2nd to Last Day

We shot four day's worth of stuff today. Here's a helpful little hint from me to you as you wander through this journey that is life: Don't ever do that!

Jeff Plunkett and Ben Sulzbach doing, what? A do-si-do?

Kathleen cuts her way through the forcefield.

Some weird arty thing I shot a few frames of because it amused me.

Sarah Doudna is irritated with Cub (Greg Bodine).

Jeff Plunkett is always amazing.

Oh, and we only did 96 setups. We just can't seem to break 100...

Pictures of Relevance

I've been doing a crappity job of taking stills on Angry Planet. I used to be so good at it. But now that our shoot is down to 10 days (from 20), I just haven't had the time. Yet still we've got some of the best stills we've ever had. Jef Betz and Brian Schiavo have really done a bang up job.

Just yesterday I was saying that the stills are the most important part of the shoot. I say that all the time. Everyone thinks I'm joking.

I'm not.

A 35 and 85 Day

We really only used two lenses today -- the 35mm and the 85mm. I tried to use the 50mm once and then swapped it out for the 85.

Most of what we shot was lovely. Toward the end of the day we had a couple shots which looked kinda static I felt. Not this one. I was going for some kind of pre-Raphaelite thing here.

Now I am drunk on Limoncello. yay me.

Opening version 15

Mandatory Picture

I just had to.

More than that, Mac Rogers' Universal Robots is being published.

I did a radio ad for the play.

My only question is: what is Mac writing for me right now?

"Nothing" is the resounding answer. He thinks that because I'm already working on some movie, that we should wait 'till after we're long done to start to write the next one.

He's going to lose out anyway because we're going to shoot Brian Schiavo's movie in just a few short months.

Daryl takes a look

What we need here is an army of alien robots.

0701 scene 20 wide live action plate 01

We must composite a crashed alien ship into a destroyed city in this image.

I do in fact have a .tga version of this still. The camera has a 50mm lens and does not move. That is, the camera is locked.
I am thinking that the destroyed city is along the ridge. No trees, greenery, or vegetation will be visible.
Note that there is a little vignetting in the upper left. That was my fault.
Also note that we are framing for a 2.40:1 frame so there will be even less at the top than we see here. But we must protect for 1.85:1 and 1.33:1.

More better faster

Brian has provided more stills from the set of Angry Planet.

0701 Brian Lightbox Pictures

0701 brian lightbox pictures 2

And Kathleen's husband, Ed Bae, took these pictures while we were in the quarry:

0701 Ed Bae angry_planet

Here's his website. He shoots headshots!

Working some CG

Here's a test of the opening of Angry Planet.



Update: this version below is vastly better.

Syncing feeling

Angry Planet Update
OK, so all the takes are synced up to now. We've found there are a few missing shots which we need, of course. We might need to go back to the quarry, or at least to the roof of a building, to get a couple of them.
Instead of torturing my poor parents with our shooting in their house again, it looks like we're going to shoot a couple days at Manhattan Theatre Source instead. Logistically it's so much easier for everyone to get there anyway. It's noisy though, they're doing massive renovations on the Church of Christ, Scientist, next door. But I don't care if we have to ADR the whole dang movie, I want it done!
I have half a scene edited. I may just go in and start editing a few things. We certainly need stuff like the robot fight completed in order to start the CG on it.
How did you let me post without a picture?
Update: whew. A picture.

2.4 to One

I'm doing some experiments with cropping the 16:9 image to 2.40:1. I don't have any kind of calibration marks on my monitor so I sorta kinda guess what it's going to look like when cropped. I feel that I shot Millennium Crisis too "tight" or close - up. So I tried to widen out a bit for Angry Planet.
Here is the cropped version of scene 17. I also sank some blacks, juiced some whites, and played with the gamma a bit.
That's (from left to right) Greg Bodine, Ben Sulzbach (seated, facing away), Ben Thomas, Jeff Plunkett, Sarah Doudna, (in the far background) Barbara Mundy and Alana Jackler, and (in the cowboy hat and boots) our Jef Betz.

Prison Planet

Daryl Boling and Kathleen Kwan reflect.

Kathleen has some wine.

LOL sanity

My new addiction is to sunlight. A single point-source light which is as bright as... well... the sun.

It's completely uncontrollable, unpredictable (due to clouds), and God's electrics department never goes into overtime -- when the shop steward calls "sunset" and "darkness" no amount of persuasion by the producer will get them to keep the sun going for "just 15 more minutes while we get this shot".

But oh... Oh what it looks like! And how it streams through windows with its perfectly straight beams. Oh oh oh!

Here's Kathleen Kwan being blessed by some of that self same light as an elevator closes on her hopes and dreams as Athena in Angry Planet.

And now:






What, you don't like LOL cats?

What's wrong with you?



In any case, you might very well be interested in an album of photographs by the wonderful actor and photographer Jef Betz.

0701 Jef Betz 2nd weekend

And if you're teaching lighting, I just ran into this interesting post which simply shows front, front diffused, back, and side - lighting.

Day 7 Part III

Only 87 setups today. We're slowing down. . .

This first image is an iconic notion I thought of a week ago. I really wanted Jef Betz to put his boots up on the table and we'd make one of those Western-type paintings of cowboys playing cards. This was shot with my new 35mm Canon S.S.C. lens. I got it for like $45 off of eBay.

Our secret weapon on this movie has been Brian Schiavo. He's done all our complex makeup effects and made all our props like guns and such. Here's Jeff Plunkett as a mutant (in the script he's a "zombie hag" although it makes more sense for him to be a mutant.)

Maduka Steady replaces Lindsey Robert's hand. I'd planned this to originally be a CGI shot but... well... Brian had a mechanical hand. I mean, he just had one lying around for some reason.

I asked Daryl to laugh manically in this scene. Maybe I did that just to amuse me?

Entire body hurts today. Concrete floor... eergh.

Day 7 part Too

Showdown.

Showdown II.

Alana Jackler runs toward the chaos.

Ben Sulzbach holds his own.

On the Seventh Day

Ben Thomas holds a gun on Daryl Boling while Jeff Plunkett...

Diana Ferrante and James Becton.

Greg Bodine and Kathleen Kwan.
This will not end well.

Jeff Plunkett is "The Dispenser".

Kathleen Kwan.

Day 6 part 2

Poor Diana as a corpse. JB looks on. . . (yes, that's a pharma patch on his neck).

Jason Howard being enabled by a bottle of the planet's finest hooch.

Athena, Corvette-Class combat android is here. She wants you to do something for her.

Kathleen Kwan shows Daryl Boling how to use a very big gun (A BFG, in fact.)

Does shooting directly into the sun hurt the CCD?

Day 6 part 1

Daryl Boling and Jason Howard. Both of them are playing with their shoes for some reason.

Daryl and Jason again.

Daryl Boling and Kathleen Kwan through the window.

Daryl Boling and Kathleen Kwan. Athena wants something.

Day 5 part 2

Kathleen Kwan, Greg Bodine, Jason Howard and Diana Ferrante.

Blogging Drunk

Our first day at the Lightbox.

Ben Thomas drinks.
A friendly card game with Ben Thomas, Greg Bodine, Sarah Doudna, and Lindsey Roberts.

Barbara Mundy and Henry Maduka Steady look on.

Daryl Boling, Alana Jackler, and Jason Howard talk about... things.

Surprising me

It looks like it'll take an hour and 17 minutes for me to get from Brooklyn to the soundstage.

841 BARRETTO ST