SLUGLINE

THE PLANET SCENE
Producer Rob emailed me tonight to say he is thrilled with the way the planet scene in the film is coming together. I hated it and wanted to reshoot it. I even rewrote it. We decided on an artsy montage thing with black/white tones, sad music and voiceovers. I agreed to that since it made for a good compromise. And Rob says it rocks. Can't wait to see it.

Here's the text of his email:

Wanted to let you know I put together the new landing
party scene and I think it's GREAT!!

I tried sepia instead of black and white, but that
didn't work. It looked terrible, so I stuck with the
black and white.

I saved my original cut of the scene, but after seeing
this version I think you'll agree, it's in the can!!
Stick a fork in it cause it can't get any better!!
(well once the voice overs are added)...

This is so wonderful, I may have to play this in the
chat room on tuesday... ;-)

Hell, I can live with that!

Workin' the job.
I work during the week doing software training. And it isn't even entertainment related. I call it my exile from the Kingdom of Hollywood. It was a tough decision to take the gig, but after being unemployed for two years (doing temp gigs and makin' DVDs to survive) the money being good and having a family to feed.

Thank God for my weekend radio gig.

I can only pray to God that I'll get back into the game with a solid gig as soon as possible.

The clock is ticking.

Talked to the producer of Hidden Frontier last night regarding the dailies from the first day of shooting. He told me that we have ALOT of useable footage and he's very pleased. He's capturing the footage now and hopefully I'll get to see some of it soon.
There is one scene that I'm not too thrilled with. I've rewritten it and am hopeful to lobby Rob to reshoot it. I tried before and met some understandible resistance. But I really think if I can get him to at least shoot it, he'll see it gives us options - one being a better story.

3 weeks to day two.

Well, as I do the post mortem on day one of principle photography, I cannot help but be pleased. We fell a bit behind in the morning - falling as much as an 1:10 behind schedule - but thanks for a hard working cast and an A.D. who "cracked the whip" in the afternoon, we not only caught up, we wrapped :15 AHEAD of schedule!

I was a bit concerned, coming onto this series set for the first time as director (it really helped that I was co-directing with regular director Dave Mason - who was giving and from day one of prep made teamwork the watchword of our collaboration), but the cast was both professional and patient. There was one point where, I got so into a performance I was getting from Larry and Renee that I yeld cut in the middle of the scene because I wasn't sure where we were. Embarrassing, to be sure. But my gaffe was soon forgotten.

And when I came up with a few extra bits on the set, Rob (producer) and Quinn (A.D.) as well as the cast rolled with them and give it their all.

Even when we had to coax performances from an actor who, for some reason, didn't get the script until a week before, we got exactly what we needed. A happy accident was a last minute replacement of an actor who couldn't make it for scheduling reasons. It ended up being fortuitous as the actor who pinch hitted brought more to the roll than I conceived when I wrote the script 15 years ago. He turned a background character in the story into a rich contributor with a character arc.

What a gem.

Every project should go like this one has, so far.

Two days to go.

Production 402 "Piracy of the Noble"
Day 1, Principal Photography

Full cast wrap times: 16 minutes AHEAD of schedule
Parts of scenes filmed: 15
Pages filmed: 12 6/8
Added scenes: 3
Raw stock: 131 minutes used (229 minutes remaining)
Cinematography setups: 92 planned, 117 actual

Shooting Call:
Unit S (First Shot): 9:55a
Lunch: 1:47p to 2:35p
Unit R (First Shot): 2:52p
Last Shot: 8:10p, Wrap: 8:14p

Delays: 50 minutes
9:10a-9:50a, audio/video sync difficulty for live broadband transmission, electrical power load tests to studio, added cinematography setups, change of scene filming order.

12:48p-12:58p, both surge protectors activated, cutting power to the dual lamp lighting apparatus in Studio 2, due to unannounced energy spike. CRT's in all areas excluding the studio and the control room were disengaged.

Notes:
Sixty-second tape replay is requested before the first shot on Day 2 of principal photography for audio/video sync and power load tests.

Saturday, I'll be directing for the first time in nearly 2 years. Granted, it's only a fanfilm, but it's practice. And practice is what I've been praying for. So now I get some. I hope this isn't the last cut of the bat for me. The more I think about it, the lost time just "waiting," working and then not working ... well, I shouldn't think about it.

The fun part is that it's one of the very first scripts I wrote back in `86. So long ago. But I'm going to have fun with this experience. And then, I'll start on something new.

Then there's that novel thing ...