me on as a kid? Yes
Will I look back and say that I wish I hadn't done what I did? Yes
Will I joke around and still dig those sounds Yes
When I grow up to be a man?

Will I look for the same things in a woman that I dig in a girl? Yes
Will I settle down fast or will I first wanna travel the world? World does not rhyme with girl, man, but you won't settle down fast unless you get some girl pregnant.
Well I'm young and free but how will it be
When I grow up to be a man? Bad, man. Really, really bad.

Will my kids be proud or think their old man is really a square? Jury's still out, but smart money's on square.
When they're out having fun yeah, will I still wanna have my share? Yes, you'll want it. But you won't get it.
Will I love my wife for the rest of my life
When I grow up to be a man? Uh...again, jury's still out.

What will I be when I grow up to be a man? Old. Very old.
Won't last forever
It's kind of sad
Won't last forever
It's kind of sad
Won't last forever Yes, yes it is.

I'm reminded of this song because it's the opening song to "Men of a Certain Age", which I've been watching. It's pretty good, especially if you're starting to feel your age.

Anyway...

Weekend of the last pickup went as well as the rest of the shoot. Details maybe later. Today we did a pickup of inserts from yesterday's pickup. Man, it's just been that kind of shoot...

What do you do...?

...when you're one night away from directing the most complicated scene you've ever directed, where you are somehow going to shoot nine pages in eight hours, and that involves a ton of dialogue, a gunfight, and a guy whose head gets exploded?

Me, I'm printing out names for folders that are needed as props. Then I get to cut those names out and insert them into tabs, and then stick the tabs onto the file folders.

Totally what a director is supposed to be doing.

To amuse myself I have thrown in some various random names like Dwayne Hicks, William Hudson, Jenette Vasquez, Collette Ferro. You know. And some others that only crew would know. They probably won't be seen in the movie, but you may catch one in an insert.

Anyway, did some creative lying to the city in order to get access to this location. No power there, which sucks. We've got one generator that can power 3K worth of lights. Not great.

Which is why crew call time is 6:30am. We will shoot while it's light out and see if we can get done. I'll be keeping a close eye on the clock, and when we fall behind, the half-assing(read: ugly master) will begin until we catch up.

Wish me luck. I will need it.

Happy New Year and stuff...

So 2011 is here. Yep, there was a day whose date was 1-1-11, which amused be for about five minutes.

Been doing about a zillion things, as normal. Prepping the Bounty stuff, working on GOH footage while trying to secure the location for the last pickup.

New Year's I went out with the wife and her family, like we did last year. Went to Michael's 8th Avenue, a big place they have a celebration with food and open bar, top shelf stuff. We had a great time last year.

This year, not sure what happened, but my stomach freaked. Like, I ate a decent dinner and drank a couple of toasted almonds, and I could NOT put anything else in my stomach. I felt bloated, like I had to burp and couldn't.

Kept going to the bathroom trying to piss out some room, but no luck. On one return trip I got back to the table to find out that my brother-in-law had apparently puked at the table. And it was all still under the table where they had thrown cloth napkins and a spare table cloth over it.

High class meets Red Neck.

So I didn't get drunk.

Last night we did a commentary track for Bounty. Me, Luke, Zig and Jared. Had some drinks, watched Teen Wolf to warm us up while we got our drink on, and then the main event.

I'm not sure how entertaining we were. Luke thought it was pretty lame, but I think he's just mad because we busted on him quite a bit. We all had a decent buzz, besides Luke who doesn't drink.

Today we went to see the warehouse the city of Baltimore is going to rent us for a day. It's a death trap in a horrible neighborhood, but beggars can't be choosers. We want to shoot Sunday, so I'm hoping they give me the final written permit tomorrow or Thursday.

Here's a pic:


Any Lost fans out there who are also Maryland residents? It may amuse you to know, these were the Megamillion numbers that won last night:
04 08 15 25 47 42

Now, here's the "magic" numbers that Hurley won the lottery with on the show, and the numbers kept appearing on the island throughout the seasons...
4 8 15 16 23 42

Freaky or what? I think you would have won like $150 if you'd played them...