Key Grip Dwight Stone has been talking about making a cart that would slide out of the back of his hatchback for a while. It finally came true and it really is awesome. It houses a bunch of his personal rigging gear and it looks absolutely pro. We used it recently for a commercial for Hotel Corque in Santa Ynez.
We all got to take a shot at lassoing a steel steer. This is my favorite photo of our tries.
What a huge success.
Day 1
First night, hot dogs at Frank’s Hot Dogs (jackaloup and texalina) and local beer (Real Ale Fireman’s #4) at the Dreskill Hotel. Good food makes for a good start.
Day 2
Late rise – My wife and I both got about 10 hours of sleep. It’s the most she’s had since being pregnant. Soon realized that renting a car will make life easier to get around. Got the same taxi driver as last night – busy weekend in town because of the football game.
Lunch at Tacodeli. Known for their hot sauce and delicious tacos. It lived up to its reputation. Chicken, pork, fish, beef, it’s all represented. To wash it down, cantaloupe and watermelon juice drinks (jugo fresco). This was a recommendation from Zombie Roadkill writer, Henry Gayden. Good call.
To round out our lunch, we got some cupcakes at Sugar Mama’s Bake Shop. This was a Yelp find. Amazingly good. Especially loved the apple caramel cupcake that, apparently, is being discontinued. Very sad because it was absolutely delicious.
What would a world premiere be if not for having your own taco truck to hand out swag and free “roadkill” tacos. Big hit! The truck and food kept the tweeter-sphere a buzz for weeks. The night was a huge blast. Our webseries opened the festival – it’s good to be king. Everyone did a great job of fielding questions and telling stories of the shoot. I was especially pleased when during the Q&A, Thomas Haden Church thanked me by name for a job well done. Nice. I wonder if anyone has that on tape?
Day 3
Woke up, checked out of the hotel and picked up the director, David, and his lady for a meal at La Mexicana restaurant for some much touted “breakfast tacos”. They were basically unrolled burritos. Good eats but nothing mind blowing.
Then back to South Congress Avenue for some more window shopping and to meet up with Ryan (producer) and Henry (writer).
Oh and yes, more food. Mexican food for lunch at Guero’s Taco Bar. There we enjoyed Mexican/TexMex and most notably “queso”. “Cheese” you say? “No” I say. We found out that what the locals call “queso” (Español for “cheese”) is actually a melted cheese dip served in a cup, like a thick cheese soup, but not like a fondue. Into it you dip freshly made tortillas like you would chips. It’s – I’m a little embarrassed to say – good, really good. The corn tortillas are made by hand. The plates were good and portions not too big.
And the final attack on our arteries came from the aptly named “Gourdoughs”. Good doughnuts, great toppings, wacky combinations.
Maybe we should walk back home to work off the food we ate!
Had a chance to take part in an intensive 3-day training seminar at Sony Pictures through Local 600. Lots of hands on, examples, and experimentations. I’ve been to many, many training seminar in the past either at NAB or CineGear or what have you but this might just be the first seminar I’ve ever been to where I felt I got something useful out of it. I’ve been re-reading stereographic publications and it all makes sense to me know. Last step, need a shoot to really put what I’ve learned through its paces. Any takers?
A million thanks to the folks at Sony, Local 600 and the students from Hollywood Cinema Production Resources and USC.
Any one who’s spent any time on set knows that Grip and Electric often have hand signals for various tasks and objects. On a recent shoot for Time Warner Cable a new nomenclature for the often used Full Apple Box positions – California, Texas, New York – was replaced by the Hair and Makeup Wonder Twins (Nikki and Mindy). The new terms are…
FLATS… WEDGES… STILETTO… (For my male audience, it’s a reference to women’s shoes, a reference Al Bundy would be proud of. For my younger audience that last reference was to a character on Fox’s “Married with Children” television show.)
These names are a follow-up to a discussion about “hot dog” and “corn dog” in reference to horizontal and vertical object placement, respectively. I like these terms over the potentially offensive terms Chinese and English (you get the idea).
What are your favorite terms?
No, not potato chips (Mmmmm… potatoooo chipssss) but the new MX chip for the Red One camera. Shooting a cosmetics commercial later this week and can’t wait to explore what the new chip can do. I’ve seen some footage and it’s time to get my hands dirty. Stay tuned…
I wish I got kick-backs from equipment manufactures, but no such luck. Still, if I like it, I’ll post it. My new toy for the set and home is the Guppie from Columbia River. It’s fits great in the hand, it’s light and it does a bunch. It’s very well thought out and can’t wait to show it off on set. (And if anyone wants to send me a little “somethin’-somethin’”, it’ll be our little secret.)
Ain’t it got a purdie lil’ mouth?!
Indie Slate (issue #59) did a cover story on Corbin Bernsen and independent filmmaking. I get a brief mention which is nice (better if they had spelled my name correctly in the article or actually used a photo with me in it instead of identifying me in a photo I’m not in). Still it’s a good read worth taking a look at.
As a side note, I’m currently reading a script Corbin sent me for a project this spring. I’ll share more about that script soon.
Splice Magazine interviewed me on use the Red One camera. Splice is distributed in Canada aimed by The Filmpool Cooperative – a non-profit that encourages indie filmmaking in Saskatchewan.
I downloaded a couple of the back issues and it’s a very cool magazine that’s available in both a physical and PDF version. It’s got a great, almost hipster aesthetic and the information is very down-to-earth and useful. Can’t wait to get a physical copy of the magazine and share the article.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
It was finally time to strip away the shackles of the past and finally embrace Los Angeles fully. Long gone will be the days of up turned noses when giving a 714 number. Starting today and continuing for at least the next year, all calls to my old number will be forwarded to my new telephone number. I won’t be able to received text messages sent to my old phone number, so please make the change to your address book, cell phone or other communications device.
Also, to my New York friends, I’ve got a local-ish number for you. I’m east and left coast-able now. Thank you Google Voice!
Requiscat in Pace
[714] TACO_GOD
say hello to “nothing-at-all” & “DISTORT-BUM”
No one is likely to care about this but here it is… If you’ve worked with me in the past year, you probably can’t hear me on my walkie. My old earpiece got replaced with one that supposedly has noise canceling and a kevlar in the wires. Great but no one could still hear me. During “Zombie Roadkill” the gaffer’s father came by one day and brought some goodies he sells. What did I get? By far the best earpiece I’ve ever had. It’s a single cable instead of the usual two and best of all, everyone can hear me now. He also sells a version that lets you plug into your iPhone. Email me if you want his contact information.
After much debate and back-and-forth, I went and did it and bought a Canon 5D Mark II. It should be somewhere over the US right now on its way to my eager and waiting hands. In addition, I’m getting a 24-300mm lens and the battery grip. I’m looking at also getting a Zacuto Z-Finder. I can’t wait to give it a go when it arrives. Anyone game on shooting a short, music video or commercial?
The year of good news continues. “The 20 Second Rule” and “Meltdown” will be screening as part of the Los Angeles Comedy Festival. They better like it!!!
New toy, indeed! I know I always say that I don’t want to own equipment but there are a few things I just have to have. This is one of them… or three. What did I get? It’s a Rosco LitePad 3″x3″ DL, a 3″x6″ HL LitePad and 2 channel 5 amp dimmer also from Rosco. I’ve used LitePads in the past and recently used one that Key Grip Andrew M. brought to the set of “Box of Shadows”. I guess I was sold on getting one after that. In the future, I would like to get a few that are slightly lager but for now these are great for product shots, eye lights, night car interiors and possibly for fire effects. I love that it’s also DMX controllable. Let’s shoot something!
Aug. 22: Tonight I saw a 4K presentation of “North by Northwest” at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science and it looked extraordinary. As I understand it, it was originally scanned at 12K x 8X and finished in 4K with the presentation on a Sony 4K SXRD projector. I was also informed that most of the work was scanned from an original camera negative which, unfortunately, had damage on most of the blue layer. To fix the problem, they used the blue channel from the color separation reels. Warner Bros.’ Motion Picture Imaging (MPI is WB’s restoration division) did this in anticipation of the 50 year anniversary of the film and Blu-ray release.
It looked so clean and wonderful and quite possibly as fresh as a first run screening back in 1959. What a wonderful treat. Thank you Aaron for the invite.
2009 Aug 07 – “Meltdown” will be screening on Aug 09 at 8:30 PM as part of HollyShorts Film Festival. If you can make it to the screening, your support and boisterous laughs will be much appreciated, not to mention your five star rating of our little awesome food movie. If you want to learn a bit about the movie, check out the official website or read all about it on my blog.
2009 July 25 – “Meltdown” was accepted into more Film Festivals. It’s on the road to stardom me thinks. It’s a good thing because we just finished the final color grading on it at AlphaDogs with colorist Brian Hutchings manning the controls. I’m hoping we’ll be able to show it online soon. Till then, you always have my previous posts to look at. Here’s a list of some of the festivals our awesome little movie will be screening at…
I’ve become a huge fan of the following iPhone apps. Here’s my plug (I wish I got a cut).
Helio: Right now this is my favorite by far. It’s a sunrise/sunset calculator that includes what other sunrise/sunset apps lack and that’s a shadow ratio calculation. The app gives you a multiplier that you use against the height of an object to calculate the length of a shadow at any time of the day. If for example you want to know how long a shadow will be at 7PM on the 4th of July at the location 34°5′ by -118°19′, the multiplier would be 4.66. So if you have an object that’s 1.5m tall, the length of the shadow that object would cast is 7m long. Very useful for pre-production and production planning. It also has a handy inclinometer for determining the location of the sun in the sky. Sweet.
MatchLens: Also a great little app when using a DSLR camera to take recce location photos. I can take a photo with my point-and-shoot G10 and if we like the shot and want to reproduce it on the day, the app will calculate the focal length for the shooting lens based on the lens I used on my G10. So if the G10 takes a photos using a 6.1mm focal length and I’m shooting a show with the Red One camera at 4K, the lens I would put on the Red is 17.8 or an 18mm lens. Fantastic.
I’m taking a few more courses at fxphd. Two Apple Color classes and one Shake class. Color seemed to be a logical course to take give my “day job” but the Shake class is a good extension to my work with After Effects. The courses I took last summer last semester have been indispensable with the recent Red One movies I’ve shot. Definitely recommend these it to anyone involved or interested in post production. I’ll report more on the later in the term.
I’m a big fan of the fxguide.com podcasts, especially the Red centric news and information podcast, Red Centre (it’s spelled right… they’re Aussies). The folks at fxguide also have a series of instructional course that they offer via their website fxphd.com. The emphasis of that site is, as you can gather from the title, visual effects work with software packages like After Effects, Shake, Smoke, Flame et al. but they also offer courses on Final Cut Pro and the Red One camera use and post workflow. Currently I’m taking four classes (Red Tale from production, Red Post Production, & Stop Motion and Miniatures) and I just added other class (Digital Color Theory).
The way it works is each week a class and class materials are downloaded as QuickTime files. Each class is about 45 minutes worth of information and instruction, sometimes as a lecture and other times it’s interviews with industry professionals. While it lacks the face-to-face exchange, they have a forum for each class where you can ask questions of the instructor or other classmates. Win, win.
I have to say that after three weeks of “class” I’ve gotten a bunch of useful information and think it’s gonna be very well worth it. It’s the wave of the future kids…
The time is nigh… I just registered and so should you. For my friends in the area or abroad, park by my house and we’ll walk there since this year it’s at Paramount Studios. You’ve got till 28 May but don’t procrastinate.
