RobMakesMovies.com

Day 1:

Today was not a great day. It was by no means a horrible day, but there are a number of things that could have gone better. I blame myself, mostly. Today we had a plethora of actors for our shoot, but we had to get them in costume/makeup, shoot their scenes, and out of wardrobe/makeup by 12:30pm. Our day started at 7am. Oy. We scrambled together and based on the vision in my head, I replaed it over and over to my AD, DP, Art Team, and talent. It was rather chaotic, and not organized the way that it should have been. Well… lesson learned. Communicate better in Pre-Pro.

The good news is that 85% or more were beautiful shots that I wouldn’t change a thing. That other 15% is things that I couldn’t make perfect because we were crunched on time. The other good news is that we are attracting a hell of a lot of attention from Full Sail faculty and staff. Numerous teachers we’ve had before, including one that was promoted to Film Program Director, came out to check out what we were doing and snap pictures. Full Sail’s marketing department came out and shot some B-roll for a video they are putting together. Given that they were only there relatively briefly, they didn’t witness the chaos we were trying to overcome.

The bad news is that we are currently quite behind. We did 8 shots on a day where there were ~16 planned. We accomplished in 12 hours what a professional, experienced crew would do in about two. Ouch… We have a plan on how to properly work around this, though. It required me to stay up a little longer tonight in order for us to implement at 6am tomorrow in a meeting with my keys(nickname for department heads on a film project). Day 1 started slow, but by the end of day 2, I’m confident we can fix the issues we had today. On with tomorrow!

(updating with photos at a later date)

I haven’t updated my blog in MONTHS, but I’ve finally had something that is really worth updating about.

As a part of my education at Full Sail University, we have 3 different short film formats that our class will end up doing over the course of the program. Digital Cinematography class has a digital short format, obviously. Film Production’s format is on 16mm film, a film format common among television, music videos, and indie films. We’ve handled both of those formats, and they both have VERY different methods with which to shoot. The last format we work in is 35mm film, THE format of almost every theatrical film that is released. That is the format of our Final Project, the quintessential “thesis” for our degree program.

For Final Project, or “35″ as we refer to it, the instructors are relatively hands-off for. We are responsible for writing a script, hiring a crew, and formulating the plans on how to shoot the project, all before pitching the idea to the “Execs.” That all happens before we actually get into the class. I knew the process months ago, and as we were finishing up our 16mm project I began putting together my team for our Final Project. I have very high standards for any project I work on, and so I wanted to do something that was immensely challenging, capable of artistic production value, a story that is worth telling, but more than anything, fun to work on. I decided to write a script about Mikhail Kalashnikov, and the event that inspired his designing of the AK-47.

Well, the script got finished, the crew got hired(a full 27-man crew by-the-way), and we developed a number of plans and backups in order to be ready for the pitch. For the pitch, there were seven other scripts going in. Only two would get selected. For 35, that was actually really good odds. The pitch went great, as we were only supposed to be in there for 10 minutes–we were asked questions so long we were in for almost 45 and two of the “Execs” we pitched to were clearly interested in the project. Pitch was on a Wednesday, and we found out the following Sunday that it was selected as one of the two that would be made. I was THRILLED.

The script “Kalashnikov” is a 13-page human drama surrounded by war, a la “Enemy at the Gates.” I’d be insane to say it isn’t ambitious, since it involves a cast of 9 principal players, 6-10 extras, 4 different types of weaponry, 5 sets or locations, and a T-34 tank, which are all set in 1940s Russia. Perhaps I’m insane anyway? I don’t care, I love it. The story is so intriguing, and from everyone that has read the script, they have agreed. We had a cold read done by a few actors yesterday, and hearing it come to life with the Russian accent made it damn near surreal. I was very happy.

From this point we are finalizing locations, set design, preparing to cast(auditions on the 12th of December at Full Sail), and I’ll be developing the shot list and storyboards. I’ll update more as I go along with this. It’s not my first time directing talent, but it is my first short film production that I’ll be directing solo.

- Robert

Brilliant Noise takes us into the data vaults of solar astronomy. After sifting through hundreds of thousands of computer files, made accessible via open access archives, Semiconductor have brought together some of the sun’s finest unseen moments. These images have been kept in their most raw form, revealing the energetic particles and solar wind as a rain of white noise. This grainy black and white quality is routinely cleaned up by NASA, hiding the processes and mechanics in action behind the capturing procedure. Most of the imagery has been collected as single snapshots containing additional information, by satellites orbiting the Earth. They are then reorganised into their spectral groups to create time-lapse sequences. The soundtrack highlights the hidden forces at play upon the solar surface, by directly translating areas of intensity within the image brightness into layers of audio manipulation and radio frequencies.

- Robert