FEATURE: "HEART OF NOW" – a film by SABI

Had a very productive day yesterday -- may have solved a problem i was having with the screenplay, transitioning from the end of the second 'chapter' into the third. well, not so much with the transition, but understanding where the characters were emotionally a that point. feeling good about it.

Today, on the otherhand, I woke up with mild pain in my lower abdomen which grew into a severe pain that spread to my back and groin by the afternoon. Soon I felt dizzy and threw up in the toilet. at 6pm my girlfriend drove me to the Cedars-Sinai E.R. where I got immediate treatment ahead of the crowded waiting room. three bags of IV fluid and a "megadose" of morphine later, i was feeling much better. the CT scan confirmed it was kidney stones and not a ruptured apendix.

so i'm home now with a bottle of vicodin that doesn't do **** compared to applied heat. this is the worst pain i've ever been in. it's nearly brought me to tears twice today. wouldn't wish it on anyone.
 
Zak Forsman said:
the CT scan confirmed it was kidney stones and not a ruptured apendix.

so i'm home now with a bottle of vicodin that doesn't do shi* compared to applied heat. this is the worst pain i've ever been in. it's nearly brought me to tears twice today. wouldn't wish it on anyone.
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Twice, but it's been about 10 years now. At some point you'll probably get some women telling you it's nothing compared to pushing a baby out. You'll have more of the pain until it passes. My dad had them on both sides about a year ago, they had to break them up with lasers. Good luck on getting back on your feet and finishing your project.
 
not much of an update. not an update at all, really. but, here are two pics of Marion Kerr, Kelly McCracken and myself on the set of White Knuckles shot in September 2006.

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UPDATE: March 30, 2007 @3:30PM (hey, at 3:30 on 3/30!!!)

I'm less than a month from completing and locking the screenplay. In that time, Sabi Pictures will be moving to new studio space at the LA Center Studios lot downtown.

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Zak Forsman said:
not much of an update. not an update at all, really. but, here are two pics of Marion Kerr, Kelly McCracken and myself on the set of White Knuckles shot in September 2006.

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Zak... that's the SAME house that we used for the short that we did back in October! :shocked:
 
no kidding? the owner told us someone was coming in immediately after us. that's funny. did they warn you about the bees? there was a nest and if you put your ear to the wall in the bathroom off the kitchen you could hear them buzzing around. the owner's husband didn't do anything about it during the three weeks we were there.
 
if you were facing the house from the street, the nest was to the left of the kitchen windows.
 
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Did she let you guys use the garage? She locked that thing up on us... :) But she did let us use the guest area, which we wound up not using.

We actually had the neighbors across the street call the local authorities... :beer:
 
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My Brevis35 with CF1 and CF3 shipped today. I have a 50mm Nikon f/1.2 ready and waiting. Looking forward to doing some camera tests.
 
ColorCorrect(InPost) said:
Nice looking grab. How does the HV20 compare to the HVX? Is it more expensive? 24p?
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no, not more expensive. I got my HV20 for $938 shipped. but it's half (maybe less) the camera the HVX is. wouldn't shoot a feature on it, given a choice.
 
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Nice footage, and jammin tunes to boot.

if given the choice of shooting a feature on an HV20 or DVX which would you pick?
 
The HV20 would slow you down and leave very little room for error. there's no way to simply turn gain off. some crucial settings are not held over if you power down. so on a feature, I'd be more inclined to go with the DVX. I bought my HV20 to shoot behind the scenes b-roll and interviews for Heart of Now's EPK (electronic press kit).
 
shot more test footage this weekend with the Brevis35, CineFuse 1, a 50mm f/1.2, an ND9 and a polarizer stacked on as well. in addition to experimenting with dof shots, this round's focus was also on wide exterior shots and inducing lens flares. Next weekend, I'll be doing tests with CineFuse3.

MORE TEST FOOTAGE -> Flowers, Lens Flares, Telephone Poles, etc.

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had a meeting last night with my mentor, Ron Austin, and the core group of filmmakers who made Blue in Green three years ago.

i think the most valuable thing to come from our discussion was the need for us to remain attentive to two things... first, consistantly asking ourselves if we can go deeper, is there more to explore? and second, are we providing a sufficiently safe environment for our cast to go to these emotional places? marion and I have discussed this. she trusts me. she trusts in what we're doing.

what we're all after are those transcendental moments that will touch the audience on a deeply profound level. otherwise it's "just a movie". conventional, mainstream cinema's purpose is to reassure us of things that aren't true. it's safe, it's entertaining, and it's easy to market. i find myself aiming for a niche who welcomes the experience of sitting in a theater (or in their living room, or in front of their laptop) and watching the sort of film that jolts them out of their comfort zone. the sort of experience that wakes them up to what's real -- whether that be an emotional, intellectual or spiritual reality.

so we discussed a method for getting there. it's clear to us that shooting the screenplay word for word is not the way to get there. it's going to happen on set, in the moment. a good friend of mine, M. David Melvin, said it would be like trying to find prayer in the blueprints of a cathedral.

on Heart of Now the process is going to involve a written screenplay with a lot of questions built in, followed by a rehearsal period with the main cast where we can take the material to a deeper level. still, there will be many unanswered questions that won't be fully realized until we're on set, living with these characters, and discovering their brokeness. i'm confident in this process, but it's true what Ron said last night: that not until you've made the film, are you actually ready to make the film. only then can you truly understand where you were going and what you've been looking for. that process of learning, is why i'm a filmmaker.
 
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