Elyria Pictures

Rachel Bites

2012-01-23T12:03:00.007-04:00

About two years in the making, the first three episodes of the shocking web series Rachel Bites:

Episode 1: "The Incest Bell"

Episode 2: "Hit That"

Episode 3: "Finnochio"

Lowest budget gear

2012-01-12T18:23:00.014-04:00

We're often asked by students what kind of gear to get, in order to make movies at a very low budget level.

Here are some suggestions (which are not meant as endorsements or guarantees, of course, and we have no affiliations, bla bla, and the camera will be superseded by a better, cheaper one in about five minutes)...

The Canon T3i (a.k.a. 600D)
SanDisk 16GB Extreme SDHC Memory Card (to hold the video you shoot)
Zoom H4N Digital Audio Recorder (because the camera's audio isn't good enough)
Sanken CS3 Shotgun Microphone (try to get one that's used but in good condition)
K-Tek Boom Pole (to get the mic as close to the actors as possible)
Shock Mount (to attach the mic to the boom pole)
XLR cable (to connect the mic the audio recorder; at least 15 feet long)

Those are the absolute basic tools for making a movie. It helps to know how to use them, but you'll figure that out.

- PH

Zsolt Bognar and Friends - Episode 3: Cosmo Buono

2012-01-10T16:27:00.007-04:00

Another episode of the doc series, this one full of survival skills for artists!

Talks to Cosmo Buono, coauthor of The Classical Musician Today: Getting and Keeping the Career You Want.

Zsolt Bognar and Friends - Episode 2: Joe Patrych

2011-12-09T22:42:00.005-04:00

A great new episode of this series, featuring Grammy-nominated recording producer Joe Patrych, who dishes about behind the scenes stuff in the classical world!

Zsolt Bognar and Friends

2011-09-12T16:49:00.005-04:00

The latest from Elyria Pictures-- the 1st episode of a series of pieces about the world of young classical musicians.

I shot it, and Liz and I directed.

Please pass it along to anyone you think would enjoy it!

- PH

Color Grading "Bridge of Names" at Fini

2011-08-20T13:43:00.011-04:00

Just finished color grading our feature, "Bridge of Names," at Fini, with Patrick Inhofer using DaVinci Resolve 8 at the helm of what looks like the Starship Enterprise...

Patrick did an incredible job. He was sweet, he was patient, and he was completely open to our suggestions, while having strong ideas of his own.

His wife and business manager, Pam, was a perfect hostess-- feeding us and giving us coffee and water and a place to smoke nervously. Why didn't we get a picture of Pam?

If you want to learn more about color grading (a.k.a., color correction) Fini has a podcast, a blog, a newsletter, and online training.

Thanks to Fini, "Bridge of Names" looks as good as it possibly can.

Since I shot it, modesty prevents me from saying more, but I think it looks pretty damn good.

If I were immodest, I'd say it looks beautiful.

- PH

P.S. The photos above, as you may have guessed, were not color graded by Fini.

A love note to the AF100

2011-05-27T10:22:00.004-04:00

Photo by Zak Forsman

I love the waveform monitor, which you can see pictured above.

Those wavy lines aren't an x-ray of the subject. They're a scatter chart of all the pixels in the image, arranged according to brightness (luminance.)

When I've got the camera pointed at, for example, an actor in front of the sky, the "sky pixels" will most likely be at the upper end of the waveform diagram.

If they are at or above the thick line at the top, which is 100 IRE, the camera records the pixels as white.

If I wanted to see details in the clouds, I'd probably have to decrease the amount of light entering the camera by stopping down (increasing the f-stop) and putting an ND (neutral density) filter in front of the lens.

Now the clouds will look darker, with more detail than just white. Of course my actor will likely be underexposed (too dark.)

The waveform monitor gives me confidence in analyzing what the camera is recording, so that I don't have to rely only on what the camera's little LCD monitor looks like, which can be misleading.

It still comes down to taste, though. You can't be bullied by what the waveform likes, because you can wind up with bland imagery that way.

Ideally you've got a field monitor (I'm in love with our 17" Panasonic, which actually has its own waveform monitor, but that's another love note) so that you can see exactly what you're getting, and use your eye and the data to achieve beauty.

Love this feature.

- PH

2011-05-20T11:25:00.011-04:00

Me and the little pup, beneath the
overpass at 127th Street, "Uptown" NYC
(Photo by Mark Millhone)

Just wrapped an eight day shoot for Director Mark Millhone, on his movie "Open House."

A great experience working with Mark, our Production Designer Ariel Bodman, and a wonderful crew, each of whom is a filmmaker in his own rite: Gaffer Doyle Lee, Key Grip Drew Aldridge, and Sound Recordists Will Johnson and Dave Beede. These people are all artists, in the best sense of the word. Another filmmaker, Jose Venutolo, drove me all over the place in the cargo van and put in long hours with nothing but enthusiasm. A great guy.

Our cast was great too: Daniel O'Brien, Tom McNamera, Delilah Pappas, Maria Fernanda Chavez, John Desiderio, Javier Lenero, Raymond Lopez, Maya Demri, and Melissa Mars.

Another mountain climbed, and climbed well.

- PH

The AF100: Complaint #2 - Ergonomics

2011-05-15T10:59:00.006-04:00

So, first, I love the AF100. So why am I complaining? Because I like to complain. Duh.

Complaint #2 is about ergonomics. In the picture above, I'm shooting a doc about concert pianist Zsolt Bognar (who is amazing, by the way, and you can see a hastily thrown-together teaser here.) The naked camera body (without lens) weighs only 2.9 pounds, which is great.

But when you want to do handheld stuff, you have to attach a lot of gear-- baseplate, support rods, shoulder mount-- or you end up cradling it near your belly like a box of chocolates.

(The camera has a grip on the right side that you can slide your hand into, but holding it up like that is impossible, I find, because the weight ends up on your elbow, which rests on your stomach. Breathing becomes an issue.)

I'm using a CAVision shoulder mount (inexpensive, but poorly manufactured) that I've set close enough to keep most of the weight on my shoulder, which is steadier as a support.

In the photo above, you can see that I've wrapped foam rubber in gaffer tape around the shoulder mount to make it more comfortable.

The damn thing slides around on my shoulder too much, and the camera tips too easily from side to side.

But the most serious problem is that I've got the flip-out LCD monitor so close to my face it's almost up my nose.

Fellow shooters will now suggest that I mount one of these puppies to the rig-- a SmallHD monitor.

My response is-- jeez, I have to spend more money? Those things are expensive! Not to mention the Israeli arm I'd need to mount it.

Why can't Panasonic just build the camera so I don't need to replace their monitor with another monitor?

I know, whine whine. Sorry. It's still a thing of beauty at this price level.

- PH

The AF100: Complaint #1

2011-04-24T11:01:00.005-04:00

[Update: I'm told that this issue has been resolved by the latest version of Final Cut Pro, which I don't have yet. Still running 6.]

No Unique Clip Names

Strange that, as far as I've been able to determine, our new Panasonic AF100 doesn't seem to create unique names for each shot, or file. This means that, during Log & Transfer in Final Cut Pro, you come up with a bunch of transcoded Quicktime files with duplicate names, like multiple copies of "Clip #2."

Of course you rename the clips in FCP, using scene and take number and such, but if you have to reconnect media-- and you always have to do this at some point-- when you try to guide FCP to the appropriate QT file, it finds multiple QT files with the same name.

Keeping the QT files in separate bins is one solution, but it's not good enough, because your FCP clips get renamed and put into bins according to Scene number (at least ours do.)

Here's the workaround I've come up with for Mac:

Log & Transfer in FCP;
In the Finder and change the QT clip names to something unique;
Back in FCP, delete all the new clips; and
In the Finder window, drag the new clips into FCP.

Now you've got unique QT files that FCP can reconnect with easily, even when you rename their associated clips in FCP.

So the next question is: How do you rename all those clips without doing it one by one.

Our genius editor, Anisha Tomlinson, pointed me to a program called Batch File Rename. I haven't tried it yet, but if it lives up to its title, my life post-life will become much less tedious.

So, that's complaint #1. (Caveat: There may be something I don't yet know about the camera, which is in most other respects wonderful, but my research so far seems conclusive.)

- PH

Final Inks from Jhomar Soriano

2011-03-16T22:26:00.009-04:00

Here's the final illustration by Jhomar Soriano of our character "Rick Rick" from the feature script "Damage." Sorry about the watermarks, but you know how it is...

Jhomar did a great job, and was a pleasure to work with.

Jhomar Soriano

2011-03-06T13:42:00.014-04:00

Jhomar's new graphic novel, written by
Eric Skillman, is available for pre-order here.

Here at Elyria Pictures, we're developing several features, and the project that's particularly active right now is called Damage. We wanted an illustration for the script cover, to bring people into the story immediately, but we didn't think somebody as talented as Jhomar Soriano would have the time and inclination. We asked anyway, cuz that's how we are.

He said "yes"!

I gave him a crude sketch, along with a verbal description:
Here's Jhomar's rough sketch, before the finished pen and ink, based on our description of the lead character:

Jeez that's good! We asked him to make Rick (the character) sit up straighter, to imply greater strength, and be a few years younger. Here's the next sketch:

Liz felt like he wasn't handsome enough, so Jhomar gave us another sketch:

Perfect. Liz and I signed off, and now we're looking forward to the final pen and ink illustration!

- PH

Firmware update for AF100 (Mac users)

2011-03-03T00:22:00.004-04:00

Another boring technical post, possibly of some use to fellow Panasonic AF100 and Mac owners:

When you're upgrading firmware and it doesn't work, follow the directions to use the mysterious "Invisible File Deletion Tool for Mac" supplied by Panasonic.

The one thing the instructions leave out is that, after you've copied the little app to your (camera-formatted) SD card and run it successfully, you have to then remove the app from the SD card (drag it to the trash.)

If you don't, the camera won't recognize the SD card.

Strange but true.

- PH

JBK Cinequipt

2011-03-02T20:06:00.006-04:00

Jerry Kosan, of JBK Cinequipt in Miami, made beautiful focus gear rings for our collection of Nikkor lenses.

If you need repairs, or custom cinema equipment (video or film), he's a great guy and a master craftsman.

Health insurance for freelancers in New York City

2011-02-20T00:36:00.007-04:00

A nightmare topic.

After hours of research, to my shock and horror it seems that the outrageous monthly fee I'm paying through Freelancers Union is relatively cheap.

After hours of research, I have yet to find a broker offering a "high deductible HSA-eligible" policy (unless it's part of the "HealthNY" thing, which has an income ceiling and requires that you haven't been insured for the last 12 months.)

In theory, this would be the cheapest kind of policy, covering only catastrophic health issues. Apparently these policies are carefully hidden by health insurance companies.

It's hard not to suspect them all of collusion. At a minimum, I'm impressed by their lobbying abilities, which seem to have forestalled the kind of competition that might give rise to a GEICO for health insurance.

A couple of resources I unearthed that are mildly useful:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/health/16patient.html

http://www.ins.state.ny.us/health/chlthinf.htm

I'd love to hear from any other motion pictures freelancers out there on this topic.

- PH

Boring Post: Cable from LG Monitor to Macbook Pro

2010-12-31T11:31:00.003-04:00

Sorry, this post is boring, but it may help someone else out there who is trying to connect their Macbook Pro, c. 2010, to an LG Flatron W2252TQ monitor, or something similar.

I spent an hour researching online and found nothing to solve the riddle (this otherwise wonderfully helpful post doesn't work for our computer), and so this answer comes from Yes Computers of Northampton, MA. (Thank you!)

All you need is a DVI-D Dual Link Digital Flat Panel Cable M-M (here's the one we bought) and a Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter (we bought this one.)

If this post helps just one person... etc.

- PH

Picture lock

2010-05-11T09:57:00.004-04:00

We finally locked picture on our feature film, Bridge of Names. It's been about four years since we started, which may sound like a long time. But it's not.

There's something called the Film Production Triangle, a concept that could apply just as well to preproduction, post, and even endeavors outside of film entirely.

The triangle's corners are formed by the words "fast," "cheap," and "good." The idea is that you get to choose two. You can't have all three. You can do something fast and cheap, but it won't be good. You can do something fast and good, but it will be expensive. With Bridge, we chose cheap and good, and acknowledged at the beginning that we'd have to move slowly to get it right.

We've had the privilege of working with the great Bob Reitano, who guided us through the editing process. Bob is an Emmy-award-winning editor whose most famous movies may be The Juror and Sleepless in Seattle. We watched in amazement as he found ways to trim about 30 minutes of fat from the movie-- without dropping a single scene! (In fact we put two scenes back in, that we had cut before meeting him.)

Bob worked with us as Editorial Consultant, which meant that the heavy lifting was done by editor Anisha Tomlinson, who not only put Bob's ideas into action, but had plenty of great ideas herself. Anisha is talented, patient, smart, diligent, and a pleasure to work with. We feel very lucky!

Now Bridge moves on to the sound design phase, with Josh Allen of Big Sky Sound.

After that, it's color correction, and then out the door and into the world!

The Virgin

2010-05-04T20:34:00.013-04:00

I just wrapped a five day shoot as DP (cinematographer) on a short called "The Virgin" that was written and directed by Aroldo Nery. We had a great time climbing this mountain together, and cast and crew did a wonderful job.

I shot with the Canon 7D, and I borrowed a great collection of Nikon (Nikkor) lenses from my friend Ben Wolf, of Topiary Productions (thanks again, Ben!)

If you're curious, my cinematography reel is here (though it may not have scenes from "The Virgin" in it yet when you watch): http://exposureroom.com/members/PeterHobbs/assets/

Some stills from the short:

- PH

Rip Torn

2010-02-06T14:54:00.005-04:00

We had such an excellent time working with the great Rip Torn, whose extraordinary career began with Elia Kazan's movie "Babydoll." He is a true professional, always trying to make his performance better - more alive, more true for the character. He drew on things in his own life, which has been tumultuous, to bring that kind of reality to the character "Tom" in Bridge of Names. At one point during production he confided that he felt he was playing his own father, not just the father of our character "Steve" (played by Robert Postrozny.)

Bridge of Names is nearing completion, and I think his work in our film is in line with the best of his career - deeply felt and affecting. He draws you in unexpectedly. This is not the Rip Torn of "30 Rock" or "Larry Sanders" or "Dodgeball" (his hilarious comedic roles); this is Rip Torn, the serious dramatic actor. We are very grateful that Rip chose to work with us, and for his support of the movie, and we wish him and his family all the best during this difficult time. - LF

A Recipe Against Depression

2009-10-15T11:51:00.002-04:00

This post isn't specifically about making movies, but it's about something that may affect people who make movies, and artists in general: depression. As winter approaches, Churchill's "black dog" can creep in, sometimes with such stealth that you don't notice until it's at your throat. So, from someone who has battled the dog with some success over the years...

A Recipe Against Depression

1. Life is too short to be miserable; do something about it now.
2. Even when you don't make a choice, you are making a choice. Own it.
3. Decide on your goals; divide them into baby steps.
4. Learn to express your desires directly.
5. Learn to express your anger directly.
6. Get at least 10 minutes of direct sunlight a day.
7. Get exercise: 30 minutes of elevated heart rate per day, at a minimum.
8. Eat well, and in moderation.
9. Coffee is your friend. So is wine. In moderation.
10. Antidepressants can help, but only temporarily.
11. Use antianxietals (such as Klonazapam) sparingly, but use them.
12. See a good therapist weekly, and dig deep.
13. Hell is other people. So is heaven.
14. You can't predict the future: don't indulge in pessimism.
15. You can't assess yourself objectively: don't bother with self-hatred.

- PH

An article by Maya Deren: "Magic Is New"

2009-10-05T00:02:00.011-04:00

An article written by Maya Deren and published by Mademoiselle in January, 1946 (V22N3; P180.)

Limited preview - Rachel Bites, episode 1

2009-08-13T23:39:00.004-04:00

For our blog readers, a (revised) preview of the first episode of web series "Rachel Bites."

The password is "pancake".

This video will only be online for a few days.

Please watch and comment!

http://vimeo.com/6293421

Beauty and the Beast: Part 1, the Beast

2009-07-22T12:17:00.015-04:00

For those of you who enjoy a good - "Oh my god, those poor souls! What terrible misfortune has befallen them!" - read on.

This is a list of woes which fell on us during our recent four-day shoot for Rachel Bites, our upcoming web series:

The battery to our minivan died twice - once while we were shooting the opening scene of the show outside in Tribeca, and once when we were about to return all the equipment and had an extremely small window to do the returns and get back in time to make it to our day jobs.

The sound gear we borrowed from an unnamed source (not a friend, not an enemy, not a person) was uniformly crappy. The mixer looked like it had been kicked in right at one of the input channels. The mic cable connecting the boom to the mixer had a short(?) and had to be fiddled with constantly to remove the hum. Two of the three wireless mics had bad cables so we could only mic one actor at a time. When I asked for a replacement mixer I got a field recording deck instead (more on this in Part 2).

I got a $115 ticket for pulling the car up ont the sidewalk to unload lunch at the lovely park in our neighborhood where we were shooting. I got too engrossed in directing the actors (Christina and Paulo as Allison and Jon, see pic) in a heavy make-out scene and forgot to ask one of our interns to stand right next to the car so we wouldn't get a ticket.

And finally, the worst technical disaster I've ever had on a shoot.

It was late-afternoon on day two of the shoot. Pete, my directing partner and also our DP, was lighting the next scene. Our beautiful, 17-inch Panasonic HD monitor was plugged into a quad box, which we'd borrowed from the same non-person that we got the sound gear from. The monitor was plugged into the HVX 200 camera, belonging to our extremely good friend Dan Roentsch, who was on set doing the media management.

Pete moved the quad box a few inches so he could adust the placement of the camera. The quad box sent a shower a sparks into the air. The monitor went dead and couldn't be revived. After I had a small, controlled panic attack in the bathroom (and took a benzodiazapine to calm myself) we finally realized that we could plug in to our TV to at least get a look at our frame and lighting.

As we resumed our sound mixer, Josh, realized that he was only getting one channel out of the camera, and that one channel sounded like a geiger counter that's found uranium. When we played back the take on the computer we discovered that indeed both sound inputs had been ruined by the sparking quad box. Not only had we lost our precious monitor but we had ruined Dan's camera in the process. And the camera wasn't even plugged directly into the quad box!!!! The proximity of the component cable out, which takes the picture to the monitor, and the sound input to the camera, apparently caused the sound channels to fry.

Was the shoot over? Was Rachel Bites to be trampled on the vine?

Stay tuned to find out...

- LF

Hater v. Tater

2009-06-14T12:52:00.006-04:00

Troubled by the intense envy aroused among friends and strangers by your new "Rachel Bites" t-shirt?

Then perhaps it's time to expand your wardrobe to include the latest in RB/Gear:

This brand new t-shirt is just a click away from in-your-mailbox and on-your-body...

http://www.cafepress.com/RachelBites

"Rachel Bites" Merchandise

2009-06-08T17:05:00.004-04:00

Right now, and while supplies last, you can buy t-shirts relating to a web series that DOES NOT EXIST!

Imagine the confusion on the faces of friends and foes alike when they ask "What the hell is that?" and you reply, coolly, "That's for a web series that doesn't exist."

Confusion will fast turn to envy when they realize you've gotten in on the ground floor, before the damn thing's even been shot!

If, after purchasing one of these shirts, your reputation doesn't appreciate in value by at least 200%, there's definitely something wrong with you.

http://www.cafepress.com/RachelBites

Rachel Bites Storyboard

2009-05-02T14:02:00.003-04:00

So we're in pre-production now on the first four episodes of web series Rachel Bites (about a young woman going to film school in NYC) which we'll shoot over 2 or 3 days at the end of this month. I've been doing storyboards as a way of thinking about what it will look like, and how it will be constructed in the editing. That's a page of storyboards above, which you can see in a larger form by clicking on it. The drawing is feeble, but no worse, certainly, than Scorsese's for Taxi Driver.

The scene numbers are to the left, and it looks like there must be at least 16 scenes in this episode, but in fact we're numbering all of the scenes in these four episodes consecutively, because we'll shoot all four episodes during the same production period. That means that if we see Rachel on the same city street in episodes 1 and 3, we'll shoot those scenes on the same day to "shoot out" that location.

- PH

Authenticity

2009-04-11T11:29:00.012-04:00

This is a response to a blog post by Rosie Walunas, "Product endorsement and breaking the news," on her excellent blog "all things doc":

--

I'm far from the first to predict that "authenticity" will become a trend in the marketing of products: A company makes a good product that lives up to its hype, rendering the hype unnecessary, to be replaced by word of mouth-- a.k.a., the worldwide web. [See Joseph Pine on "What Consumers Want."]

As Pine points out, consumers want a kind of truth-- to get what they pay for. In their search for the best HD television, consumers just want to know which one offers them what they need. A company that lies about its products will have a tough time surviving because their old customers won't return, and potential new customers will hear in advance, by word of mouth, about the lies (or hype.)

Authenticity, truth, an absence of hyperbole in the dissemination of information... sounds like journalism.

Bloggers are challenging major newspapers and stealing readers, in part by seeming more authentic. Nikki Finke, for example, seems to tell more truth about the entertainment industry in a week of her blog postings than you'll read in a year of LA Times or Variety reportage. (Finke, however, isn't perceived as a paragon of authenticity either, and has been criticized for relying on single sources for her scoops.)

Journalists covering entertainment are typically afraid of losing access to the stars that sell their articles, and so are unwilling to speak critically of the industry. Additionally, the entertainment industry buys a lot of advertising, a key source of revenue for Old School News. This conflict of interest is emblematic.

Authenticity has an uneasy relationship with profit. Is it possible to "monetize" (I hate that overused word) authenticity?

Consumer Reports has been doing it for years, by selling subscriptions. They won't accept money from advertisers, and buy all of the products under review themselves. Profit (such as it is) comes from the people who benefit from CR's services.

If I could invest in Authenticity on the stock market, I would; I expect its value to increase exponentially.

I guess I am investing, in a sense, by not wanting to create a lot of bullshit about our movies. But the world is in an interim phase, where marketing and publicity (and bullshit) still rule, and consumers (what a word!) haven't found many ways to purchase authenticity. They will eventually, even if they realize too late that the New York Times provided it and is no longer around to be consumed.

Will Elyria Pictures have to create a lot of hype to survive?

If our upcoming web series, Rachel Bites, finds some kind of sponsorship, I want to be completely transparent about it. It will need a sponsor or product placement, because otherwise we can't afford to make it, but there's no reason to try to hide it. The Jack Benny Show never did. Radio shows like his would often interrupt a story in progress so that the characters could have a delicious sip of the sponsor's coffee. Now that viewers can skip easily past advertisements, that kind of interruption is returning. It seems a small price to pay for a good show. And I doubt viewers will mind, as long as they don't feel they're being lied to.

- PH

Advanced Screenwriting Class

2009-04-08T11:39:00.002-04:00

Hate to use the blog as an advertisement, but here I am doing it anyway.

I'm teaching an Advanced Screenwriting class at the New York Film Academy that begins April 14th and runs for eight weeks, meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7 to 9:30PM.

The goal of the class is to revise student's feature scripts, to get them in the best possible shape to send out into the world.

So if you have a feature-length script that you're considering submitting to film professionals, remember: You only get one chance. (They won't read it twice!)

We'll workshop student's pages, with rigor and plenty of encouragement and support, following Kubrick's dictum: "There are no bad ideas, only better ones."

To join the class, just follow this link.

- PH

Rachel Bites

2009-03-31T11:16:00.005-04:00

As post continues on Bridge of Names, we're beginning casting on web series Rachel Bites, an edgy comedy aimed at the 18 - 25 demo.

It stars Rachel Zeiger-Haag, as a young woman in film school in NYC.

Blog readers are welcome to read the scripts and give feedback (quick, before we go into production in late May!)

You can see the scripts (each 3-4 pages long) by clicking on "Episodes" on (the rough draft of) the Rachel Bites website.

- PH

Stitching & Ironing

2009-02-18T02:12:00.004-04:00

Right now I'm in the fine cut stage of the edit. I'm preparing for a festival deadline, which means I'm trying to smooth out the sound as much a I can in FCP while also making the picture cut as tight and economical as possible. I love this part of editing. There are a lot of metaphoric descriptions of what it's like but the title of this blog is my favorite. With both picture and sound one of my chief occupations right now is removing all the big wrinkles I can see or hear that will disrupt the story. I don't want an abrupt change, in the background noise, from one shot to another, to pull you out of the scene.

This past week I had one of my proudest (and most reassuring moments) in this process so far. There's a key emotional scene between our two leads - Steve and Agnes - late in the movie. The tenor of the scene will determine a lot about how the audience feels at the end of the movie. The location of the scene is in front of a church at, what turned out to be, a very busy lunchtime intersection in South Amherst, MA. We shot the first three angles for the scene battling the sound of passing trucks throughout. We did some lock-off but the local populace was not in favor of having their lunch drive-time interrupted so that met with only limited success and a lot of heartache for our faithful lock-off crew members. Finally, for the most important angle of the scene - Agnes's close-up - we moved around back of the church, found a tree to match the one in front, and did the shot without truck noise.

When we did the earlier cut of the scene we worked around the truck noise as much as possible with straight cuts, but as you can imagine we had a lot of variation in tone between the angle on Steve and the angle on Agnes. Yesterday I worked for a few hours on pulling out as much of the egregious sound as I could. The most satisfying moment was when I realized that I could pull all the production sound out of our last angle on Steve and replace it with the sound from the corresponding shot of Agnes. I just deleted the Steve-shot sound tracks and dragged the Agnes-shot sounds tracks under Steve's angle. All I needed to hold onto was one small live production sound-effect of Steve slapping his pants leg. No more nasty truck sounds at the end of the scene!

It's hard to explain (even to myself) why I enjoy this seemingly tedious, painstaking work. It means a lot of searching alternate takes for better sound, especially where we're lacking ambience (not a problem with this particular shoot). It's a lot of small decisions that hopefully add up to a better viewing experience. It's the only solitary part of filmmaking that I really enjoy.

- LF

Opening Credits, V2

2008-12-26T02:49:00.005-04:00

Here's a new draft of the opening credit sequence to feature film Bridge of Names, with modifications based on suggestions from readers like you.

Please let us know what you think-- how can we improve it? What sort of movie does the sequence suggest is to follow? Do you like it?

Thanks!

Bridge of Names Opening Credits v2

Opening Credit Sequence

2008-12-04T17:33:00.008-04:00

So here's a draft of the opening title sequence for Bridge of Names.

It's a 68.5 MB file, so it may take a minute or two to start playing, depending on the speed of your connection. And if you don't have the Quicktime player... it's free, why not?

Also note that it ends with a black screen, because we don't want to give away what happens next. And the aspect ratio (width/height) is off, I guess because this blog host squeezes it somehow.

What do you think? How does it make you feel? What kind of movie does it seem to be leading into?

A Postcard from the Bridge of Names

2008-12-02T11:37:00.010-04:00

To a certain extent, every film that you make is a foreign country, and first you have to learn the language of that "country." Every film has (or should have) a unique way of communicating and so you struggle to learn its language.

- Walter Murch (In the Blink of an Eye; 1995)

Liz and I are in a foreign country now, called Bridge of Names, finding our way without a map.

We're applying our usual Zen method, asking the movie what it wants to be. We thought it was requesting the images of William Blake, and we talked to the very friendly people at the William Blake Archive about the possibility of obtaining image rights.

Then we tried inserting those Blake images into the movie and discovered that his powerful gravitational field threatened to distort and ultimately engulf the movie. We felt disappointed, because Blake's life and work were part of the inspiration for our story.

Then we remembered the postcards, loaned to us by a friend who lives near the actual Bridge of Names. Most are from a hundred years ago, before the fire, when the town was a thriving resort with its own hotel and railroad stop. If you look closely at the postcard above, you can see the old bridge in the distance.

We've cut these images together as an opening credit sequence for Bridge of Names, and so far the movie seems to like them. Maybe we're learning the movie's language now.

I think we'll post the opening credit sequence soon, but we have to make some music for it.

- PH

Working with William Blake

2008-10-30T00:19:00.006-04:00

Detail of an image from The Book of Urizen by William Blake

English poet and visual artist William Blake (1757-1778) is one of the inspirations for a significant character in our feature film Bridge of Names.

In the book Art & Physics, author Leonard Shlain writes that "until the modern era, most critics dismissed Blake's paintings and engravings as childlike and primitive, claiming that his technique was crude. The one critic to ever review his only one-man exhibition (which Blake himself had arranged) said he was

... an unfortunate lunatic whose personal inoffensiveness secures him from confinement, and consequently of whom no public notice would have been taken. ... Thus encouraged, the poor man fancies himself a great master, and has painted a few wretched pictures. ... These he calls an Exhibition, of which he has published a catalogue, or rather a farrago of nonsense, unintelligibleness and egregious vanity, the wild effusions of a distempered brain.

How opinions can change in a couple hundred years! His poetry and images now seem frightening and beautiful, brave, technically accomplished, and saturated with unique personality.

Liz and I are excited because we may get to use some of Blake's images as chapter cards in Bridge of Names.

We've been negotiating with the William Blake Archive for permission to use photographs of the original prints, held by the Archive and the Library of Congress. While Blake's work is in the public domain, photographs of his work belong to the photographer, or whatever entity has the rights to those photos.

Project Manager Ashley Reed has been extremely helpful. As supporters of the arts, the Archive is being very generous, and we really appreciate it.

- PH

Our Hero, Rob Postrozny

2008-09-19T14:18:00.010-04:00

I want to add some thoughts about our lead actor Rob Postrozny. Our fates and Rob’s are intimately tied together through our work on this movie. I’ve never really weighed in on where I stand on that. Pete and Rob have a natural affinity, a guy thing I can’t explain or be part of. Sometimes I feel that, (even though traditionally on our movies I’m president of the acting department of directing and Pete is president of the camera department of directing) Rob would rather take direction from Pete. He regularly turns to Pete to ask him how a certain scene should go. When I’m insecure I take this as a slight and feel left out, overlooked etc. When I’m feeling good I recognize the value in their connection and see clearly how it’s helped the movie in many ways.

I feel a tremendous affection for Rob that remains unclouded by my occasional insecurity. He’s a wonderful actor – alive, in the moment. He seems to live the character as we shoot. I never feel Rob reading lines out of his head. It’s much more like he’s making up the words as he goes along. He’s made me comfortable with a style of shooting where we seldom rehearse much but instead concentrate on having enough time to shoot each scene with multiple takes, all somewhat different, which give us a lot of choice. I know that Scorsese and his editor Thelma Schoonmaker are famous for cutting their films for performance rather than continuity. With Rob this is also a choice I gladly make because I know we’ll get great stuff if we give him the chance to stay alive in the moment.

He’s been unfailingly generous with his time for this production and with himself for us and his fellow actors. He’s constantly questioning, pushing, searching for information and insight into his character and the scene at hand. This high level of commitment inspires an equal level of engagement and commitment from the rest of us. I think that because Rob is personally so easygoing, so not-the-diva, his contributions above and beyond the call are sometimes overshadowed by difficulties with other aspects of production.

I’m really going to miss working with Rob now that we’ve wrapped principal photography on Bridge of Names. I wish him terrific success in all his endeavors. He’s an actor who deserves great parts, lots of money and tons of fun. I hope I get to work with him again.

- LF

Daily Hampshire Gazette

2008-08-22T03:40:00.002-04:00

Click on the following link for local coverage of our shoot in Western Massachusetts:

http://www.gazettenet.com/2008/08/01/rip-torn-emotional-over-role-local-film

Working with Rip Torn

2008-08-14T23:33:00.011-04:00

Oh boy! What can I say. I had the chance to direct one of my acting heroes -- Rip Torn. I feel like I took the biggest exam of my directing life.

We worked with Rip a few years ago on a reading of a script of ours that we hope will be our next feature, Funny Peculiar. I knew from that experience that he was deep, generous and professional, that his performance would be full of life. Still, we hadn’t directed him on set, surrounded by people, cameras, lights etc. with all the attendant time pressure that a low-budget movie shoot brings.

Before the shoot I was really nervous about all the details surrounding Rip’s work on this movie – would he like his accommodations and the crew we had assigned to work with him; would he enjoy our group; would he come to the kick off dinner at the local pizza dive bar, Joe’s Café; would he take our work seriously despite the low budget; and finally, most anxiety-producing of all, would he take my direction?

Rip is a true artist, an actor who believes in the material he’s chosen. He wants to know about his character’s backstory so that he can work outward from that understanding. He wants to get the costume, the hair, the shoes, all the physical aspects, right so that he can embody the character believably. He brings his own understanding and emotionality to the role. He finds, in his own life, corresponding circumstances that will give him insight into how his character behaves so that he can translate that into action.

And it turns out he’s a real director’s actor: somebody who wants the feedback and careful attention of a director who understands the script and the characters. He wants a director who’s prepared, whose understanding of the scene and the script will help him bring maximum drama and entertainment value within a coherent vision of the story. In other words, I had nothing to worry about. Not only did he take direction willingly but he sought it out, hoping to push his character as far as possible towards the truth of the scenes and the movie. Pete was there, looking through the camera, and providing valuable perspective and input on how best to get the best with Rip.

Rip is a pussycat but he’s no pushover. He has strong feelings; he teared up several times on set, moved by the script and his understanding of his character-- a powerful man who hasn’t been able to show his son the love he feels for him. He has strong reactions; he and Rob, our lead actor, had several tense moments when they disagreed about why Steve was taking certain actions in their scenes together. All of this emotion could be intimidating. At first I was afraid I’d be too shy to give him direction, afraid he’d reject my ideas and then I’d feel defeated. Luckily I was raised by two volatile, complicated and creative people, my parents Pat and Gerry. Working with Rip felt familiar and much more comfortable than I imagined before we began. Rip’s performance in Bridge of Names is terrific, nuanced, layered, true.

We couldn't be happier about what we've achieved for the movie by working with Rip. I think I finally aced a test.

- LF

It's just music...

2008-08-13T00:49:00.004-04:00

A rough cut sequence from the latest round of production:

http://elyriapictures.com/br_clip5.html

With thanks to all our extras, who were incredible!

(This clip starts out very quietly, but gets loud.)

Smoothness

2008-08-09T14:57:00.003-04:00

Robert Postrozny!

2008-08-07T13:08:00.007-04:00

Rip Torn and Robert Postrozny (photo by Peter Foley)

Rob Postrozny plays "Steve," the lead character in our feature, Bridge of Names.

In the scenes we shot this past week, Steve's dad-- played by Rip Torn-- comes to town to rescue him.

Rip gave a powerful performance, and Rob was right there with him, giving a great performance of his own.

Nice work, Rob!

Ben Wolf!

2008-07-27T03:05:00.002-04:00

Our luck for this shoot just gets better and better.

We're running two cameras for our days with Rip Torn, because-- as Jacques Rivette once pointed out-- multiple cameras are used for second unit car crashes and other stunts all the time, but what's really important is the performance of great actors. All our actors are great, of course, and Rip is a master.

We didn't think we'd be able to get our friend and hero, Ben Wolf, of Topiary Productions, for this batch of shooting on Bridge of Names, because he's in constant demand. Just look at his ever-growing list of IMDB credits. But fortune pushed one of Ben's gigs back a few days, and suddenly he was available.

Ben is a great cinematographer, and is also cool-headed and incredibly knowledgeable, so just knowing he's with us is really reducing our stress level.

Mike Haley!

2008-07-17T01:20:00.003-04:00

Mike Haley has signed on as Assistant Director for our shoot at the end of July.

As if working with Rip Torn wasn't honor enough!

Haley has been Mike Nichols' AD since Working Girl, but his 1st AD credits go back to Cassavetes' Gloria and further.

He's also an actor and producer, and has won an Emmy, a Directors Guild of America award, a Producers Guild of America award, and a Christopher award.

Between you and me, it's a little intimidating to work with people of this caliber.

But I'm really excited about it too.

- PH

Rip Torn!

2008-07-08T00:13:00.006-04:00

The great actor Rip Torn, whose career began with Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan on the movie Baby Doll and extends through 178 listed movies and TV shows on the Internet Movie Database, and includes an Academy Award nomination, has agreed to play Steve's father, Tom, in our feature Bridge of Names.

He is attached to star in another feature of ours, called Funny Peculiar, and before we do that one, he's graciously agreed to play this smaller-- but still pivotal-- role.

We couldn't be more excited!

Screening of short film "Pills"

2008-07-01T13:15:00.002-04:00

Our short film "Pills" will be screened by NYWIFT and CineWomen NY on Sunday, July 13th in Bellmore, NY (on Long Island) in a program called "Family Bonds."

Admission is 6 bucks.

It could be a great way to end your day at the beach!

Go here for more details.

Yodeling in the Void

2008-06-26T12:03:00.010-04:00

If you sing in a way that abruptly oscillates from chest to head, from octave to octave, you might be yodeling. If you're in the Swiss Alps, you might yodel for the pleasure of hearing your voice echo from neighboring peaks, and perhaps, to hear another yodeler's reply.

We at Elyria Pictures are yodeling, desperately, foolishly, into the void.

I don't know why.

It's a compulsion.

Nietszche made it sound deluded, and maybe kind of brave:

... the cheerfulness of artistic creation, in its defiance of all misfortune, is merely a bright image of clouds and sky reflected on a black lake of sorrow. (The Birth of Tragedy; 1872)

Sometimes I wonder if this "cheerfulness" should be listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

But it's a religion, really, one that organizes our lives, fosters friendships and alliances, helps us choose daily activities, and provides an excellent distraction from thoughts of aging and death.

Ultimately, even without an echo, or a yodel in response, there's nothing I'd rather do.

- PH

Cinema Terroir

2008-06-13T11:00:00.012-04:00

What the world needs is more movie manifestos, right? So here's one, inspired by the following quote and the decreasing price of video cameras...

Folk Art grew from below. It was a spontaneous, autochthonous expression of the people, shaped by themselves, pretty much without the benefit of High Culture, to suit their own needs. Mass Culture is imposed from above. It is fabricated by technicians hired by businessmen; its audiences are passive consumers, their participation limited to the choice between buying and not buying.... Folk Art was the people's own institution, their private little garden walled off from the great formal park of their masters' High Culture. But Mass Culture breaks down the wall, integrating the masses into a debased form of High Culture and thus becoming an instrument of political domination.

- Dwight MacDonald (1906–1982), U.S. journalist, critic. "A
Theory of Mass Culture," Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America, eds. B. Rosenberg and D.M. White, Free Press (1959).

For the first time in the history of movies, it's possible for someone of average means to purchase the basic tools. An HD camera, a microphone, a tripod, a computer, editing software-- the whole package is on the verge of sinking beneath the thousand-dollar line, if it hasn't already. There are costs beyond equipment that are still, and always will be, daunting: food, pay for non-volunteers, time off from work, rental of additional equipment, insurance, and so on.

But if you want to make a movie, you can.

This means that more movies are being made than ever before. As new filmmakers (and old) emulate their heroes, or follow trends, the risk increases that the movies they make, as a group, are homogeneous... the same.

Sameness is boring. Uniqueness is exciting.

A Pepsi factory produces a beverage that a lot of people like. If you want to compete with a Pepsi factory for a share of those drinkers, it's best not to imitate the Pepsi formula. Instead, come up with a unique beverage, one that could only be made by you, in your particular environment.

For example, a vintner, with time and skill, can create a fine and unique wine that could only have been made by that particular vintner, on that particular piece of land-- nowhere else, and by no one else. I'm referring to what wine experts call "terroir."

Every manifesto should have a pretentious name, don't you think? So here it is:

Cinema Terroir

1. Make fictional movies inspired by your home town.
2. Shoot the movies in your home town.
3. Use actors who live in or grew up in your home town, or in the area.
4. Be specific, revealing the essential strangeness of your home town.

A Message to Hollywood from 1927

2008-05-30T09:54:00.005-04:00

Our pal Dan Roentsch guided us to an essay about the movie business by H. L. Mencken, first published in 1927.

Here's an excerpt...

... The movie-folks, in so far as they are sentient at all, are on the hooks of a distressing dilemma. They have built their business upon a foundation of morons, and now they are paying for it. They seem to be unable to make a presentable picture without pouring out tons of money, and when they have made it they must either sell it to immense audiences of half-wits, or go broke. There seems to be very little ingenuity and resourcefulness in them. They are apparently quite unable, despite their melodramatic announcements of salary cuts, to solve the problem of making movies cheaply, and yet intelligently, so that civilized persons may visit the movie-parlors without pain. But soon or late some one will have to solve it. Soon or late the movies will have to split into two halves. There will be movies for the present mob, and there will be movies for the relatively enlightened minority. The former will continue idiotic; the latter, if competent men to make them are unearthed, will show some sense and beauty.

- H.L. Mencken ("Interlude in the Socratic Manner"; Photoplay; April, 1927; pp. 36-37, 118-20.)

The Art Economy

2008-05-20T11:54:00.005-04:00

In art economy is always beauty.

- Henry James. Preface first published in The Novels and Tales of Henry James, vol. 17, New York ed. (1909).

When editing, it's possible to "omit" too much. As Thom Noble, the editor of Truffaut's Farenheit 451, said in that DVD's commentary, "You're constantly trying to cut it down and cut it down and cut it down and cut it down, and that's the problem: Sometimes you make things shorter and they seem longer."

The Magnificent Ambersons and The Thin Red Line might be two examples of this phenomenon. Studios required each to be much shorter than the director wanted, and I think both movies suffer for it.

The problem is that, if you remove too much, what's left may be difficult or impossible to understand, and thus seem boring-- or longer than it might if you understood what the hell was going on.

Too short = too long.

In the Henry James quote above, it would be nice to have a comma after the word "art," so that the sentence would more clearly not refer to the Art Economy. It would then be ever-so-slightly longer, but I wouldn't have to glance at it twice to understand it, and thus it would seem shorter.

To be fair to James, no one used such a phrase when this quote was published, as art was only beginning to be considered a commodity.

But who is Henry to talk about economy? He was a windbag.

- PH

Omit

2008-05-19T11:03:00.005-04:00

It must be time for a new post, since the last one was on Dec. 19th, 2007. Elyria Pictures has been in hibernation for the New York winter. Well, not hibernation, since we've been editing the feature the whole time. It's just... how much is there to say about editing-- that isn't boring? Maybe there's a lot to say, and maybe I haven't blogged because I've taken the advice of Henry Adams too far:

My criticisms are always simple; they are limited to one word: Omit! Every syllable that can be struck out is pure profit, and every page that can be economised is a five-per-cent dividend. Nature rebels against this rule; the flesh is weak, and shrinks from the scissors; I groan in retrospect over the weak words and useless pages I have written; but the law is sound, and every book written without a superfluous page or word is a masterpiece. All the same, no one cares to apply so stern a law to another person. One has right to be severe only with oneself. - Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918). Letter, March 30, 1886, to Emily Ellsworth Ford. Henry B. Adams and His Friends, p. 160, ed. Harold Dean Cater.

It works great for editing movies, but being severe with the useless pages of a blog doesn't leave much blog.

- PH

Editing Egg

2007-12-19T12:36:00.000-04:00

Editing continues apace. [Subtext: I have nothing interesting to say about the process.]

We have another 20 minutes or so of rough-cut, which makes almost an hour total running time. Wonder how long the whole thing will be.

What is the Elyria Pictures editing strategy? Kill off the bad stuff. Genius, right?

Fortunately we have a lot of good stuff-- our actors are incredible-- so this isn't difficult.

Oh, the band Leonard Egg has a new single, called "Simple," on its Myspace page.

It sounds pretty good. I imagine it'll eventually be included on the Bridge of Names soundtrack album.

I have to start editing their music video, or they're gonna get pissed. And Michael is quite muscle-bound, so that wouldn't be good.

Actually, Patrick has already asked about stills from the movie-- of himself, not the rest of the band.

Is a band break-up in the offing? A solo career before the group's first record comes out?

- PH

Never Put a Camera on Your Head

2007-12-03T02:19:00.000-04:00

We're happy to get publicity, but it can be embarrassing too. A nice interview with us was just published in a magazine called Preview Massachusetts.

A pro photographer did the shoot for the interview. We went to his studio, and-- thinking ahead-- I brought the camera we used to shoot Bridge of Names, as a prop that might make the pic more interesting. (A Panasonic HVX 200 generously provided by one of our Producers, Dan Roentsch.)

So Liz and I are standing in front of the white paper backdrop, I'm sitting on a stool to make me shorter, and the photographer is jollying us up. "Jollying" is a vital task if you're doing a portrait, and this guy was good at it. We were putty in his hands. At least I was a piece of putty.

He says: "Hey, put the camera on your head." I say: "Okay." And I put the camera on my head and smile like a jackass as he snaps. Later I asked myself and Liz why the hell I put the camera on my head. There was no good answer.

Anyway, he took other pictures. I'm sure they were all fabulous.

Guess which one the magazine chose.

The moral of this story is... never put a camera on your head.

See the picture, and read the interview, by clicking here.

- PH

Northampton Independent Film Festival Screening

2007-11-11T02:16:00.000-04:00

Sarah L. said...

I just saw your film at NIFF, and I must say, it was *excellent*! Really, it was just astounding. Now, most of the shorts I've seen have been student or ultra-low budget films, but yours just blew me out of the water compared to other shorts I've seen. I was especially impressed by the carefully choreographed cinematography, the deft and understated performances of all the actors and the real clarity of vision you must have had in making the work.

I wanted to ask you this after the film, but you were swamped with admirers so I guess I'll ask it here: why did you decide to show the film as a short before releasing it along with the rest of the footage? You mentioned at the screening that it was originally planned as a short, but I'm curious why, once you decided to go feature length, you chose to exhibit before finishing the film. Or is NIFF the only film festival you're showing at?

Thank you for showing your film! I often get depressed about the lack of film people in the area, and it was great to see (semi) local people making an accessible but artful film.

I'll be on the look out for the final edit!

Thanks Sarah! We're really glad you liked "Bridge of Names, Part 1."

It is indeed the only festival where this portion of the feature "Bridge of Names" will be screened.

We decided to show the first half hour as a work in progress because we are big supporters of the NIFF, because we wanted our fabulous local actors and crew to get some glory as soon as possible, and because it's really helpful to get a little audience reaction early in the editing process.

You may have noticed during last night's screening that Murphy, the god of motion pictures, was doing his best to screw things up.

We played the movie from our computer, directly from Final Cut Pro (the editing program) for the highest resolution possible. We had been to the auditorium the day before to test the system, as a way of making the battle with Murphy a fair fight, but to no avail.

The auditorium's sound system decided, at the screening, that it didn't like our computer after all and made our careful sound editing seem almost like a waste of time; and the color environment leaned toward the yellow so some shots looked, well, way too yellow. Our computer had a case of nerves, too, and dropped a lot of frames, causing some jerky motion on screen.

So Liz and I cringed as the movie played.

But it's a testament to the power of the performances that the audience didn't seem to notice these flaws, and enjoyed the show. (I guess you could also say that me and Liz are a little anal-retentive with the technical stuff, and should just relax a little.)

Anyway, we're really glad you liked it so much, and thanks so much for taking the time to write and tell us!

- PH

Art Economy

2007-11-06T12:00:00.000-04:00

We've been doing a lot of knitt-- uh, editing-- in the past weeks, preparing for a work-in-progress screening of the first half hour of the feature Bridge of Names at the Northampton Independent Film Festival (on Nov. 10th at 4PM, for those of you in the MA area.)

It's a pretty tight cut, I think.

We managed to shave off more than two minutes, which might not sound like much, but it meant cutting two whole scenes.

One disadvantage of doing the editing ourselves is that it can be difficult to forget all the work that went into shooting those scenes.

An editor who wasn't present for production could more easily follow Hiroshige's advice that "Everything lacking in taste and grace must be omitted." (Landscape Views on the Tokaido; 1851)

Or, as Henry James wrote: "In art economy is always beauty." (Preface, The Altar of the Dead)

Except I would insert a comma after "art" in that line, for clarity, otherwise I initially read it as a statement about the art economy.

Maybe you can go too far with omission.

I don't think we're in any danger of that yet.

- PH

Knitting

2007-10-13T15:15:00.000-04:00

To me, editing is like knitting-- boring, and painstaking. Sorry to all those knitting fans out there, but that's how I feel.

Sound is a killer, much more time-consuming than picture-editing, and in a way less rewarding because if it's done well, no one notices all of your labor.

We're hard at work, preparing a portion of the movie for an exclusive screening at the Northampton Independent Film Festival.

I'd much rather be writing, rehearsing or shooting.

To help anyone else who is knitting with Final Cut Pro HD, I've posted our list of shortcuts on Google Docs, here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfg8z92z_1g322zt

[After I posted this, a pro-editor friend told me that you can see all the shortcuts on an interactive on-screen keyboard by pressing (Alt + h), which means that this would be more useful as a list of most-often-used shortcuts. Thanks Fed!]

If you don't want to view it online while working, you can export it as an Acrobat file and save it to your hard drive.

If you'd like to collaborate on the doc, send us an email (contact@elyriapictures.com) and we'll add you to the list.

I hope it's useful.

- PH

I Fell Off

2007-10-03T23:48:00.001-04:00

I've always been the errant blogger of our enterprise. I love the idea of doing this and I've really enjoyed the posts I've done in the past but I get bogged down in daily life -- work, chores, errands, shopping for new boots (which I can do between classes, unlike blogging which I can only do at home, at the end of the day, when time is very short before bedtime) -- and I lose track of my commitment to this. I apologize.

Part of the problem for me right now is that my work on Bridge of Names is sort of diffuse and a little unfocused. A lot of what's going on is happening with our Shake Wizard, Dan Roentsch, who also appears in a delightful sequence in the film and is one of the fairy godfather/benefactors whose help is making the movie live. Dan is hard at work on the special effects for the first act of the movie, most of which was shot as a short in the summer of 2006, before Bridge grew into a feature.

This portion of the film will screen on Saturday, November 10th (my twin nephew's 4th birthday, hurray for Aidan and Dylan!!) at the Northampton Independent Film Festival. This section is almost entirely picture edited except for a few tweaks. It does need lots of sound work but we need to raise more money before we can hire a good sound designer. Until the effects are in I hesitate to do anything more with the sound or the picture.

We did make a trailer for the film, which will be appearing on our website sometime in the near future, narrated by our dear friend Egon von Schmiele, Professor of Film and Related Studies at the University of Hapsburg in Vienna. Prof. von Schmiele had only a brief evening to grant us before he whisked off to Chicago and Los Angeles for some very important lectures but we're sure that his narration will be invaluable to our project.

-- LF

Equipment Pickups and Returns

2007-09-02T11:57:00.000-04:00

On even the smallest movie shoot, you're using as much equipment as you can scrounge together, usually from multiple sources. You may be renting from different vendors, or borrowing stuff from a school, or from friends.

While you collect all the equipment before the start of production, everything seems good-- lots of new toys to play with! It's easy to forget that you have to give all the toys back when you're done.

After the shoot, as you do returns, you may discover a problem: where did each and every toy come from? After our latest shoot, this turned into a nightmare. Some equipment got returned to the wrong vendor, and we were suddenly in big trouble.

Now we've gone over our methodology and come up with refinements. (EP Blog readers are encouraged to offer their own methods!)

Make a master list of every single piece of equipment to be used-- whether owned, rented or borrowed-- carefully noting quantity and source.
From this master list, break out sub-lists of equipment from each source.
During equipment pickups from Source "X", carefully go through the "X" list and subtract any items not received, and add anything new that's not on the list. Have personnel from source X sign this sheet.
As equipment is loaded onto the truck (or whatever) anything that is not labeled "Source X" must be labeled. This means that the pickup crew has to bring one of those $15 tape label gizmos and make their own labels. (Don't forget to label your own equipment too!)
During production, assign a PA to carefully search each location after wrapping to make sure everything has been retrieved.
During production, label anything that is damaged or no longer working, including the date, and make a note to the appropriate list.
At the final wrap, organize the truck with the sub-lists, and then do a final count using the master list. Note anything missing or damaged.
During a return to Source X, go through the Source X sub-list carefully as each piece is handed over, and have vendor personnel sign off upon completion of the drop-off.

Hope this helps someone out there to avoid the trouble we had this time!

- PH

Wrap

2007-08-25T02:13:00.000-04:00

Monday was the last day of principal photography on Bridge of Names. It was a light day due to the fact that we shot everything we needed on Sunday at the hospital except a couple of exterior shots without actors which we'll come back for in September. So Monday all we needed to get was stuff that we dropped last week when it rained.

I had purposely left a scene on the schedule for Monday that we really didn't need to shoot so that I had a hole to drop anything we had missed into. We were incredibly lucky with weather this shoot. And Monday we were even luckier because we needed to match some of the stuff that we did shoot on our rainy day last week. The weather cooperated by providing us with only very light showers and complete overcast, which matched our rainy day.

It was a light day for grip and electric since it was all exteriors, so our g&e department had most of the day to reorganize our truck for returns. By the time we wrapped our last exterior the truck was 90% repacked.

After wrapping out sound we had a really fun, nutty wrap party at the home of our producer Marina Goldman. All of the girls and most of the guys dressed up in dresses and other costumes provided by Marina's ample costume closet. Then we held our annual Gaffey awards, invented last year by Marina and our erstwhile gaffer.

Gaffey's are presented to each member of the cast and crew for their outstanding contribution to the production. The award titles are written in Sharpie on a C 47 (clothespin). My Gaffey was for the best getting something out of nothing. This is my special talent, getting things we need, like the participation of the local police in the shoot (Monday I got the local police to drive a cop car through a scene).

I really enjoy asking people to help us with the movie in any way that seems appropriate. Movie-making can be a ton of fun in small doses, for people who don't normally do it, so it's usually possible to get all kinds of help if you approach people in the right way.

We're a very gracious group. Whenever someone does us a good turn, like the local police, or Yes Computers in Northampton, the local Apple computer store, who let us stage our computer camp on their premises, we're extremely thankful and make sure we get the proper spelling of everyone's name for the special thanks section of our credits.

Since a huge part of this movie has been made on love and favors I anticipate that our Special Thanks section will be the single longest part of the end credits.

-- LF

2 Days in Jail

2007-08-17T23:36:00.000-04:00

Our cast and crew spent the last two days in jail, and we had a great time.

We shot in the Franklin County Jail and House of Correction Replacement. It was a scary place, built in the 19th century by Civil War veterans. The last execution took place there in the 1880's, and the guy that was hung turned out to be innocent. His ghost may still haunt the place. It's beautiful too, and the people there now are wonderful-- particularly the staff, but the prisoners we interacted with were great, too.

They even got quiet for us when we were rolling, and our star, Robert Postrozny, should feel particularly proud because the prisoners-- when they heard his screaming pleas to be let out of his cell-- said that they all went through the same thing when they were first there, and Rob sounded completely authentic.

We also discovered an incredible actor named Courtney Sojka, who has been an officer at the jail for the last fifteen years. Court is enormous-- like a planet, he has his own gravitational field, so that you feel his presence even without having seen him enter the room. He's not just scary, though; he also has a boyish sweetness, a baby-face, really; and the combination is quite compelling.

- PH

A Day Off

2007-08-13T12:02:00.000-04:00

Today is our first day off since well before shooting began. The run up to a shoot, especially one as ambitious and logistically complicated as this one, allows for no time off. We were either working our money jobs (teaching) or working on the movie, for 16 - 18 hours a day for the two weeks before we began shooting last Wednesday.

Today our only real responsibilities, regarding the movie, are to troll for extras for our upcoming courtroom scene and pick up the dry cleaned suit for the actress, Jeannine Haas, who plays Steve's lawyer. I slept ten hours last night and now I just want to do laundry and go to the movies.

My favorite day this week was our shoot at the site of the remains of three corn and grain mills from the early 1800's. All that's left at the site, in Plainfield Massachusetts, deep in the hidden hills between Northampton and the Berkshires, is hand-laid naturally occurring (not manufactured) stone-on-stone foundations in varying states of decay. They are all overgrown with moss, bushes and trees and situated right up against the roaring Mill Brook.

The location, because of its remoteness and wild look, perfectly suited the scenes we were shooting. This is the place where Brother Wilf, a visionary preacher and one of the central characters of Bridge, hides out when he is sick and in trouble.

The weather was perfect, everyone worked really hard to get the work done, our lunch from the local restaurant in nearby Cummington, The Creamery, was divine, and we were blessed by the good will and generosity of the people of Plainfield, especially Judy Williams (head of the historical society), who gave us access to the town hall as our staging area.

We shot all the scenes we set out for. We're both really committed to keeping at it until we have what we need to tell the story. I can't bear the idea that, after all this hard work on the part of everyone involved, we would go home at the end of a day without shooting the best possible scenes, in terms of performance and physical beauty.

It turned out, at our production meeting at the end of the day, that there was frustration among some crew members about changing the shot list and the blocking along the way. Things don't always get communicated as quickly as possibly from us to all the crew because we're thinking and working as we go.

After feeling bad for a few minutes, like we had made people unhappy by dragging them along into this world, Pete insisted that we tell the crew how we felt. I spoke emotionally about the movie as a living thing, about how it can't all be planned on paper and executed in lock-step precision. We thanked everyone sincerely (the level of work has really been terrific) and asked for their patience and their perspective. This is not a chaotic, mismanaged low-budget movie with 16 hour work days, bad accommodations and lousy food. This is an artfully made movie where everyone's contribution is encouraged and respected.

We're striving to provide the best possible working and living conditions for everyone. That we don't meet everyone's expectations at all times is not a surprise. The good news is that the day after the mill site shoot, the Leonard Egg band rehearsal day, was a blazing success, with crucial input our Sound Mixer, Josh Benson, and Thom Howe, our Key Grip/Gaffer, who wrangled additional audio equipment so the band could really sound like a band.

A little later, at a different location, our Grip/Electrician, Jen Martone, came up with a great way to block a scene with three of our actors, one of whom was Anne Munger, who did a cameo. She's usually our 2nd AC.

We count on the commitment of all our cast and crew to make Bridge of Names something that each of us will be proud to have our name on.

-- LF

Day 4

2007-08-12T00:03:00.000-04:00

Got about 3.5 hours of sleep last night, in part because our Siberian Huskies, Homer and Coady, were feeling a little hysterical. They are neurotic, and immediately upset by any deviation from their normal schedule. They're getting walked twice a day by someone they don't know that well, whom we've hired to walk them while we're shooting during the day. So they demanded to be taken outside several times during the night, which was a short one for us to begin with.

Nevertheless, today went very well, shooting at "The Old Mill Site" in Plainfield, which is the remains of a 200 year old mill on a river deep in the forest, encrusted in moss and really beautiful. Our actors, Court Dorsey and Rachel Zeiger-Haag, were super, but I have to confess though, that I fell asleep for just a second during a take-- not a good thing for a director. Good that my co-director Liz was there to pick up the slack.

I'm excited about tomorrow's shooting. The band "Leonard Egg" will be having a rehearsal. Unfortunately, I've only written one song for them to play, so it will get a little repetitive, but that' s okay. You can hear the song, called "Son of Nod" (lyrics by Liz Foley) on their Myspace page: myspace.com/leonardegg

I'm so tired that I can hardly put a sentence together. Tomorrow's call time is 10AM-- a little later-- so maybe I'll get a full night's sleep!

- PH

Day 3

2007-08-11T00:32:00.000-04:00

Murphy hit us hard today, in the form of rain. We lost 2 scenes, though we went ahead and shot an important in one the rain, which included a real cop car and ambulance. The Northampton police loaned us an officer and cruiser for 20 minutes, starting at 3:30PM, and we ran like hell to get three camera setups with multiple takes during that brief time. Up until this morning, the police didn't want anything to do with us, and turned down all formal requests, but Liz used her magical ability to solicit help by just talking to them and asking nicely. The cops changed their minds. Amazing.

Now we'll have to find a way to squeeze those 3 scenes into later days in the schedule. Cast and crew continue to do an amazing job, even if they have to wait for hours in a local Dunkin' Donuts for the rain to let up. And we're grateful to the staff of Dunkin' on King Street in Northampton for letting our army roost their for so long. It was a funny sight. They even let us bring our lunch in and eat it, and let us set up our computer camp for the entire day. (Computer camp is in charge of transferring data from the camera's memory cards-- which have limited space-- to computer hard drives, so that we can erase the cards and shoot some more.)

Okay, have to get up in five hours.

Good night.

- PH

Day 2 feels like Day 800...

2007-08-10T00:39:00.000-04:00

... but it went well any way. More great footage.

We did have a visit from the Great God Murphy, who decided to make one of our computers malfunction in such a way that we thought all the material that we had shot thus far might have a visible flaw-- a video "artifact"-- in the form of horizontal lines appearing and disappearing randomly.

Because I expect Murphy to mess with us, I remained fairly calm. I also figured that-- because computers always give their owners some kind of grief-- this was probably going to be a problem we could resolve. But for about an hour we had to stop shooting and investigate.

For fellow HVX200 users-- if you get weird horizontal lines after importing your material from the camera's P2 cards into Final Cut Pro, it may just be a display problem with the computer you're using. Don't panic until you've tried looking at it on another computer. If there's still a problem, then it's safe to panic.

Oh, and it feels like day 800 because of stress and lack of sleep. But that also means that our lives are being extended subjectively. If I'm experiencing 400 days for every actual 1, I'm going to live to be a very old man.

- PH

1st day of another block of shooting

2007-08-09T00:45:00.000-04:00

Wow. The first day went really well.

We have new people, and a lot of people from the last block of shooting. Everyone stepped up and did their jobs, and then helped others when they needed it. We worked like the proverbial well-oiled machine, and did so in a relaxed fashion. Seemed easy. I love it. But, as always, I hate to say too loudly that things are going so well, for fear of waking the Great God Murphy. Rather than type all the names, I'll just point to our list of credits, here:

http://elyriapictures.com/bridge_x.html

It's one in the morning, and time to go to bed, but we still have a few things left to do, like printing out the shot list, and printing out script revisions. But all of the communication, via email and phone, is done, and Liz and I are getting enough help from our producers, AD, 2nd AD, and PM, so that we may actually get a little sleep tonight. 8:30AM call tomorrow morning.

Let's see-- that means almost six hours of sleep, unless I'm so addled that I'm not doing the math properly. I usually don't count the hours of sleep I get, to better allow me to ignore my "sleep deprivation" the next day.

We'll sleep when we're dead, as they say. (I can't come up with anything more than cliches right now.)

All that matters is that we got beautiful stuff today. This is going to be a really good movie.

- PH

A Month of Weddings

2007-07-29T00:02:00.000-04:00

I feel terrible about not blogging for so long, but preproduction for the next block of shooting has been all-consuming, like planning a month of weddings. The number of details that need to be chased after and wrestled to the ground is staggering. We have a lot of help, but a full night's sleep is still rare.

We're using a nifty device to keep all of us (producers, directors, art department, camera, etc.) from stepping on each other's toes: Google's online documents system, which is in Beta but works really well. We have a "To do" list, a contact list for cast & crew, a props/costumes list, an equipment list, and a calendar-- all accessible by everyone involved, but not by anyone else.

As we get closer and closer to day 1 of production (August 8th) the tension mounts. Have we remembered everything? Will one of those shifty little details escape us and wreak havoc?

Not long ago I found myself getting depressed because of the stress of getting it just right. Then I realized: Wait a minute. How many people would kill to have my problems? How many people get to make a feature film, even if on a miniscule budget?

And I thought of our friend Alan, the actor who inspired this movie. Dead of a brain tumour. What am I complaining about? If he had a choice, to be dead, or to experience the stress of making a large-scale work of art, which way do I think he'd go? He'd be delighted to have the stress.

So I'm trying to remember that. Enjoy it. Stuff will go wrong, sure. But what a lucky thing, even to experience the bad parts. I should have such problems.

- PH

Leonard Egg

2007-07-10T23:45:00.000-04:00

The band "Leonard Egg" is born.

In "Bridge of Names," our protagonist Steve has a friend named Michael who is also a competitor. They're both musicians, but Steve is kind of a post-Punk purist and Michael is frankly concerned with being popular. Steve watches Michael's band rehearse, and his reaction is a mixture of sneer and envy.

For this scene, we want musicians to actually perform. We talked briefly with an actual band, but they decided that having the character "Michael" pretend to be a member was unacceptable (they were purists!) So Liz and I are constructing a band, using friends who are actual musicians, but who are willing to pretend, for the movie, that they're members of Leonard Egg.

By the way, finding a band name that hasn't already been taken is tough. I wanted "Bathtub Mary," but found that the name was taken by an actual band-- and one that happens to reside in Northampton, MA-- the very place we're shooting this movie. (One place to vet band names, aside from Google, is the Magic Bus Music Forum.) But I like "Leonard Egg" too.

While we're in this preproduction "lull"-- after shooting another chunk of the feature in May/June-- I've been trying to write a song for Michael's band. "Why are you doing it yourself?" you might ask. Well, because it's fun, and because I don't have money to pay somebody else to do it.

If I found someone to do it for free, I'd have to tell them "no, I don't like that, change it" and they would be unhappy, and so would I. This is the problem with not being able to pay people. If you're a perfectionist like me, then you end up doing it yourself, because you can't squeeze perfection out of someone else without compensation.

- PH

Elyria Pictures Goes to Jail

2007-07-02T00:56:00.000-04:00

Last Friday Pete and I had the good fortune to scout the Franklin County Jail in Greenfield for several scenes for the next round of shooting. Steve, the main character, finds himself in some serious trouble and spends a little time in jail. The Franklin County Jail was recommended to us by a friend of ours, Bertha Josephson, a Superior Court judge, who presides in W. Mass, because of it's striking appearance.

Back in May we scouted the outside of the jail. It's an old brick fortress built in 1887. It has just the right look for Bridge of Names - old, strange and beautiful. I've been corresponding with Ray Brown, the CEO of the FCJ since late April. After sounding out his colleagues about the possibility of a shoot at the jail, he emailed us an application for permission and arranged for an interior location scout.

We were met by Laura Leskay (sp?) and Chief of Staff David Lanoie who showed us to the unrenovated wing of the old jail, three tiers of smalls cell, with traditional iron-barred doors and bunk beds. Our favorites were the old school bunks, basically large metal shelves afixed to the wall.

The light seemed best on the 2nd tier up, but those cells had different bunks, free-standing metal framed beds like you might find in a college dorm. Dave generously offered to have the old-fashioned bunks moved into any cell we decided to shoot in. He also offered to move any furniture we might need into the parts of the jail where we plan to shoot.

We hope to spend two days at the Franklin County Jail in August. We have a several scenes that take place in Steve's cell as well as scenes in an interview room, a jail infirmary, a boiler room and a hallway. Ray, Laura and Dave have been so gracious and kind that now I'm really looking forward to going to jail, something I certainly never expected.

- LF

Small is Good

2007-06-27T00:28:00.000-04:00

This weekend we watched "Old Joy" on DVD. The movie is charming in a very slow-moving, meditative way. I really enjoyed it. I also found it a huge validation of one to the main things I've indentified about shooting. I really like working with smaller groups. (Old Joy was shot with a crew of 6.)

This last shoot was the most ambitious, complicated project we've done since our last feature back in the 1990's. All our own productions since that one have been very small. Pills, the short we made in 2004 (see clips here), had a crew of seven or eight for each of our four shooting days - DP/director, AD/director, sound, PM/producer, and 3 or 4 FOP (friends of production) helping out with lighting, camera and food. We lit the movie with the following: two small tungsten lights, daylight, night street light, some large flashlights, interior car lights covered in plastic shopping bag diffusion (the stiff cloudy plastic shopping bags) and the "magic light," a flourescent tube which is normally used (hanging inside the raised hood of a car) for home car-repair. Our friend (and talented filmmaker) Jorge Fried bought it from a homeless man for $3 and brought it to the shoot.

Almost everyone on the shoot of Pills was either a good friend, a filmmaker, or both. We found the lead actors when we were searching for a cast for a no-budget version of another feature of ours called Funny Peculiar. They were generous enough to sign on for Pills, which is a short adapted from Funny Peculiar.

We shot in our apartment, outside on 12th Avenue above 125th Street in NYC (right near our apartment), and on the side of the Grand Central Parkway. Some of the nights were very long but since there were only three in a row, and then one a month later, no one had a chance to burn out too badly. One night we did drive our lead actress, Elizabeth Kemp, to distraction (with cold and lack of sleep), but since she was playing a bipolar character on a manic tear she was able to use everything that happened that night in a true and compelling way. Our other lead, Ari Fliakos, was a rock. He kept making it up anew hour after hour, scene after scene. He is a veteran of the Wooster Group and one of the most talented actors I've ever worked with. He always surprised us with the things he came up with for the character, while remaining clearly within the confines of the world we created.

It's not a surprise that after the personnel difficulties of this last part of Bridge that I would think back longingly to the halcyon days of shooting Pills. I have to be careful of this kind of thinking though. Pills was purposefully planned and scaled to be shot that way. Bridge is much bigger, more ambitious and operates on a different scale altogether.

Still, I want to make sure to take the proper lessons from all of this. For me very low-budget movies work best when everyone is really engaged in the process and busy all the time. The smaller the crew the greater potential for everyone to interact in a meaningful way everyday. Chain of command is nice for the sake of clarity and people not stepping on each other's jobs, but it's of much less interest to me than the idea that everyone has a stake in the movie, everyone feels like it's their movie too. How to foster and preserve that feeling and still have enough people to fill all the different jobs is the balancing act I am trying hard to pull off for the next part of the shoot in August.

- LF

Scary Movie

2007-06-19T17:24:00.000-04:00

Little known fact: This isn't our first feature film.

We made a feature called "Aimless" more than 15 years ago. I wrote and directed, Liz produced. A very talented DP named Michael Barrett (who now shoots for CSI and other shows, along with feature films) shot it on 16mm film. It was Michael's first feature too, and I remember his excitement about the opportunity. We had some great actors, including Byron Utley and Marina Zenovich.

The lead character was a young guy mixed up in the New York drug trade, and the actor we found did an amazing audition. He was charismatic, and good-looking-- but in an interesting way. He'd just been chosen to be in a Calvin Klein ad campaign that featured interesting, druggy types.

He was perfect.

Too perfect.

We started shooting, and things were going okay. Liz and I were inexperienced, so when I say going "okay"-- it's all relative. But our lead was doing well, until a few days into the shoot, when he disappeared. Nobody knew where he was. He returned, after several hours.

On a movie, when you've got all those people and locations and equipment gathered together, time isn't just money... time is lots of money.

We resumed shooting. His performance was great, and then okay, then terrible, then back to great. He would disappear for hours, without warning. He was frequently hostile, and was able to find incredibly cruel things to say to everyone on the set.

Eventually he refused to speak to me. I had to direct him through Michael, with whom he remained on good terms (because he wanted to look good?)

Finally our Gaffer clued us in. "Do you see his eyes?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Notice anything?"

"No."

"The pupils-- they're dilated?"

"Really?"

"He smokes heroin."

"He does?!"

"He's been disappearing to go get a fix."

We considered buying the heroin for him. We considered getting a tough guy to intimidate him into behaving professionally. We tried to talk to him. We gave him more money. To no avail.

I made plenty of mistakes as a first-time director, and I've spent the time since mulling over what I might have done differently. But even with my mistakes, it could have been a good movie, in part because Liz and I and everyone else were totally committed to it.

Our lead was not.

Do I sound bitter? Hell yes. Even after all this time. It took us years to pay off the debt we incurred on that one. And it took years to recover emotionally. I won't show it to anyone because I know that-- in spite of all the talented people who put their time and hearts into "Aimless"-- our lead actor is in every scene, and consequently it's a bad movie.

Why did he retreat into heroin use? Because he was terrified. Fear of failure is in every artist's job description, and it can be overwhelming. That's why so many get lost in drug use-- to dull the fear.

It's scary making a movie.

- PH

P.S. Some years later our lead contacted us to ask for-- of all things-- a reference for another acting job. I spoke with the director that was thinking of casting him. He didn't get the gig.

Snare on the Back Beat

2007-06-19T16:14:00.000-04:00

I'm currently an extremely compressed ball of anxiety for no apparent reason except that I'm making a feature and I think maybe that scares the hell out of me, but I'm not sure. Expectations are relatively low when you make a short, but they start to rise when you put all your eggs together.

I've been sweating over a song that's to be played by the Pop Punk band in a scene that we'll shoot in August for our movie "Bridge of Names." The band's music is supposed to elicit a condescending sneer from our purist Punk hero, Steve.

This song is hard because, first of all, while writing it I find things that I like and I'm unsure whether they are sneer-inducing; and second of all, I'm getting all obsessive about rhythmic precision, which is a terrible turn of events.

I have a MIDI keyboard, my trusty Strat, and a program called Logic running on our G5 desktop. Logic-- unfortunately-- makes it easy to assess your musical accuracy and make changes. As with Final Cut and other great programs, this opens a Pandora's box of possibilities that can become so absorbing that you lose track of what the hell you were trying to do in the first place.

I'm pretty bad, so far, at laying down tracks that have a good feel and that synchronize with the other "instruments" (synthesizer sounds) I've recorded. The song I'm working on now is interesting harmonically, and its interesting rhythmically (perhaps too interesting) but my execution is sloppy, so no "groove" has a chance to develop.

I need to keep it simple (though I find rendering even simple things challenging) but I get bored and want to find something new and interesting. Does Pop Music have to have a snare hit on the back beat? It's a kind of tyranny that I should just accept. Right now I wish I could.

You might ask yourself why I don't just have an actual musician/composer do this. The answer is, I need so much control and have such exacting standards that anyone donating their time would get fed up and quit. Also, I secretly kind of enjoy it.

- PH

Letting the Actors Act

2007-06-15T17:49:00.000-04:00

Reading Pete's previous post, especially where he mentions being bored with storyboarding all our scenes, gave me the idea for this post, my first in a long time. I get bored very easily. I'm very happy to plan shooting from a production standpoint - crews, vendors, schedules, meals etc. - but I'm not interested in pre-producing what I want the actors to do. I've been lucky enough to work with a really talented group of actors over the past several years, including Elizabeth Kemp of the Actor's Studio, Ari Fliakos of the Wooster Group and Erin Douglass of Radiohole.

Our current group is no exception. Our leads Rob Postrozny and (our special discovery, teenage wonder) Rachel Zeiger-Haag are just two of the group of incredibly resourceful and imaginative actors on Bridge of Names. I never want to pre-imagine what any of them would do with each scene. I know what the movie is about and I know how each scene is linked to tell the story. At the same time my understanding of all this in limited by my own experience, history, perception etc. Not very limited of course because I am a slight genius but still, I'd like to allow as much room as I can for surprises. And I sure do get them.

One of the things I realized during the shoot, which I hadn't focused on in pre-production, is that four of our seven principals have to cry during the movie. And all of those scenes fell during this shooting period. It was like a great cry-off! Who would pull it off most effortlessly, who would have the hardest time crying, where would it come from?

It turned out that both Pete and I underestimated our actors when it came to this ability. I asked Rob, before his crying scene if he wanted some eyedrops (a common actor crying aide) standing by. He waved me off and walked away abruptly. Suddenly I thought, "Oh fuck no! I've insulted my lead actor. " I'd never seen him do anything close to crying before, and it's sort of an out-of-character moment for Steve, the disaffected punk he plays in the movie.

Pete was completely surprised by another of our principals, Susanna Apgar, who plays Steve's ex (and his best friend Michael's current gf) Robyn in the movie. In a very controlled, unsentimenal scene Robyn is thinking about something very bad that's happened to Michael. Steve comes over to apologize because it's partly his fault.

Susanna was so en pointe in the playing of this scene that she broke down in one of the takes on Rob, before we even got to her close-up. I think it surprised Pete because Susanna's demeanor is somewhat mocking and ironic. She is not a touchy-feely type. And yet when the time came to cry real tears of anguish and despair she was right there. I had a hard time keeping myself from weeping aloud during the take.

In fact I had this same difficulty every time an actor cried during the shoot. Rachel, who plays the teenage Agnes, and Lisa Enzer, who plays Agnes' mom Amelia, both lose it at different times during the movie. In working with both of them on their crying scenes I found myself sucking up a lot of snot trying to talk about the scenes while allowing myself to feel as sad as I really did feel. If I'm asking the actors to be this vulnerable, to experience real pain as a way to show the audience the pain the character is in I feel like I'd be cheating if I didn't feel it myself.

Bridge of Names was written directly and indirectly about death and loss. Our friend, Alan Arenius, was the inspiration for one of the central characters (played by Court Dorsey), Brother Wilf. He's a visionary preacher who tries to help Steve find meaning since he's lost his punk-rock religion. Alan was a visionary actor diagnosed with a brain tumour in the winter of 2006. I lost my mom to cancer in 2004 and my dad to a broken-hearted depression in April 2006. And over all my life and work presides the spirit of my brother Dave, dead since 1993 of AIDS from his life as a heroin addict. Being with the actors, helping them, or watching the other actors help them, channel their private pain for our use was very emotional, humbling and challenging. No wonder sometimes I feel like I don't yet have my full complement of skin.

- LF

Finding the Frame

2007-06-09T15:51:00.001-04:00

A storyboard is a sort of comic book version of the movie you plan to shoot. Drawing one helps me to think about exactly how to cover a scene, and how that scene will eventually be edited together.

For me, the most important thing about a storyboard (and cinematography in general) is the frame. I start with a template with frames that have the aspect ratio (width compared to height) in which we plan to shoot. With our feature Bridge of Names that's 16:9-- 16 units wide, and 9 tall. With storyboard frames that are precisely the right shape, I can think more clearly about what each frame will contain.

I try to divide space (our location) into rectangles that are perfectly placed, so that I can reveal all the information necessary to tell the story at any given moment, hide information that would be distracting, and do this in a way that is unobtrusive but visually seductive. For example, if during a romantic kissing scene, the frame included a toilet seen through a bathroom doorway, the moment might be undercut. Or not, depending on your intent.

At the beginning of the scene, a typical method is to reveal a large portion of the space in a wide shot-- in a sense, stretching the frame to its largest size-- so the audience will understand where the actors are sitting or standing when the frame gets smaller, in the tighter shots (e.g., 2-shots, closeups, etc.)

Alfred Hitchcock is famous for meticulous planning, to the extent that he could fall asleep on set as others executed. But in a great book called Hitchcock at Work, the storyboards for the famous "crop-dusting sequence" in the movie North By Northwest are revealed to have been drawn after the sequence was shot. They were used as publicity, to enhance the myth. In fact, for this sequence, Hitchcock relied on a floor plan, with carefully labeled camera positions. And on set, he was often quite flexible (and didn't treat his actors like "cattle"-- except for Tippi Hedren.)

Here's an example of a floorplan.
Mine had camera and actor positions drawn in.

Up until this shoot, I've carefully storyboarded everything. This time I decided not to. I'm bored with it. Instead I made floor plans for each location, and waited until we were on set to find the frame for each shot. This went well, in part because I had a great 1st AC-- our latest discovery, Stephen "Fish" Fisher-- whose technical abilities were such that I soon let him move up to Camera Operator, which meant that I could relax in front of the high definition monitor and be a little more thoughtful about what we were getting.

- PH

4 Luv

2007-06-05T01:17:00.000-04:00

It's commonly observed of large collaborative projects that there are three variables-- Fast, Cheap, and Good-- only two of which can coexist. If you're doing a movie Fast, then you lose either Cheap (you have to throw more money at it) or Good (you have to settle for mediocrity or worse.) If you want Good, then forget about either Cheap or Fast.

With a low budget feature, this triangle must be overcome through the passioniate commitment of all participants. In the film industry, it's known as a "for love" project-- as opposed to "for money." If anyone-- cast or crew-- is simply there for a paycheck, the triangle will prevail.

During this round of production, we had to part ways with two key participants, whom I won't mention by name or job title. Both were being paid, both had very good technical skills, and both were miserable during the shoot. Their misery affected the experience for everyone else, and thus could ultimately have affected what ends up on screen.

Walter Murch says that a good director functions as the immune system for the movie, rejecting anything detrimental.

Though no permanent damage was done to this "body," I wish I had recognized the misery sooner, and relieved it.

- PH

Back in Black

2007-06-05T00:31:00.000-04:00

We're back.

It was a tough marathon, and during the first 8 days I found myself saying that I don't want to make movies any more.

But, after making some adjustments to crew and methodology, I rediscovered the intense pleasure that can come from building something you care about.

And why the hell else would you make movies-- or art in general-- if not for pleasure?

As we recover, and get some sleep, we'll publish more posts about our ten shooting days.

- PH

Meltdown

2007-05-25T00:56:00.000-04:00

Day Two - a challenging day, 18 shots, seven more than our first day and lots of small camera and sound moves. We got behind in our schedule early in the day, because of equipment left behind that we needed and my difficutly focusing on the tasks at hand because of my feeling of panic about being behind.

My main problem was feeling cut off from decision making. Pete and our 1st AC Stephen Fisher and our Gaffer Chris Miller, tend to cluster around the monitor discussing the shot composition and lighting. They are all doing a terrific job using the beautiful locations we're woking in to their best advantage. Still at times I felt like I had to elbow my way in to get a look at what we were doing. Even when I felt like I had good solutions to offer to some of our problems I felt out of the loop.

Thanks to our art department, led by Natalie Leighton, and our production crew led by Paula Swain, PM/Producer and Marina Goldman, AD/Producer and our 2nd AD Jessye Herrell, plus all the help we're getting from our crack Production Coordinators Nicole Lorio and Andrea DeBrito, and ass-kicing 2nd AD Jen Martone, we kept moving ahead.

Eventually I had a little meltdown. Pete and I stepped off to hack it out, which of course set us back even further, but I couldn't go on with the rising panic inside me, feeling so out of things. At lunch Pete and I went away from the hubbub and had a really good talk to clear the air. We realized that we both felt a sense of panic and failure. I felt like I couldn't wrestle the cat into the bag.

After we talked the day was much more fun. We'd only dropped one shot early on and the actual work we did today felt really good, focussed and fun. The acting from our leads Rob Postrozny and Rachel Zeiger-Haag and our supporting actors Susanna Apgar, Bill Dwight (who's also one of our producers), and Bill Stewart was uniformly terrific -- entertaining, dramatic and beautiful. Sometimes I can hardly believe we're lucky enough to have this much talent -- crew and cast -- working with us. The camera and sound work (from our mixer Ruby Wells and out boom op Ella Weitzman) is really high quality.

And then there's Thom Howe, Key Grip, truck master, machine man. At 16 Thom has more focus, stamina and organizational skills then most grown-up grips I've worked with in the past. I would feel lost without him.

This movie stuff is really hard. So many details flying around, so little time to get eveything you want. We don't have a punishing schedule (3 - 4 pages a day, 10 - 25 shots). We've managed to get all our shots each day (but one) and end on time. 12 hour days is what I really want to maintain. Any longer and I really start to lose it.

I'm really glad to be doing this and It is getting better, easier, more fun, every day. I want to enjoy every moment of this time because it's so short and so filled with opportunity to make something beautiful.

-- LF

Mistake

2007-05-25T00:29:00.000-04:00

When the alarm went off this morning, I thought it must be a mistake. I was sleeping so peacefully!

This morning continued to seem like some kind of mistake, as we worked our way through the list of shots. Tension about moving forward quickly enough cancelled out pleasure, and I began to feel like a complete incompetent. It turned out Liz was feeling the same way, and just before lunch we reached a crescendo of dread and dismay. I found myself saying "I'm starting to hate making movies."

Then we talked and ate some lunch and felt better. We began to relax as directors, and our crew-- with Jessye Herril stepping up as a (the term is worn out but appropriate) kick-ass AD (Assistant Director.) She kept us organized, oriented, and moving forward, with the sweetest smile.

And then Christian Miller, our Gaffer, stepped in to light a night shot, and nailed it. Beautiful. So now I'm looking forward to more.

And, while there may be some mistake, it feels serendipitous now.

- PH

Fog of War

2007-05-23T23:26:00.000-04:00

Another dispatch from the front lines...

On Monday betrayal was the rule.

On Tuesday the people who abandoned us were replaced by others-- easily, and in a way that almost restored our faith in humanity. We have a new Art Director, Natalie Leighton, who has rescued the production by coming up with crucial props and dressing important locations. If she hadn't stepped up, we'd be standing around wishing we had something to shoot.

A replacement for the "club" location (that was so sleazily withdrawn on Monday) fell into our laps when Liz mentioned to a local restaurateur that we were making a movie and he offered his restaurant-- and his wife, as an extra.

Today, Wednesday, was the start of production and we "made our day," getting all of the shots we set out to get. The "fog of war" slowed us down quite a bit, but that's inevitably the case on the first day, as a new team discovers how to work together. Liz's schedule is a work of art, and despite a certain amount of confusion (where is Brother Wilf's suitcase? where is the connector for the monitor? which car do we get into?) everything fell into place according to her plan. She also did great work with the actors, making sure that they had what they needed to give the best possible performance.

Another star of the day was Stephen Fisher, our A.C. (Assistant Camera.) "Fish" was absolutely professional as he managed the data transfer station (moving video files from the camera to our storage drives) and the tripod, HD monitor, and-- of course-- the camera itself-- filters, focus, tripod, and so on.

It was incredible for me, as the shooter, to have such a great AC. I suddenly felt like a golf pro being assisted by a top flight caddy-- not only carrying the clubs but giving me friendly advice about which putter to use.

Liz planned the first day as an easy one, so that we'd work out kinks and gain confidence. Tomorrow is more difficult, but hopefully the fog will dissipate quickly.

- PH

Us v. Murphy

2007-05-21T10:27:00.000-04:00

Dispatch from the front lines, from our correspondent, Peter Hobbs: A day of hell.

We're in Western Massachusetts, nailing down our locations and working through the schedule, shot list, and floor plans in advance of the arrival of cast and crew.

One location came un-nailed this morning. I'll tell the story with an 18th century style ellision: M______ is a very nice woman who owns one of our favorite restaurants. The restaurant burned down last year, and she has found a wonderful building that she bought and will refurbish, a place that used to be a Polish club. She had shown us around this space and said we could shoot there, and that she would even bring friends to be extras-- the scene takes place in a club packed with revelers.

We've been nervous about this spot, because M_______ had not returned our confirmation calls for days.

At 8:45AM this morning we got a call from someone claiming to be M_____'s assistant, saying that the construction schedule had been moved up and we could no longer shoot there. The voice on the line was a mature female. M________ can't afford an assistant. The cell phone number was M_____'s. And it sounded amazingly like M_______. She expressed surprise that we were upset by her announcement. She must be insane.

But wait, there's more...

Our Art Directors are quitting. They were so great last time-- flawless, taking on the most difficult challenges, and absolutely reliable. Now they say they're stressed, and they might be breaking up (they're a couple.) So the guy has quit definitively, leaving his partner without trasnportation or assistance of any kind. So of course she wants to quit too, and probably will.

Murphy is making an intimidating show of force.

But we're not licked yet.

Human Sacrifice

2007-05-18T03:52:00.003-04:00

"The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious."
- Marcus Aurelius

5 days before the start of production, and my greatest fear is of the non-obvious-- the details that are hiding behind the obvious, each one of which could jump out and rip up the movie.

Murphy is the god of movie making, and he says "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong." That means that, if every last detail isn't looked after during preproduction, all hell can break loose. For example, the last time we shot, we got to our location on the first day and discovered that the tripod had somehow not made it into the truck. I used sandbags for camera support as our producers made frantic phone calls. After an hour or so, I was faced with a motley assortment of tripods-- including one that looked like it might have been used on a Howard Hawks movie about sixty years ago.

Unfortunately, all the tripods were pretty bad, and it was not a good first day. So I worship at the feet of Murphy, and consider doing some kind of animal sacrifice or something to appease him now.

The shot list above is an effort to confound the great god Murphy, in his effort to destroy us. With this list, the whole crew will know roughly what we're trying to do, from day to day and moment to moment. As opposed to standing around waiting for someone to tell them.

This list covers all ten of our upcoming shooting days, and will (hopefully) be augmented by a floor plan for each set, replete with camera and actor positions.

When we get down to the last days of preproduction, I always ask myself why I didn't start on this kind of planning sooner. The answer is, the script wasn't ready. When I find that writer, I'm going to sacrifice him.

- PH

Schedule Schedule Schedule

2007-05-16T01:55:00.000-04:00

I love scheduling. It's an intricate puzzle with hundreds of tiny pieces. Fitting them together in the right way can be a thing of beauty. And yet sometimes I feel like I am drowning in all the pieces. All the actors individual schedules, location details (does it have windows, could we shoot day for night etc), the availability of extras, (will our friends and people we don't even know yet be willing to stay up all night to be in our lesbian bar scene?)

The bar we're shooting in has windows so we can't shoot day for night. We hate covering windows with duvateen and pretending it's night. It's so much nicer to let the day or the night light shine in, whichever is appropriate. The bar, which we got through the efforts of the amazing and lovely Tim de Christopher is a real find. It's an old Polish Club in Greenfield, MA.

It's now owned by Maggie Zaccaro and her partner, and is about to be turned into a wonderful restaurant called Hope and Olive. (They had a previous wonderful restaurant in Shelburne Falls MA, called Bottle of Bread.) We're lucky enough to get to shoot there before the restaurant construction begins. Maggie has even been generous enough to invite her friends to be extras in the scenes. But will they really want to stay with us until 3am? I sure hope so.

Because we need darkness for all three scenes there - interiors and exterior - we'll have to shoot between 8:30pm and 5am. We should be able to concentrate on tighter shots of our lead actors from 3 - 5am, and then it'll be time to wrap until our August shoot dates.

The main dilemma to be solved tonight was whether the bar scenes really have to take place at night. There are such things as tea dances at gay and lesbian bars, that take place in the afternoon, but it just doesn't work for this story. We've decided that the scenes need to be at night so that means that other scenes, that we won't shoot until August, but which fall just before the bar scene in the time plot of the script, must take place at either dusk or evening so that they make sense in the narrative continuity of the story.

Time plot is one of those mysterious variables in a script, and then in a schedule. In the script it may say NIGHT or DAY in the scene heading but what exactly does it mean in the story? What time is it roughly or exactly? Some movies, like World Trade Center, need to have time plots figured to the exact second, but most movies are not that specific.

What day of the week is it? What season? Are there weather considerations? Scripts are not usually that specific about all this information, and yet when you're making the schedule you have to figure it all out because you may need lighting and weather to demonstrate narrative continuity if you have scenes that follow each other closely in time.

If it's raining the night we shoot the bar scene in June, how will we deal with it if, in August it's a beautiful clear evening when we shoot the scene immediately preceding the bar scene? These are just a few of my concerns right now as I try to piece together an elegant schedule, which incorporates our day and night scenes in a shooting schedule that allows for 12 hour shoot days and 12 hour turnarounds.

Moving from all days into days that flow into nights is the best way to handle it. The week begins with 8am - 8pm shoot days and then moves into 10am - 10pm and 11am to 11pm shoot days. And finally into our 5pm to 5am bar shoot. But this still can't account for weather. And we certainly don't have the budget to create matching weather if we get rain.

- LF

Kind Strangers

2007-05-15T20:46:00.000-04:00

When you're making a low budget movie, you have to "rely on the kindness of strangers," as Blanche DuBois would say. So far we've encountered an incredible amount of kindness from people who were initially strangers, and are now becoming friends.

As we hunted for locations that were both old and strange, we were introduced to a wonderful artist named Tim de Christopher, a master stone carver who worked on the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan, and who now lives and works in a small town called Turners Falls. Tim's latest work is on a scale that makes our movie look easy: it's called The Cathedral Project, and here's what he says about it:

The Cathedral Project is a monumental site-specific sculpture project to be built near the banks of the Connecticut River in Turners Falls, Massachusetts.

This sculpture, this Cathedral Project, will tell an archetypal story of the human condition as it has manifest through time, in its own unique way, in the village of Turners Falls. From its difficult and tragic beginnings, to its agricultural and industrial underpinnings, its present state, and uncertain future.

The project is expected to span several years in construction, with the initiation of an apprentice program and public events.
It is hoped that the larger grounds of the site will become a center of artistic activity within the community with the inclusion of rental studios, possibly a gallery/cafe, or a small, grass roots museum.

Tim owns property that will be gradually swept up into this massive project, but while various buildings aren't in use yet, he's letting us have access to them. He and his partner Kathy Service gave us a tour this past weekend, and let us choose what we wanted to use. Amazing! (In Tim's studio, there was a headstone he'd created that was so beautiful I wanted to be dead just to lie under it.)

We've also gotten help from Workman Publishing and the Czelusniak Funeral Home in Northampton.

I can only think of one exception, so far, to this trend of incredible warmth: a place I'll call Quarrel Park, whose fictional name speaks for itself.

That exception makes all the other kind strangers seem even more miraculous.

- PH

Casting

2007-05-12T15:58:00.000-04:00

This damned cold won't go away. Neither will my whining. But the show must go on...

We continue to nail down locations for Bridge of Names-- for example, a rehearsal space for the band that is lead by the rival of our hero, Steve. And we continue to cast the smaller roles-- the band, for instance. We think we found a perfect one, called Gone by Daylight. They're local to Western Massachusetts, where we're shooting. We were able to contact them because they have-- as every band must these days-- a Myspace page.

We're also working on getting either William Hurt or Matthew Modine to play Steve's father, who is a national TV news anchor. We can get to Modine via a back door, but with Hurt we have to go through agents, which is the most difficult route because agents tend to be interested only in big money projects-- understandably, because they make their living by getting ten percent of the actor's fee. This means, though, that actors often never see projects that they might be very interested in, because the material has been screened out by their agent.

It's important to get a "name" actor in the movie, because then we're all the more appealing to festivals and distributors. Commercial concerns aside though, it's a great part and would only require a couple days of work for the "name," and both Hurt and Modine are wonderful, so we'd have an even better movie!

- PH

Tsunami

2007-05-09T14:32:00.000-04:00

It's a strange phenomenon in the Arts: often, when you get to do what you really want-- as we are, making this feature film-- you have to do too much of it, without breaks. As though you were feeling really really thirsty, and were suddenly swept up by a Tsunami.

It seems ridiculous to complain, so I won't. But with 14 days left 'til the start of production, I'm working constantly and feeling a little stressed.

I love all of the work that I'm (we're) doing-- a list of every single shot we'll be going for, storyboards of the more difficult sequences, rights requests for things that will appear in the movie, revision of the script, communication with cast and crew, casting of the remaining roles, revision of the schedule, setting up the LLC, and so on...

It would just be nice to, maybe, watch a TV show or something. And now I have a cold, which makes me even more whiney. "Suck it up!" I hear the reader saying. Okay, okay.

As long as I'm still floating, the water is really nice.

- PH

Scouting

2007-05-07T13:32:00.000-04:00

Wow! Things are really moving fast now. We shoot in 16 days. We had a really good time scouting locations this weekend. We went to Turner's Falls, MA, a mill town right near our main shooting location, Lake Pleasant. We're looking for old, strange-looking locations which will contribute to the other-wordly quality of the movie. Not creepy or scary, really, but strange, not exactly in the real world. Turner's has a lot of that because of the beautiful, decrepit old mill buildings, canals and brick and wooden houses and business all from the 19th century or earlier.

We met Fred, a friendly, grizzled local guy, who lives in a cool little brick building (above) that we hope to dress and turn into the exterior of our police station. All we need is permission from the property owner and a sign, designed by our art department, that says "Thursley Police Station." I knocked on Fred's door when I realized that the window I was peeking in was actually somebody's house. He was a little wary at first but when I asked him if we could put his building in a movie he seemed pleased. As we talked I discovered that he grew up in Lake Pleasant, where the first 30 minutes of the movie is set. He was really excited to hear that Lake Pleasant is featured in a movie.

He'd been picking fiddle heads, a local spring delicacy, that afternoon. He gave me a bag of them for supper. Marina Goldman, one of our producers, cooked them up in a stir-fry at our meeting later that night. They were delicious.

Things like this seem to happen everyday.

- LF

The Puffy Chair!

2007-05-05T23:12:00.000-04:00

Our filmmaking friends Jay and Mark Duplass are giving us permission to quote their great feature film, The Puffy Chair, in our movie, Bridge of Names.

We have a scene set in a movie theater in which our hero, Steve, smooches with his young amour Agnes while a movie plays in the background. Jay and Mark were initially all for it, but then we told them the scene we want to use, and they realized that it is a climactic moment in their movie.

They were afraid-- quite reasonably-- that if people saw the scene from their movie projected on a screen in our movie, they'd skip The Puffy Chair because they'd know what happened. But I assured them that if I saw the crazy thing that happens in their movie (I'm not going to tell you what it is) then I would have to see The Puffy Chair.

So Jay and Mark said "Yes." And made us very happy.

So rent up The Puffy Chair on Netflix or GreenCine and see what the hell I'm talking about! It's funny and sad and smart and exciting and everything else a movie should be.

- PH

More fun to be a pirate than join the navy...

2007-05-03T17:50:00.000-04:00

A guest-post from our friend Dan Roentsch, who will be doing the FX for Bridge of Names using a program called Shake-- the same one used on big-budget movies like King Kong...

I was going through the voluminous Shake manual, which is actually a textbook itself, and I was employing a technique to create a hard matte inside a softer matte (which really makes a difference in the quality of the final image). I was looking at an image of Chuck Willey, the lead in The McO Filter, and a part of my brain said -- like a reflex, "That is a film image."

Granted, I had color-corrected it, but the fact is the bit depth of the HVX allows for such subtle gradations between similar hues that a slight adjustment of contrast creates a film look. I know that I have seen this in Bridge of Names as well.

I also know that at Peter and Liz's exhibition the other night, and when people have seen footage from my shoot, they instantly want to know what it was shot on! I'm surprised at how they are taken with the clarity of the image which, almost a year into it, I have already started to take for granted.

But their surprise already reminds me of this important fact: with the skills we have, with the software, and with the hi resolution and media-less camera [Ed. note: the Panasonic HVX200], there is no necessary compromise in the quality of the film that would make the audience think, "Oh ... indie film" or "Oh, low-budget film."

In my researches it has become pretty apparent that the expenses associated with theatrical distribution are hard to recoup from box office receipts. The big money is in the film's video/dvd rental and sell-through. But according to John J. Lee in The Producer's Business Handbook, theatrical distribution is still important for branding the film.

So now the big question to me is, how necessary will the services of traditional theatrical distributors be in 5 or 10 years to the end of branding? And: can you DIY your own brand?

More and more the answer to the second question is becoming: yes. I don't think this means that professional publicists are going out of business, but rather that they are modifying their campaign tools. In the LumpenBlog's heyday, when I was writing an adventure a week, I had 2,000 readers a week, sometimes more.

To me, that's absolutely phenomenal. And in large part the reason was Google Adwords. I was, to a small extent, able to brand the LumpenBlog using that simple tool. And now Google is inviting me to use it to advertise on radio.

You guys are experiencing your own adventures in branding. In the future I have no doubt we will be creating trailers, promoting the brands, plugging away, not trying to rival the reach that television has (today), but giving -- especially through the use of trailers -- Internet users the same thing that television commercials give to prospective audiences; to wit, a sense of having experienced a piece of the movie for themselves, and the sense that the opinion they form of it (before having seen it) is more important to them than word of mouth.

Scale won't be the same. But then, scale for television won't be the same in a few years. How many homes will have hi-res broadband capability in five years? How many people will be downloading entertainment from the Internet? How long before television and movie producers decide to release content simultaneously on the Internet (or only on the Internet)?

These are great times to be alive and doing what we are doing. I know I've suggested this to Peter before, but if you guys have a chance to see Pirates of Silicon Valley I suggest you take it. What's happening now because of the HVX cam and the computer is a lot like what was going on in the 80s because of advances like the 6502 Motorola chip.

- Dan Roentsch

Decibels

2007-05-01T02:26:00.000-04:00

Another party at the Tribeca Film Festival. I met a guy named Matt. At least I think that was his name. The music was so loud that I couldn't hear what he was saying. Liz and I left after ten minutes.

Why is it so common at events that are supposed to be "mixers"-- where people with common interests might make new acquaintances-- to have the music at such a high volume that, not only is conversation out of the question, but you end up with permanent hearing loss?

It's a tradition that seems descended from high school and college parties, where everyone was real shy and really just wanted to drink a lot of beer, go home, and throw up.

In my opinion, it's time to change the tradition.

- PH

Becoming a Natural Person

2007-04-30T00:52:00.000-04:00

This weekend we got a little time off, but not much. Actually, I don't know if going to a Tribeca Film Festival party is "time off." I don't like parties much, but I force myself to go, because, as is often said of the film industry, it's all about R & R.

No, not Rest & Relaxation.

Relationships & Relentlessness.

Any opportunity to meet people is important, and it's a good idea to treat it as a professional politician like Bill Clinton might, by getting business cards and taking notes, so that the next time you talk to someone you've met, you can be sure to remember their little dog Fifi, or whatever else they've told you. Does that sound cynical? Maybe, but it's also practical. The next time you talk to a new friend, if you can ask how well Fifi is recovering from surgery for laryngeal paralysis, chances are your new friend will like you better. And that's a good thing.

Other activities this weekend:

We ate crepes at a restaurant in SOHO called Palacinka with a very talented young actor named James Anderson, with whom we hope to work.

Added functionality to the blog-- now, if you want to be automatically alerted when there's a new post, you can get email updates by popping your email address into the box on the right-hand side of this page.

Made a new web page for Bridge, which you can see here. Note the credits at the bottom of the page. We'll be adding names as we go, and anyone who helps us out will be added to the "Special Thanks" list.

Communicated with our talented and very busy Gaffer, Christian Miller, about the list of equipment we'll need to rent and borrow for the shoot.

And we got a little bit closer to finishing the prospectus for Bridge of Names, LLC, the corporation we're forming to make the feature film. Forming a separate company for an independent film will protect our investors, and us, from catastrophe. Why?

The first artificial life-form was created not by scientists but by the U.S. Supreme Court. On May 10, 1886, it ruled that a corporation is a "natural person" entitled to the same rights and protections enjoyed by U.S. citizens, yet whose liability is strictly limited. So when a mine pollutes a water supply or a chemical dump poisons a school, the guilty corporation might absorb the fines but no one goes to jail.

James Carter
Sierra Magazine; Nov./Dec. 2001

Even though we're covered by a million dollars of insurance while we work on this movie, and despite the unlikelihood that we will poison any schools (figuratively or literally), we very much want, in the eyes of the law, to be a Natural Person, with strictly limited liability.

- PH

Women and movies

2007-04-26T10:49:00.000-04:00

Martha Lauzen, a professor at San Diego State University, found that the number of women working as directors, writers, producers and editors declined in 2006 from the year before, to 15 percent from 16 percent. And she estimated that the number of female executives in the studios is only slightly higher, perhaps 20 percent.

"Hollywood's Shortage of Female Power"
NY Times; April 26, 2007

Liz and I try to put a dent in these statistics by encouraging our female students to "fight the power" and form their own "girls' club." They often express surprise and skepticism when we tell them about the terrible gender imbalance in the film industry. Some think that by pursuing a "girls' club" strategy they might be relegating themselves to the margins. I tell them that they're in a girls club whether they see it or not, just because the boys (consciously or not) exclude them.

You can see this in a classroom setting all the time: Males compete with each other for access to the film equipment and for status (most knowledgeable, experienced, adept, etc.) The females wait politely for the males to finish their competition... which has been going on since prehistory and isn't likely to end soon. Consequently, I believe, women have to "leverage" (I hate that term) their outsider status by banding together and helping each other. Joining a group like CineWomen or Women Make Movies is a great start, and if there doesn't happen to be such an organization nearby, then women have to start their own.

As we crew our feature, Bridge of Names, we're trying to find as many hard-working, talented women as we possibly can. This is beneficial, not just from an ethical standpoint. An all-male crew is a tiresome thing, obsessively concerned with hierarchy-- boasting and preening and butting heads. When the estrogen count goes up, concerns about hierarchy tend to ease, and teamwork becomes more efficient.

Making movies is collaborative. We want our film crew to be a big happy family. And with more women on set-- it's no surprise-- the men are happier too.

- PH

Vikings

2007-04-26T01:22:00.000-04:00

I collected a bunch of phone numbers for Liz.

She makes the calls.

I'm terrible at asking people for things, and she's really good at it. Her philosophy is that she's actually giving something to people by recruiting their help: They get to participate in the creation of a movie, which is fun and communal, and adds a little extra meaning to their lives.

I admire this attitude, but, being raised in the Protestant/Scandinavian tradition, asking for things feels like... well, like a sin, or a sign of weakness... I'm making myself a burden to others instead of being strong and self-sufficient, like my Viking ancestors. (If you've ever read the Sagas of Icelanders, you know those Vikings didn't have much patience with weakness. Gangsters, really, they'd hunker down during winter, and when summer rolled around they'd climb into their ships and go rob and kill anybody they could find. Asking for things wouldn't have occurred to them.)

We need a coffin for a funeral scene, so Liz will be calling local funeral homes. She'll try to get as much as possible for free, in exchange for a credit at the end of the movie. She'll also be calling up a local lesbian nightclub to see if we can shoot there. She's so good at this kind of thing that I don't really feel worried about not getting these things.

We're also searching for a Stunt Coordinator, because our protagonist, Steve, is going to get bum-rushed by a bunch of drunk and angry Punk-rock kids.

Any time you have any kind of physical action during which there's even a remote chance that someone will get hurt, you've got to have a professional who can train the actors to move properly. It's hard to do a stunt so that the actors look-- on camera-- like they're really getting hurt, while actually being safe and sound.

As usual, we need someone who lives in the area, so that we don't have to pay for their room and board. So we're canvassing the theater departments of local colleges to find out who they use.

- PH

We're back!

2007-04-24T17:29:00.000-04:00

We're back from a weekend of screenings and location scouting. The screenings were again for cast, crew and investors, and they went great. With the manual forwarded to us by our friend Tom at Sony, I was able to get the Sony VPL FX-51 HD projector talking very sweetly to our Mac laptop. The quality of our 720p video images was kind of amazing. (I'm throwing in all these numbers in case others are having difficulties; they can find this post via Google and perhaps be encouraged that it's possible to get these two machines talking.)

The production schedule is coming into focus, and we concentrated on finding locations that we know we'll need soon.

It's April now, and you can see what we're up against. Things are still brown and leaf-less, but when we start shooting in late May, this spot above will be completely transformed. Who knows whether it will work?

We're searching for locations that are old and strange, in keeping with the tone of the movie so far. The challenge is to find great locations for different scenes, all within a tight radius, so that we can avoid losing a lot of time doing "company moves."

This railroad bridge is nice.

We both love this little house for one of our characters (the parked cars would have to go) but here's another challenge with location scouting: Talking to the owners.

If it's a public space, you're allowed to shoot, as long as you're not obstructing human and vehicular traffic or using firearms or that sort of thing. In NYC, it's often thought that you need a permit to shoot anywhere, but if you're in a public space and not using a tripod, you're fine. If you use a tripod, that's considered an obstruction, and you need a permit from the Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting.

If the property is privately owned, you have to deal with the owner. Some folks are thrilled by the idea of a movie being made on their property and welcome you with open arms. Others think that, because you're making a movie, you've got money, and try to get a fat fee out of you. The worst, though, are the people who are just mean, and tell you to get off their property and won't even talk to you. They're the ones with bodies buried in the back yard, no doubt.

Anyway, we're going to try to use our local connections to approach this home owner. That's sometimes better than just knocking on the door.

The mall above is far from "old and strange," but at a certain point in the story, Steve, our post-Punk hero, actually gets a job. This is probably where he'll be working. As a courtesy, we'll let the mall owners know that we'll be shooting outside their building, even though it's a public space. This small town doesn't issue formal shooting permits, as New York City does, but we'll write a letter to city council telling them what we're up to, and use our local contacts to get on the happy side of the police there.

We considered having Steve busk in front of this wall, but I think it looks too much like it's in Bermuda or something. I want every location to be readily interpretable by the movie's audience, so that they don't get distracted by the question "Where the hell are we?" Also, this wall is too far from the downtown area, where one would actually solicit donations.

We've got more location scouting to do, but now that we have a better sense of the schedule, it's time for me to start working on the storyboards!

- PH

And now a guest-post from our friend, filmmaker Patrick Downs...

2007-04-21T13:02:00.000-04:00

[The following opinions are not necessarily those of Elyria Pictures.]

Back in the early days of the last century, children, when people still commonly used the words pervert and perversion (above the Mason Dixon, even), and argued at length about these things, and how they related to Art, say, or Literature; back when Veritable Literary Giants roamed the Earth and had many Beefs (and really went toe-to-toe, not like this pissy little Marcus/Franzen cat fight – I mean, what is that? [1] ) – back then, kids, a smart man claimed that literature, real literature, could not possibly be written by perverts, and thus could not possibly, ever, be perverted.

And why not? (It works for me, after all; and anyone tempted to begin a response with Well, actually…can just stuff it, thank you. I’m working on it – that is, both.)

The answer went like this. It takes a lot of time and energy and craft to write a short story or a novel or a poem (this was back in the days before screenplays, children; they were called, when called at all, scenarios), and all that time sweating over paper and quill would keep a pervert from doing what he loves best: getting his perverted rocks off engaging in the perversion(s) of his choice.

Not a bad argument, even if it is a little pat. I mean, forget the pervert angle for a second; if you’re an avid rock climber, you’re probably not gonna spend all your time writing about rocks and the climbing thereof, right? You just do it. You go for your bliss. Or your junk. You get mom’s stilettos out and you moaningly squish the cricket. Whatever.

Umberto Eco took the conversation a step further and proposed a way to objectively distinguish porn from non-porn [2].

In a true porn film, the story takes a back seat to the action, pardon the expression. But some vestige of a story is still necessary. You can’t actually watch fucking, after all, for two straight hours. You need a break.

Eco proposed that elaboration or compression of dramatic action is fundamental to the art of narrative. Since porn is firstly about sex and only secondarily about story (see above), he said that we should find two things to be true about a porn film: one, sexual action is elaborated enormously, and two, other actions and events are neither elaborated nor compressed. If Ron Jeremy is delivering a pizza, the scene of the pizza delivery will take roughly the same amount of time that it would in life because nobody really gives a shit enough to make it longer or shorter -- in other words, to give it a shape. Cut to the chase indeed.

That’s not bad, either. It’s got a respectable objectivity with definitions and measurements and whatnot, and it would reliably differentiate, say, Shortbus [3] from a Jenna Jameson vehicle [4].

But of course not even Eco could have seen the Saw franchise [5] coming … and isn’t that what we mean by ‘horror-porn’ or ‘torture-porn’? We mean the mushrooming, the engorged expansion, of a certain kind of action (in this case, horrible and/or torturous action) beyond all proportion with the other dramatic stuff in a film. I mean, narratively, Saw is no more complex than a stay in a Skinner box [6] – for characters and audience, frankly -- with very little in the way of positive reinforcements.

But doesn’t that beg the question of the right proportions (dramatically, not curvaceously)? Lately I’ve been hearing this word porn tossed around a lot. Baby porn. Car porn. Food porn. In every case, it points to a squeamishness about hedonistic consumption or excess, too much attention paid to a thing which overwhelms the thing’s stated purpose. The stated purpose of a show about food is to learn a little about cooking, and maybe a better way to appreciate food; but food porn is about lavish slavish attention to the food-experience itself, turning an event -- or whatever you’d like to call a thing with a function or a purpose or a lesson -- into a pure spectacle. Porn.

Many times porn is also the bad conscience of comfortable people who realize that, while other people might be less comfortable, pardon us but that’s just too damned bad, don’t spoil the fun. It’s porn because you are actually well-off enough to have extra time to spend just wasting your seed. Willy nilly.

But that’s just it: MOVIES ARE SPECTACLES. They’re thrill rides. Bad seeds. That’s one kind of fun to be had at the movies – for many people, the only kind of fun. And movies have always been that way … if someone wants to explain how the Lumiere’s train coming into the station [7] represents a dramatic narrative, be my guest blogger. But I think the point, in 1895, was something more like oh shit, that train looks so real it’s like it’s gonna hit me! (And no, the extra significance of a train coming into the station is not lost on us). In that sense, Saw is not only nothing new; it’s directly connected to the birth of cinema – just with more close-ups … and viscera and afterbirth and everything but the batteries included. F is for Fake, indeed. Jenna and Orson both know all about it.

Now, why am I bringing all this up?

This week I read two short plays and saw excerpts from a kind of media production. The plays were titled Richard McBeef and Mr. Brownstone [8]; the excerpts came from what was rather too glibly described as a “multimedia manifesto” [9], but which was in fact one part press packet and one part mumbo-jumbo memoir of a tragically disturbed mass murderer.

This so-called manifesto didn’t just reference images from the ultraviolent Korean revenge film Oldboy [10]. It referred to Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris in a way that turned the narrative of Columbine into a genre, one that evoked not only Oldboy, but the tropes and conventions of crime-action films and first-person-shooter games. Those pictures were banal, sad, horrifying – and genre clichés.

Now I teach film classes at New York Film Academy, Columbia University, and Sara Lawrence College, and my first thought was: what if I had a student who wrote like this? There was a lot of attention paid in the news media (I won’t quite call it porn) to the content of the plays and other writings in particular – as if that were the chief indication of a disturbed mind. Forget the passive-aggressive and outright aggressive, boundary-violating behavior of the writer in and out of classrooms; what was referenced again and again? The literary elements of bad language and nasty dramatic action.

And the thing is, the plays read like a lot of the crap I frequently have to read as a teacher: a confused, turgid morass of sadism and juvenile humor, narcissistic suffering and limp-bizkit-ish posturing, a soupy concatenation of every violent movie cliché ever written, the contents of gangsta lyrics without the beats or the rhymes. Pure artless masculinist id.

Tell me what differentiates a Cho rant from a Quentin rant:

http://www.motionographermedia.com/jarrattmoody/intonation.mov

If I said “beauty”, would that really be wrong? And is that an aesthetic category, a moral category, or both?

So my first argument, as a certain kind of good white male liberal, is that there is no relationship, no significant relationship, between literary output on the one hand and mental state or behavior on the other; that the two are completely separate; that a well-adjusted person can write incredibly violent, sadistic, misogynistic stuff and be perfectly …well, happy maybe, and if not happy, at least not mentally disturbed.

And that’s true…

…except I don’t buy it.

I’m not making some tired bible-thumper argument about copycat violence and the artist’s responsibility to censor herself or any of that (although if censorship is bad for art, can someone please explain Iranian cinema to me?). That type of fatuous posing is past tired, along with all the criticisms of NBC for airing Cho Seung-hui’s rants. You know what? Yeah, it was puerile. Know what else? Their ratings went through the roof.

The news has always been puerile. WTF you think muckraking means? It has always been about blood and violence and people behaving badly. We call it news so we can consume it without feeling like assholes. We’re not pissed off when the news covers Anna Nicole 24/7 cradle to grave because they’re perverting the news; we’re pissed because they’re not trying hard enough to keep up the sham that the news is anything but.

And who exactly was doing all that watching of The Virginia Tech Massacre, if everybody thought it was shameful and wrong?

Yeah, I know, and nobody voted for Nixon and you just accidentally stumbled onto that weird porn site – literal porn, now -- while imdb-ing BJ and the Bear and you just couldn’t remember that darned chimp’s name.

The news coverage is itself playing with genre conventions as surely as anti-Westerns like Unforgiven. Call it the anti-American Dream. The story says that if you are an immigrant family, and you work hard, and you play your cards right, you can partake of all that is good and bountiful in this shining city on a hill.

We all know it’s not true. But we tell ourselves it’s true, just like we tell ourselves that if we are good people, people will be good to us; that the world is, more or less, a just place; that our lives cannot jump from order and harmony to chaos and insanity in the time it takes some asshole to point and click.

And you know what else?

We – and I do insist on we, in this instance – we were utterly transfixed by the reminder that life is fragile and tenuous. Sanity is fragile and tenuous. We live so much in denial of our animality, in denial of our own death, though it’s certain and it’s going to be very, very specific even as it partakes of the ultimate genre, the one that includes every living thing . We’re utterly transfixed when that denial is pierced if only for a moment. Or for a news cycle.

Someone tell me why that should be shameful?

But getting back to the issue of writing as such: surely there’s some relationship between what you write and who you are, between what you write to the world and what you do to the world. I mean, I’ve never been able to figure why it’s cool to find Caligari to Hitler deep and provocative on the one hand and then not to ask…well, what is the relationship between art and morality, then? Is an artist forecasting the zeitgeist, reflecting the zeitgest, performing the zeitgeist, creating the zeitgeist? All of the above?

And by the way, I’m not squeamish. Yeah, I think Saw is trash, but I happen to think Audition [11], for instance, is an astonishing piece of work – even though, the first time I saw it, I had to look away from the screen twice and openly gagged once (Dogbowl scene. Those who know, know.)

Philosophers have this slick word to characterize relatedness without actually having to say what exactly you mean. Cool trick, right? It’s supervenience [12]. If I say moral facts are supervenient upon natural facts, I’m claiming that morality is somehow related to reality, but I’m not saying exactly how, and you can bet it’s more complicated than you think. These are philosophers, after all, and when they get tired of philosophy they become lawyers.

For instance, there is no alternate universe such that the facts of the Holocaust, exactly as they are in this universe, can be construed so the Holocaust comes out as a moral good. Thus we say that the moral facts of the Holocaust are supervenient upon the natural facts of the Holocaust. But exactly how or why? That there’s what we call details, and I leave those to philosophers and my lawyer and my accountant. Yes, she hates me this week.

And so surely we’re not saying there’s no relationship between writing behavior and other behavior -- it’s all behavior, right? --or between behavior and who you are. Perhaps we could say that writing behavior, any creative behavior, is supervenient upon who you are as a person. The moral facts of your writing are supervenient upon the natural facts of your person.

Take Poe. Much of his output was in the genre of horror short fiction. Shoot, he practically invented the genre. And was it sheer coincidence that he was not exactly the most well-tempered of individuals? How about Plath? Confessional and suicidal. de Sade? Do you doubt he did harm in ways that correspond with his writing? And what about Yukio Mishima?

Do we excuse Mishima for a) his lack of shall we say military success or b) his great literary success? If Cho Seung had been less effective at the one or more effective at the other, would our assessment of him change?

And if you think that’s a disgusting or sensational or unfair or even just an idle question, think about it a little more.

For that matter, what about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

What do I mean by that? Well, it’s not art. In fact, it was intended to be read and believed, treated as fact. What we call a hoax.

But it is a literary invention, is it not? It has characters, dialog, actions, a narrative. Though it is crude and racist and even downright silly, it’s an invention nonetheless. It arose from a creative impulse -- or do I mean a destructive impulse?

What about the Egyptian TV mini-series based, in part, on the Protocols? What about Mein Kampf? Leni Riefenstahl?

How do you distinguish, I mean really distinguish, a creative impulse from a destructive impulse, a creative act from a destructive act? Is it even possible, let alone important, to make that distinction?

And if we decide that it’s both important to try and impossible to achieve…what then? Is tragedy the best we can do?

What about Napoleon is not a mass murderer but a goddamn Veritable Historical Giant? If you think all the historians and history buffs are hanging their heads at every mention of the many ways Napoleon managed to advance the cause of death in the world, then you’re a helluvalot more optimistic than I am. But let’s be real. Nobody thinks that. Point is, maybe we don’t think much about it, either.

Where does the creative life – the life of representations, and figures, and symbols --- where does that life end and “real” life begin? And what does morality have to do with it?

P.S. I realize that, as my first guest blog here, it’s a little like when you’re all standing around at a party, talking about work and shooting the shit, and then that guy rolls up who’s like, hi, nice to meet you, and ten seconds later he’s buttonholing you about the central African cobalt wars and how I notice your cell phone is made of cobalt, or else he is personally fascinated with bestiality probably because of that thing that happened with his nephew.

But I’m actually kind of smiley and nice in person.

Come to think of it, that guy usually is too. And he usually has footnotes.

[1] http://www.harpers.org/archive/2005/10/0080775

[2] http://www.amazon.com/Six-Walks-Fictional-Woods-Umberto/dp/0674810511

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8A1dwEhSMY

[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbbBlu70c1o

[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKKk9Om8v7w

[6] http://www.psychology.uiowa.edu/Faculty/wasserman/Glossary/Skinner Box.html

[7] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgLEDdFddk

[8] http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0417071vtech1.html

[9] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18185859/

[10] http://www.beyondhollywood.com/gallery/did-cho-seung-hui-copied-park-chan-wooks-oldboy/

[11] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhsrsWcEspc

[12] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/supervenience/

Machines that don't like each other

2007-04-19T20:04:00.000-04:00

We're doing two more screenings for cast, crew and investors of the footage we've shot so far on Bridge of Names, one in Massachusetts (where we're shooting) and one in NYC (our home base.)

In NYC we're borrowing a $10K HD projector, which we tested on Monday. No surprise-- the test went very poorly.

Our...

... was not on friendly terms with the...

The image quality was horrific. And since I shot this movie, horrific is not happening.

So I've been researching the issue. Normally I'd have my assistant take care of it, but I don't have an assistant.

I contacted Sony support to ask if their projector would talk to Macs. They didn't know.

I looked for the projector's manual online. Sony didn't put the "ops man" for this one online.

I talked to a friend at Sony, and he was able to send me the manual, and give me some suggestions to try on Monday-- right before the damned screening.

But at least, with the manual, I've got a fighting chance. (Thanks, Tom!)

All of this new technology does amazing things. It's also amazing how few people know how to use it.

We're on the cutting edge, I guess.

- PH

Breakdown (Calm)

2007-04-18T09:50:00.000-04:00

For those just joining this diary about the making of the feature film Bridge of Names, you might want to go back to the very first post to get a sense of what's going on. And you can see some clips of what's been shot so far here.

Now, it's time to break down, but not nervously...

This is a breakdown sheet. (Click on it to make it bigger.) It represents a single scene from the feature script. There's a sheet for every scene, on which vital information is inserted. We read carefully through a scene, looking for things like FX, props, costumes, cast members, extras, vehicles, and on and on. Each of these becomes an "element." You can see that for scene 3 above, it's an interior, the "set" is known as "Ye Olde Watering Hole," and the scene takes place at night.

In the upper right hand corner, note the number of script pages this scene fills (one.) While this scene happens to be one page even, scenes are measured in eighths of a page-- as in "3/8"-- for greater precision. (By the way, one page of properly formatted script is approximately one minute of screen time in the final movie.)

In the "Synopsis" box, we insert three or four words (maximum) that will communicate the essence of the scene to those looking at the schedule. The "Script page(s)" box indicates that scene 3 occurs on page 1 of the script. "Script Day" indicates that it takes place on the first day of the story. When the characters go to bed and get up again, we enter a new script day. However, if we jump ahead three weeks, for example, we move ahead by only one script day.

On this sheet, we haven't yet filled in "Unit," which, on a larger show, would indicate that, for example, the production's 2nd unit was being used to shoot a car chase. Second units usually do work that doesn't involve the stars; this is efficient, because the 2nd unit can then take care of-- often incredibly complex and challenging-- portions of the script, while the the first unit is shooting scenes with the stars. In our case, though, we highjack the "Unit" slot and use it to indicate what time of day we expect to shoot a scene.

"Sequence" is a group of related scenes, given a name as reference. "Location" will indicate where we'll actually be shooting the scene-- not necessarily at Ye Olde Watering Hole. Finally, in the box at the bottom of the sheet, you can see each of the Elements necessary for the scene.

While this is not a nervous breakdown, I do get a bit nervous thinking about all of the scenes, and all of the details involved. If any detail is omitted, or screwed up somehow, the results can be disastrous. As that dead guy, Marcus Aurelius, said: "The secret to all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious."

We're now in an intensive search for the non-obvious.

- PH

Chess

2007-04-16T16:08:00.000-04:00

Liz is a master producer, and scheduling is one of her many areas of expertise. As we work together on the schedule, I've been learning from her, and I'll try to pass it on...

Using the EP Scheduling software actually makes the process kind of fun-- it feels like a board game as you manipulate the "strips," which you can see below are multicolored horizontal bands, each one of which represents a scene. The black bands mark the end of a shoot day.

Imposing order on an unruly collection of scene strips is a complex art, but you start out simply. Group the scene strips according to a hierarchy of common denominators: 1) Location; 2) Day/Night; 3) Interior/Exterior; and 4) Cast members needed. This hierarchy may get inverted later, but it's a start.

In the image above-- click it for a bigger version -- you can see that Liz gathered all the scenes set in "Amelia's House" and put them in the Day 5 section. Because of limited access, we need to shoot every last thing that takes place in Amelia's house on that day. Even if we could come back and shoot more, we have to keep to an absolute minimum the number of "company moves"-- packing up gear and moving to another location. They take a huge amount of time and energy.

Within the "Location" group, strips are clustered according to whether they occur during the day or night, which is a lighting issue. Within that group-- down to level 3 now in the hierarchy-- strips are placed together depending on whether they occur indoors or out. That way we don't have to march inside and outside repeatedly.

Finally, cast members' schedules have to be considered. If an actor is only available for part of our "Amelia's House" shoot day, that will affect the scene strips too.

Scheduling is as deep as a game of chess, and these are just the opening moves. I'm glad Liz is a Grand Master.

- PH

Vacation?

2007-04-15T18:53:00.000-04:00

We haven't posted since Thursday, but not because we haven't been doing things. We've been up 'til 3 and 4 in the morning every night working on the movie. Actually, on Saturday we took time off during the day to walk our Huskies, Homer and Coady, to the Silver Moon Bakery. Coffee for us, but the dogs got nothing. We dropped them at home and next went for a stroll through Chelsea in search of interesting art. Knowing that Sunday would be washed away by the Nor'easter, we decided to spend as much time outdoors as we could. But in the evening we got back to business.

Among other things, I've been placing music cues in the rough cut of the first third of Bridge of Names. (Go here for an explanation of "first third.") One of the cues, that seemed not to fit, now seems to fit, which is encouraging. (You can hear two previously rejected cues by going here-- but I won't tell you which is the keeper.) I wanted some music in the cut so that when we have our next two screenings for cast, crew and investors, the movie will be all the more flavorful and seductive. The thing about showing people rough cuts is that-- though you can tell them that it's rough and even be specific about what will get changed-- it has to be as final as possible, because they usually aren't so forgiving, and have a hard time imagining future improvements while faced with present glaring flaws. So this rough cut is actually really tight. Even so, it will get better.

We haven't taken what other people call a "vacation" for more than ten years. Rather than going to the Bahamas, we make a new movie. That might sound like self-sacrifice, but it's not. It's what makes us happy-- it is a vacation for us.

Now, unfortunately, it's time to take time off from working on the movie... to file our tax extensions!

- PH

Little clips

2007-04-12T02:00:00.000-04:00

So, the reason for the post below is that Dan Roentsch pointed out that the movie clips I'd uploaded were huge and took forever to download.

Now I've made smaller files, and you'll see that they're literally small: Small pictures, but now in the right aspect ratio, and looking good, if tiny.

Hopefully they won't be so slow to download, and will give you a rough idea of what the movie looks (and sounds) like.

One clip from the feature, Bridge of Names, is here, and another is here.

And here's a new clip from our award-winning short, Accidents Will Happen.

Wow, this web stuff is complicated.

- PH

Technical stuff

2007-04-11T23:15:00.000-04:00

This post will only be of interest to people moving their 16:9 720p video from Final Cut Pro to the web. I don't claim any expertise in the matter-- I'm just reporting what worked for me.

In FCP...

File > Export > Using Quicktime Conversion...

Then, next to "Quicktime Movie," click on "Options":

Click "Settings":

Choose the stuff you see below-- or you could lower the quality to "High" rather than "Best":

Now, an important decision: Dimensions. Choose "Custom" and then choose a height and width that are both divisible by 4. The width must be 1.78 times the height, or you'll lose the 16:9 aspect ratio. If you choose dimensions that are too large, the file size becomes unwieldy.

Now "okay" out of that box, which will leave you back here:

You want either Hinted Streaming or Fast Start. The sound settings above are fine.

Hope this works for you!

- PH

Success!

2007-04-11T11:15:00.000-04:00

After a lot of experimentation, and no help from the Final Cut Pro manual or various online sources-- including Apple (which had an error in its recommended Javascript code that my brother Dave caught)-- I've finally got a new clip from Bridge of Names streaming online with the right aspect ratio.

Now our actors (Robert Postrozny and Rachel Zeiger-Haag) don't look like they have really tall heads! And you can better appreciate the lighting work of our Gaffer, Christian Miller.

You can see the clip here. It's a big file, so wait a minute or so for it to fully download before pressing the play button. Otherwise it will stop and start. And if you've got a dial-up connection, forget it.

Please let us know if it works on your machine.

- PH

Hats

2007-04-10T20:18:00.000-04:00

The thing about being an artist is that you not only have to create the art, but you have to make sure people see it too. Creation is the fun part, for me.

Along with tagging the script and beginning to look at the schedule, I've been finding new ways to show off the work we've already done. Our friend and actor, Robert Postrozny, is really good at what-- for lack of a more pleasant term-- I'll call marketing. He loves to torment me by giving me advice like "you should have a Myspace page" or "you should puts some clips on the web." Like I don't have enough to do? But he's right, of course. As I type this, a video clip is uploading to our site.

After it's uploaded, I'll see if the HTML code I wrote for one of the pages on ElyriaPictures.com will properly trigger the video, so that anyone can watch it. I'm not sure if it will work, because I've never done it-- I'm teaching myself how by reading about it on various Googled websites.

I just tried it. Nope, didn't work. Something isn't quite right, so that when I click on the new link, I get an error message. Now I'll spend more time researching the issue. Hopefully, when it works properly, it will be an improvement on our Myspace page, which refuses to play our clips at the correct aspect ratio (width compared to height.)

- PH

Strips

2007-04-09T01:02:00.000-04:00

The blurry image above is an example of the scheduling "strips" that we use to decide which scenes to shoot on a given day. (If you click on the image, it will become big and clear.) Yesterday I finished giving each scene an identifying phrase, such as "Steve busks," which will then be used as a "log line" that will appear on schedules that we hand out to cast and crew. This lets everyone know roughly what happens in a scene that we're going to shoot, and gives everyone a way to discuss the scene without resorting to the scene's number, which no one can easily remember.

I also began to label each of the scenes with a "script day" number, which is equal to the day in the story on which a given scene occurs. For example, the first scene in Bridge of Names occurs on day 1. But scene 11 occurs on day 2, because the characters have gone to bed and had a rest, and gotten up the next day.

If you're anal retentive, like me, this process is kind of satisfying-- like knitting for other people, I guess. We also have to be careful that, for each scene, we've listed the props, characters, extras, special effects, etc., that will appear. It's painstaking work, but if we don't do it, then we'll get to the set and realize that we don't have, say, Steve's guitar, when he'll need to be strumming during the shot.

I don't mean to suggest that I'm doing this alone. Liz is hard at work on this, and other important preproduction stuff.

- PH