The Wallet

[Mike Manning]

... BME Films is in!

"The Wallet"
(IMDb)



CREW

Sebastian Stenhøj
Producer / Director / Writer

Wesley Barker
Producer / Asst. Director

Dane Naimy
Producer / Editor

Mike Manning
Producer / DP / VFX Artist

Ben Crippin Taylor & Daniel Walter
Composers

Jorge Montijo
Sound Designer / Sound Mixer


CAST

Vincent Mentry
White Man

Stevens Gaston
Black Man

[Mike Manning]

So I don't really need to reserve a bunch of posts, as this isn't a huge production like "A Work of Art" was. But I suppose I'll use this post as a production journal of sorts. So here it goes...


PRODUCTION JOURNAL

09/07
Location is locked, sort of. We're shooting super guerrilla-style in a parking garage, so pending forceful removal by police, we should be good! Haha! As far as sharing specifics about the film, I think this time around I'm a little more interested in concealing the specifics of the film rather than sharing every detail and spoiling it. The film is super short (3 pages) and it packs a lot of punch, and I think a lot of that 'punch' will come from its mysteriousness. So don't expect screen grabs or a synopsis or anything that will reveal more than what I've given you in the first post (save for a one sheet, which I'll post after we've shot the film).

09/08
Production is set for this Saturday night. Crew is going to consist of just Sebastian, Dane, Wes and myself and we're packing light. The only gear we're bringing are some LED lights, used to light the interior of a car. The shoot shouldn't last more than a few hours, so we can get in and get out without attracting any attention.

09/11
Shooting tonight!

09/12
Shoot last night went great! Though we didn't finish so we're probably going back to the location tonight to pick up the rest of what we missed. Should be a great little short once all is said and done!

09/13
We just wrapped. It's definitely been a long weekend. We shot 6 hours last night, 3 hours tonight, and in between, I worked on a completely different shoot all day today for a friend of mine. Then tomorrow it's back to work at Sony on The Green Hornet. Sleep? Who needs it...

09/16
Screen grab and lighting info HERE


09/19
We just reviewed Dane's first cut of the film. Looking real good so far! He's gonna tighten up the cut per our notes this week and by our next review, we should know whether or not we have to return to the location to get some pickups.

09/26
We reviewed the 2nd cut today and the film is really shaping up. Dane and Sebastian have been working hard on it the last week and it definitely shows. They handed it off to me today to do some rough sound work and a temp music track and, pending everyone's approval, we'll hand that off to a couple potential composers. We also decided that re-shoots would NOT be necessary, which is a relief. Do not know when I would have found time to organize that... haha!

09/28
Some sad news today... Film Editor Sally Menke was found dead yesterday in the Hollywood hills. Best known for her work with Quentin Tarantino, I had the pleasure of working with her on The Green Hornet for a few months. She was a rockstar in post production and it was just so cool being in her presence. She will be missed..

09/30
Hey guys! So we've locked in our composers Ben Crippin Taylor and returning champ, Danny Walter. This is our first time working with Ben and we're really excited. He's a very talented composer. Check out some samples of his work HERE. Our goal is to turnover picture-lock to them on Sunday, so Sebastian and I are getting together at Dane's tonight for a final editing session. Should be good times, this movie's been a blast!

10/05
So we're picture locked! We met with the composers on Sunday and had a great session. Ben and Danny are both super talented guys and they brought some great ideas to the table that I'm super excited to see fleshed out. Our total running time is 5:23 (including credits and leader), which I'm also really happy about. The story is super simple and making a short this tightly constructed is a nice change of pace compared to some of the stuff we've been working on recently. I can't wait for you all to see it!

10/07
Wes and I did some foley work today at Sony Studios after work. At first I was having technical issues getting my stupid mBox to work, but once I got it up and running it was actually kind of fun! We got all kinds of sound effects inside the parking garage. It was definitely a necessity since we hardly recorded any clean audio on set. This is because we were shooting guerrilla and had to stay as mobile as possible in case security showed up. So yeah, I'd say about 75% of the movie will be ADR and foley work. Though if we do our jobs right, you shouldn't notice!

10/08
We just locked in professional sound editor Jorge Montijo to do our sound design and 5.1 mix! Really excited to see what he comes up with!

10/12
Color correction and visual effects have been completed. All that's left is the score and final mix-down.

10/14
Just heard a first pass at the score. It's EPIC.

[AmyO]

Welcome to the fest, Mike!

[Mike Manning]

Off topic, but we just launched our short film "To Live and Dine in L.A." starring David Hasselhoff.

Watch it here: http://beginningmiddleend.com/premier/

[Mike Manning]

Shooting tonight!

[Mike Manning]

Poster added. blog updated

[ZazaCast]

Great Poster! Looking forward to another killer film from you guys.
Welcome back...

[Derkoi]

Nice posters!! Good luck!!

[Mike Manning]

Thanks guys!

We just wrapped. It's definitely been a long weekend. We shot 6 hours last night, 3 hours tonight, and in between, I worked on a completely different shoot all day today for a friend of mine. Then tomorrow it's back to work at Sony on The Green Hornet. Sleep? Who needs it...

[Mike Manning]

Hey guys!

While we're going to keep the all narrative aspects of the story a secret, I would like to share a little about the production itself. Seeing as this is a forum about film making, I might as well shed some insight into the process of making this film.

Since the production was a guerrilla shoot, there were very obvious compromises that had to be made aesthetically. We had to pack light and keep our numbers small in case security did a sweep of the garage (and they did).

Though most of the lighting came from the parking structure itself, the film is largely lit by a set of LED's that we borrowed from the Best Boy on The Green Hornet - a very cool guy by the name of James McClure.

This is what the lights look like:


The lights in that picture are set to 10% right now using this dimmer:


So you can imagine how bright they get when they're at full blast!

Typically, lights like this are used to light the interior of a car at night. For example, these exact lights were used in this shot from The Green Hornet:


Here's a still from one of our outtakes where you can see the lights in action. (That's Sebastian giving our lead direction)


Aside from your standard Edison outlet, the lights can be powered from the car lighter and we used Velcro to stick them on above the windshield. Luckily for us, the parking garage we shot in had working outlets available that we used to light some of the darker areas by the stairwell. And because the LED's are so tiny, it was very discreet and easy to hide. Unfortunately I didn't get any pics of those set ups.