The Past Crimes of Paul and Christopher

So this new piece has been rolling around in my head for a long time, about 5 years. I was going to follow up HORRORS OF WAR with this in
2006 if I could manage it. I had 4-5 drafts of the screenplay, and it just didn t come together. The stars were not aligned at the time. The past few months have been much more about waking up, like from a terrible dream (ever see Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom and the whole takes a fire to burn you out of the trance?).



I made the first couple shorts this year to get my legs back. Making movies is like playing guitar (something I used to do). If you don t practice, you can lose the skills a bit and get rusty, so the shorts acted as my trial run. Both pieces (Refractory and Relationship Card , alliteration unintentional) I am proud of. I have improved on some of my old skills and ideas. I have not only retained some, but I tried new and better things with telling a story with the camera.

This past Saturday, we shot a 5 page script. It was my first real chance to work with Greg Sabo since a 1 day pickup shoot on HORRORS OF WAR and he wanted to play some with his RED ONE camera. We ve talked about working together for a while and this was great. He’s an artisan with the camera and Greg has a lot of big toys.



Now I remember why I wanted 8 weeks of rehearsals with the actors. There was barely any time on the shoot to focus on performance a lot as it takes hours to setup lights (to make it look like you didn t light anything). When the sand starts to drain out of the hourglass, you have to rely on the actors to know what it is they are doing and what you did in rehearsal. There wasn’t a lot of gray area about what the scenes were about and what I wanted, so we had it all smooth as glass. I will definitely rehearse like this again. The worry is that you over-rehearse and kill the spontaneity, but it didn’t since we saved the bigger performances for camera.

Max and Ruth filled in for art department, and they did an incredible job. It helps when you have department heads that take their jobs seriously and really think about the purpose and meaning, as well as how color reflects mood and character.




Shane Howard stepped up to bat for a couple FX shots, especially the bullet hole in a head. He delivered on time, and fast. That helped. Max “Bruce Willis” Groah delivered on a promise that blood splatters would easily wash off walls and carpet and it did.

I brought on the Derek as a producer to help me not have to deal with every tiny detail that wasn’t related to directing. I often short change myself as a director because I produce my own stuff a lot. On HORRORS OF WAR, I had that same opportunity and I squandered it some as I wasn’t as prepared to actually Direct. I don’t want to NOT appreciate things like this, so Derek is da’ man for covering, and also ADing the shoot.

Sound was done well, and I start to wonder how much of Chauncey s rep is undeserved. Having a full crew of about 20 helped the day not take forever. We lost time in a company move from the house exterior to a different house 3 miles away for interiors, but it was worth it to get the depth.



The RED footage is staggeringly impressive. It has latitude much more akin to film and that s not even taking into account the 4000+ pixel size of each frame. We started at the exterior shoot around 11AM and ended that portion after Noon. The sun baked us but the footage looked great on the monitors. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the digital files after the footage dump, but Greg showed me how much latitude the footage had. REDCINE software and even a version of it within Adobe Premiere Pro 4.1 (with Red 1.7 updates) allows you to put the equivalent of a filter over the footage or an entire telecine colorist in front of the raw R3D files before you use them to edit.

I downloaded all the footage to my internal drive of my computer at home, more as a backup, but I figured I could peruse the footage, albeit slowly since the specs are nowhere near RED minimum. After a 4 hour transfer whilst I slept, I got up at 8:30AM to sneak a peek. The footage set to play at 1/8th quality played surprisingly well. In fact, all my plans to create HD proxies to edit from might be put on hold since the machine at work is a lot faster and more filled with RAM.



If I thought the footage looked great on the monitor, that wasn’t nothing compared to what I looked at today. The detail was staggering. The RED ONE is the most filmic video camera ever manufactured. The depth of field, the lens options, the latitude, contrast, and quality of image all rival actual 35mm film. I can clearly see now what so many TV shows are switching over this fall. It makes sense on many levels. For TV, there is no film print being made (anymore), and the look matches well and it makes everything easier in post production for editing and finishing. The only significant difference now seems to be archival. It s a tapeless workflow and it s all data on drives of various sorts and if something gets corrupted or lost, it s gone as opposed to a tape or a roll of film negative.

Just as I had hoped, this will be the best thing I‘ve ever made. I rehearsed the way I wanted to, played with depth of field for cinematic reasons, and worked with a good crew to meet my goals and everyone exceeded them. Whatever my hopes were for a “look” greatly passed my expectations. By luck, serendipity, inspiration or whatever it was, the color of costuming, paint on walls, randomly selected paintings and lights all coalesced into a perfect image on virtually every frame.



I wanted to thank the entire cast and crew for helping to make something special to me. I hope I put together something that deserves the talent that was involved. I m just trying to make fun of some aspect of humanity that annoys me and I got A-List creative types from our area. I soooooo don t deserve this.

I’ve already started going through all the footage and making my mental edits. I promised myself NO EDITING the first two days after the shoot. Get some distance and maybe even get another editor to take a crack at it. This is akin to the promise I made to myself about NO MORE COCA COLA CLASSIC and GOING TO THE GYM. At this rate I’ll have a rough cut done by Tuesday morning when I promised myself I’d start looking at footage.



Good day Acolytes of Boo!

AVATAR, DISTRICT 9, and other various movie commentary

I got tickets to the AVATAR sneak preview screening of 16 minutes of footage in IMAX 3D. For those not in the know, James Cameron, director of TITANIC, TERMINATOR 2, ALIENS, etc. has not made a movie in 12 years since sweeping the Oscars ™. Now he has returned with a science fiction opus that many industry insiders have said will completely change the game on how movies are made and distributed because of how awesome the 3D is in this. Since it’s about 60% all CGI with alien characters and a strange planet, and 40% real sets and actors, it seemed like it was possible. I’ve been excited since I first heard about this film 4 years ago.



Now that I’ve seen the 1920x1080 HD teaser online and 16 minutes of it on the big screen, my expectations have dropped tremendously. Granted, what I’ve seen was absolutely amazing and kick ass, but it was NOT life changing or revolutionary. In fact, I found the 3D glasses to start feeling annoying in 5 minutes, and as impressive as the 3D was on the big screen, it made it a lot harder to focus on anything in particular.



The movie looks to be a somewhat oft told story of how an invasion of some alien planet doesn’t take into account the indigenous life, blah blah blah. Most of the movie will be a somewhat anthropological view of the alien life. It’s cool and interesting, but nothing that will change the way people sees movies. Looks like the industry is desperate to do anything to combat lagging ticket sales and high definition home theater experiences. 3D won’t be the thing that keeps me going to the theater… good movies will.



I saw DISTRICT 9 and loved it. Great sci fi movie in there. I particularly like that it takes place in South Africa without the stupid American studios turning it into a tourist video explaining all the subtle differences between our cultures. Phil Garrett showed me a short film in 2005 from this writer/director and the feature is a remake of that movie.



I also finally got around to watching a couple Netflix DVD’s. HANNIBAL RISING, the prequel to RED DRAGON and SILENCE OF THE LAMBS was a clunker. It was a typical revenge story, rather than anything inventive or cool. The lead actor was incredibly weak, and that’s not even comparing him to Anthony Hopkins or an unfair scale, but simply based on his performance. It’s too bad because the sets, costumes, art direction, locations, and everything LOOKED amazing, but it was all for nothing.



I also got on DVD the YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES movie that Steven Spielberg executive produced. Interesting factoids on this movie:

1. Written by Chris Columbus who would later use a LOT of similar elements in the first
2 HARRY POTTER movies he would direct in 2001-2002.
a. The FX and style are eerily reminiscent of Harry Potter
b. The gothic English architecture and locations
c. A prep school atmosphere
d. A rival between the underdog student and a blonde bully
e. A headmasters friendship with the rogue student
f. The teachers not liking rogue student

2. Directed by Barry Levinson, future director of

3. First ever all CGI (Computer Generated Image) animated character intergrated with live action on film

4. PIXAR animation, at the time still under Lucasfilm, created the CGI knight from a stain glass window, before their sale to Steve Jobs of Apple Computers.

5. Even though it is not based on any Sherlock Holmes adventure by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, it does originate several common character traits including his never taking a love interest, parental influences, his distinct hunting cap, the smoking pipe, and his lack of emotion.


Bear in mind that this was years before HARRY POTTER was even conceived of.



I loved this movie as a kid and still liked it now. I always coupled this with THE GOONIES as Amblin Entertainment/Steven Spielberg movies that were geared towards my age group, but this holds up very well.

I still want to see THE HURT LOCKER and INGLORIOUS BASTERDS soon.

Predicating the Preparation

One week to go before my big shoot. The rehearsal process has been invaluable. Tomorrow night I’m rehearsing at the actual location. I find this to be essential because blocking like a stage play with pretend objects and furniture isn’t the same.

Once actors are in a real shoot location, everything feels new and distracting, so rehearsing with no crew or cameras with the real place with everything the same, we’ve got it covered. This also helps with the repartee with actors in that they have an even greater level of trust because they won’t be standing on those marks for the first time in front of the crew. I want there to be trust and solid foundation with me before the cameras, lights, crew, and other elements of a shoot surround and separate the actors from the director.



Now comes the fun part, creating a shot list and being flexible enough to change, re-arrange, accept, and work with other ideas. The formula for most directors is to be responsible for 50% camera, and 50% actors and performance. I tend to be 75% actors and 25% camera. I prefer to work with a camera person who wants a little more creativity and less interference, but understands telling a story with the camera. I want there to be a relationship between the camera angles and story, plus the emotion therein.

I’m bringing my A-Game to this shoot. This piece is another one of these ideas that’s been rolling around in my noggin’ for a while. I think my own skill set is more apt to pull it off than ever before, plus some of the people I’m working with are top notch in our market, like Greg Sabo. We’ve wanted to do something since my brief chance to work with him on the single day of Pick Up shooting on HORRORS OF WAR. He worked with John on his half and my sole experience was shooting the plane interiors and insert shots. Greg’s done many things that kick ass as a DP, so I’m looking forward to this.

The Tribulations of Tom Tuttle From Tacoma

The end of the month can’t get here soon enough. I’m so freakin’ excited to be shooting again and everything comes together like a John Lennon song. Rehearsals are going fantastic, the crew has almost entirely come together, and I’m so ready for this. This will be the next step in my evolution as a filmmaker.

Again, the re-writing that comes from rehearsal constantly improves the dialogue, which is a weak spot for me. A few years ago, I really let a few people’s opinions that I sucked as a writer get to me. I wasn’t that confident in my writing, as I never really aspired to be a writer. So when these 3-4 people told me it was not my strongest asset, I decided to give up on writing for the most part. I’d take the Spielberg/Bryan Singer approach of being a producer/director who shaped the script as the one in charge, but take no credit as a writer or even “story by”. The title of DIRECTOR would be good enough.



My quest began by trying to find and work with other writers. This was not the most fun experience because there are so few screenwriters who will work for either spec (meaning no money up front) or the ones that will, have no idea the collaborative nature of making a movie and writing a script as a group. I kept going to these guys and saying “these are the elements that are etched in stone and cannot be changed” and inevitably those things would get changed. It wasn’t enough to use certain sections a play ground, so invariably, I’d have to get rid of them. In the end, I’m writing by myself again. With the last few scripts and shorts I’ve made, my confidence in screenwriting has improved, but because I know it’s not perfect, I’m much more accepting of criticism and making changes.



I used to think Peter Jackson was nuts for the number of revisions and the constant re-writing he did on THE FRIGHTENERS, LORD OF THE RINGS, and KING KONG, but I think he’s completely right on now. I inadvertently adopted his style of nearly free-form writing and collaborating with actors to shape the dialogue as long as the basic “intent” remains the same.

I’m working on my shot list for the latest draft of this 5 page script. I couldn’t be more excited. Every movie still feels like the first time. I get giddy like a child on Xmas morning. That’s how I know I’m doing what I was supposed to do. The magic hasn’t faded.

Anywho, that’s my big update for now.