MPC

The Year in Music: March 2010

2010-03-15T11:15:00.004-05:00

Favorites of the year, thus far:

Beach House - Teen Dream

Four Tet - There Is Love In You

Free Energy - Stuck On Nothing

Frightened Rabbit - The Winter of Mixed Drinks

Hot Chip - One Life Stand

Liars - Sisterworld

Local Natives - Gorilla Manor

Los Campesinos! - Romance is Boring

The Radio Dept. - Clinging To A Scheme

Rogue Wave - Permalight

Spoon - Transference

Surfer Blood - Astro Coast

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - The Brutalist Bricks

Titus Andronicus - The Monitor

The Year of Archetype: Day 73

2010-03-14T09:23:00.004-05:00

Lessons learned from yesterday's shoot:

Even when the topside temperature is relatively balmy given March standards, standing on an unshielded wind-plain makes it very, very cold.
Wind doesn't blow. It sucks.
When switching between the onboard mic for junk-audio takes and the boom, makes sure to turn off the onboard when going back to the boom, else the boom won't get a feed.
Wear headphones to make sure the above doesn't happen.
Dogs don't like running on school blacktops. It hurts their paws.
Don't turn the gain past 6 dB lest you want your shots to look like a smear of action or light amid a level of noise equivalent to the cosmic microwave background.
Memorize a shot list if you're shooting in the pitch dark, else you'll be blinding yourself with a flashlight when you shine it on a white sheet that reflects back into you and wrecks your nightvision.
Don't schedule a day that involves having the cast and crew sitting in your bedroom for several hours, waiting for it to get dark.
When doing on-location foley, make sure you're not doing the foley and holding the mic simultaneously.
Apparently a colony of owls live in the woods behind Gideon Pond, and last night they seemed to go to war.

Also, happy one-year anniversary of Transmissions' release.

Re: The Oscars

2010-03-08T10:43:00.003-06:00

Basically an extended tweet:

Really inspiring to see The Hurt Locker, budgeted at $11 million, beat out Avatar, budgeted anywhere from a rumored $200 to $500 million, at the vast majority of the big Oscars.

One could argue that this is another case of the Academy being out of touch with your average moviegoer. This was one of the points that led to the 10 nominees for Best Picture, given that, last year, The Dark Knight wasn't nominated for anything major, despite it earning a metric ton of money at the box office. (But isn't that what IMDb's fanboy-slathered top 150 is for, anyway?)

I, however, chalk up Avatar's success to the gigantic marketing blitz surrounding its release. I don't read many movie websites or follow the industry, but it was absolutely impossible to avoid that film. If nothing else, that brand recognition probably earned it a few hundred million tickets. Not to mention that IMAX prices inflated its gross.

Compare that to The Hurt Locker, which was a slow burn, gaining momentum on the festival circuit before attaining wide release only a few months ago and, right now, coming out on DVD. I think I saw one ad for it on Rotten Tomatoes, otherwise there was nothing. It just slipped quietly into cinemas and spread through word of mouth like through, ahem, this particular blogger.

So all those posts about the injustice of Avatar making gobs of money while much better films slip into the abyss? Still relevant, but at least The Hurt Locker won some major props. Even though, well, anyone with a shred of intelligence knows the Academy Awards are pure politics. At least Joe Moviewatcher might pick up The Hurt Locker at Best Buy if a new box comes out with a WINNER - BEST PICTURE banner at the top.

The Year of Archetype: Day 64 - R.I.P. Ashton Rosengren

2010-03-05T10:49:00.003-06:00

I auditioned Ashton Rosengren a few months back and cast him in Archetype as the Rogue mastermind Charles Morgan. I just found out that he died yesterday.

I'm a state of shock, sadness, and confusion. We only met once, but I had a feeling I was going to enjoy working with him. But that won't happen.

A mere movie will always pale in comparison to the lives of those who make them.

Mux048: March 2010

2010-03-04T08:21:00.002-06:00

New month, new mux.

Download or stream off drop.io.

1. Japandroids - Art Czars
2. Local Natives - Wide Eyes
3. Rogue Wave - Solitary Gun
4. The Radio Dept. - This Time Around
5. Broken Social Scene - Looks Just Like The Sun
6. Pavement - Stereo
7. Gorillaz - Stylo
8. Hot Chip - Take It In
9. Modest Mouse - Gravity Rides Everything
10. Los Campesinos! - This Is A Flag. There Is No Wind.
11. The Soft Pack - Answer To Yourself
12. The National - Abel

The Year of Archetype: Day 62

2010-03-03T19:14:00.003-06:00

Wondering if I'm teetering precariously on that slippery slope.

Tomorrow I'm shooting a scene we didn't get to on Sunday, which is the first day in my filmmaking history that I didn't finish an hour early; we finished two hours late, mostly on account that we were filming outdoors near the airport and soon learned that, gee, a lot of planes take off a 7 p.m. We were also taking shifts standing inside the house since, even at a relatively-balmy 20 degrees Fahrenheit, being outdoors for about two hours causes numbness in pretty much every limb.

But this isn't about the past. Nor is it about Saturday, when I'm shooting the final scene for Part 1 of Archetype and which, examining my rough cut of everything thus far (spurred at the behest of my sound designer, despite not wanting to cut until all was shot), seems superfluous.

Here's where the problem comes in: I'm cutting and, since I'm still shooting, I'm thinking about shots I don't have but want. And, in theory, it won't take much to get the shots. I actually have a few planned for Sunday. Just have to shave.

To most, this doesn't seem a problem at all. It seems a blessing. That I have the resources to get additional shots I want 1) while it's still winter and 2) for free.

This, however, goes against the grain of everything I was taught as an editor. That, when you get the footage, you have to make it work. I just did first passes on most of the scenes, and instead of trying harder, of scouring for some extra frames from some shot, I'm saying Fuck It and shooting some new shots. It also seems a sort of defeat in some sideways way; that I failed to foresee that I'd need a certain shot.

I guess it's just bothering me because, for the hell of it, I was digging through my old Transmissions project files, and the rough cut for Part 1 is absolutely horrendous, and I made it work in the final edit. Sure, I grabbed shots from the very end of the film and cheated them at the front, but that's fair game. I didn't reshoot anything. Mostly because of the labor involved in clearing that damn closet.

There's a lot of speculation in this post. It's undermining what I imagine is my projection of my progress in making Archetype when, really, it's going far better than I imagined in pretty much every way, as a director, actor, cinematographer, everything, really.

But as for this pointless non-issue (I'm going to shoot the shots I want, dammit), it digs into the ultimate Filmmaker's Dilemma: rush something now and be done with it, but then live the rest of your life with something halfway shoddy that could've been fixed if an extra fifteen minutes were spent dealing with it. Sometimes it's as simple as running another take. Taking an extra thirty seconds to frame up a shot better. Maybe even opening up the script and reading that dusty old thing and try to remember what part of the story you're trying to tell and how best to tell it.

In consideration: The clean sweep

2010-02-28T09:10:00.002-06:00

If you told me a year ago that I'd submit Transmissions to 21 film festivals and get shut out, I'd be extremely upset. Today, I'm not - later I'm shooting some of Arc, which is shaping up very nicely. My modest goal for Arc: have it play at five small festivals or one "big" festival. That's it.

Also, as per festival guidelines, I can now post the full stream of the movie. That can be seen over at the Transmissions blog. As with any filmmaker, I prefer my work to be watched at the best quality possible, so if you're interested, shoot me an e-mail or comment on this post if you want a free DVD of the film and I can provide that.

The tally: 21 rejected

~~Ann Arbor (Michigan)~~
~~Austin~~
~~BendFilm (Oregon)~~
~~Big Bear Lake (California)~~
~~Charlotte~~
~~Chicago International~~
~~Chicago Underground~~
~~First Take (Georgia)~~
~~Landlocked (Iowa)~~
~~Maine~~
~~Midwest Independent (Chicago)~~
~~New Directors / New Films (New York)~~
~~New York~~
~~Rhode Island~~
~~Sacramento~~
~~Sausalito~~
~~Slamdance~~
~~Stony Brook (New York)~~
~~Sundance~~
~~SXSW (Austin)~~
~~Toronto~~

JDK Dance Party #8: Particle Accelerator

2010-02-27T08:37:00.005-06:00

After being inspired by DJ Hero, I unsuccessfully tried to make a mashup of Ice Cube's "It Was A Good Day" and Cam'ron's "Hey Ma." I tried the trick of trying to single out the vocals, but it didn't work, and a site I found claiming to have an acapella "It Was A Good Day" was the same crappy quality as mine. I even had the name picked out: "It Was A Good Day, Ma."

So instead I threw together another one of these:

Download or stream off drop.io.

1. Michael Jackson - Don't Stop Till You Get Enough
2. Friendly Fires - Skeleton Boy
3. The Knife - Neverland
4. !!! - Heart of Hearts
5. Kelly Clarkson - Since U Been Gone
6. The Chemical Brothers - Star Guitar
7. Annie - My Love Is Better
8. R. Kelly - Ignition (Remix)
9. Burial - Archangel
10. Destiny's Child - Say My Name
11. Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.
12. Professor Murder - Free Stress Test
13. Kanye West - Slow Jamz
14. Outkast - Hey Ya!
15. Felix Da Housecat - Everyone Is Someone In LA
16. Dan Deacon - The Crystal Cat
17. Dizzee Rascal - Holiday

2010.03.03 Note: I confused BPM-matching with beat-matching, and the result is a disjointed, god-awful mess. I'm so sorry.

The Year of Archetype: Day 57

2010-02-26T21:00:00.003-06:00

Fridays:

Wake up at six
Write my daily list
Revise the weekend schedule
Send an e-mail to everyone involved in the weekend's shooting and attached aforementioned schedule
Read the script pages to be shot
Memorize any lines that need memorization
Consult my breakdowns/director's notes for the scene(s) if confused or nervous
Gather props
Check my gear
Go back to sleep for another hour and a half
Spend my day doing a number of things that, under any circumstances, I can safely call a complete waste of time, including but not limited to
- Multiple crossword puzzles
- Sequencing any number of new mixtapes
- Replaying old Xbox 360 games to get more Achievements
- Buying a new Xbox game and try to figure out how best to get all the Achievements as fast as possible
- Completely neglecting to read
- Completely neglecting the side novel that will be released aside Archetype
- Taking multiple naps
- Multiple bowls of off-brand Special K
- Making extremely elaborate mental connections with my current state of agitated boredom with the mindset of Ridley Kraid, before realizing it's probably how schizophrenics or serial killers think
Maybe watch a trashy movie
Call those who haven't responded to the morning e-mail and basically read the e-mail to them over the telephone
Go to sleep extremely early

Mux047: Long Players

2010-02-24T11:41:00.002-06:00

Download or stream off drop.io.

1. Broken Social Scene - World Sick
2. Battles - Atlas
3. YACHT - Summer Song
4. Hot Chip - One Life Stand
5. Four Tet - Love Cry
6. Yeasayer - Ambling Alp
7. Beach House - 10 Mile Stereo
8. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

The Year of Archetype: Day 43 / Shooting Day 2

2010-02-13T17:19:00.003-06:00

Today is the day every filmmaker has at one point in nearly every project: The Day That Almost Didn't Happen, And By Some Extreme Luck, It Went Well.

My AD had an emergency to attend to, which left me at without an AD and camera operator about fifteen minutes before I was to start a 8.5 hour day. At 8:45 a.m., I was running out of options, and I thought of scrubbing the day and switching it to tomorrow, which I really didn't want to do, given the unpredictable weather was cooperating and I had everything in order.

Sitting at the kitchen counter, brooding over my cup of coffee, my mom, out of what seemed like total nowhere, quietly volunteered to take the task as camera operator. Sure, she's an award-winning professional photographer, meaning she had a natural eye for composition (which I'd need that day, since I'd be setting up shots I couldn't do with a stand-in), but she had zero experience with a video camera. Kind of how I'm a passable cinematographer but an amateur photographer.

I then warned her of the conditions I had prepped my crew for, and which I had witnessed the day prior when scouting the location: narrow "cleared" paths through the woods (cleared mostly by peoples' footprints and my own shoveling) and, beyond, snow about 2-3 feet deep if you took a wrong step.

My mom trooped up and donned some snowpants while waiting for Kyle to arrive. He showed, and with a trunk full of gear, we went out to our staging area. It was only about three hundred feet from the parking lot to our first drop-off point, but I learned that carrying a full backpack, guitar case containing a sniper rifle, and 50 lb. camera case was going to, plainly, suck going through the woods.

We started off shakily. My mom, understandably, was nervous about handling the camera, since the first thing she did, without realizing it, was offset the focus, zoom halfway in, and complete close the iris. Fortunately, after a little instruction, we pulled off the first few shots.

Then we headed into the woods. All told, it was probably a half-mile walk, which I'll now mentally refer to as The Archetype Death-March. Of course, as director and producer and whatever, part of my job is to make sure everyone isn't miserable and be completely selfless and silent when concerned with my own misery.

We finally staged and started the next sequence of shots. We struggled through with focus problems (for its cost, the eyepiece of the XL H1A is frustratingly more of an approximation of the final image than the final image itself), frost getting blown off the trees that basically made it snowing, airplane noise, and getting progressively colder. I didn't do myself any favors with the latter, given I had to kneel in the snow with a rifle for the lion's share of the shots.

We had a brief reprieve when my dad surprised us with some hot chocolate - after, of course, calling my cell and getting obscure direction of where to find us in the middle of the unmarked woods.

Near the end of the morning sequence, I asked my mom to do a close-up and she asked me to set the focus. I told her to guess, since I had run most of the day on f/22 and f/16 and figure I'd hit the hyperfocal somewhere around 4 meters. (Another problem of the H1A: No option to use imperial measurements. I know when something is five feet away and can only guess how many meters that is.) She then told me that, with her glasses on, she can't focus - she only photographs with contacts in. I told it'd probably be fine, but she insisted I check the shot right after.

Of course, it was horrifically out of focus. She started to backpedal, saying that if all the other stuff was OOF she come back out in the woods with me and reshoot it. My least favorite thing to do is to redo something that I've already done, so I was still in a bit of a gloom when we wrapped the morning early and decided to head back to the house before my actor showed for his scenes back in the woods.

The footage, of course, was fine. It was strangely just that last shot that was really OOF.

My actor showed, so we headed back into the woods. My scenes were done, so we needed considerably less gear and props. Also, I could operate the camera myself. Another semi-Death-March later we were back near my poorly-cleared paths, and we started running takes. Pretty straightforward: shooting Stephen's/Drake's part of the scene as a long take that I'd intercut, and shooting coverage from a wide shot, medium, close-up, and extreme close-up. Stephen and I ran over the scene in the studio before we set out, and we had talked about it countless times, but in the wide shot, I, deliberately, couldn't see him except as a dark smudge in the tangled woods.

After I called cut, I ran to his position some fifty feet away.

"I was doing a wide shot, so I didn't see anything," I said. "But I think it was good. How'd it feel for you?"

I had only minimal notes for the rest of the takes. He nailed each part of his scene, and it gave me a bit of a director boner to direct another actor in portraying a character I had written. Add to it that Stephen takes the role quite seriously and had some excellent ideas of his own.

So against all odds, the day was shot, and the shots work. And all that labor and hardship disappears when watching the footage. It's not three people up to their knees in snow, all in various stages of going numb, but a lens floating in midair, telling part of a story.

Mux046: Shooting

2010-02-12T16:02:00.003-06:00

Pretty ridiculous, but I sometimes need a reprieve from all this seriousness.

Download or stream via drop.io.

1. A Place To Bury Strangers - It Is Nothing
2. Rollins Band - What's the Matter Man?
3. Boris - Woman on the Screen
4. Iggy and the Stooges - Search and Destroy
5. Les Savy Fav - The Equestrian
6. Rage Against the Machine - Sleep Now In The Fire
7. Black Sabbath - Paranoid
8. Death From Above 1979 - Little Girl
9. Marnie Stern - Transformer
10. Sleater-Kinney - Jumpers
11. Future of the Left - Arming Eritrea
12. The White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl
13. Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child (Slight Return)

The Year of Archetype: Day 42

2010-02-12T09:51:00.004-06:00

It's not that I'm reticent to talk about last Saturday's shoot. It's simply at a point where you'll see what transpired when the film is finished.

It was pretty much like every shoot I've ever done. I was prepared and so was everyone else. We got the job done an hour early. There were happy accidents and compromises and mistakes. We ran into snags that were usually resolved within a matter of minutes.

I designed the day to be logistically simple, which actually wasn't given we changed locations about six times, but we managed to get it done with myself, Maria, and Kyle. And barring the cast, the three of us can make this entire movie.

Now I'm prepping for tomorrow. Already prepped, really. Went to my co-lead's house last night and confirmed his wardrobe. Gear and tapes checked. Everyone notified and in possession of the most recent schedule. Everyone more or less prepared for shooting outside all day, which might completely backfire and get picked up on Sunday if we're too miserable to work a few more hours.

Some slightly odd things on today's docket: Scouting the wooded location and bringing a shovel to try to carve some paths for the crew in light of the recent foot of snow; buying snacks and energy drinks because we won't have a lunch proper and will instead just ingest crap all day; entertaining background fears that some dog-walker will stumble upon our shoot and be a bit nonplussed to see me, in a military jacket, poised behind a sniper rifle. I'll have to brief the crew tomorrow - who are all okay with the shenanigans I've planned - to shout "PINEAPPLE" if they see a pedestrian intruding upon our locale, at which point we'll hide our weapons and smile goofy and dur wur makeing a moovy fur skool. Works every time.

The Year of Archetype: Day 36

2010-02-05T19:11:00.003-06:00

I wish I could say something more interesting right now than the fact that I'm not nervous. I have my binder, I have my schedule, I have my shots, I have my gear, and I have enough of a crew to get it done. I'll worry about next Saturday next week.

I never really delude myself with the scope of what I'm doing, namely because of the following, which is a list of my greatest concerns for tomorrow:

Making sure to calm down and/or cordon off the three (three!) dogs at my sister's house so I don't get audio of dogs scampering overhead during the basement scenes
Hoping I'm not too imposing on my sister and brother-in-law by politely demanding to turn the television down or to get the hell out of the rooms we're shooting in
Wondering if we might do the whole thing in like an hour and end up waiting around for the post-lunch plan of the special-effects make-up person coming to do their thing for a whopping one shot in the film
Figuring out a place to go for lunch
Having my dad drive twenty-four miles round-trip for two shots that will, in all likelihood, take fifteen minutes
Hoping it's not illegal to remove the license plates of my parked car for like half an hour
Not drawing a very-unlikely crowd of spectators shooting outside, given I'll be wearing short basketball shorts and a t-shirt and have a very unflattering bald head
Feeling too bossy composing all the shots and running the sound check before I hand the camera over to my AD/operator

Yeah, that's about it. I should have enough material for a trailer sometime in early April, so maybe I'll have some stills shot with my crappy camera in the interim.

Mux045: February 2010

2010-02-04T08:50:00.004-06:00

Download or stream at drop.io.

~~Oh, and the tracks? Total mystery. The usual mix of old favorites, new favorites, and stuff the shuffle dredged up.~~

1. The Thermals - Here's Your Future
2. The Hold Steady - Your Little Hoodrat Friend
3. Beach House - Norway
4. Broken Social Scene - Almost Crimes
5. Pavement - Date With Ikea
6. Los Campesinos! - Straight In At 101
7. Tapes 'n Tapes - Insistor
8. Surfer Blood - Floating Vibes
9. The National - All The Wine
10. Four Tet - She Just Likes To Fight
11. Spoon - Written In Reverse

Obligatory Oscar player-hating post

2010-02-02T08:15:00.002-06:00

The ten nominees for Best Picture are, surprisingly, not all fucking terrible. Except, well, District 9, which was a silly summer movie; Inglorious Basterds, which was egregious; and Up, which lost focus after the first ten minutes.

Oh yeah, and Avatar, which will win every single category it's nominated for. Kind of like how Lord of the Rings and, last year, Slumdog Millionaire just brushed everything else under the rug and instantly made those movies forgotten.

The Hurt Locker is the worst-off victim here. Hopefully people remember that movie exists when it wins Best Original Screenplay, which is the award they usually hand off to a deserving film that doesn't win anything else.

The Year in Music: January 2010

2010-02-01T09:02:00.005-06:00

Pointless, but everybody loves lists. ~~Pitchfork's Best New Music~~ My favorites of this fledgling year, thus far:

1. Four Tet - There Is Love In You

2. Spoon - Transference

3. Beach House - Teen Dream

4. Surfer Blood - Astro Coast

5. Vampire Weekend Contra

The Year of Archetype: Day 30

2010-01-30T09:00:00.004-06:00

Obligatory repeat of a tweet: The prospective Day -2 has been scrubbed because the actress involved is sick. And, for once in the history of Arc-related delays, I'm not worried. I am still shooting tomorrow, and I'll try to reschedule today (which probably will/would've only take[n] two hours or less) for a weekday before Day 1 proper on February 6. It's also for some footage that doesn't happen until later in the film. I planned it only because I wanted to wade out of the paperwork swamp. But I've already shot two shots, and tomorrow I'll shoot more.

I feel like an athlete in training. It's almost a sort of fear to spend a day without doing something related to the film. Given I overprepared, I'm spacing out what little I have to do over the next week. But I'm afraid of getting soft; of losing focus; of losing drive. I've talked about the tunnel vision of filmmaking before, and I need to keep it and not look back.

I've probably also mentioned the surreality of it all. Archetype will probably be made. This comes after six months of it being just an idea rattling around in my head, and a shot list, and some logistics to pin down, and something abstract to explain at auditions. And, like most majors things in my life - changing schools, moving to Chicago, graduating college - I always think I'm supposed to feel hugely different, and I never do. It's like the feeling when you're somewhere far away on vacation, just doing something normal, just walking around, and forcing yourself to attach some false gravity to it.

If I made Arc, mentally, into being as huge as its own ambition, I wouldn't be able to make it. Like how - like any film - I had to break it down from a boulder into pebbles to simply get a grasp of things I could do every day that, over time, would reconstitute a whole.

So yes, I'm not shooting today, and I'm fine with that. I'm shooting tomorrow, anyway, and a week from today is Day 1 of the shoot proper.

The Year of Archetype: Day 28 / Shooting Day -3

2010-01-28T19:48:00.004-06:00

I joke about how the process is equal parts film-aching and filmmaking. If there was as much film-aching as filmmaking, I wouldn't be doing what I do. Sure, I piss and moan about little things, but in the end, I have what I can only describe as a voracious zeal for the whole ordeal, about telling a story in a method that's complicated in process to make cohere in the end.

I've been trying to avoid my old Rules of Filmmaking. One rule of which is that the more I suffer or have a hard time during shooting, the better the product. This mostly came about making my Production I final, which was an uphill battle and which turned out as one of the better things I've done with a camera. Contrast that to my Production II final, which was an ambitious undertaking but which I made with friends and mostly coasted along. The end product was extremely confusing, probably moreso a result of finally getting to use sound and piecing together a wordy plot that required a careful read-through of the script to follow.

So today is Day -3 because Saturday and Sunday are Days -2 and -1, respectively. Preliminary, short-term efforts before the shoot proper. Today involved getting shots of kids entering an elementary school in the morning and leaving at the final bell at the day's end. It's just a scene-setting device to frame the time a certain event takes. And something thematically, probably.

(And no, don't lecture me on the possible legality or ethic of anything. My parents claimed I was going to get either sued or attacked by a protective parent, despite filming at a distance never closer than 200 feet, and never zooming close enough to visibly identify any child.)

It was only two shots, really. Well, two shots on paper; I went for a few different compositions, focal lengths, all that crap. But now, at the day's end, I'm absolutely exhausted. It reminds me how, the day after my first day of Transmissions shooting, I was more physically sore than I have ever been, probably on account of having to move furniture, constantly change camera setups, and do everything myself.

This, though, shouldn't be the case. I woke up at the fairly-generous hour of 7:45 to stage outside the school by the 8:30 first bell. Sure, the windchill was -19 Fahrenheit, and I forgot gloves, and only a grand total of about ten to fifteen minutes outside resulted in losing all feeling in my fingers, following by the extreme physical pain of the thaw, then running my hands under lukewarm water for quite some time.

Later today I staged at a different spot and had to walk a total of about three-quarters of a mile round-trip on a rough trail through the snowy woods, all while carrying a camera that weighs probably about fifteen pounds.

None of that, though, seemed to equate to the dead-tired weight dragging on my eyelids. Maybe the prospective-ankle-twisting walk through the woods did me in, or being out in the brutal cold about an hour total. And, well, also taking my sister's dog on a half-hour walk.

Before I write what I just realized is the obvious answer, I could just posit that it could be sheer mental exhaustion leftover from Paperwork Wednesday, which was far more grueling than I imagined. I've also been reading the script these past two days, revising it here and there, visualizing the whole damn thing, thinking about the shoot and post. That's maybe a bit too romantic, as I mentally approach filmmaking from a more logistical and technical aspect; almost scientific. With regards to the latter, I think today's exhaustion was probably just the culmination of five cups of coffee spaced evenly through the day to avoid a caffeine crash, and said crash is happening right now.

The Year of Archetype: Day 26

2010-01-26T10:05:00.003-06:00

Now where were we?

A countdown is rather pointless, since I should concern myself less with counting down numbers than making sure every last detail is in place. Still confirming with a few remaining people and I only had to rejigger the schedule three times, each time rather minutely.

Each day I just try to X off a few items on my actually-named "Big List" of things to do before H-Hour on D-Day. I need to come up with a far better name than that; far too ominous. How about just "February 6, 2010"? Maybe even scratch that, since I'm doing some preliminary shooting this weekend for some TV newscasts, albeit with my old Canon GL2 to make it look kind of grungy. This is the Transmissions-style future, after all. No brands, no consumerism, no flatscreen LCD TVs, no Hummers, no Oreo cookies, ad nauseum.

I am, however, Going Rogue and shooting two guerrilla shots this Thursday all by my lonesome and with my Canon XL H1A, which I haven't touched in over a month.

No lie, though: Every day involves about three hours of e-mail responses, paperwork, and then all other hours spent playing $20 videogames, which I buy on pretty much a weekly basis. Sure, I have some idle, semi-worthwhile thoughts about how videogames are much more cinematic, and how movies are much more like games (case in point, my mom said she liked Avatar because it was like being in a videogame - I responded that I can have this experience without spending $250-$400 million dollars). Archetype, however, is far too restrained and without the requisite action to provide further commentary on this thrilling topic.

I suppose I can let everyone peek behind the veil. Today I e-mailed my AD to call two people who've yet to respond to my e-mail query about availability. Then I called Justin and asked the same thing. Probably after this blog post I'm going to the grocery store to get a $100 bill (as a "prop" for the gun sales), some grape or cranberry juice to serve as "prop wine," orange juice for "prop orange juice" for the duration of the film, and some spaghetti and sauce for the one scene as "prop dinner."

Little things like this that, were this production budgeted about a hundred-thousand times more than it is now, I'd have some lowly PA to do it. But here I am, about to back out my car on the shoveled-by-myself driveway and brave the still-icy roads to do some menial work. But I'm used to it. Right now, director/producer/overlord or not, it's my job.

JDK Radio 010: Night 2

2010-01-24T10:56:00.003-06:00

Download or stream off drop.io.

1. Radiohead - Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box
2. !!! - Must Be the Moon
3. Prodigy - Smack My Bitch Up
4. Daft Punk - Da Funk
5. Soulwax - NY Excuse (Nite Version)
6. The Juan Maclean - Give Me Every Little Thing
7. Annie - Heartbeat
8. Chromeo - Fancy Footwork
9. Friendly Fires - Skeleton Boy
10. The Knife - Neverland
11. LCD Soundsystem - Beat Connection (Album Version)
12. Royksopp - Follow My Ruin
13. DJ Shadow - Midnight in a Perfect World
14. Justice - Phantom Pt. II (Soulwax Nite Version)
15. Junior Boys - Last Exit (Fennesz Mix)

Mux044: January 2010

2010-01-21T07:47:00.002-06:00

Two new tracks and a lot of old favorites.

Download or stream off drop.io.

1. Frightened Rabbit - The Modern Leper
2. Black Kids - I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You (EP version)
3. The Joggers - Wicked Light Sleeper
4. Jay Reatard - I Know A Place
5. Radiohead - Bones
6. Vampire Weekend - Giving Up The Gun
7. Spoon - Out Go The Lights
8. The Kills - Black Balloon
9. Hot Chip - Made In The Dark
10. Los Campesinos! - Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks
11. Cut Copy - Bright Neon Payphone
12. Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country

In consideration: Nearing the end of the road

2010-01-19T16:43:00.002-06:00

SXSW passed on Transmissions.

The tally: 19 rejected, 2 pending; 21 total.

Ann Arbor (Michigan)
~~Austin~~
~~BendFilm (Oregon)~~
~~Big Bear Lake (California)~~
~~Charlotte~~
~~Chicago International~~
~~Chicago Underground~~
~~First Take (Georgia)~~
~~Landlocked (Iowa)~~
~~Maine~~
~~Midwest Independent (Chicago)~~
New Directors / New Films (New York)
~~New York~~
~~Rhode Island~~
~~Sacramento~~
~~Sausalito~~
~~Slamdance~~
~~Stony Brook (New York)~~
~~Sundance~~
~~SXSW (Austin)~~
~~Toronto~~

19 rejections:

~~Austin~~
~~BendFilm (Oregon)~~
~~Big Bear Lake (California)~~
~~Charlotte~~
~~Chicago International~~
~~Chicago Underground~~
~~First Take (Georgia)~~
~~Landlocked (Iowa)~~
~~Maine~~
~~Midwest Independent (Chicago)~~
~~New York~~
~~Rhode Island~~
~~Sacramento~~
~~Sausalito~~
~~Slamdance~~
~~Stony Brook (New York)~~
~~Sundance~~
~~SXSW (Austin)~~
~~Toronto~~

2 pending:

Ann Arbor (Michigan)
New Directors / New Films (New York)

Also, the Minneapolis-St. Paul festival announced they're accepting submissions. The entry fee is $50, though, and at this stage, I'd rather spend $50 on Archetype than wad up the same $50 and throw it in a hole.

The Year of Archetype: Day 19

2010-01-19T10:48:00.003-06:00

I guess it's appropriate that I've recently marathon'd Lost, given Archetype itself has fractured and turned into a bunch of little puzzle pieces. Nothing amiss or whatnot; just the usual slog of pre-production and, now, the massive coordination of everyone's schedules and the expected reconfiguration based on who is available when.

As I've mentioned to a bunch of people and have probably referenced on this here blog, I oftentimes have to step back and remember the most important thing isn't my shot list, or my schedule, but the story. In a commentary on one of the Ocean movies, Steven Soderbergh mentioned that, when he's wearing several hats during production (namely, serving as cinematographer in addition to directing), he tries to ground himself by reading the script once a week.

Unfortunately, it's something like that that reminds me I'm not paying anyone, that this project isn't the only thing going on in these people's lives, and that one of the greatest obstacles is my own laziness pulling me down. It turns me into an overt apologist when I'm doing something like today, in which the Day 1 call time is between 7-8 a.m. on a Saturday. At least we'll wrap shortly after lunch which, as producer-director-treasurer, is perpetually On Me and will undoubtedly be the greatest production expense. (Not that I'm complaining. It's really the least I can do.)

It's weird when I have to mentally remember making my student film Framework in trying to remember what it's like working with a cast and crew. That was my most robust production, in terms of people involved and, well, money spent on food. Transmissions, obviously, had its own filmmaking lessons that directly translate to Arc, but doing something alone is different than having to coordinate the same thing with five different people. Baby steps, really, given two projects from now I'll potentially have scenes with extras numbering in the hundreds. But that's far-future, and right now, I need to concern myself with the near-future of getting everyone together and making sure they're with me on wanting to tell a story as best as possible.

The Year of Archetype: Day 17

2010-01-17T19:15:00.003-06:00

It's not hard to realize I co-exist on two polar opposite ends of a line. There's the insecurity and the doubt that ripples through most of these Archetype-related posts. So let me indulge in something opposite that: the pure, unrestrained ego that years of public schooling has taught me to repress.

Disclaimer: If you already think I'm an egotistical asshole, just stop here, lest The Haters hate a Hater.

Archetype is going to be a great film. Probably capital-G Great. People will watch it fifty years from now, and since I am a brilliant writer and director, they will find new things about it buried within its layers for decades to come. It's both a universal statement about human nature and a sharp critique of the modern times as filtered through the lens of allegory, of using The Future as a plot device. And I'm the only one who could've written it.

I'm going to make good on years of performing exceptionally well on standardized tests; of choosing art over science to study in school; of going to Columbia over MIT. I'm going to be the greatest director of my generation. I want my films to be Number One on year-end best lists; to win awards; to get referenced in pop culture like how even the high-brow 2001 is referenced.

Modesty, clearly, is an easy front. Like how I can talk down Transmissions when, really, it's severely misunderstood. Archetype will draw attention back to my debut, and it'll get the attention it deserves; that, like Archetype, it can stand up to the rigors of deep analysis while also, clearly, offering on the surface an entertaining narrative.

I know what I'm doing. I've known it for over ten years. It's how I can watch a film and know it's nothing; how I can watch Lost and, while entertained, know it isn't going to last much longer than ten to fifteen years. How every criticism I say about Avatar or Inglorious Basterds is something the director was too stupid to even consider. How they don't have the raw brainpower of someone like Stanley Kubrick or Terrence Malick or me.

I know I put up a disclaimer but those who have been disclaimed are reading anyways. Fine. I'm not going to apologize. This is the way I see things sometimes. This is the kind of attitude you need tucked away to embark on something like Archetype; the kind of attitude that makes it impossible for me to just shut up, forget all this, and rot away behind a desk in some office until I retire and die from old age, instead of realizing how untrue that is for me and how I'd rather shoot myself if it came to that.

And the beauty of all this, that I've downplayed for so long: if Archetype doesn't take off, it'll still be a great film, and it won't be the end of me. I'll make another film. And if that goes nowhere, take a guess what I'll do after that. A man doesn't spend fourteen years of his life plotting his future without coming up with ways to keep the dream alive no matter what.