a ralph oshiro film--"LEVEL 4" spyfest 06.07
- Thread starter Ralph Oshiro
- Start date
Michael_Petro
Veteran
dude i'll do the topless scenes for ya...... er wait ....... sometimes I scare myself
Ralph Oshiro
Veteran
Oxnard? No, I live in L.A. on the Westside. But thanks for the kind offer!cinealma said:
Dahopafilms
Well-known member
Hey Ralph,
Anything from you is better than me on my best day. So work around the poop and get something in, man.
And if you need someone for topless scenes, try PM'ing Norm (the artist previously known as Envision) Sanders. I understand that for five bucks and a bottle of Watney's Red Barrel nad he'll pretty much give you anything you need.
So just do it - looking forward to it.
Anything from you is better than me on my best day. So work around the poop and get something in, man.
And if you need someone for topless scenes, try PM'ing Norm (the artist previously known as Envision) Sanders. I understand that for five bucks and a bottle of Watney's Red Barrel nad he'll pretty much give you anything you need.
So just do it - looking forward to it.
Ralph Oshiro
Veteran
You guys are too f'n kind! The thread on Spies Girls is looking great--can't wait to see it! Your actresses look great too!Dahopafilms said:
Ralph Oshiro
Veteran
Well, a slight title change to fit the [highly] modified script . . .
"LEVEL 4: PROLOGUE"
"LEVEL 4: PROLOGUE"
Ralph Oshiro
Veteran
Thanks, Charli! Hopefully, you will someday see "all" of it! If my vision perserveres, I think "LEVEL 4" will proceed in "chapters." It feels something like an episodic, but not really. It's more like chapters--small divisions among major plot points. It may go something like this . . .Charli said:
LEVEL 4:
I. PROLOGUE
II. EXODUS
III. RAPTURE
IV. GENESIS
"SpyFest" will only see "PROLOGUE" of course, if I make it in time. If my principle actors stick around, and I continue to stay excited about "LEVEL 4" as a continuing project (something not always easy to do), I hope to eventually get to producing "GENESIS" and beyond.
As you see, I've borrowed some Bibilical namesakes. Though I'm not religious by any means (I'm probably going to end up in the "other" place), but faith-based allegory is always so rich in scope and drama ("PROLOGUE" has no religious elements in it--that may come later).
Good luck Ralph hope you can finish on time. Looking forward to seeing.
Ralph Oshiro
Veteran
HA! You just saw that now?
Ralph Oshiro
Veteran
I'm clearly not going to make it. Actress has no transportation and lives two hours away.
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Shawn Philip Nelson
Veteran
Ah dang it Ralph! Yours was on my must-see list! Figure out how to do it 
Ralph Oshiro
Veteran
Thanks guys! Just uploaded what I had!
Ted Arabian
Member with Ladder
Hey Ralph, just catching up on your thread..... sorry to hear about the "deep trouble" news. I am glad that you are submitting, regardless. I started to have an anxiety attack thinking about all of the footage, locked away in your closet, with no one to share it with!
You are a master of imagery and the camera.... I cannot wait to see your entry! (besides.... storylines are over-rated, right??? :grin: )
-Ted
You are a master of imagery and the camera.... I cannot wait to see your entry! (besides.... storylines are over-rated, right??? :grin: )
-Ted
Ralph Oshiro
Veteran
EPILOGUE:
Well, it's all over now . . . and now that I've uploaded my half-baked, half-assed attempt at SpyFest, the proof is in the pudding (what a dumb saying that is). Just so you know, the submission is incomplete (that's the half-baked part) and runs far short of the six-minute alotted running time. We all came into this fest with such high ambitions, especially for me, in that it was the first fest open to all cameras. I had a script. I had a great camera. I had great actors. What went wrong?
• Over-ambitious script. I was at first elated that I actually had a script this time. My original script, however, was far too ambitious. Crowd scenes. Police cars. News crews. What was I thinking? Well, I was thinking, I know a lot of news crews, and on the right day, I could have gotten that scene. Also, I have a police-looking car already. It just needed new tires, but I never got around to deciding on which new wheels I wanted to get. Plus the car had a suspension problem that I only recently noticed. It's still under warranty, but it was yet another barrier to getting my "police car" to be "camera ready." Then the search for drivers willing to risk their license to get that really cool shot. The list goes on . . .
• Principal actress (Alejandra) lives too far and doesn't drive. One of the biggest problems. But it's hard to replace her. She's so pretty, so thin, and does pretty much anything I ask her to do.
• Needed more hot girls to die right away, preferrably, naked. Boy, was THAT a tough one. I spent many e-mails and many phone calls trying to solve THAT casting task. From a Stuff Magazine model to a "2 Fast 2 Furious" extra, none of them would pan out. Not even fully clothed.
• Expensive wardobe. Full costume for two actors was going to cost over $1,000 (it requires a bunch of specialized gear). I couldn't ever decide, since all my shopping had to be done over the internet. No trying things on, no (easy) returns, etc.
• Extensive set dressing, propmaking, etc. Required new aluminum miniblinds to be installed in the whole house. Finally got them all installed last weekend. Still need to paint a hallway and mock-up some clean-room doors. All easy enough things to do, but . . . Needed to rent a white Econoline van for principle characters' vehicle. But never rented it since I never got around to getting the custom vinyl-cut graphics I needed to have made to have put on the doors. Also needed to rig quite a bit of ancillary gear to the van, which I had not made the effort to purchase.
So basically, a lot of laziness on my part. Lots of detail work that never got done. Many of the props and art department-related stuff requires careful attention to detail, and varying lead times to get completed by other vendors. Still, probably the biggest hurdle was script. It still wasn't quite right. Still not quite believable. So, I'm left with that. Hopefully, the script issues will come around, and I'll still believe enough in the project to continue.
What you do see in what I submitted is actually the screen test footage from the other two actors (the two women who are not Alejandra). The footage of the girl with the automatic rifle was never intended to be in the actual short. The wardrobe is COMPLETELY wrong, and just thrown together for "fun" for the test shoot. The footage of the other woman, the one with the headset, was also only her "screen test" footage. The set wasn't completely dressed yet (miniblinds weren't installed yet), so none of the wide shots were able to be photographed. Also, the translite wasn't yet acquired for the "out the window" shot, to be able to marry this interior with the real downtown L.A. building exteriors shot previously. The principle photography of Alejandra was all shot in about six hours, including travel time to three different locations in and around Los Angeles.
Well, it's all over now . . . and now that I've uploaded my half-baked, half-assed attempt at SpyFest, the proof is in the pudding (what a dumb saying that is). Just so you know, the submission is incomplete (that's the half-baked part) and runs far short of the six-minute alotted running time. We all came into this fest with such high ambitions, especially for me, in that it was the first fest open to all cameras. I had a script. I had a great camera. I had great actors. What went wrong?
• Over-ambitious script. I was at first elated that I actually had a script this time. My original script, however, was far too ambitious. Crowd scenes. Police cars. News crews. What was I thinking? Well, I was thinking, I know a lot of news crews, and on the right day, I could have gotten that scene. Also, I have a police-looking car already. It just needed new tires, but I never got around to deciding on which new wheels I wanted to get. Plus the car had a suspension problem that I only recently noticed. It's still under warranty, but it was yet another barrier to getting my "police car" to be "camera ready." Then the search for drivers willing to risk their license to get that really cool shot. The list goes on . . .
• Principal actress (Alejandra) lives too far and doesn't drive. One of the biggest problems. But it's hard to replace her. She's so pretty, so thin, and does pretty much anything I ask her to do.
• Needed more hot girls to die right away, preferrably, naked. Boy, was THAT a tough one. I spent many e-mails and many phone calls trying to solve THAT casting task. From a Stuff Magazine model to a "2 Fast 2 Furious" extra, none of them would pan out. Not even fully clothed.
• Expensive wardobe. Full costume for two actors was going to cost over $1,000 (it requires a bunch of specialized gear). I couldn't ever decide, since all my shopping had to be done over the internet. No trying things on, no (easy) returns, etc.
• Extensive set dressing, propmaking, etc. Required new aluminum miniblinds to be installed in the whole house. Finally got them all installed last weekend. Still need to paint a hallway and mock-up some clean-room doors. All easy enough things to do, but . . . Needed to rent a white Econoline van for principle characters' vehicle. But never rented it since I never got around to getting the custom vinyl-cut graphics I needed to have made to have put on the doors. Also needed to rig quite a bit of ancillary gear to the van, which I had not made the effort to purchase.
So basically, a lot of laziness on my part. Lots of detail work that never got done. Many of the props and art department-related stuff requires careful attention to detail, and varying lead times to get completed by other vendors. Still, probably the biggest hurdle was script. It still wasn't quite right. Still not quite believable. So, I'm left with that. Hopefully, the script issues will come around, and I'll still believe enough in the project to continue.
What you do see in what I submitted is actually the screen test footage from the other two actors (the two women who are not Alejandra). The footage of the girl with the automatic rifle was never intended to be in the actual short. The wardrobe is COMPLETELY wrong, and just thrown together for "fun" for the test shoot. The footage of the other woman, the one with the headset, was also only her "screen test" footage. The set wasn't completely dressed yet (miniblinds weren't installed yet), so none of the wide shots were able to be photographed. Also, the translite wasn't yet acquired for the "out the window" shot, to be able to marry this interior with the real downtown L.A. building exteriors shot previously. The principle photography of Alejandra was all shot in about six hours, including travel time to three different locations in and around Los Angeles.
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insanityfw
Ban Me Please!
Wow Ralph, I'm really sorry to hear about your trials and tribulations. Had the same things happen on me with my horror-fest. I don't know if doing what I did would work and you probably wouldn't be completely happy, but I gave it to an editor who took only 60% of the final footage and stitched together something that surprised me. It was not the movie that I had envision, but barring a couple of major glitches it was an entertaining film. It even stayed at #1 for weeks on undergroundfilm.org, so it got quite a following.
Creativity is so tough when you wear all the hats. It torments me all the time.
I hope that you find some sense of completion with the project. If not, it will just drive you harder next time...as I'm sure you know.
I would still really love to work with you one day.
bEst of luck,
Jason
Creativity is so tough when you wear all the hats. It torments me all the time.
I hope that you find some sense of completion with the project. If not, it will just drive you harder next time...as I'm sure you know.
I would still really love to work with you one day.
bEst of luck,
Jason