Thursday, May 31, 2012

Your Things From The Pandora Machine


Tom Rowen needs a laptop for picture editing.
 
Dragon Girl: Steve Niles gave me a rewrite of a rewrite of a rewrite (or something like that.) It's great.

Fountain. It's a markup language for screenplays. No, actually it's much more interesting than that. All it is is a standard screenplay format that's easy to type in and that will import into other programs so it "looks" like a screenplay.
One big advantage is that it looks reasonable when you're typing in it. It's not like looking at raw HTML (which is just unreadable).
The other is that it's free, easy-to-use, and works with any word processor (by definition).
Right now the Pandora Machine standard is Celtx. And don't get me wrong, Celtx is cool. But Google Docs might be cooler.
+++++
Here are notes we got on the Dragon Girl script. I'd asked about the level of violence in the movie:

In all honesty, the bottom line is: just make the best possible movie that you can.

Keep in mind that kids movies set in a dystopian world really don't work that well - kids don't quite understand the difference. Not sure family movies work well in that context either. The best would be to set the story in a medieval time period...yes, I know it makes it a lot harder because you can't use brooklyn as a back drop. Maybe the girl and few knights go through a time portal into an alternate modern day in search of / or looking to stop the dragon(s).

For 14yrs old and up, as you know, they're all into the manga /world of warcraft/ call of duty-esque action/violence. To appeal to them, there has to be fun gore - like a dragon biting off heads.

Either way, you don't want to end up with a 'tweener'.

Yes, it's tough..of course if it was easy, then everyone would be doing it...

Latest versions

Yes. Instead of a whiteboard or some stickys attached to my monitor, I put my notes up on this blog. 
Trust me, it's as exciting to us as it is to you.


10013
350 Canal 
212.966.9573


PAL/NTSC DBC tapes for AI in the vault were received on 17 April 2012 -- 1101 is version "e".


0801 is version C


White glue


The smaller screws for the head need to be 1/2" longer (1" total).


You know what we need here in the Forbidden Palace? A ceiling fan. I love ceiling fans.


An interview with the costume designer of Game of Thrones.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Brain = off

I had a conversation with costume designer Melissa Schlachtmeyer the other day where she was saying that in a dramatic production you must determine the "world" first. And I was all like "You have to figure out the relationships first."
Winston doing what he does best.
And she was "I'm totally right about this."
So I realized that I was probably thinking about it upside-down and I did some more thinking.
+++++
My mistake was a common one. I was ignoring the part of production that was easy for me and focusing on the thing I had to work at. "World building" is a fairly base level thing for my little brain. It's sort of like a task that runs in the background.
++++
Of course the world comes first. And it's not built from the individual character outward. You have to know what the world is in order to (for instance) figure out what everyone is wearing. Sheesh! Why I so dumb?
Well... there's a reason I'm so dumb...
That old cliche of movie trailers where the guy intones "In a world where..." and then goes on to "One guy/girl/robot/well-meaning rabbit must..." you really have the most fundamental things about your story. You have to fill in the blanks. In a world where _________ one dude/princess/rat-of-NIMH must ________.
And although I know that, I don't actually pay attention to that in day-to-day life. I mostly pay attention to cats. Sometimes sparkly things. Sniff sniff... ooh! Is someone baking something? ;-)

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

More waking catzen!

Winston after temporary awakening.

What is up with that spot on Meydl's nose? It moves around, changes shape...

Meydl is obviously very disturbed about being woken up for pictures.

I Love Waking Cats

C'mon. You have to admit that waking up cats is seriously fun and entertaining.
Meydl scrunched up in the back of a chair. 

"Wake up! I want to take a picture of you!"

Meydl goes back to sleep immediately after this. Note sproingy feet. 

Staff Pick

Ian Hubert's Earthkiller is a Staff Pick over at BlendSwap.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Reading Share Thai

This is very important somehow. I'm not 100% sure of how yet. But it is. It's the algorithm for the Reddit ranking system.
I've been reading this book "Quarter Share" by Nathan Lowell. It has a shocking lack of dramatic tension in it, even though it's pretty compelling in the "ooh it would be so cool to be on a space-freighter"-way. Which it would be.
Buy Earthkiller in Thailand!

Blurrykatzen

Cats love my dad. They're also very blurry. You'll notice that the "no paws on the table" — rule isn't even a suggestion anymore. Any cat. Any table. Any paws. 

Winston

Winston is hard to photograph because he's so dark. I put a box over the flash to get this. He loves my red sweatshirt. 

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Communications

Continuing my post-mortem on the shoot of The Prometheus Trap:
I'm very happy about having bought some six radios for this movie. Firstly, these kids nowadays with their cheap Family Band Radios have it good. These things are cheap. And they're rechargeable.



And they work. They probably have a practical range of a quarter a mile, which for us is all we need.
One thing I hate is having to yell all day long. And when you're in an echoic environment like a big warehouse it gives you a headache just to try to hear people.
But radios? With headsets?


That's paradise.
You don't have to yell. Everyone (who hasn't accidentally unplugged their headset) can hear. And talk.
Now, of course, this required the characters to be on radio. Which for most movies is absurd. But oh man it was nice.
Now, I'll admit that running multiple lines of audio into my brain is something I'm sort of trained to do.  I used to do audio for broadcast which involves listening to various competing conversations while mixing a show. I was not the best at it, I was at the bottom part of the top rung. Or, as I used to say, "Of the very best, I'm among the worst." Or, more accurately, "Of those who can do it, I'm the most expendable." None of the other (better) engineers ever contradicted me when I said that.
Anyway, where was I? Ah. Yes. Communication. So sweet.  O! That all the director's commands could be delivered like a whispered threat into each person's ear.
Now, we can certainly make it easier for me to hear everyone on set. Just throw a wireless lav on each actor and having someone mix to a Comtek that goes to me. As long as a big ol' limiter is on that feed to me I'd be fine.

Things for Me, Things for You

Nat Cassidy has a fundraiser for his Fringe show "Mixtape".
Have I explained that I need this T-shirt as well as this one?
 And the color is right for me too.


CLA FEH

Every few weeks now a company called Content Lizenz Agentur tells Google that they own the rights to one of my movies.
It Looks like they have a pretty good scam running. If I dispute they'll just tell Google they made an innocent little mistake. Clearly they don't bother doing any sort of check to see if they actually own any content they find on YouTube -- they just submit a claim to it and see if nobody will dispute it.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Things We Clearly Need

A crossbow "pistol" for sixteen bucks (including shipping)? Count me in.


 Twenty-sided dice in both red and green? You just know we'll need these.
 
And as you're well aware, the dragon holocaust is quite similar in size and scope to the coming zombie holocaust.
You may need to check the items on this list against your standard household zombie holocaust survival kit: Zombie Survival

Monsters for You

I post this video for my sister, just because it's right up her alley.


(Woodkid -- Run Boy Run)

All Parts

Seeing Tom Rowen's booty is something which happens to us on every shoot. But if you want to see more, much more, of his goods then just head over to the Strangewerks blog.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Dragon Lass

This blog has 999 comments right now. You know what that means. In two more comments we'll be at 1001.

So, Cannes is over. We won't learn anything about the zeitgeist of Cannes for a couple weeks.

We absolutely must get to shooting on our next picture. It's a dragon picture. The original script was structurally based on The Road Warrior. Now note that when I say "structurally" based it means that nobody but nobody recognized the structure. The internal design was the same even if none of the characters matched and the scenes had dragons instead of cars and motorcycles.

But then Steve Niles did a page-one rewrite on the script. So the original structure went out the window and the lead character got a lot better.

Also good guys became bad guys and some characters just didn't end up going anywhere. So I did a rewrite on Steve's rewrite and... now the picture is short.

We suspect the issue is the beginning of the second act ain't long enough. So we'll fix that. And we'll start shooting... er... next month?

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Notes and notes on notes

Script notes and what I'm doing with them.

These are notes from the Queen of Mars on the rewrite I did of the Dragon Girl screenplay which Steve Niles rewrote which I'd originally written, which was based structurally on The Road Warrior (but sooo isn't structurally based on The Road Warrior anymore.) My notes on her notes are highlighted.

- She can't be 12. Make her 16. And that means you can elevate her dialogue. I yanked out references to her age. I don't want to elevate her dialog because it amuses me so. 
- Good work making it not all about dragon fights. That was all Steve Niles.
- I think you add a B story that's about Joe. Make it clear how he's different from the others on his team. Maybe give him a motive to go after Amelia and -- when he can't get to her -- Miranda. Make him more of a continuing mystery. Maybe he is or was tempted to take over like Sebastian? Joe is the "B" story. Got it.
- Give Miranda a motive to do...something.
- Let's not extend the time in the tunnels any more than it is now. No problem.
- Is there a rubber duckie somewhere for Amelia? She saves the cat (Miranda), but do we need to know how she met Callista, watched her hatch, whatever? We're already on her side, but should we learn something about her past?
- Are Amelia and Joe together more powerful than Sebastian? Something that makes it impossible for just one of them to defeat him, but together they can. That's the key. Yes.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Zabristical

Zambri is grooving to a kind of Siouxie and the Banshees sound in Hundred Hearts for You.


It's partly the Prophet-like sound of the synth and partly the voice which maketh the '80's.
They have a new album called House of Baasa.

Portatude

Samplitude, my digital audio workstation software of choice, is being ported to the Mac. Which means it'll have concurrent Mac and PC versions (at least that's the intent.)
Now that's interesting — for the longest time we here in the Pandora Machine have been running two platforms. Basically one for picture (Mac - based with Final Cut Pro) and one for audio (PC with Samplitude.)
But since Apple dumped FCP for the useless FCPX, we've been on the path to leaving the Mac platform altogether and doing picture edits on a PC with Premiere.
If I remember correctly, the reason that Samplitude is on the PC in the first place was because of the bankruptcy of Commodore. At the time, the zeitgeist was that developers didn't want to deal with a platform which was just going to disappear. And the sans-Steve-Jobs Apple at the time looked like it could just flop at any minute. And that's what led many of the hippest developers (who were, naturally, developing for the Amiga by Commodore because let's face it those were the coolest computers ever) to go to the PC instead of the Mac.
I hope that having Samplitude on the PC and the Mac only serves to make the program more popular. Because, you know, I'm afearful of them going out of business one day and me being left all alone with ProTools or Digital Performer or some such.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Green Grim Booty

Lory Henning on making your theater green.

I am convinced that Grimm is going to become a good show. Really. It will. Faith.

Really.

Why do you keep posting pictures of bunny butts?
I dunno. I think they're funny.
How are bunny butts funny?
Well... they're fuzzy at least.
But that's not funny.
I think I found the one person who is actually offended by the pictures of bunny butts.

Monday, May 21, 2012

SNL SND

So. I complain about the sound of the musical acts on Saturday Night Live. It's what I do.
The sound of the acts with Mick Jagger, however, was very good. It tends to re-invigorate the theory that there are certain acts which SNL makes sure sound good, Mick Jagger being one of them, and the rest they don't care about.
One interesting thing was hearing the two different bands, Arcade Fire and the Foo Fighters, with the same lead singer (Mick).
Arcade Fire was mixed really well. Drums sounded great, bass was all there. I say the mix was good even though I thought the guitar sound was... anemic. The guitars had a sort of plastic overdriven side to them. If I had to guess just from listening I'd say it was the sound of an older amp simulator with a cheap guitar. Really. It's sort of disappointing.
Now, one thing you can't say about the Stones is that they had crappity guitar sounds. So if you're covering a Stones tune and you're not actually Ron Wood or Keith Richards you've got a fairly high bar.   But really, just take an old amp and turn it up. If there are any boxes between your guitar and the amp — remove them. Oops. That's just my prejudice coming out.
The Foo Fighters simply sound like a better band than Arcade Fire. Although they also sound like they're freakin' loud onstage. And when you're that loud onstage the mix starts to turn to mush. It's an issue. And they were a tad on the mushy side. But I wouldn't blame the SNL mixers for that, the band is just too loud to do anything with at that point (and besides, they still sound pretty good.)


Squirrels, Rocks, and Guns

Blind Squirrel makes some amazing props. (Via Tim Shrum.)
I've been reading Jeremy Crowson's new blog on guns.

Darn it. There's a hole in the front pocket of my pants. So I've gone and lost my stone. I need a new one now.
Funny thing about guns in movies, I just hate having guns on set. By "guns" I mean blank-firing guns. Real, firing, guns are completely verboten. But even the special blank-only guns are such a pain that I simply don't want to deal with them anymore.
First of all, talking to me about guns is talking to an Ohioan farmer in 1916 about guns. Guns are neither good nor bad in and of themselves but we have a LOT of rules governing their use. Never point a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot. No loaded guns near the house. Don't dry-fire that .22.*
These rules are burned into my DNA by my dad.
And the rules simply don't work for dramatic purposes.
In a movie you're going to be pointing guns at other people. You're going to be shooting at people for crying out loud (and shooting at robots, and monsters, etc.). And the rules for blank-only firing guns are pretty much the same for real guns. They're fantastically dangerous — with a semi-auto the loads have to be full loads, otherwise the action won't rack back. Bleh.
But that's not all. For a safe set you have to be very careful about where those blank-only guns are stored, when they're being used in a scene, how they're being used, and all-sorts-of-things. And guns are loud as all get-out so you and the crew and the actors all need hearing protection. Furthermore half the time you won't even see the flash of the gun when you shoot. Furthermore the blanks are expensive. Furthermore some guns are simply unpleasant to fire. Furthermore blank guns jam like crazy (because they need to be cleaned even more than real guns which are, in a way, self-cleaning because a bullet actually goes through them.)**
And I just don't have time to deal with it.
With plastic guns I feel perfectly safe just handing them out at the beginning of the day — no special training is needed, nobody needs to babysit them. When we've had a set where police are present you can tell they become much more relaxed when they realize we just have plastic guns. The worst thing you can do with a gun is give it to David Ian Lee (because he'll break it).***

For the kinds of movies we make, actual modern-day firearms are not very sexy. Although a small pistol is very deadly in real life, they honestly do not play well on camera.
You know what plays great? An ax. It's got some heft to it.
Yup. We need bigger guns. And bodysuits that don't wrinkle.


*Seriously, those are the first three rules of guns I know. The "no loaded firearms near the house" is completely anachronistic to me as I grew up in the suburbs and guns were never fired outside there, but it's a rule from my dad's youth so I know it. The dry-firing issue is just that the .22 I had when I was young was my older brother's old rimfire and it would hurt the gun if dry-fired.
**That's not actually the reason — the reason blank guns are so gross is because so much of the powder and the yuk from the blank just fills the weapon rather than going out the front because the front is plugged.
***This is unfair to David Ian Lee because we managed to break more than 50% of the guns on Alien Uprising and his character wasn't even allowed to touch a gun. That being said, ask me how he broke my crowbar sometime.
Hey, while we're on the subject, why doesn't he have his own web page?

The Tears of Class

Smith was a band in the late 60's/early 70's. Interestingly a precursor to this band was "The Smiths" which, you know, isn't the same as The Smiths you're thinking of. But they had had this interesting non-hit "Now I Taste the Tears" before they picked up their vocalist Gayle McCormick.
 +++++
You know, one thing to hold against that sort of record-store hipsterism embodied by the "I knew that band back before they were well-known" attitude is that back in the day, knowing about music that wasn't on the radio was very expensive. Nowadays it's cheap, you can go through Spotify and Bandcamp all day long without shelling out money for singles and albums to listen to music.
But that weren't always the case. Indeed, the hipster attitude about pop music was essentially a class distinction: are you rich enough to buy a bunch of albums by groups you never heard of? Oh. Then you're cool. Do you only listen to music free on the radio? Oh, then you're not cool.

Learnings

You know, I've been recording for thirty years now, and it never stops surprising me how little I know. I mean sound is... well it fools you all the time...
+++++
Right now I'm using a pair of AKG 460's with cardioid (ck61) capsules. I traded an AKG 414 for them many years ago. Now I feel bad because it's clear I got the better part of that deal (sorry Walter).
++++
We've been using the Sound Devices 702 for just about everything of late. T-Mouse rehearsals, production sound, and even classical music.
The 101st Airborne has had good guitarists in their time. This one is named James Hendrix.
For nigh on 10 years now I've been the recordist for the Russian Chamber Chorus of New York. And I just recently got a note about the way I've been recording which changes the way I think about recording.
The maestro, Nikolai Kachanov, prefers the "blended" sound of mics in the distance rather than (what I usually go for) the "articulated" sound which is fairly close up.
So, the simple answer is to move the microphones further back.
Now some problems with that include the fact that audiences are fantastically noisy. I mean... they're amazingly noisy. And with the microphones further from the chorus the audience becomes even louder (relatively) than the chorus.
What I'd really like to do is be able to get a stereo pair of microphones about thirty feet in the air. Like maybe on a silent floating remote controlled helicopter. Or some sort of balloon. Or possibly using magic. I'm willing to try anything.
+++
The other major cheat I've noticed with the RCCNY is to go ahead and compress the sound. Yeah, I know, in classical music circles that's a big "no-no". But you know what? It sounds great. It makes the sound bigger and thicker and everybody loves it. Purity? Feh.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Beauty 50 Duplication

Beauty Box tutorials. Here's a helpful hint for those of you who go through life: when your editor is also the star of your show, do not let her know about Beauty Box. She'll want to use it on all her shots. Ahem.
Plus also too Digital Anarchy is running a special on the new version of Beauty Box — upgrades are only fifty-nine bucks.
Owl always love you.
Did you know that 50 Shades of Grey started as Twilight fan-fiction?
Dan Harmon thinks "Guys like me can’t actually just be shot and left in a ditch by Skynet" which is technically true, although they certainly can be held indefinitely on off-world prison colonies and replaced with android duplicates.

Needs

My parents need a printer. It needs to be a network printer. It needs to be a cheap printer. It needs to NOT require us to replace $50 of ink or toner every six months. So I'm thinking a laser printer. They would like a scanner too — but scanner/network/laser adds a few hundred dollars to the price.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Thuswise

Funny thing about editing The Prometheus Trap -- the story doesn't let us assign different acts to different editors the way we usually do. At least not that easily. Because we're using the same scene, with different takes, over and over, we need to balance each act and each timeline with one another.
++++++
Nicholas Kazan gives what I think is horrible advice. I feel that a lot of writers, at least on the Internet, get all worked up about notes and re-writes. And here Mr. Kazan thinks that just because nobody liked Death of a Salesman's script that we should all give notes as suggestions rather than mandates.

When the real lesson is just that flashbacks don't read well on the page.
Via.

Writers very frequently have no idea what they're work is about. I've seen a lot of smart writers completely miss the subtext of their own play. Just totally not see it at all. And the fact is that although a reading can illuminate some things about a script, there are plenty o' things it just won't show you. Like, for instance, flashbacks.

I'm not on the writer's side. I'm not on the costume designer's side. And I'm certainly not on the actors' side. (I mean... good grief.) The purpose is to make a good movie or play, and the agenda of the writer, the designers, the DP, or the actors, is their own agenda. Not necessarily that of producing good work.
+++++
I mean, we re-write Shakespeare for crying-out-loud. Heck, Shakespeare freakin' re-wrote Shakespeare. What is up with that speech about the freakin' season wherein our Savior was born being a time when there aren't any ghosts? You think they performed Hamlet with that stupid thing in there all the time? No, it was added to appease some investor (or the wife of a guy who had the play performed at his castle.)
++++
Joe Chapman turned me onto the 8 Secrets of Cheap Sci-Fi, which amuses me.
+++


Apples and oranges

Comparing David Frey's Canon T2i to my Panasonic GH1. We didn't even try to color-match the two cameras. Here is an un-color-corrected frame from each camera. We are at the same aperture... I think... f2.0?
Andrew Langton with the GH1 and a 35mm S.S.C. lens (I think).
The picture is clearly bluer in the T2i. That's because we didn't bother to color-match the cameras.
Canon T2i with newer Canon 50(?) mm.
The bigger difference to me is how the two cameras handle flares. That's probably mostly a matter of the newer lenses (like Dave has) not losing contrast as much and not having those distinct "rings" you get off the older lenses.
The Panasonic GH1 also has flare "spikes". I think that is the camera itself and the way it handles highlights.
Overall, to my eye, this footage from each camera is color-correctable into the same world, making the GH1 and the Canon T2i compatible for multi-camera shooting.
And lastly note that the GH1 is a "four-thirds" camera while the T2i is APS-C — which makes the same length lens on the GH1 seem "longer" than what it would be on the T2i.

Edge Prison Alliance

Edge Studio had a free library of voiceover scripts. You have to sign up to get access, but the signup seems somewhat harmless.

I read this groovy screenplay yesterday called Prison of the Damned. It's a very strong script. Dude in prison has to team up with a guard when a prison riot opens the gates to hell. Or, as we say in Jersey, "Thursday night". Ho ha!!

Nick Denton interviews our own Nat Cassidy.

I'm not entirely sure what New Artists Alliance really is. They certainly have some nice cover art though.

The following are boring (to you) notes. They're only of interest to me:
+++
why can't dragons go into the forest?
what happened to guns?
Voss/first officer
maybe Amelia realizes Gregor will double-cross them and that's why she ties him up? Actually, I think he tries to hold them at crossbow-point and Amelia and Miranda kick his butt and tie him up.
Gregor and the bartender should be the same person
Gregor is all alone at the inn. Nobody else is there. Man, I wish we still had 35 Hofer Court...
Amelia's goal has to be to get into the tower
Is Sebastian just a D&D dorkus who found himself on top of the food chain after the dragons came? Does he have any power?
The "Rabbit" nickname -- does the woodsman Ralph tell Sebastian that's what she called herself?
Joseph and the Captain are the same person -- Joseph works for Sebastian but has been looking for Amelia all this time under the guise of one of Sebastian's trusted soldiers.



Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Tips, Too, Steel

Today's script tip from Drew. Eliminate the word "Apparently" from any dialog in your screenplay. I'm a serial abuser of this rule myself, so I should know better. But so should you. Just do a search for the words "apparently" and "seemingly" and cut them out. Trust me, you'll be happier.


Plus, also, too. I can't say it enough times. Get the microphone close enough!
Actually, there's too much room sound in this video even with the boom mic for my taste. But the point is taken. Get. The microphone. Close. Enough.
Man, oh, man. Dig these fake rusted metal panels -- made with foam board. They are awesome with awesome sauce.


More Texture

Ben Dansie is finishing the texturing of the Venom model. He's going to move onto the Prometheus.
A wide shot of the Venom.

Closeup.

Closeup with added dirt.
I can't wait to start animating and compositing this.

So that happened

I had a dream that I was supposed to play in the cello section of this symphony. But I hadn't practiced (and I can't play cello although for some reason in my dreams I only have trouble fingering, my bowing is fine). But they didn't have a cello there for me when I showed up before the concert so I was all like "Well great, I'm going back to my office."
But I ended up staying for the concert and it was terrible. You know, like Junior High School string orchestra terrible.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Hint

The answer to this contest is on the Pandora Machine blog.

Promethean Art

Tomorrow is the start of the Cannes Film Market. And our sales rep is there with The Prometheus Trap. And that means the embargo on the key art is lifted.

Headline Shirts

So Headline Shirts is giving away a free T-shirt to whomever I dictate has won a contest on this blog.

The power. It goes to my head.

You could win a shirt that looks like this:
 Or this:
 Or this:
 Or even this (which is the shirt I'm wearing right now).
Headline's shirts are fantastically comfortable. I mean really. They're so soft. And I desperately need a new Vitruvian Rock shirt as I ordered one slightly too small and nobody wants to see that.

So even if you do happen to win a shirt, you'll have to buy more here: http://www.headlineshirts.net/
Headline Shirts Facebook

Plus, also, too, get a $5 off coupon when you sign-up for their newsletter: https://www.facebook.com/headlineshirts?sk=app_133697453315011
And Headline Shirts twitter: @headlineshirts


OK, so what is the contest? In the comments insert the correct word:
"If you got a vodka infused with Drew's favorite thing, it would be ____ flavored."

The first person to answer correctly, whom I choose arbitrarily and without regard to any particular laws, and who has an actual email address to which I can send the code (good for one T-shirt and shipping) wins!

Monday, May 14, 2012

In the Place

So we made a shot where I was all like "There will be a giant stone head." And the cast said "No, that's a terrible idea."
The first version with a head modeled by BrightonPiers.
And the image, while iconic (and a direct nod, as it were, to Prometheus), doesn't actually pay off. They're just walking through the cargo bay of the ship, we just need to see how vast it is. So then I thought "What about a Borg cube? Nobody will recognize it as a Borg cube and I can get one and..."
The Borg cube didn't work that great. And that square rectangle comes from not switching to "final" from "preview" in the AfterEffects "match grain" effect. The model is by QuantoMan.
So I had to come up with something else. And I think I have. This is the bottom of a spaceship.
Here's a version with the "Star Destroyer" by AnthonyP.
So of course there's a lighting instrument in the frame. And I like it. But we'll see how much people yell about the lighting instrument being in the frame.

Color Balance

So, I have an issue with how to write down the white balance settings on the GH1. Maduka came up with a system.

-1, +8

That is, on the x axis you click once to the left (for -1) and then on the y axis you click up 8 (for +8). And that will give you the color balance we used on The Prometheus Trap.
Photographing the screen on the GH1 with an iPod is not ideal.
Of course, we also used Canon S.S.C. manual lenses -- usually at about an f2.0 -- on the camera. And that's a big difference over the stock lens. And I like the stock lens. It's just that there's something about these old S.S.C. lenses... I don't know what it is. The stills we have use exactly the same color balance and settings as the motion picture we're shooting, so they're an accurate look at what we shot.

Cool Fambly

Dig my very cool cousin Jaime-Jin, quoted in the New York Times.

"You don’t want [kids] to learn about race and class and power on the playground."

Day 7 - We wrap

Today we wrapped on principal photography on The Prometheus Trap.
We ran late. Call at Penn Station was 11am and we got everyone on the 8:37pm train back to New York. We had just missed the 7:37pm train so we kinda hung out for a while. But we did shoot a punchlist of things which Rebecca Kush had asked for. And that was in addition to everything else that had been normally scheduled for the day.
Andrew Langton and Rebecca Kush in the grim cryo-sleep of The Venom.

Andrew Langton in vertical cryo.
Rebecca Kush in our super-creepy cryo chamber. The Queen of Mars built, art-directed, and lit this.
 Do we still have things left to shoot? Probably some inserts but not a whole lot.
This shot was Rebecca's idea. Our haze machine is being repaired so this shot was with a fog machine. 

Michael Shattner getting his Facebook shot on.

Gratuitous silhouette.