The Premiere

It truly has been awhile since I felt the need to update this. It's not that I haven't had stuff to say, because I have. It's I didn't have the need. Why? I can't quite explain why. I enjoy writing these blogs for all six people who probably read it. Am I lazy? Perhaps. I've been known to be quite lazy on occasion. Have I been busy? Yes. Any artist who says they aren't isn't doing their shit right. What's odd is, I've always been lazy. I've always been busy, yet, that's never stopped me before. If anyone has a reason for why they think I haven't updated in some time let me know. I love hearing half baked theories.

Now on to the premiere. As you've read, my film's done. It's been done. I had some editing to do, but that's to be expected. I can always find sometime new to edit or fix or not be happy with. Such is the life of an artist. You'll like something, dare say love it when it's being made or freshly finished, but you then slowly begin to detest your creation. You look at it almost as if you're looking in a mirror and asking it, thus asking yourself: "why the fuck can't you be better!"

Art is one of those things that's hard to be completely happy with. When you've created something it's never exactly how you envisioned it. There is always things you left out or pieces that are missing. It's like growing up and you never have all the pieces for a puzzle. At least I never did.

I've met very few artists who have been happy with their piece. It doesn't matter the media. I feel there can always be improvements. At times you can't see them or don't have the means to make the improvements, but it can be done. Do you think Edvard Munch was completely happy with "The Sick Child"? Did Cecil B. DeMille feel "The Greatest Show On Earth" was flawless in every way? Did the New York Dolls think they surpassed Mozart when they released their self-titled debut? Probably not. An artist who feels his work is perfect in every way is an artist who has either lost his spirit, is blinded by money and success, or doesn't respect his work enough. Not saying it's bad to make money. We all want to make money doing what we love, but there's a point where it becomes too much. It's called selling out.

Selling out is a word a lot of people use without really thinking about it. To sell out means to stop making the music you want to make to make the music the people writing the checks wants you to make. When you've lost your artistic credibility is to sell out. Making money is not selling out. The Ramones never sold out. They just became popular. There's a difference.

I feel I've ranted enough. I kind of lost track about what I was saying, so I'll just simultaneously end the rant and begin a new thought with... the premiere.

The premiere, also called "Strange Little Things", was a thing that Greg set up with Morgan and I. I use the word thing because I'm not sure what to call it. It wasn't a festival. It wasn't really a true premiere because all the glitz and glam was nonexistent and showing sounds like something a streaker would do. I felt dirty each and every time I said it. I still do. Showing... such a filthy word. This was a thing because it was a very impromptu event (even though it was planned) where it felt more like a get together of hip individuals and family members than anything else. We tried to make it fancy. We sorta dressed up. I was in a pseudo dressed-up state with my all black attire and random punk rock buttons. I felt a bit like Robert Smith without the make-up, but I'm ok with that. Thanks go to Amanda for a-ok on the attire. We also used a microphone, which was unneeded for the 40 people that showed up. We also have some very sensual lighting. The UWM Film Department: Touch of Class.

At this "thing", we each presented a body of work mostly spanning through our first semester at UWM with a piece of work or two from High School by Greg and I. My film "Commedia dell'arte" showed. The transfers were bad and it was, at that point, not in it's final stage. I also showed my laughably bad B-movie tribute from high school called "Staring Back at Me" and a film from last semester called "A Short Film about Almost Something".

I went first. I had to speak to an audience. I had a live mic. I'm impressed I didn't swear. I looked at my feet and just spoke. It was a blur. Not sure what I said. Ask around for me and find out if it was bad. There were laughs. Not sure if that's good or not. I was happy when I was done.

Morgan showed "Unforseen" (video), "Tiny Dancer" (16mm) and "LUCID" (16mm). Greg showed "Mr. Pesti Has Cold Hands But a Warm Heart" (video), "The Artist" (16mm), "The Lady in Black" (16mm) and his most popular film, "Void: Festival Cut".

It was a fun night. My stomach turned when my stuff was showing. It was also embarrassing switching DVDs during the show and going through the DVD menu as the audience watched. Had I had time I would have tried to make it into performance art. Oh well.

We were taking donations for the re-imagining of Greg's film Void. I'm the editor and producer and I think co-director of photography. We made 76 dollars. I was happy. Greg was so-so. Vanessa was extremely giddy which helped and talking to a friend pre-show calmed me down.

We'll hopefully be selling DVDs of the evnt at some point. We'll re-transfer our shit so you'll get decent quality stuff. My first year as a film student is almost up. I don't feel any different. I just feel like a poor filmmaker trying to make a go at it. Hopefully that'll improve because I love making films, so it would suck making bad movies forever. Well, I think they're bad. I have some fans though, I guess.

Thanks for reading. I'll try to update more.

Production Journal #7: It's a Wrap!

Wednesday, April 28 2010

Finally, the filming of Commedia dell'arte has come to an end.

It's been a long journey. About two months, I think. I've been physically exhausted for weeks. I'm too tired to do much of anything. It's been a lot of long nights lugging around heavy equipment for the sake of art.

I don't regret a moment of it though. Thus far, this is my favorite film I've made. My rough cut is a little over 5 minutes so far (will be more once I add the new footage) and I love how it's turning out. I'm truly happy with this film.

Perhaps I should show this rough cut to a few more people. Thus far Leanna, Scott, Morgan and Greg have seen it. Most other people have shown their cuts to the class and have gotten feed back and what not. The reason I'm not is because I want to see how this turns out if I stick to my intuition and make the movie I feel is best instead of getting peoples opinions and stressing me out. It's an experiment. Once I'm happy with my rough cut and can call it a fine cut, sure, I'll show everyone. Until then, I want it to stay special. If I show too many people, the final won't be as special.

I guess I should talk about the actual shoot. It was a relatively quick shoot. We filmed what I've been calling "antics" and some inbetweener stuff to round out everything so there are fewer jumps.

The antics were fun to shoot. It was a very mellow, very fun shoot. Morgan made this amazing coffee and some peanut butter sandwiches. It was great watching Morgan, in make-up, try and bite into her food. During the shoot, Morgan and I were switching out our iPod's to pump the place full of tunes. We didn't think it would hurt, considering we're not doing audio. Morgan was playing a lot of Panda Bear while I was sticking to tunes I was listening to while editing: The Dresden Dolls and The Indelicates new album. It really set the mood.

We did so many different things during these antics. We had Greg doing a silly dance with the ukuelele that I've dubbed "the Charlie Brown", we had him pull a bird out of his hat and even tickle Morgan's face with a rather long feather. He really sold the character. Morgan was great too, but most of the focus was on Greg. Greg has the hard job of being happy, yet depressed and ready to crack. To be zany yet subtle. He did it wonderfully.

After we wrapped on my film, we did some credits for Morgan, which was a wrap for her as well and listened to New Order's "Blue Monday". Then shot some stuff for Greg the next day and it was a wrap for his film. Commedia dell'art, Lucid, and The Lady in Black all finishing at the same time. It's a good feeling to be done. Now I just need to finish editing.

Now, time for a video.

"Blue Monday" - New Order

Production Journal #6: Editing... enough said.

Stress is a word. It's also a word to describe my life currently. Fun how that works.

I've been in the editing room for most of the week, and I think last week. I'm not really sure. The editing room has a weird effect on ones mind. Time doesn't exist. It's like the clock in the head is busted. Minutes feel like seconds, hours feel like fractions of that time. The simple process of cutting and taping film onto reels isn't as quick as you normally perceive. I spent an hour (I think?) just re-taping a scene and razor blading the edges to it goes through the projector better.

Yes, it takes time. No, I'm not just a shitty editor.

It's kind of weird to talk about editing, so I guess before I attempt to, I'll give a quick lesson on editing. Not sure how well it'll work. Also, my camera takes bad pictures, as you'll see, so please, bare with me. If you don't like it, fuck you, buy me a good camera.

Here we go.


First, this is the spindle thing we put our reel of film on.


The film goes to this rather dark spindle on the other side. Another reel, known as the take-up reel is placed on there. It takes up the film


This is the Movie Scope. The film runs from the spindle through this to the other spindle. With this, we can see an image.


See? Sorta...


Here's a drawing that pretty much describes what I just told you.

Now, lets say we found a shot we want to use. Well, we take it and attach it to this


That's the guillotine cutter. It cuts the film for you. We then take the bad footage and put it on an OUT roll. An OUT roll is stuff that you either don't want/need or stuff that turned out like crap. You save it for later. An IN roll is your current film or shots you want to use. Usually you assemble all of your good shots at one time. I don't. I just jump in and edit scene by scene and grab the stuff if and when I need it. It works for me.


Guillotine cutter in action.

When we want to attach the new footage to the good reel, we put the two pieces of film in the middle of the guillotine cutter's base.


Once there, we can put tape over the middle of the two pieces to attach them.


We just push the thing down and it attaches the tape and cuts off the excess. If there is still some tape, you just take a razor blade, Exacto Knife or any type of blade and clean it up.

That's editing. I've been doing this for days. It's so time consuming. I'm a perfectionist. I'm trying to get my match-on-action all right and trying to cut out excess time and frames that aren't needed. Plus, inter-cutting footage is a bitch as times. I love doing it though. I wish I had more to say. The days are running together. I can't really tell you about any experiences. Sorry. Perhaps next time I won't wait so long to post. Thanks for reading.

As a special treat, the Indelicates new album has been helping me in the editing room. Fits the feel of the film well. Here's a song from it.

"Europe" - The Indelicates


and another one...

"Flesh" - The Indelicates


Enjoy

Production Journal #5: Filming in a Heat Box

Tuesday, April 13th - Wednesday, April 14th 2010

It's been awhile since I've actually posted a Production Journal, so I thought I would. It's been a pretty odd week.

I guess by odd, I mean busy. I'm not sure.

Well, it all started Tuesday. We knew from the get go that Tuesday was going to be crazy. I had a camera reservation set up to film and was hoping to get some shooting in, but like every great idea, there is something in the way. Tuesday was the day George Kuchar was going to invade the Union Theatre and fill our brains with his own brand of humor via telepathic rays... and short films... either way, it was going to happen. That being said, I knew everything would be hectic, but I thought it shouldn't be hard to shoot 100ft of film. It's not much. Well, my original idea was to film some of Greg's big scenes at Morgan's apartment like we usually do. What I failed to realize was how long it takes to make Ziti. Why is that important? It's important because Morgan was making ziti and she'd be tied up for some time. I wasn't discouraged though. Just a change in plans. Instead, we decided to go to Riverview dorm, where Greg lives, and film the final shot of the movie. A shot that, in it's way, isn't super important, but is important. One shot is important. I know what it's like to try to take film out of a camera and pick up where I left off. It sucks. I decided not to do this and tried to find things to film.

We did some basic coverage footage. Greg's character, clean faced and all, leaving his residence and walking. Yes, like every good film student, I shot a lot of walking. It's what we do best! Ask around, it's true.

We then got to the important shit. The final shot of the movie. You're final memory. If a film has a shitty final shot, it can take you away from it. I needed this to be good. We (Greg, Vanessa, and I) went to this perfectly dank and dirty alley in the East Side and began to work. The final shot consists of Greg walking down this alley. He's no longer the harlequin of old. He's more matured. While walking down this alley, he leaves his derby on a garbage can and walks away. Fade out. The end.

Last time we attempted to film this, it went horribly! If you'll recall, it involved a clusterfuck of film carnage. This time went a lot smoother! We also got done ahead of schedule! So, we filmed trash for Greg. Why? That's not my place to say. Ask him.

After that, we had our Tuesday ritual of Taco Tuesday and we parted ways. I went home, dropped off my crap, grabbed my camera, did some Math and headed back down to UWM to see George.

This is where things got good. As soon as Morgan, Greg, Vanessa and I walked in we were greeted by a new acquaintance, Mark Borchardt, whom we met last Thursday. He remembered us! We gave him a copy of Greg's short film, Void, along with our contact info so he could tell us what he thought. We really want to know his thoughts. He appreciated this gesture greatly. He smiled, and asked us to all sign the DVD and date it so it's not just a random DVD, but a special moment in history for him to remember. Deep. So we did and he let us take some pictures with him like the lame fanboys we are. I asked him for some editing advice, which he kindly shared, and he told me where to get a VHS copy of Coven, his 16mm short he made back in the 90's. As Vanessa would say, "sweet dick". Below is the picture.



He was a cool dude. He talked to us quite a lot through the night. He took some pictures of all of us, and even proclaimed I am a new friend. Awesome. Mike Schank from American Movie, was also there, but he made me kinda uncomfortable. Too many Satanic questions. Sorry, Mike.

Now onto the Man of the hour, George Kuchar! Man, he was something. Morgan and I seriously feel he's from another Planet. We also gave him a copy of Greg's film. He gave me an autograph and let me snap some pictures. We didn't talk with him nearly as much because he was the man of hour, and everyone wanted a piece of him. He was super kind though. When we were going to take a picture he told me to sit next to him so I didn't have to kneel. He placed his hand on my leg. Didn't bother me. He's cool in my book.



He then showed us some films. He showed Libido Lagoon, Burrito Bay, Temple of Torment, Solstice, and Vault of Vapors. Fun stuff. He answered all of our questions with grace, even Vanessa asking how is love life is. Great man.

We had a party for him in the basement of Mitchell. Food, drinks, and Steven DJing some pretty sweetly odd tunes. Fabulous.

Then, came Wednesday. I was so exhausted when I woke up that Morning. Everything started to go wrong. Morgan was very sick. Her throat closed. I was worried. She almost died and I still had to film. Two bad things! I was too stressed to sit in class. I told Rob I had to go and went to the editing room and just edited for two hours. I needed it. It helped.

Morgan was doing better. We finally got ahold of her. She had to go to the Doctor. She told us to just let ourselves into her apartment. Greg had her keys. So, I headed to Gregs, played House of the Dead a bit and we headed to her house. We got to the bus stop and Vanessa pointed out we forgot the camera! Greg ran like hell back to his dorm and ran back with almost 20 to 30 pounds of stuff. That's three blocks! Way to go Greg. I felt bad. We didn't miss our bus though.

It was odd just walking into her house. But we did. We rested and began to set up. It didn't take long to realize how freakishly hot it was in there! As I planned out the shots, Vanessa attempted to recreate Greg's make-up. She did a good job. We filmed what we could. We waited for Morgan to get home to finish the make-up.

Matt was playing Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, so we watched before we filmed.

This footage is also important, but was never too sure about it. The shoot went by way too quickly for comfort. The lighting set ups were quick, and they looked to be good. I don't know how I feel about what we filmed though. Maybe I'll like it more when I see it. I think I was just too out of it to care. Greg was a trooper. Those lights were hot. I know. I burnt myself. Thank God for Aloe.

Afterwards we headed to Piggly Wiggly and got some cheap soda and grabbed some Wendy's before heading back.

Before I went home I met up with an old friend. We had a very nice night at the beach and my favorite spot in Milwaukee. It made the stressful night so much better. I thank them. I then went home, did some Math and passed the hell out. Sleep. It's what I needed. God, was it good. Thanks for reading.

P.S. this was rushed. Running out of time. Bye.

Real Update to Come

I'm still exhausted from the Kuchar screening last night. I'll post an official blog post about it when I get the pictures back from it. Mine turned out like crap. Even though I was told that proclaiming that my camera is a piece of crap is a "bold statement, man" it's, nonetheless, true.

So, instead of posting MY words, I'm going to steal the words from a writer I love. As you all know, I love Neil Gaiman's work and I find any excuse to post his words, so I will. Here's a little monologue from "American Gods".

"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen — I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

Real post to come. Also, because it's funny, here's a video making fun of Tim Burton. I'm a big fan of Tim, but this is rather funny because it's true. I feel he needs to go back to basics and make films with lower budgets again, but whatever. For every "Planet of the Apes", there will be a "Big Fish" or "Ed Wood" hiding down the road... or at least we can only hope...

Nothing can go wrong on George Kuchar day... except when it does...

Today was George Kuchar day. The film department was in a gleeful mood, to say the least. I haven't seen Carl Bogner so happy. He actually belly laughed! That doesn't happen often.

I was excited. I like Kuchar quite a bit. I really like his narrative work. I wish we would have seen more of that though. We mostly watched his video diaries. More on that later.

We didn't have a 220 class today. Rob was doing individual interviews with students who wanted advice on their films thus far. I was pretty confident with mine, so I skipped that and spent those two hours in the editing room. I was editing my first scene, which works pretty well, minus the inconsistent exposures.

I got angry though. I was being careful. I was even wearing gloves while editing, and somehow my film projected all gritty and scratched. I looked at the film with a light, and it looked fine. My verdict: the projector needs to be cleaned.

I also realized that editing with gloves can suck when dealing with tape. It sticks to your gloves. So annoying.

I spent two hours on one scene. I have to re-cut that scene twice as well because I kept making small, continuity mistakes. A reaction seen twice and so forth. Such is the drawback to inter-cutting footage.

Then I went to my film class and watched as George Kuchar talked a bit, and then showed us some work. He showed us a psuedo-documentary about the making of his film "Planet of the Vamps" and one of his Holiday videos and a film entitled "The Treasure of Creepy Hollow".

If I learned anything today from Mr. Kuchar it was this. 1) one doesn't need a script if you have actors willing to do anything and 2) you can get a woman to take off her top if you say the movie depends on it... and you're partly senile.

Let's hope he can talk a bit more tomorrow night. I also hope Mark Borchardt still allows me to take some photos with him and George like he said I could.

After that, I had lunch with Lea, went to my English class and went back to the editing room for some more fun. I showed Lea a intro to editing and began to work on a new scene. This scene is so much easier, and more fun to edit. Only got a few shots totally put together. Next time should be more productive.

Just for kicks, here's a short little documentary about George making a film with his class at the San Francisco Art Institute.

"It Came From Kuchar" screening at UWM

I went to the "It Came From Kuchar" screening at UWM and had a great time. In case you aren't familiar with the work of George & Mike Kuchar, this is a documentary about them and their zero budget films they've been making since children and their impact on film making today. John Waters has plenty of nice things to say about them. I suggest checking it out. It did well at SXSW, so yeah. Enjoy.



Another awesome part of the night was getting to meet "American Movie" himself, Mark Borchardt, at the screening. He was seriously, one of the nicest people on the planet. I thanked him kindly for being the reason I saw "Night of the Living Dead" for the first time when he hosted the movie on G4. He talked about his memories from it. Shaked my hand and even wished Greg's girlfriend, Vanessa, a happy birthday. He told me he'd be around next week when George Kuchar visits and told me to bring my camera and we could get some pics. In case you haven't seem or heard of American Movie, check it out below. It was made by some UWM students and it's awesome.



I guess that's it for now.