busy

Haven't had much time for this journal lately. I've been working around the clock on the SEX MACHINE teaser trailer, trying to get it ready for the Halloween party tomorrow night. No luck though. I've finally overloaded my overworked little computer and I have to figure out what is up with my Final Cut Pro. I think my project has just grown way too big for my system. Whatever the problem is, the program shuts down after I've been in it for about five minutes. Then it takes at least that long to re-open the project file.

Good news - Last Friday, John and I shot some stuff for an experimental flashback sequence. i shot the whole sequence as stills on my Sony digital camera. I shot about 400 photos in rapid succession, fucked up the grain, blur and saturation in Photoshop and then imported them as a sequence into FCP. I'm really pleased with the effect and you'll get to see it in the trailer when that eventually gets uploaded. I want to experiment further with this technique. It's nothing terribly original, but I like the look and creative flexibility of it a lot.

Technical problem aside, editing has been good all week. I'm really pleased. At the same time I am incredibly burned out and having a lot of trouble getting the last few shoots scheduled. I am trying to "push through" but it has been very difficult.

Tomorrow --- halloween party.

Next week --- DVD shoot, Cinema Eye moves onto a new publishing platform, lots of client work, prepping for next weekend shoot

Next weekend --- wrapping up loose ends.

faithful

Here's the cover to the Red Sox book I mentioned awhile back in my entry on Stewart O'Nan. He and King have an escalator clause in their contracts which mean they will get more money if the Sox win the series. Looks like they might have a chance now. Great cover!

bad week

It's been a bad week...

The good news... Cinema Eye is back in business.

I know I have been neglecting the site, but it is a labor of love, just like SEX MACHINE and all my other extra-curricular activities. If you are a regular reader of this LiveJournal, please do me a favor and check out the site. Stop by the forums and rant and rave all you want.

Also... this is proof that I can write html while drunk. 1/3 Captain Morgan spice rum + 2/3 Diet Coke + ice. it rules. I am embracing my alchoholism until the production of SEX MACHINE is over. You can sit back and enjoy the drunken hijinx.

Now I'm off to an I HEART HUCKABEES screening. I don't know how to make the icon for the heart.

Self destruction is in progress.

shatner

As crazy as it sounds, this is one of my favorite albums this year. You would expect this album to be nothing more than a super ironic joke, but in truth it cuts surprisingly deep at times. I think as much credit goes to Ben Folds for arranging and producing the whole thing, but you can't discount Shatner himself. I defy you to listen to YOU"LL HAVE TIME without contemplating deep life changes. You can listen to a few songs here, but this sampling doesn't really prepare you for how good the album is as a whole.

Sex Machine article in the Gazette

If you are in the OKC area, check out this weeks issue of the Oklahoma Gazette. It hits the streets today and features a nice article on SEX MACHINE (or SEX MONSTER as it is referred to in the photo caption) written by our pal Rod Lott of HITCH Magazine. You can check out the cover on the left. The article is in the LIFE section.

Look what I did this weekend...

Our last full weekend of shooting. It was one to remember...

Detailed report coming soon.

things get stranger and stranger

Getting ready for the last big weekend of shooting. As we run out of things to shoot it's becoming an increasingly complicated logistical problem. There are only a few scenes left, but each scene depends on a location that is usually out of my control and cast members whose schedules are starting to conflict. This is what happens when your shoot runs on longer than you had initially planned. One of the many things I will do differently next time.

I am really burned out and although each weekend results in progressively better footage, it's getting very tiring. I feel like I am completely sapped of creativity at the moment. Which is a bad thing, because I have more design work than ever.

The last week on a personal level was completely strange. After the intense shoot last weekend, monday was a wash. Leah and I went to the new theater in Bricktown and saw MEAN CREEK which was okay. Then we ate drank beer on Coach's patio which looks over the ballpark and had conversations that were way too deep about life altering stuff. We both decided that neither of us should make any life altering decisions for the next month or so. We got a jug of harvester wheat to go and walked around the canal.

Tuesday was pretty much a wash as well. But I got a little bit of work done. Mostly just stared at the computer screen. Went for a bike ride to clear my brain. Then Tyler and i went to Norman to check out Suger's (yes, that is the correct spelling) where we will be shooting on Sunday. I am soooo over strippers at the moment. But they descended and once they found out why we were there, would not go away. Tyler is such a nice easy going guy that he can carry on conversations with anybody.

After about an hour of checking out the place and planning where the scenes will be shot, we walked over to the Library to see what John was up to. This was the first time i've been to the library and if i lived closer I would probably quickly become a creepy regular. John is a pusher and I got sufficiently drunk really fast. I am all about the carbombs right now. After a few shots and a few beers I couldn't even finish the lunchbox he mixed for me. Meegan showed up and Tyler and I took her over to Suger's so she could check out the stage. She had hoped to dump a bucket of water on herself Flashdance style, but i don't think it's going to work given the location. It might even end up in electrocution. So the water is scrapped.

Thursday, i finally got to work seriously and tried to salvage a few of our remaining clients. It's time to figure out what I am going to do with this business, I have to either take it to the next level or scrap it and go get a job. It's too much to handle at the moment. At the very least I need an administrative person to help out part-time. anyway...

Today was my usual friday, putting out fires and picking up equipment. i shouldn've bought everything at the beginning instead of renting it. But I had no idea we would still be shooting in october.

i'll post a public report about the weekend shoot on monday... hopefully!

Zap!

Editing and getting shot lists ready for the weekend. This is one of my favorite images. It looks even better when it is moving.

crazy weekend shooting

Last weekend (Oct 1-3) was an exhausting but incredible experience and probably one of the most satisfying weekends for me personally so far. It began with a series of problems. Sheridan ended up selling his VW bus which we were using for several scenes. This means we HAD to finish shooting the bus this weekend. To complicate things further, our fx guys had disappeared and Erika (Leather Girl) had been fighting off sickness all week.

Friday
We started late because Shogo was finishing up a commercial shoot. Then we grabbed the camera, wrapped up Johns head and headed for section of OKC called LITTLE SAIGON because there are so many Vietnamese owned businesses. We shot a scene with Frank and Claire walking in front of a strip mall at night, exchanging a brief but important bit of dialog. It was surprisingly cold. Fall is definitely here and we kept the car running so Jessica could jump in and stay warm. It took us about a half an hour to get the shots. We jumped in the car and headed for 66 BOWL where we grabbed a shot of Frank and Claire walking out into the parking lot. We got this one even faster. Now FINALLY the sequence of Frank and Claire walking at night is complete.

Saturday
We got to 66 BOWL at 8am and shot conversation scenes between Frank and Owen. They came out great. We ate lunch at my house then headed for our sleazy motel. Unfortunately, neither of the rooms we'd reserved were available. Which means we had to shoot in yet another motel room and somehow make it look like the last room we had used. Shogo made it work and we shot the rest of Leather Girl's motel scenes. We really cranked it out and I think we got around 14 pages in the can. Most of it was dialogue, but still. Also, we duct-taped Erika and threw her in the bathtub which was a pretty extreme sequence. Erika was a real professional, fighting off the rest of her sickness which we diagnosed as carny disease - probably picked up from the temporary job she had as a barker at the state fair. Here performance was amazing and she was great to work with. I really think people are going to love her character.

Sunday
We tried to grab a scene with Owen and Claire in the back of a motel, but were stopped by a crazy security guard who evicted us from the premises. We tried to stage the scene in the Celestial Cycles parking lot, but the sun was just too bright by this time. Instead we shot a conversation between Frank and Owen sitting in the parked van. We broke for lunch. John, Jessica and Leah went to turn John's brothers room into Frank's bedroom. Shogo, Sheridan and I figured out a way to stage a scene that would effectively get rid of another scene that was causing problems due to locations. I think the solution was pretty brilliant, but it involved a very sleazy strip joint called THE BLUE FOX. John had a bad experience there when we were doing the HE-MAN STRIP CLUB article for Hitch Magazine, so he was a little nervous about it, but totally pulled it off. As soon as we had that in the can, we sent John back to make-up and we grabbed Jessica and went to another sleazy motel where we pulled off the shot we had missed that morning. It was pretty exhilerating to run and gun like that. Finally we went to John's brothers house and shot several scenes and inserts there.

As I mentioned, it was a very exhausting weekend. My thanks to everybody involved. You couldn't ask for a better cast and crew than we have on this project. I am going to miss everybody a lot when we finally wrap.