Friday, April 2, 2010

Production Journal #4: Hybrid Moments

Friday, March 26 2010

"Beauty has been flowing out of all my pores lately. Out of my pores, onto paper, through emulsion and onto film." -- Morgan McPhearson

"I'll make you a star!" - Gregory Bishop

Hello all! Once again, it's time for an update! Today started off on a down note. Last night I was up all night playing Mass Effect and lost track of time, and realized I was going to lose some sleep. I was right. I had my alarm set for like 11:15am (random time, but whatever) because I had to go to a meeting at work about how to deal with disruptive behavior at 1. Well, when my alarm went off, I was confused, because I was still in a dream, and was dreaming I was in a musical, so my dream ended as a song ended and the song ended with a bit of feedback. Odd to say the least. What sucks is I woke up with a headache. I layed down for a bit longer and asked mom to wake me at 11:30 or so. She did, headache was still there. I decided to take a shower and eat and then go to work. None of this is really important, but I thought I'd explain why my day didn't start too well.

The meeting was long and boring. I got to talk to my 4th and 5th grade teachers though and have a good cookie. That was kinda neat, but the thing that made the meeting awesome was this. I found an unopened VHS tape of the Rankin/Bass stop motion classic "Mad Monster Party" with the voice talents of the amazing Boris Karloff. I left a note for the woman in charge of the tapes to see if I could have it or possibly buy it from them.

On to the film making portion of this blog. I got to Morgan's about 4:00pm thanks for Nate and Cheryl giving me a ride. Greg was waiting, dressed the the nines like always. Once Morgan finally got home we talked about the plans for the day, while playing some uke along the way. It was decided that we'd film the scenes for her short film "Lucid" first, which would use Greg, and then film mine.

Morgan's shoot was funny as hell. Not much was done as far as camera angles, but Greg's hands were put though hell! We covered his hands in chocolate, had him squish bananas, had his hands covered in albumen (egg whites) that looked like semen, and we even gave him hot dog fingers! We filmed stick and paper hands as well, but the others were so funny. We later had eggs fried with hot dogs and cheese. We had extras, so why not.

Some moments from filming "Lucid"

What made all of this so amazing was listening to David Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" and the Misfits' "Static Age" on vinyl as we filmed. All the pops and crackles in the record is so very amazing. It's the best I've heard those albums sound ever. Plus, it was the first time I heard Bowie on vinyl. Morgan and I then had a short talk about how dumbfounded we are by vinyl, then we moved on.

Just for the hell of it, some select tracks from the albums.

"Suffragette City" - David Bowie


"Hybrid Moments" - The Misfits


Now we moved onto my shoot. Oh, how fun this was. First, we all got dolled up in makeup (even me). Morgan redid her original innocent harlequin girl while Greg and I did the few dishes to thank her for cooking, then she did us. She did a very neat looking sad face, which was later messed up by my request, and she did a unique design on me. I can't even describe it, so check out the pics. FYI, I took the pics on Morgan's camera. You will notice, the focus confused the fuck out of me. How I am a filmmaker is beyond. Blurry, but whatever, you weren't there and need to see what happened.



Face paint fun.

The scene we were filming today was the climax of the film. It's where desperation takes over for Guy and he decides to cut out his heart and tape it to her door as a last ditch effort to make her love him again. He is literally giving her his heart. A mime would take that phrase seriously. The hard part about this scene wasn't the heart, as Morgan made a great looking heart. The hard part is the small accommodations in which to film. We had to film out in the hall way with a tube light, the Bolex (luckily I shot hand held) and we were all in grease paint. The last isnt an issue, it just looks odd to onlookers.

Morgan's home made heart

The filming went great. Not once did I have the change the f/stop. I have it opened as far as I could and I it all turned out great. I also made a cameo as a french mime, which is kinda neat.

On a side note, I'm 3/4 of the way done with my second full length script "Yes, Matilda..." and my two fish Bela and Boris died. First was Bela, then Boris.

Finally, as I was transferring some of my raw 16mm footage to VHS so I can show the parents, I snagged a good 35 seconds or so of footage. I thought I'd show you all. It's a really bad transfer, but that happens when you record a recording.




Until next time, ta-ta.

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