um... i'm not sure about that shot/line/piece of music/scene/character/sub-plot/sequence/act/whole movie

so yeah... my head's still spinning a touch from the super-small screening we had on sunday (and also the multiple beers i used to drown my anxiety). it was the first time we'd shown the film to anyone besides select members of our immediate families and it was a little nerve-wracking. special thanks to richard and payam for their objective commentary (being that they were the only ones who didn't really know the story and hadn't worked (much, in the case of payam) on the film prior to seeing it).

it went well, i think for only being a second cut... the highlights/lowlights:

1. payam starts giggling during my very brief cameo and proclaiming that i "look like a child molestor" (ed. note: not true. in no way does mr. knapp resemble a child molestor, nor is he playing a child molestor in the film in question.)

2. as soon as the movie's over, payam calls me out on my over-use of dramatic pauses. (apparently, somehow during the editing process i fell in love with structuring the scenes as follows: medium shot or close-up that jumps right into the dialogue; more med/cu shots as conversion continues; final joke/moment in cu; end on a very long wide shot in which nothing happens except for the characters looking at each other silently. this structure, while fine to highlight the occasional dramatic moment, may not be the best selection for EVERY THIRD SCENE.)

3. during conversation, everyone at the table suggests shortening/deleting a shot at the end of a particular scene. i look down at my own notes where i have underlined three times, my own thoughts for the scene: EXPAND THE END SHOT.

4. joe reminds everyone for the fifth time to refer to his character as "colin" and not as "joe".

5. issues arise regarding a scene in which joe fights with a middle-aged man, who slugs him (off-camera) resulting in joe having a black eye for the rest of the film. it's suggested that the scene simply does not work - which, on some level, i think joe and i were always aware of (that scene went through about three drastic revisions, including a final one five days before we shot it). however, if we cut it, it will leave a distracting gap in the continuity of the film (the black eye is discussed with other characters, but i really think something like that (at least as it relates to the tone/flow of our story) needs to be at least partially witnessed by the audience. richard suggested that a few editing changes (keeping the pace quick and steady through the entire sequence, and cutting down on the fight scene) might make it work... but there are also some sound issues to deal with. so, we're probably looking at another scene to re-shoot (the tally is at three so far), although this particular one will actually require significant scripted revisions to the dialogue/tone of the scene.

okay... i'm getting the anxiety again about all the work that still lies ahead. ultimately, i think we're still on solid ground. lots of work left to go (duh), but we have plenty of time to do it well. and, most importantly, nobody was too confused or throught that it outright sucked. so, yeah... i'm taking a few days off from the whole thing to kind of clear my head. then, it's back to work. (by the way, february marked the two-year anniversary of the project... it was during a triangular road trip from salem to los angeles to salt lake city to salem that i came up with the initial characters and concepts that became our currently untitled film.)

the point of a democracy

by the way, we finished that first cut weeks ago. and we're already well into the second draft.

there's music now - lots and lots of music. i think i've placed about 10 pieces of source music, some of which is legitimized by handshakes with gentlemen, the rest will hopefully not be too expensive. of course, we've got lots of p&r in the mix (and more still to come (hopefully including some by-request, unreleased b-sides and re-mixes) - there's also a very nice blanket music cover of a corrina repp song, some older reclinerland tunes, an amina track, and, finally, the stuff that will probably drain a fair portion of our post-production budget: belle and sebastian's "if she wants me" over a cheery summer montage and a.c. newman's "drink to me, babe, then" over our opening credits.

so, yeah, swimmingly is an appropriate word, i think. we'll be watching various cuts with friends/family/crew members over the new couple weeks and collecting notes on improving the edit. additionally, we've got some re-shoots scheduled for may, which i'm actually looking forward to. second chances are A+ in my book - especially with 9 months of hindsight... we'll be re-working two scenes specifically and i'm very much looking forward to bettering my shot selections and finding more active and interesting environments for the scenes in question. besides that it's all music and audio sweetening and then we're off...

keep checking in on occasion... and also look us up on myspace if you like (we're too lazy and insecure in our html to post an actually link here...) - hopefully we'll have some clips circulating on our myspace page as well as our home page (www.grammarschoolpictures.com) within the next few weeks.

until next time...

foreverforeverforeverforeverforever

it's been nearly that long since i updated, it seems. but, as i think i've disclaimed previously - it's largely mental, this work i've been doing.

the good news (and briefly!): literally, just a handful of scenes remain before i have the first cut assembled! of course, none of you will get to see that cut... but i think i'm very well on target for the first super-rough cut test screening that is penciled in for february 25th. but don't feel bad if you don't get an invitation - we're keeping a pretty tight lid on things until it's fairly well-polished... trust me, it's for the best.

besides that, i have a somewhat firm promise from ljb that the scoring will begin early next week upon deliver of the aforementioned first cut. and, speaking of music, (and i may be opening a can of worms here, but) if anyone out there has recommendations for mellow-like pop song or whatnot that we might get the rights to for free (man(!), that's sloppy syntax), by all means, do share...

that's about it for now.

except for one other thing: if you happen to search diligently through a popular networking website, you might just come across some stills from the film... not that we're encouraging you or anything...

still nothing significant to report...

as the title indicates, i have nothing significant to report. then why am i posting, you ask? good question. the answer: i don't know. maybe to dispell any romantic notions you may have held about the editing process (it's really just a whole lot of me sitting at a computer screen watching take after take of the same shot and trying to decide which of joe's slightly varied inflections of "what are you doing here?" is going to sound most natural and create the illusion of emotional continuity between the three or four other shots i'm using.) not that it's not fun - it's actually really engrossing work (especially when you're editing something that's yours). but the physical details of it are very minimal and the work/fun is primarily mental. in any case, i've starting closely watching the cuts of every film or television show now. and it's clear that editing (like all of the filmmaking process) is about 50% craft and 50% art. most of the decisions you make are to keep pace and continuity, but every once in a while, things come together and continuity is not an issue and you can make cuts that actually elevate a scene (the rest of the time, you must rely upon the script or the acting or the photography to serve the story and deliver the goods). and then there's the middle ground where you might not have perfect continuity, but by trimming a frame here or there and bleeding the audio from one take to another, you can cheat a little and hope that what you're really trying to do, creating that moment, distracts the audience from the fact that mike's right hand went from being on the table to under the table between shots. but it's coming along nicely so far. and the feb 26th self-imposed rough-cut deadline should be no trouble at all.

additionally, i sent in our articles of organization today and within a week or so, we should be an official business. wahoo.

also: still no new name for the movie. not that we've been trying that hard, but still...

who wants to name our movie?!?

so, we (i) have kind of cooled on the title (drift) and am more or less coming up blank for potential new names... we had this issue during the writing phase too and cycled through about seven or so names before settling (settling) on "drift". so if anyone has any bright ideas they'd like to share, please to post them in the comments section for this entry. if you happen to suggest a title that we fall in love with, we'll probably steal it from you and make no mention of its true origin in either public or private conversations. but there's always the off-chance that we'll throw you a bone and give you an associate producer credit or something.

checking in

not sure if anyone's still reading this (esp since i haven't posted in nearly a month) - but there's nothing major to report right now. i'm still editing (it's going well) and i've got about 35-40 minutes worth of scenes rough cut. sequences are starting to form. characters are coming to life. and the plot coheres. highlights: (1) joe's nose whistle. it's everywhere. EVERYWHERE. i can't think of a single scene i've cut where at least one take of each angle doesn't prominently feature a nose whistle. BRILLIANT. i'm thinking of stealing from mike nichols and inserting the nose whistle at key moments throughout the film. (2) the subtle variations of mike johnson. as per a previous post, mike excells at tweaking reactions and delivery just enough to change a line's mood without breaking continuity. BRILLIANT. (2) alicia's attention and energy. i've not cut many of her scenes together yet... but in the few that i have done, alicia carries herself extremely well. once a take gets going, there are no breaks in character or blank expressions - she's incredibly focused on each scene. BRILLIANT. (3) lisa's versatility. admittedly, we didn't give her any slapstick or broad comedy, but lisa nailed everything else we asked her to do. from kissing joe (ewwwwwww!) to striking a balance between sarcastic/hurt/angry/embarrased (all in a single moment) to being motherly, she pulled it all off. BRILLIANT. (4) jim is funny. as the dad, jim is really funny. and soft. and you kinda feel bad for him. but he's funny. BRILLIANT. (5) erick is a punk. as with alicia, i've only cut a few of his scenes together, but erick plays a pretty good asshole. which is nothing like him in person! BRILLIANT. (6) dylan is cute. BRILLIANT. (7) dennis is cute (but dumb). BRILLIANT. (8) bob ham can walk-out-of-a-bathroom-and-give-a-disapproving-look like a sonuvabitch. BRILLIANT. (9) mollie definitely looks like she thinks joe is weird. BRILLIANT. (10) all those high school kids in eugene are crazy and young and hip! BRILLIANT. (11) ashleigh is crazy and weird! BRILLIANT. (8) payam is EVERYWHERE. BRILLIANT. okay... i'm done for now.

how it's done (right)

so just after midnight last night, i sat down to cut together one last scene for the day... i'd been working on stuff from early in the shoot (which was also from early in the script) with joe and mike's characters and it was going okay. mostly, i was just lining things up to be polished at some point in the future when there was more context around the scenes. but so i start cutting together this nice little bit - it's the first time that colin and aaron (best friends 4ever) have to themselves after recently reuniting. it's a simple, two-shot scene set in a very cramped hallway at the basement pub where the characters just sort of chat and establish the situations for the first act. but, damn, those boys knocked it out of the f-ing ballpark. i digitized two takes from joe's angle and three from mike's and between those five times through the scene i had a terrific and uncommon range of reactions and emotions to select from - and without needing to cut around continuity! contrary probably to what i was telling him, mike gave me a slight variations of frustration and playfullness and cockiness without fully changing character. and joe did the same thing with his frustration, depression, and absurdity. both of them provided me with perfect little clips that can be interchanged and shuffled around without disrupting the flow of the scene or causing any awkward breaks of character. it was really fantastic and surprising putting that scene together with so much ease. so, hats off to joe and mike. additionally, hats off to bob ham (bobham!), who hid in the bathroom for several hours that morning, flushing a toilet on cue and then squeezing his large manly frame into an impossibly small gap between the camera and the wall (you can read his version of the story here: HERE! (scroll down to July 11)). i'm really excited to see this all coming together...

even more pictures!

and also here's a few pictures from the wrap party...



andy, gerry, and joe bicker in the kitchen.



joe continues bickering. peter is bemused.



gerry schemes, as mollie and alicia enjoy something someone else is saying.



joe, ashleigh, and yona admire mike while an unidentified person enjoys some liquid courage.



ashleigh and mike converse.



jim looks away from bob and lita.



joe and bob share a "moment".



gerry holds court in his living room.

more pictures!

since there's no new news to really report, i thought i'd catch up with posting some pictures from the latter days of production. enjoy.



joe attempts to put a shoe on.



joe and andy survey the scene.



matt moves incredibly fast behind the camera.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

that's the answer to your question. on that day, we'll hold a rough cut screening for the cast and crew of the film with the intent to gather critical feedback, test temp track music, etc. also, we should probably have another party that night at gerry's house. i'll have alicia put in a few more calls to widmer and liquid. see you then.

don't eat the bug

a brief note on our recent wrap party (brief: since i'm sure most of you (1) were in attendence or (2) are not at all interested in this aspect of the production):

it was fun
we didn't drink anywhere near the amount of beer or vodka we had available
gerry told fantastic stories about everything from ghosts to drunken chemistry teachers
some jerk ate a bug
everyone got a free t-shirt or two
peter drank so much he was hungover
peter also gave matt and alicia a fantastic scrabbleboard as a gift
everyone was drunk enough by the time we showed the footage that they were unable to fully express their disapointment/shame
it was fun

that's all for now... i'll try to keep everyone posted on the post-production, but i'm not entirely sure how interesting that's all going to be... additionally, i'll post some more photos and link to some on-line galleries of photos that people have taken on-set and at the party.

l8r.
matt

um... we're done.

almost. pretty much. basically.

there are a few shots to pick up on saturday before the wrap party - mostly joe driving around on various freeways.

we pretty much went out with a whisper. the last full day of production consisted of myself, joe, alicia, and lucy in salem shooting scenes in which joe was mostly in a single room, had no actual interation with other characters, very little dialogue and a lot of repeated shots. it went well and was a reasonably short day. no major issues or concerns or weirdness.

and like that [poof] it was done.

(at least for most of the other people. joe and i still have a lot of work to do (me: editing; joe: music) and we'll still have to call on our friends mike johnson and lisa wells to fill in a few gaps (mike for music/lisa for adr (we had some microphone failure in one of her scenes)). and, of course, there's the building of the ambient soundtrack as well as securing the rights to source music (most of which we're hoping will come from our good friends parks & recreation... but we won't know exactly what we need until the cut is assembled (unfortunately, we are no martin scorsese). then there's all the business of film festivals and publicity materials (and, oh yeah, we've got to try and arrange cast photos before anyone else changes their appearance too drastically) and trying to find a way for people to actually see this movie.)

but for now, we can give ourselves permission to breath again. most of us have our weekends back. and the work becomes much calmer and almost meditative (at least, the editing seems that way). they say that every movie is written three times - once in script form, once during production, and once in the editing. the first time, with the script, was fantastic - mostly joe and i sat around in bars and argued over the details and thought of things to make ourselves laugh (then i went home and typed it). the second time was (to borrow a term from the poetess, b. spears) chaotic, but fun, but still crazy and too fast and too slow and stressful and brilliant. and now we're back to beer and laughs. hopefully.

sorry... do i sound pessimistic and/or "bummed out"? really, i'm not. i feel great about everything and the scenes i've cut together so far look terrific and i'm excited to see all the moments that we worked so hard to capture all lined-up and playing off of each other. it should be a lot of fun. really.

(maybe this is the whole post-partum thing flaring up. and i wasn't even aware i had a birthing canal. (sorry, is that too graphic?))

long way down...

the second to last weekend has passed. so we say a hearfelt (production) goodbye to our dear old/new friends: michael george johnson, actor/musician; lisa wells, actress; erick custodio, actor; gerald lewis, director of photography; peter huszagh, production assistant/grip; yona prost, extras coordinator. you will be dearly missed.

but yeah... the weekend went well. the short version: we lost our coffee shop location on wednesday - but everyone kept their cool and raced to fine a replacement. the winner of the race was alicia, who had a new location (la razza tazza) secured by 4pm that afternoon. we shot there on saturday (they actually locked out customers during business hours so that we could get what we needed!). then we shot a few quick things outside mike johnson's apartment before heading off to berbati's pan with 'the band'. a few minor snags getting the tascam to connect to bob's laptop so that we could get a soundboard recording were ironed out relatively easily. in warming up, mike played 'yours' in a lower key and it sounded fantastic, so we went with that at the last minute. the dolly-pan shots of mike on the stage were damn near impossible to coordinate and may not work out at all. we had just enough extras to provide the illusion of a crowd. and it all looks and sounds fantastic. sunday - we got together around 8am and realized our exterior location for april's apt would not work due to construction in the area. so we cruised the neighborhood and "borrowed" the front door from another building in the area. joe and alicia were great in a break-up/argument scene (which is always tough). we picked up a few other pieces and headed back to april's apt for the remainder of the day. all went smoothly from there on out - there was some fun 1st person perspective shots that involved a group hugging of joe and alicia's arms suspended above her head. and we wrapped at a reasonable hour.

i'll see about posting some actual screen shots from our dailies within the next day or two.

one day to go...

big pictures

i thought rather than me rambling this week, you might enjoy some fine photography from the good folks on our crew... and per the requests of you fine readers, some explaination of each photo: 1. matt knapp (left, director/co-writer/producer/editor) and joe ballman (right, actor: colin/co-writer/producer/music supervisor) discuss the blocking of joe's hands in a very delicate scene. 2. alicia tolman (producer, actress: april) and lisa wells (actress: keira) hang out between set-ups outside pizza schmizza on sw yamhill. 3. andy mills (sound recordist) does his traditional pre-take good luck shuffle. 4. joe "acts" like he's perplexed by what's on a computer screen in colin's childhood bedroom.

blocking the john

it was a good little weekend coming back to the film.

on saturday we were scheduled to shoot the scene where joe's and alicia's characters silently flirt at a coffee shop as well as alicia's "oath of honesty" bit. however, due to unfortunate timing issues, we were unable to confirm the location. which is bad because alicia's scenes seem to keep getting pushed around and shoved into the odd corner of the schedule more and more. but it wasn't so bad because it meant that we didn't have to be at the coffee shop at 530am (yet). instead, we all met up at the basement at 8:30 to finish off the final joe-and-mike-have-a-beer-and-chat scene. and it went really well... we had way more extras than we needed (a nice surprise) and tim, the owner of the basement, was, as always, so great for coming in early and letting us have our run of the place. joe and mike were totally on the ball and solid with the scene and we finished up in a timely manner. there was one amusing anecdote, but mike stole it and already posted it on his blog, so i'll just refer you there (www.reclinerlandhq.com/blog.html) to read about payam's mad pinball skills.

sunday, joe and mike and alicia and myself all met-up down in eugene to shoot at the airport (we were originally planning on shooting at the portland airport, but... i'll keep this diplomatic and say it "didn't work out" much the same way our conversations with the doug fir "didn't work out" - i may rant about certain conversations with certain parties later on down the line... but not now). much to my suprise (i had only been there once - more than seven years ago) the eugene airport is pretty scenic and i don't think it will look to small or woodsy (which was a minor concern for me). plus, the only trouble they gave us was via a pompous lady janitor who advised us that we were "blocking the john" by setting up the tripod seven feet out from the entrance. also, since we weren't directing foot traffic in the place, we had a number of takes ruined by jet-lagged travelers walking toward us, craning their necks to look into the lens and then, a good thiry seconds later, realizing that they might actually be IN THE SHOT and suddenly shifting directions and walking off screen. but it would out extremely well... mike did a top notch job and everything looked great.

then... we drove the two hours (actually two and half thanks to an accident on I-5) back to portland to re-shoot the dreaded basketball scene (it had a smudge on the lens last time and a bad audio cable) as well as joe's close-up in the stalking scene (also a shabby image with no audio). the basketball scene was... frustrating to shoot. people say you shouldn't try to shoot a movie with kids and animals. i'd like to amend that adivce to include basketballs. even joe, who's got a gentle touch, had a hard time as a stunt shooter for mike and at one point an errant shot sent the ball right into the side of the camera. luckily nothing was broken, but the stress levels went through the roof after that. but you wouldn't know if from the performances. joe and mike were so much more relaxed and natural this time around (amazing how much easier it is when the weather cools down and you don't have the afternoon sun in your face). but yeah, we ended up shooting the scene more or less in chronological order, with mostly singles to cut-away to and the occassional two shot to keep things in perspective. when were starting i had decided to keep things fluid by not over-blocking the action (and going slightly off-book for some of the less important physical beats). again, all this was much more difficult that you might imagine and it took us a good couple of hours to get it right, but i'm very happy with how things seem to have turned out.

and gerry rigged up a very nice make-shift flag to help us get a better image on joe's stalking close-up.

props for the weekend:
1. alicia - for toughing it out in spite of a pending fever.
2. mike - for nailing a half-page of convoluted dialogue in one take at the park.
3. jason hughes - for changing colin's car's alternator in time for us to drive to eugene
4. joe and mike - for getting up early and driving 4 hours (round-trip) to shoot the airport stuff and then still being fantastic during the afternoon scenes.
5. gerry and peter - for being excellent c-stands.
6. everybody else.

don't look me in the eye

i've developed a twitch in the bottom lid of my left eye. it's not enormous - my eye stays open and the bottom lid just kind of vibrates for a few seconds every two minutes or so. this is not the first time this has happened. during post-production on the short films, a brave new victoria and i want to tell you, i developed a similar twitch. it lasted for a few days (until i was done editing) and then went away. unfortunately, we're looking at a few weeks until we finish production and then months of cutting and scoring and tweaking in post. my hope is that, as things settle and the picture comes together, the twitch will fade away. but if not, i'll survive. the twitch isn't too terrible and it hasn't become overly irritating. and if i'm mentally occupied, i can pretty well ignore it.

so i think we're all excited to jump back in for another weekend. it sounds like everybody had a nice break and i know, at least for me, it was a good chance to open a few windows and let some fresh air in. i've got a few new ideas for the remainder of our scenes and a tweak or two for some stuff we've already shot.

i think the hardest part about this production has been the distance between the first day and the last day (as well as the distance between each spurt of production - 2 on, 5 off is officially not the way to go). it'll be nice to have the full effect of two months' worth of shifting weather... but next time i think we'll try to keep things compact. (and hopefully, next time, none of us will have to suffer through day jobs during production.)

so yeah... nothing terribly interesting to say at this point... i'll let you know how the weekend goes. we do have a few pictures to show off, tho, and maybe a still or two... i'll get those up soon.

-m

(silence)

hello all,

in case you haven't noticed, we've been quiet for a few days. that's because we're officially taking our fist production break since july 4. last weekend was swell - we got to party with some high school kids, concoct vomit out of strawberry sobe and crushed pretzels, and watch joe deliver a three-page monologue with about twenty pounds of production equipment stacked on his chest. we're not totally avoiding all film work... but for now, we're going to try to get some sleep, enjoy the sun (although not in portland, apparently), catch a show or two, watch the bill murray, celebrate the nuptials of some good friends (nate and stacia; bob and lita) and try not to gamble away the entire production budget while in las vegas.

see you in a few days.

matt and co.

the up-swing

so right now, i'm feeling very good about the film. joe and i had a nice lunch meeting where we talked frankly about our concerns regarding the production and i think we both walked away realizing that we're actually in really good shape. there are so many logistical issues and the expectations we have for the project and ourselves and each other are so high that it's easy to sometimes lose sight of how much fun this is. yes, it's true that none of the constant cast/crew has had a very relaxing summer. we've pounded out over 17 hours of footage (which is actually a little embarassing, but i do like to just let the camera roll - afterall, mini-dv is relatively inexpensive even for the high def masters we're buying) and easily logged more than 120 production hours (not including the off-set work of rehearsing and scheduling and securing locations and rescheduling and collecting extras and communicating with our sponsors etc). but now we're on the home stretch... we've got just about 40 pages of script left to shoot. almost everything is scheduled and reserved and locked into place (everyone cross your fingers that our discussions with the doug fir are fruitful).

and after this weekend we get a break - one weekend off with which to rest and restore our mental and physical resources for the last big push. i think we're all definitely staying focused on the production... but i'm also (not so secretly) looking forward to getting into post-production. we've been watching the footage on a semi-weekly basis, but that's still no substitute for actually stringing it together. generally, i prefer to edit some footage at the end of each day of filming, but this has been such a demanding experience (physically and mentally) that i just haven't had any time or energy to divert toward post work.

switching subjects: i really can't say enough good things about our cast and crew. andy, our sound recordist, has been extremely dedicated and laid back throughout the entire shoot. gerry, our dp, has given us as much time and energy as he can spare. alicia has been relentless in keeping things organized and flowing smoothly and has made a jaw-dropping transition last weekend from producer to actor as we shot her first few scenes. and joe, as fatigued as he gets and as hard as i make it for him, is always willing to give us one more take if we think we can do better.

i don't want to get too sentimental in front of everybody, so i'll cut short the compliments for now...

so let's talk about a shirtless mike johnson. you see, what happened was: we were at dot's saturday morning to finish up our last scene there. and mike, having just been handed his usual wardrobe consisting of an extremely tight t-shirt and fairly snug jeans went into the restroom to change. and when he emerged, there was two or three sizable water spots on the shirt from the sink in the restroom. now obviously, we'd have a hard time justifying a wet t-shirt at this point in the narrative (not to mention the continuity issues it would cause), so we removed his shirt and started working on drying it. in the meantime, i had joe and mike rehearse the full scene, just as we would shoot it, except, of course, mike was shirtless. and it was actually an interested exercise - how does it change the dynamic of an on-screen relationship if one of the characters is half-naked? the dramatic core of the scene survived in spite of the partial nudity and after a few runs through, mike even treated us to an improvised diatribe on everything there is to love about david hasselhof. at that point, we gave him the shirt back. but all the fooling around gave us a nice opportunity to incorporate a hillarious star wars improv between joe and mike into the beginning of the scene. i won't spoil it for you - but i will say two words: dartha stewart.

once more... in a black wig

remember last week when i mentioned that lucy ellen moe had her cameo in the film (as a waitress who flirts with aaron/mike). well... funny story... on saturday she actually filmed her second cameo in the film: a waitress serving colin/joe and aaron/mike at another bar - which was fine because you don't get to see her face in that scene, just her shoulders/back). then on sunday she filmed her third cameo in the film: one of april's yuppie friends who attends her vegan barbeque and cocktail party. now why is lucy now vying with payam (have i told you about payam? probably not - more on him later) for the most non-speaking appearances in the film? several reasons, actually... we are running short on extras (if any of you anonymous readers are interested in appearing in a minor motion picture - please drop us a line asap) and our extras coordinator, yona, was out of town this week and therefore not as effective as usual at rounding up the strangers. additionally, the 48 hour film project was in portland this weekend, and seemed to consume a good portion of the city's resources. plus, the apartment we were shooting in is apparently not very easy to find and so one or two of our volunteers lost their ways. so we were one party-goer short of our minimum - and, being that we had a black lady's wig lying around, and lucy was our only spare crew member... anyway, the shot turned out pretty well, with a nice variety of people and, without much direction from myself, the few extras we had did a fantastic job of not only looking natural in their environment but coordinating their actions with the dolly and pan of the camera. i only hope that my handling of the camera was smooth enough and at an appropriate speed (oh yeah, i was running camera again this weekend as gerry was out of the country on family business).

so there's plenty more to talk about, i'm sure. but i'm rather fatigued and have a large stack of papers staring me down right now... so, i'm going to let you all go on with your lives and i will share more later (including our plans for payam and insight into the shirtless life of mike johnson).

motocross

advice to all you aspiring filmmakers out there - don't schedule any exterior shooting within ten miles of a motocross event.

this weekend actually went pretty smoothly (and, as such, i'm at a loss for hillarious/interesting stories). we shot a couple of joe/mike scenes at the laurelwood pub on nw 23rd - there was some concern over the quality of the sound, but i think we at least got consistent audio (e.g. cutting different takes together shouldn't be a problem). mike and joe both did well. lucy ellen moe got her cameo (as a waitress flirting with mike's character).

also, i had a healthy debate with pretty much the entire crew and a good portion of the cast about my insistence upon joe wearing a tweed jacket on a sunny september day. they all had good, logical points against my decision, but i strongly felt that the needs of the narrative overrided a minor/debatable logistical issue. and, in the end, i think at least joe and alicia understood where i was going with it (e.g. colin is trying really hard to be a grown-up in this particular scene - and, as such, it makes sense for him to put on his grown-up clothes before he heads out into the harsh world to make amends. plus this is the nw - and it's not unheard of for people to wear sweaters or jackets in september (even while other people are wearing only t-shirts and tank tops. right?)).

and we more or less wrapped lisa's scenes (as keira). there are still a few pick-ups left here and there (some montage footage and the big parks & recreation show that we're still trying to schedule), but for the most part, she's done. and done well. she did a terrific job, frequently under less than perfect conditions (e.g. the motocross incident, etc), and really carried her role extremely well. i'm very happy to have her in the film.

and, while i'm at it, how about a round of applause for jim becker as well. we took care of all of his scenes as colin's dad in a single weekend. and he pretty much rocked the role.

also, three cheers for mike johnson! who is masterfully applying a much-needed dose of humanity to his exposition-filled dialogue.

okay... i really can't say enough good things about our large cast and small crew... but i'll try to squeeze in some more compliments (not ass-kissing, mind you, just sincere compliments) later.