Failsafe - 10x10 challenge

This last week I worked on a short film for a 10x10 challenge. (10 minute film in 10 days) I’ve always questioned the desire of people to do those, I mean if you are going to go thru the effort to make a short film, why limit yourself to one where you are under prepared and don’t have enough post time?!? I guess it’s like what I went through at film school. I always said I would never again partake in such an exercise, but last week… I did.

Why? For me it was an opportunity to work with friends, some of whom I hadn’t worked with in several years. We shot for 3 days, but I could only do the first 2. Unfortunately for me, they were night shoots that turned into overnight shoots... also I say, never again…

At any rate, I get to see the final film tonight, hopefully it will turn out as good as it looked through the lens. I also got to work with some great people and some great equipment. Here are some set stills taken by Andy Pischalnikoff (http://www.doctorlegacy.com/):

Night 1, an airplane hangar in Lincoln, CA.

The Director, Eric Espera.

Night 2, night interior and exterior. Here I am building my new light, a 7’ 1k softbox. It took a while to build and rig, but once it was set, we were lit for the scene.

Setting the light 20’ up with a mafer clamp on to a 2x6 beam. The light had a safety cable, I wish I had one!

Once the light was set, it was worth it.

Another angle with the director and myself in the corner.

I got to fly a glidecam, yea! Always love that.

A Dutch camera trick my friend and SoCal DP Eric Petersen showed me on my first film. Thanks Eric!

Antique Trove - The Musical!

I've just finished post on a 1950's Technicolor style musical commercial for a local client. The budget was small, and we put way too much work in on this spot, but it was just too much fun to stop…

This is my Father playing the roll of “The Dad”

And again, showing the lighting setup.

Here he is in the final composite.

This is a frame grab from the final edit, staring Susan Fore.

You can view the spot online here at: www.emrl.com/j/downloads/AntiqueTrove.mov

New Music Videos

The new music videos for Freex and Olson Olson are done! The Freex video was for the song “Box”. It was shot inside a 7’ box.
You can download it here (9 megs):
http://www.emrl.com/j/downloads/Box.mov

The Olson Olson video is for the song “En Passant”. We shot the performance footage on a white cyc stage at The Studio Center in Sacramento. The narrative footage was shot in HD with an HVX200 (for the slow-mo) with a 35mm adapter. We shot near the American River and in a Safflower field outside Davis.

You can download it here (13 megs):

http://www.emrl.com/j/downloads/EnPassant.mov

Here are some location stills:

Shooting on a bridge over the river.

Hunting butterflies in a field at 60fps.

Trying to figure out the HD->SD in camera downconvert workflow.

Justin, Guitar.

Tom, Drums.

Wading thru the safflower field. I had to wear shorts that day, Ouch!

Directing Jennifer, the singer. Note Justin with playback.

A snake slithered by during the shoot. See if you can spot it's cameo in the video...

If I lived in springfield...

...this is what Siobhan and I would look like:

Super cool. I made it here:

http://www.simpsonsmovie.com/main.html?cid=us&deeplink=avatar&deeplink2=undefined

Yellowstone!

This last weekend was my father in law’s 60th birthday. We celebrated the event at my in-laws cabin up by Yellowstone. Siobhan drove up the week earlier with her mom. I left after work Wednesday and picked up my cousin-in-law Zach at the train station. From there we picked up a rental car at the airport for the long drive (for only $150 for the week, it was well worth it not to put the miles on my car…)We drove through the night, stopping at the Red Lion in Winnemucca, Nevada.

We got up early with the hopes of making it to Rigby Idaho by 4pm. Why Rigby Idaho? Rigby is the home town of Philo T. Farnsworth, the inventor of electronic TV capture and Display. He came up with the idea in the 1920’s while plowing his families potatoe (Quayle Rules!) fields at the young age of 14! Rigby Idaho also houses the Philo T. Farnsworth TV and Pioneer Museum. They are open from 10am to 4pm, and I’ve missed them before. We hauled our little Chevy Colbalt as fast as reasonable and made it there by 3:45. Enough time to pay the admission ($2) and enjoy the simple homage to someone who changed the world with and Idea in a potatoe field. The museum was nice and quaint, but I think Philo deserves more…

After the Museum we drove up to the cabin and got to visit many relatives from Kentucky, including Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Grandpas and Grandmas. A rare opportunity.

The next couple of days we spent touring the park. It’s basically too amazing to go into details. Amazing geology (geysers) , wildlife (buffalo) , and food. (buffalo burgers) If you’ve never been, go. Give yourself 3 days.

The only unfortunate part of the trip was the demise of Mammoth Hot Springs. Mammoth Hot Springs and Old Faithful are the parks two big draws. About a year ago, there were some earthquakes and the springs dried up about 98%. The whole hillside used to be a rainbow of intense colors. Now it’s dried and cracked and looks like the moon:

http://www.nps.gov/archive/yell/mammothcam.htm

On Sunday my cousin and I went canoeing along Henry’s fork of the Madison River. Very nice. A little shallow at times, but crystal clear. That afternoon Zach, my wife and I left back for California. After consulting with the GPS, I discovered that by swooping down past Salt Lake City, it only added 10 minutes to the total trip. I always like to drive a circular route rather than straight and back if I can. I was surprised at how nice that part of Utah is – absolutely picturesque. Soft green rolling hills leading to rocky peaks. Nice. After swinging through SLC, we hit the Bonneville Salt flats just as the sun set. Magic hour in a truly alien landscape. Totally cool. I’ve always wanted to shoot a music video or SciFi there. Again if you have never been- stop by if you can. I wouldn’t budget 3 days though. After about 3 minutes you get the point.

http://www.utah.com/playgrounds/bonneville_salt.htm

About 10 minutes past Bonneville is Nevada, and the first town – Wendover. Like any border town in Nevada, there are Giant Casinos. We stopped at Paradise Beach or something like that. Huge. Big as any Vegas casino. We ate at some aquatic themed restaurant. Shrimp cocktail and ribeye – yum! We stayed the night about an hour past wendover in some town I can’t remember. It had two hotels and a gas station. Next time we will just stay in wendover.

Cinegear 2007!

Cinegear: Wooooooo!


Sorry, just a little excited. This weekend I went down to LA to visit a friend and attend cinegear. My good friend and best man picked me up at LAX and we headed over to the Expo. I've missed the last 3, so I was excited to see what's new. Afterwards we stopped by Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles - YUM!

Here are some pictures from Cinegear:

Socal DP and best man E. G. Petersen at the Briese lighting booth with their 11' umbrella reflector: http://www.brieseusa.com/index.html


Element labs was also impressive. http://www.elementlabs.com/ They have a 5 phosphor led light that does near full spectrum lighting. Most are white LEDs only, some use RGB lights to make white, These guys add Magenta and Yellow to fill out the gaps. They also make a *very* cool led panel display that can be as large as a building and can display full color motion imges. This display was showing a quicktime movie off of a lap top.

Here is Eric getting a closer look:


Some other items that caught my eye:

A 58k light from the people at photosonics. No, not 58k color temp - 58 thousand watts. 58 1k bulbs packed tightly in a 2'x3' box! This thing can only be turned on for 10 seconds max before it starts to melt the diffusion screen.

http://www.photosonics.com/soft-box-lights.htm

Dragon Grips was cool with their ladder platform and cross beam-less dolly track:

http://www.dragongrips.com/

These guys had a cool aesthetic for a rental house:

http://www.monsterlighting.com/

The Nila LED lights were 1,200 Par HMI equivelents, with less power and almost no heat:

http://www.nila.tv/id6.html





And this is where old steadicam ops go to retire...

Olson Olson music video

This weekend we began production on a music video for the band "Olson Olson" The first phase of production was on the white cyc stage at the studio center in Sacramento. Two weeks from now we begin production of the narrative scenes. The band helped out by painting the stage. Nothing teaches respect for the white cyc than painting it. In fact, the only errant footprint that day was one one of mine...

Loading the "Shabby Chic" Piano into place.

The final product, good as gold.

I went to the movies.

I went to the movies this weekend and saw two really good films.

The first was the cheap theater screening of 300. I was wary of this film because of all the hype and the strong visual treatment, but seeing how this was a mythic tale, it went well with the film.

The second movie was "knocked up" Everyone over 16 should see this movie. Good film.

It's interesting to note that upon reflection of the amazing cinematography in "300", I realized that I went through the entire 2 hrs of "knocked up" and never noticed a shot, angle, movement, or lighting setup. In retrospect I'd say that "knocked up" has the better cinematography. Not once was I taken out of the story - not once. That's what makes for good cinematography, telling the story.

Demo Derby Season!

This Memorial weekend we took some time to enjoy the Sacramento County Fair, and the chief attraction: The Demo Derby!!!

It's nice to be able to get up close.

The moment before. I hate digital camera shutter lag.

Watch the dirt fly!

How did this happen? First time I've ever seen something like this happen... Can't wait for August and the State Finals!

The House is Done!

The remodel of the house is done!

mostly.

I still have some trim to put up and some windows to work on, but it's done enough to put on the market.

Here are some pics:

Strawberry Festival

We were supposed to make a standard “still picture with motion graphics” commercial for the Strawberry Festival. I wasn’t satisfied with that. We decided to do something a little more interesting...

You can download a 3-meg h264 version here:

http://www.emrl.com/j/downloads/2007StrawberryFestival.mov

(There's just something a little disturbing about a giant strawberry enjoying a cannibalistic meal of a smaller strawberry.)

Paris

Sunday, April 8th

We got up early (5am) to take a tram and catch our flight out of Germany. ;-(

Siobhan was smart enough to book a 5 hour layover at the Charles de Gaulle airport. That gave us just enough time to take the shuttle into town for a quick climb up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. This has the best view of Paris, even better than the Eiffel Tower, as from here you can actually see the tower in the view!

After that we strolled down the Champs Elysées and found an outdoor café for lunch. Siobhan had a crepe, while I had ordered a hot dog. What I got is something different. It was a baguette split open with a frankfurter inside and covered in cheese and baked. It was good, just different. The mustard was definitely good. The French know how to do mustard.

We hurried back and caught out 747 flight back. This flight was via Air France. Air France sucks. I will just leave it at that…

Munich

Saturday, April 7th

We caught a bus tour to take us up to the alpine region above Munich to visit the Neuschwanstein Castle built by “Mad King Ludwig”

This castle was the final castle built buy King Ludwig II of Bavaria. They called him “Mad” because he spent so much of his country’s fortunes on extravagant, fantastic castles. Castle Neuschwanstein (“New Swan Stone in German”) is the most amazing, quintessential castle example you can imagine.

Not only was it the inspiration for Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty castle at Disneyland, it also inspired Mel Brooks.

After the Castle we returned back to Munich and did quick rickshaw bike tour of the city, followed by dinner in a Hoffbrau house of roasted pork knuckle and dumplings… Mmmmm!

Milan

Friday, April 6th

This morning we took the train from Venice station (on the island this time…) to Milan.

Once we got into town we visited the galleria, an outdoor shopping district covered in 1860 with a glass and steel dome, and equipped with the newly invented electric lights. We also took a spin on the mosaic bull oysters for luck. Seriously.

Here is a cool VR:
http://milan.arounder.com/city_tour/IT000005334.html

Next door was the Duomo, the second largest gothic cathedral in the world.

After that we visited the Castello Sforzesco, a gigantic brick castle, built just in time for Napoleon to take it over.
Here is another cool VR:
http://milan.arounder.com/city_tour/IT000005332.html

Finally we stopped off at the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie to visit Leonardo’s (Davinci, not the Turtle…) Last Supper. We were surprised at how low-key it was. First of all, the church itself is located on what once was the outskirts of town, not in the city center. Second it’s a fairly small church, and the fresco itself is not in the church, but in the unadorned building next door, the dining hall for the monks. Third, it was not crowded, although this may be due to the need to buy tickets months in advance. These are all in contrast to the Mona Lisa, housed in the Louvre, surrounded by hundreds of gawking tourists pressing themselves up against the protective glass, cameras flashing away…

It’s amazing the painting has survived at all. Read the quick paragraph of it’s amazing volitle history here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Supper_(Leonardo)#Damage_and_restorations

Here is a great VR Leonardo’s Last supper:
http://milan.arounder.com/city_tour/IT000005341.html

Italy is interesting. One thing always strikes me is how everything is in an advanced state of deferred maintenance. Cracks in the sidewalks and abundant weeds. Broken and unwashed windows. It’s like that everywhere across the country. It’s more third-world than the former Soviet states of Hungary and Czech. All the train stations are left over construction from Mussolini himself. Interesting.

That evening we took an Air Dolomiti flight back to Munich and tok the tram into town to our hotel.

Venice!

Thursday, April 5th


A city like none other in the world, for so many reasons. There are only two modes of transportation: walking and boats. No cars or bicycles. Also, everything here is old. Hundreds of years old, which is just a great atmosphere. Unlike other world cities, Venice has no real “must see” or “must do” sites. It’s more of an even experience, all over the place. You can walk in *any* direction and it’s all just as fascinating. It’s not like you are likely to move away from an important area, you just find a new interesting area. There is no pressure, you just go and experience. And when you get hungry, you will find a place to eat. Simple. Easy. Plus for us on a personal note, this is where I asked Siobhan to marry me, so we have those wonderful memories to remember.

Here is what we ended up doing:

In the morning we made our way to San Marco square (the “pigeon” plaza you always see in the movies) and took a tour of the “Doge’s” palace, the seat of government for the Venetian empire.

Very fascinating, plus we got to cross the “Bridge of Sighs” (Under which I proposed to Siobhan as we rode in a gondola)

Afterwards we went to tour the Church at San Marco Square, but the line was too long. That’s ok, we can do that next time! We noticed another tour for bell tower was very short and decided to take that. We weren’t expecting the amazing view from the top, panoramic over the entire island and surrounding lagoon.

It was from this point (although the tower was rebuilt after a collapse in 1902!) that Galileo demonstrated his “invention” of the telescope to the Venetian government.

After that we shopped and ate and ate and shopped and shopped and ate and eventually capped the day with a sunset gondola ride under the Bridge of Sighs.

Pictures lifted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venice

Day of Travel: Czech to Germany to Italy

Wednesday, April 4th

Today was a day of travel. We drove from Prague to Munich thru some freshly snow dusted forests – beautiful. Once back inside Germany I pulled out my Kraftwerk CD. “Autobahn” on the Autobahn – nice. The perfect accompanying score…

Near Munich we stopped off at Dachau and toured the memorial. A bit of a more somber experience.

We dropped off the car at the Munich airport. We started with a brand new car, and took it from 4km to 1969km in 6 days. Bye bye car, it was fun, but it will be nice not to have to worry about parking or freeway passes…

We walked out on the tarmac to our “Air Dolomiti” flight. I love boarding the plane on the tarmac, it feels like more of a travel adventure and less like a commute flight.

After a short flight over the Swiss Alps we landed at the Milan airport. For some reason, the Milan airport is not in Milan. It’s about an hour away. We took the airport shuttle bus into town, but with the evening commute traffic, it was slow going. So slow we missed our train to Venice. There was one other that we were able to take. The only problem (unforeseen and unmentioned) was that this train did not take us directly to the island as our first train did. Instead we needed to catch a second train at the Venice mainland station. Well, once we arrived there and disembarked the train, it was evident we weren’t on the island. We figured out we needed to board the connecting train just as it pulled out. In fact, the last train out for the night. D’oh. Hmm… what to do? We went to a hotel across from the station and asked. They pointed us to a bus stop that had busses that went across the bridge every ½ hr. Thank goodness… We caught the bus with about a dozen other passengers and rode it in. About midnight we finally crossed the “Ponte Degli” on foot over the Grand Canal and found out hotel – Whew!