Mike & Carmen

[capitalP]

"Mike & Carmen" is your typical boy meets girl love story, with my own little flavor to it.

Plot Summary: Mike is a cocky and promiscuous individual who feels the only way to get a woman's attention is to pay her no attention at all. He continually coaches his best friend Eddy on hte subject of love. Mike has lots of women; he cares for them all the same. Until... a beautiful, sexy but mysterious young lady named Carmen enters his life. Mike soon enough discovers what it's like to truly be in love.

Production beggined February 15, 2006 and wrapped up July 8, 2006. I spent about 1 month and a half in Post. And now it's complete ready to head out to the festivals. This film was shot with the DVX100a with a crew of 20+. It's just over 40 minutes with an additional 2 hours of bonus features.

This was edited using Vegas 6 and DVD Architect 3. This is the 3rd film I've done since having my DVX. DVXuser.com was a major inspiration for me to complete this film. I got alot of help from some of the members on this board. You'res truly Owen designed the Art for the DVD cover/poster etc...

Alot of the equipments used doing production was bought because of reference and tips I recieved here on the boards. Some of the things I used for the film were:

Oval Chamois Eyepiece Cover for Video Cameras REG /H-400 Hood for Camcorders with 3-1/4 to 4" LCD Monitor REG /Spiderbrace Shoulder support/NTG-Shotgun Microphone/Tungsten 2 Flood Light Kit Total 500 Watts/ and more...

Most of the budget was spent on feeding the cast & crew. I must say this is my best film yet, I've definitely approved as a film maker, and I see a major difference from the previous works I've done. I just can't wait to dive into my feature film next year. I think I'm ready. So, you can go to my website http://www.PierreFilms.com to see the trailer for "Mike & Carmen" and my other 2 previous films. Enjoy, and thanks DVXuser, and it's members for answering all my questions during this filming proccess. Special shout out to the Vegas forum, those guys are Awesome! David you rule! Just look out soon for more questions when I begin my feature film.:thumbsup:
:http://www.stickypod.com/videos/data/500/The_official_Mike_Carmen_DVD_Cover.jpg

[Brandon Rice]

Looks cool, if you don't mind me asking, what was the budget on the film?

[capitalP]

I don't mind. The Total budget was $5753.84. That's including post production/DVD Dupplication/advertising/wrap party and other stuff... Actual shooting cost was $2501.

And I haven't even added Festival cost yet. When you add up your budget... do you just add shooting cost, or everything?

[Brandon Rice]

Cool stuff.

On my project my budget included equipment purchased for shoot, shoot items, props, tapes, food, pay for any crew, etc.

Seems like after all that, it's a good budget.

[brownhood]

Hey Patrick, How's everything?
Don't know if you remember me, we attended the 1st NYC DVXuser meeting back in March at B & H.

Glad to see your film is wrapped.... I put in my order through paypal today. Looking forward to seeing it. Keep up the good work.

Chris

[capitalP]

I got the order, thanks alot Chris...? Wow! it's been a while, I think I remember you... you're the one who had the College/hip-hop reel right? I hope I'm right...

Anyway, thanks alot for the love, so what you've been up to?

[brownhood]

I remember that reel , but that wasn't me. I didn't have anything to present.

I got married in April..... the months after have been a blur of packing, moving, unpacking....still haven't finished totally unpacking.

I've been busy in my home studio recording albums/mixtapes for local artists, looking to shoot a couple music videos as soon as they get their concepts together. I've got a myspace page check it out:

kepp in touch......corrected...http://www.myspace.com/browndoggproductions

Chris

[capitalP]

I'll hit you up on my space... sorry for the mistaken identity... hope you have a pic so I can put the name with the face..

[Paul Coleman]

Hmm, Vanilla Sky reference in the dialog. :beer:

I really liked the film. Great work by Erroll L Tamasi. The shore/boardwalk footage was great. Editing seemed a bit uneven, but not bad. Good stuff. :thumbup: :thumbup:

[capitalP]

Thanks for the honest review Paul. Yeah, I was trying to recreate a scene from Vanilla Sky which I love, glad you picked up on that.

[Paul Coleman]

You know, I didn't realize the park scene was a reference until I saw the BTS. But I caught the "arms dealer" line in the restaurant. :)

[capitalP]

LOL! Yeah, I hope Cameron Crow don't sue me...

[capitalP]

In keeping in tune with updating the film threads... I now go into the Festival journey. Out of hundreds of festivals I narrowed it down to 16. I made my choice based on price, location and chances of getting in. Every week I plan to submit to a different festival until I reach all 16. And ofcourse I had to throw in a couple of big ones in there, cause you never know..

Here they are:

1. Avignon/New York Film Festival
2. Slamdance Film Festival
3. Sanfrancisco IndieFest
4. Sacramento International Film Festival
5. Washington, DC Independent Film Festival
6. NYC Hme Film Festival
7. Independent Film Society of Boston
8. The Garden State Film Festival
9. Syracuse University Film Festival
10. Tribeca Film Festival
11. Independent Black Film Festival
12. New York Underground Film Festival
13. Tromadance Film Festival(IT'S FREE)
14. Rhode Island International Film Festival
15. Hoboken International Film Festival
16. Las Vegas International Film Festival

All those festivals are currently open to submit, there's others that are not yet open I plan to tackle eventually. Wish me the best and I will provide updates if the film gets in to any of those festivals.

and ofcourse you can always go to withoutabox.com to get more festival info.

[Beat Takeshi]

Yo Patrick. I just finished watching the whole thing, behind the scenes and everything when I should be cutting up video for this Lordz/Cypress Hill concert I'm VJing for tomorrow night. I will call you with my full review but I want to say that you did a decent job and have improved a lot from your stuff I saw at the meeting at B&H. You took on a really hard genre and for the first long form flick, you did a good job with it. The wardrobe/setdesign/actress and whatever else hat she wore did a great job with her acting. Next flick you should write in a part just for her with more range in emotions. She did a kickass job with the little amount of lines she had. The only thing that was glitchy was the audio. Some of the ADR sounded like it was in a room while the scene was outside but I guess you know that. I liked how the film started with the speaking to the camera and ending it the same way. Very ambitious film and I really liked the BTS stuff. The funny thing, I just had a meeting today with the writer for that feature we are doing and we were talking about the sound track and how to handle the money on that. I said hey, we should include it like when you get a free cream rinse with that shampoo. I bonus thang. Plus since its going to feature a bunch of well known R&B singers, the sound track is going to sell so why not add that to the mix on the DVD sales. Then I get your package tonight and BAM, you did the same thing. When he comes over Wednesday I'm going to show him that. I still want a Ramell track on there but we are still hammering out stuff at the top of the list.
Yo keep on keepin on.
Peace

[capitalP]

Thanks for the thorough review on the Phone Aram. I agree that the Actress/Set Designer/Many Hats Juliane Jones did an excellent job with the little part she had. Me and her talked about it and I'm definitely going to give her a bigger part in my next film.

Making this film was definitely a learning experience for me. I've also seen a big improvement from my previous stuff, so I'm full of confidence heading towards my first feature. Amongst many things I will study and learn about for the next film is Audio, I will learn as much as I can for the next film. The funny thing about that opening scene, I almost cut that out, I mentioned it in the Audio Commentary, but I'm glad I kept it in because it works for the film.

And the soundtrack is one of the things I was extremely happy with. I was fortunate to have some great musicians offer to let me use their stuff. The music really went well with the film. So, I really think you and your team should really put the music and soundtrack for the film on top of things to do.

And Romell is waiting for that call anytime, he'd be happy to write and exclusive track for your film. Thanks for taking the time to watch all the behind the scenes stuff. Can't wait for you to start your next production, keep me posted and hit me up if you ever need a hand.