Something to make a Friday night

I stopped by a favorite thrift shop this evening, chiefly to look for a prop for our use in the film that we are shooting tomorrow evening. But as I was browsing the racks of bric-a-brac, I found a little something that stood out to me right away, and I picked it up before anyone else had a chance to see it, let alone take it. A pictures is below:
This is a working radio, AM/FM, about a foot high, with a knob for volume and a knob for tuning, and I've already been using my ipod transmitter to broadcast some episodes of old time radio through this radio. It really feels like stepping back in time to hear the voice of Orson Welles coming out of that contraption. I am such a fan of the old time radio, it was a real treat for me to find something like this in a thrift store. Not only is it a great prop for my Radio Hound Production projects, but it also seems to be the perfect accessory for a custom action figure... of The Shadow.

I'm as giddy as a schoolboy.

Swinging the sword in the marketplace

LAst night after we finished the sound mix on "The Chrononauts," Rob and I got on the phone with Rufus, our third filmmaking partner, to discuss the feature-length version of "Chrononauts" that we want to film this summer. They had come up with some ideas, and I've been struggling with the idea on my own. We kept having some trouble figuring out the exact story, however. We couldn't figure out who the bad guys were. And since this is going to be an action film, any action film is only as good as its villian. We had a couple ideas that we weren't completely sold on, and then Rufus and Rob came up with another idea that really used the element of time travel to our advance. But, as it turns out, it was more of a disadvantage. We kept running into paradox after paradox when we were trying to break that story, but we could never figure out the way around some major flaws of both logic and drama. We did, however, have the common sense and presence of mind to always recognize when our ideas were getting away from us and getting too complicated. When the story got too strange and extreme, we kept using an analogy of "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Instead of being the Cairo swordman swinging the sword in the marketplace, we needed to be Indiana Jones and just shoot the guy.

Once we simplified our thinking on the villian and the motives behind his actions, things started falling into place for us. Our first approach to the idea focused clearly and strongly on the sci-fi elements, but we adjusted our thinking to be much more in line with the action/adventure film that we wanted to make. Once we had that simpler story in mind, the story actually came a lot easier. We kept hitting question after question, but we were able to distill all those questions and problems into a single story. We set some deadlines for writing the script, which we're trying to have done in early March to shoot over the summer. That's the plan.

Sound mix

I'm sitting here in the head studio of Digital Reality Films, Inc, working on our final sound mix of the long version of the short film "The Chrononauts." Since we produced the five-minute version of the film in early November for the film festival, Rob and I have been working on the longer cut of the film, which incorporates some new footage, new scenes, and some brand new special effects shots, as well as a complete end credits sequence. We've made some things clearer than they were in the original cut, which can be viewed on the DRF website, and at the link below.

http://digitalrealityfilms.net/Chrononauts_compcut.html

At the moment, we are going through the sound effects library looking for the appropriate sound effect for the destruction of the crystal at the end of the film. The sound effect in the movie now is a little too.... hesitant.... for such an important moment, so we're looking for something with a little more bass and a little more weight to foreshadow the sequence that's about to happen. We've moved from body impact sounds through technological sounds, into zombie sounds and now finally we're into general creepiness sounds.

Rob says hello to everyone out there.

The sound mixing is an interesting part of this process, because it is our job now to make these things sound better than they actually did. Sure, we have all the practical effects that were created on the set, as well as the sounds we generated. But when we added in music on top of that, we need to go back to create a second soundtrack to enhance what we already have there.

We're hoping to finish this final sound edit this evening, at which point we only have to create a end credits sequence for the short film. It will then be posted online at DRF home, which I hope is bookmarked on all your browsers. And if not, remember there is a handy-dandy link to it in the "Behind the Scenes" section on the right of this blog. We'll keep you posted as to when that happens, and the official release date of Chronoauts 2.0.

Some final thoughts on "Cock"

I took this picture at a pancake restaurant in north Jersey, but I think it sums up my feelings about this play.
The show overall was a great experience. I really liked directing, I enjoyed working with my girlfriend, and I'm really excited that I now have a credit in New York City. It was also an interesting process to work on a show with the writer/composer. I was able to ask him questions and get his perspective and input as to why he wrote things the way he did. If we then had a difference of opinions about what the moment in the play meant, we could try our best to adjust the final answer so that it was the best possible stage play it could have been.

But the cock in that picture is menacing me, trying ever so slightly to eat me. I had the discussion with the composer early on that I wasn't trying to be the "writer" of the piece, that I was just going to come along and be the "director." But I did want to add a little bit more of my own ideas into the shape of the script. But since I entered the process late, I had to relinquish some control on the script in the pieces I wasn't there for. Also, we took pains to keep as much of Melville's language as we could, considering the show was being produced as a part of a Melville festival. If we bring the show back again, which there has been talk of, then I certainly want to have a more direct role in creating the shape and style of the play, instead of it being a straight-forward "telling" of the story.

Overall, a rewarding and fun experience.

The last crow

I was back in NYC this weekend for the last performance of the musical I had directed. As a director, my job was done over a week ago when the show premiered. At that point, the actors and stage manager took full charge of it, turning it into their show while I went back to Philly and returned to the window mill. Even so, it was a lot of fun to come back and be there with them as we set sail on the final voyage with this musical. It was a full house, a fantastic show, and the company even got a second curtain call after they had left the stage. They came running back out, somewhat surprised that they were being called for again, and they took a very pleased bow to their supportive crowd. The stage manager for the festival, who saw all of the shows, said that we were the only company who received that second call. Pretty awesome for us.

It was a great performance overall, too, a really nice one to go out on. The writer/composer gave us all a massive book of Melville's novels, something nearby the size and weight of a Bible. My parents were also up from Philly to see this last show, and so I went out to dinner with them after the show at a fantastic NYC restaurant. They had a creme brulee to die for. My girlfriend was there as well, along with two of her brothers, and another friend from CT came down to see the show and grab a drink with us afterward. It was a really great evening, and a great way to see this show off into the resume.

Friday audition

This past Friday I headed into Philly for an audition for a student film produced and directed by an old friend who used to work on the TV series "Paper Cuts." I remember having some good times with him on the set of the old show, so I was certainly interested in coming to play with him on another project. They were holding the bulk of the auditions over the weekend, but since I had to be in NYC over the weekend, the director and the art director came in on Friday afternoon to hold my audition. I gave my prepared monologue, and then I did a cold reading from the show. It was one brief scene toward the end of the film, and he gave me the opportunity to play the scene a few times, trying different approaches to the role. After the reading was over, we chatted about the shooting schedule, and he gave me the script to take home and read.

Riding the elevator down to the floor, it was kinda strange. I am 95% sure that I have the role in the film. I mean, he talked about the schedule, told me he wasn't really considering anyone else, and then gave me the script to read, so that makes up for just about all of the "sure"ness factor. That last five percent, however, is the sentence where he says "You have the role." That little sentence accounts for that last 5%. He was supposed to have his auditions looking for the female lead on Sunday afternoon, so I'm expecting-slash-hoping to hear some details about the project soon.

Moving to something new

Last night I headed up to Cedar Crest again to start work with Tim and company on an original play. We're calling our work the "Sparks project," and it's going to be a piece that we write together as an ensemble. Tim is there to facilitate the project as it goes along, but all the actors and technicians are going to have a hand in writing the actual script for the piece. After we introduced ourselves and laid a little bit of groundwork for the kind of project that we would be doing, we worked on an exercise that would generate a lot of text and do it quickly. Tim read a short section from a book he has, and then we started writing in our books about that section. After a minute or two, we passed our books to the left, read the last few lines that had been written by the other person, and then we wrote for another few minutes in this new notebook. That continued until we went all around the circle and finished up writing in our own notebooks again. We then read our notebooks out loud, sometimes struggling to peer through each other's handwriting.

It was a fun exercise, one that I've never done before. I tried to turn my brain to the "off" setting and just write whatever came to my mind. Through the first four notebooks or so, I found that I was engaging in a discussion with myself as I went from one notebook to the other. Each subsequent fragment spurred my mind into opposing directions, as I struggled to work through similar and yet different ideas. But after the fifth or sixth, and certainly seventh, book that crossed below my mechanical pencil, all the thoughts were much more independent and free-flowing. It was a pretty trippy thing to read all the results of this process, and I'm excited both to do my "homework" for this show, as well as come back next Thursday night to do some more writing (or whatever.)

Good thing I can program the VCR for Smallville...