Had to Post

How could you not love Angela Funk?

Some more of day 15

More images from the last day of Clonehunter. Somehow we shot in 15 days of principal photography rather than 16 as I thought I'd scheduled. We still need to shoot a newscaster and a nude dancer. But isn't that always the case?

Angela Funk as Rachel with Ben Thomas as Cain.

Robin Kurtz as Ronnie, ducks from a wild gunshot.

Robin Kurtz punches you in the face.

Ben Thomas with Tzaddi Simmons (Reggie).

Last Day of Clonehunter

Ben Thomas as Cain.

Angela Funk as Rachel.

More to come...

Hooray

Bill Cunningham found this. It is amazing. The last reel has an AWESOME freaking twist in it. Time Tunnel. Off the charts.



Also, for those who were annoyed by that video a few posts down which was auto-playing: it seems to be down so it doesn't auto play anymore. Hooray.

Emo Bunny

Googly - eyed finger puppets.

The Sprintcam. 1000 to 2500 fps.

Color. It's all a big lie.

Emo Bunny.

XPlanes.

Internet Notebook

Composer Tavo Carbone.

Lately I've been taking a virtual tour of England* via Philip Drawbridge.

I'm reading The Digital Plague which is available for free reading online.

Yesterday's footage has a problem. I think that it's not from the fact that the camera took a header (and knocked its own focus out a bit it seems) but rather that I didn't turn off the camera before removing the P2 card. If you don't hear any more about it, that's what the trouble was and it's fixed as I put the card back in the camera, turned the camera on and then off, and removed the card again.

I'm also reading A Princess of Mars.

And I have Acevedo's Jailbait Zombie from the library.

*A place where most residents don't know the actual name of the country they're a citizen of, as far as I can tell.

Day 14

The camera took a header today on Clonehunter. I'm not exactly sure what happened. It probably was a result of the wonky way this big battery acts as an intermediary between the camera and the tripod. And the fact that I obviously hadn't locked the tilt well enough. Fell about 5 feet onto a carpeted (whew!) floor.

Luckily it only smashed the UV lens cover (which is why we put those on, right?) and ripped apart the connector which goes from the battery to the camera. Now I can't re-attach the battery until I use my volt ohm meter to make sure the polarity is correct and my meter is in Metuchen so I can't do it until at least tomorrow. Maybe not 'till Friday.

Here's Maduka before the camera went down.

David Lee as Raglan prepares to kill Vincent Marano as Gulliver.

Angela Funk as Rachel and Ben Thomas as Cain.

Man, we got to feed the crew better...

Ahem...

Only Two Mags?

OK, look, it took me until minute 9 to actually laugh out loud. But then. I did.

Day 13 Jeff Plunkett

Today was a very short day. 2pm call and everyone was gone by 4:18pm.

We had the amazing and incomparable Jeff Plunkett as the shopowner Shu today. Lots of fun. We did a record 5 takes of the wide shot of the scene. Just because we could.

Ben Thomas as Cain and Angela Funk as Rachel in the trader's store.

Ben Thomas, Angela Funk, and Jeff Plunkett (as Shu) having money thrown at him.

Jeff Plunkett with my dad's old magnifying eye-thingy.

Jeff Plunkett looking sexy.

Video Amp Whiners

Am engaged in violent struggle 'gainst computers of varying sorts. Ugh. Anything that should only take about 5 minutes takes over an hour with restarts and work-arounds.

Video On Demand is up significantly this year. Thank goodness. Maybe VOD will really be the thing...

You can blow almost two thousand dollars for a reissue vintage Marshall head. I think I'd be interested in a JTM45 or possibly a boutique clone. Then on top of that you need a cabinet. I really have had good experiences with Marshalls, but the price has been keeping me away. I do like my Peavey Vypyr though. Especially since I retrofitted it with a Celestion Alnico Blue speaker.

John August believes that the screenwriter is the only one who has "seen" the movie when the screenplay is in the notes stage. Malarky. Most of the time the writer has no idea how something will actually play in the final -- even if the writer is directing and (dear Lord) editing. Still, it's vastly more likely that a director and/or editor would have a clue about how something plays. But Writers? Non triple-threats? They haven't seen the movie at all. You don't really know how the actors are going to interact with the locations, the lighting, and the camera until you get to the stage on the day of. The movie will change with the input from the actors, lighting, the set, the composer, the sound editor, and you know the editor is gonna do something you haven't expected. You think you know how long we're going to hold on a particular shot? "Ha!" I say "HA!". I've seen writers resist the most commonsensical notes every given because they just don't know any better.

I see unspecific and/or unworkable things in screenplays all the time. This is like seeing things in architectural drawings which can't exist in three dimensional space (this used to happen all the time before Auto-Cad. Heck, it still does.) If you get a note from my producer or my editor, you sure as hell better take heed.

Writers. Buncha whiney biotches. By the way: where's my script?

Oh sundries.

Calibro 35 play in New York City:

Oct 10 2009 8:00P	Fontana’s	New York City, New York
Oct 13 2009 10:00P	TBA	Brooklyn, New York

... inspired by the music of '70's Italian action films. Their best work is probably in the video in Bill Cunningham's post.

We need to shoot stills of Angela in her "D" costume, with a big gun, against a bluescreen. We should really get some shots of Ben and Angela going in and out of doors and we really should get them walking away from us with a bluescreen in front (actually, I think we already got that in her "A" costume.)

The Prom Queen web series. Presumably shot for $50K. I ain't buyin' it.

A brilliant interview with The Asylum's David Latt.

An article about Ian Hubert's Project London.

QOTD

Quote of the day: "I realize that this review isn't exactly focused. In my defense, neither is Terminator Salvation."

Look. It's a rubber cement ad. About nuns. And um... rubber... cement.

You know what? No. You don't get to see the nuns with the rubber cement and the statue with the broken part.

I'm tired of it autoplaying...

Day 12, right?

Day 12. Ben Thomas as Cain runs in!

Wesley Olin as Na (The Thief) and Angela Funk as Rachel argue over a dead robot.

Wesley Olin looks up.

Brian Schiavo as the robot and Maduka Steady (doing the robot).

Day 11 of Clonehunter

We killed a couple people today.

H. R. Britton as Sly, with a stake through his throat.

Tom Rowen as an anonymous messenger who gets knocked off his hoverbike.

Angela Funk as Rachel about to open a can of whoop ass.

The ever pensive Ben Thomas as Cain.

David Ian Lee as Raglan and Ben Thomas.

Jef Betz as Stone. He's about to die a gristly death.

We have been pouring light onto these scenes. I mean, we even have a 1K Arri and sometimes we're south of exposure. Sheesh! With the bluescreen we're running two 200W, two 300W, a 500W, and a 1K and still we bring in a "chicklet" to fill in faces with...