THE BEGINNER - A film by J. Anthony Gonzales
- Thread starter cinealma
- Start date
Michael Anthony Horrigan
More Cowbell Pictures
Good luck!
Have a good one....
Mike
Have a good one....
Mike
rogar-Evil(DBG): I couldn't sleep a wink the night before any shooting day.
cinealma
Veteran
And that's a wrap! A proverbial indie shoot with all the drama, laughs and disappointments. It's almost 3:00am and I'm dead tired. I'll post more about the shoot when I can feel my brain.
Thanks for all the support, friends.
And n o w s l ee ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp
Thanks for all the support, friends.
And n o w s l ee ppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp
cinealma
Veteran
PRODUCTION DAY HIGHLIGHTS:
Just a quick rundown of the ups and downs of the day. You always read about indie shoots and things that can go wrong or the wonderful unplanned things. Here's a quick rundown:
1. We arrive at the location. I had secured it literally the day before we shot. I was welcomed by cheers and screams of a girls soccer tournament at the park next door. And not just a few little games, we're talking twenty, thirty fields set up. That pretty much went on all day and into the evening. Also, the local Strawberry Festival was going on this weekend, so lots of lovely traffic going by about 100 feet from the building we were shooting in. It's a 55mph highway, so trucks, motorcycles, etc. Oh, yeah, and they were watering the fields across the way, so the loud HUM of the giant water pumps added a nice TINGE to the air.
2. I forgot the bags of food. My actors arrived at 8:00am after driving up an hour from L.A. and I had nothing food-wise to offer. I did have the coffee, though. My wife came to the rescue about an hour later.
3. My lead actor helped me to cast the "older spy" guy. I hadn't found anyone yet and an actress he knew said her husband would be very interested. Fine, your in. Her husband was a theater guy, is currently directing a play at the playhouse they both belong too, etc. etc. REALITY CHECK: He's not the director, he's the STAGE MANAGER. He's never really acted much before. Etc. etc. Well, once we started reading lines, I knew this was going to be rough one.
4a. We used my friend's DVX to shoot with. The quick-release plate was a different size than the Manofrotto one on the Fig Rig we were using. So what do you do? Take the one off the camera and put on the one we need. Right? WRONG. The plate on the camera was GLUED/EPOXIED/WELDED to the bottom of the camera. "It came like that from the guy I bought it from"." Yes, the tripod was part of the package.
4b. Ok, let's take the quick-release mount off the tripod and use it on the Fig Rig. A quick run to Home Depot (a few blocks from the location) for a set of hex keys. Well, we took off the mount and SPROING! Springs shoot out everywhere. Luckily we found all the pieces. (At that time we HOPED we had found all the pieces.)
5. The climatic confrontation scene. "i want to rehearse it a few times." "John, we're losing light and we still have to shoot outside." "Just a couple of times." "John the light". "We'll make it. This scene HAS to play out right." Well, we rehearsed the scene, found out there were some things we needed to change so it worked. Ok, let's shoot the ****er. We start to shoot the first take of the scene, get to the peak of the scene, and BZZT. THE POWER WENT OUT. Did we blow a fuse? NO. A ****ING POWER OUTAGE! As we all stood there in the dark, one of my friends had the balls to say out loud: "I guess we should've screwed the rehearsals." Classic. Everybody laughed. I cried.
6. After 20 takes of a guy getting shot coming out of a gardner's shed, the last one was awesome! Unfortunatley, he also crashed through the shed door and it took us sometime to figure out how to get it back on.
7. A cricket came to watch the action at about 3:00 and never quite left. Several serach parties returned empty handed.
Fun stuff, I tell ya! But really, we had a blast shooting it.
This is going to be a real challenge to put together seeing as we didn't get to shoot more than a couple key scenes as written. I might have to go in a totally different direction than planned. I have a lot of really good footage, so at least I'm not coming up shooting blanks.
I'll have some grabs and BTS pics up soon.
John G.
Just a quick rundown of the ups and downs of the day. You always read about indie shoots and things that can go wrong or the wonderful unplanned things. Here's a quick rundown:
1. We arrive at the location. I had secured it literally the day before we shot. I was welcomed by cheers and screams of a girls soccer tournament at the park next door. And not just a few little games, we're talking twenty, thirty fields set up. That pretty much went on all day and into the evening. Also, the local Strawberry Festival was going on this weekend, so lots of lovely traffic going by about 100 feet from the building we were shooting in. It's a 55mph highway, so trucks, motorcycles, etc. Oh, yeah, and they were watering the fields across the way, so the loud HUM of the giant water pumps added a nice TINGE to the air.
2. I forgot the bags of food. My actors arrived at 8:00am after driving up an hour from L.A. and I had nothing food-wise to offer. I did have the coffee, though. My wife came to the rescue about an hour later.
3. My lead actor helped me to cast the "older spy" guy. I hadn't found anyone yet and an actress he knew said her husband would be very interested. Fine, your in. Her husband was a theater guy, is currently directing a play at the playhouse they both belong too, etc. etc. REALITY CHECK: He's not the director, he's the STAGE MANAGER. He's never really acted much before. Etc. etc. Well, once we started reading lines, I knew this was going to be rough one.
4a. We used my friend's DVX to shoot with. The quick-release plate was a different size than the Manofrotto one on the Fig Rig we were using. So what do you do? Take the one off the camera and put on the one we need. Right? WRONG. The plate on the camera was GLUED/EPOXIED/WELDED to the bottom of the camera. "It came like that from the guy I bought it from"." Yes, the tripod was part of the package.
4b. Ok, let's take the quick-release mount off the tripod and use it on the Fig Rig. A quick run to Home Depot (a few blocks from the location) for a set of hex keys. Well, we took off the mount and SPROING! Springs shoot out everywhere. Luckily we found all the pieces. (At that time we HOPED we had found all the pieces.)
5. The climatic confrontation scene. "i want to rehearse it a few times." "John, we're losing light and we still have to shoot outside." "Just a couple of times." "John the light". "We'll make it. This scene HAS to play out right." Well, we rehearsed the scene, found out there were some things we needed to change so it worked. Ok, let's shoot the ****er. We start to shoot the first take of the scene, get to the peak of the scene, and BZZT. THE POWER WENT OUT. Did we blow a fuse? NO. A ****ING POWER OUTAGE! As we all stood there in the dark, one of my friends had the balls to say out loud: "I guess we should've screwed the rehearsals." Classic. Everybody laughed. I cried.
6. After 20 takes of a guy getting shot coming out of a gardner's shed, the last one was awesome! Unfortunatley, he also crashed through the shed door and it took us sometime to figure out how to get it back on.
7. A cricket came to watch the action at about 3:00 and never quite left. Several serach parties returned empty handed.
Fun stuff, I tell ya! But really, we had a blast shooting it.
This is going to be a real challenge to put together seeing as we didn't get to shoot more than a couple key scenes as written. I might have to go in a totally different direction than planned. I have a lot of really good footage, so at least I'm not coming up shooting blanks.
I'll have some grabs and BTS pics up soon.
John G.
cinealma
Veteran
tmnt said:
Yes, I know. But nobody speaks Spanish in it and I changed a lot of the story to move away from the original plan. Thanks for the props on the title. If I could keep it, I would. But it's just not going to fit the film anymore. Of course, I could dub it in Spanish. Hmm. :huh:
cinealma
Veteran
I just finished watching all the footage from the shoot. There's some great stuff there. And there's some definite script holes for those things we didn't get to shoot because of the power outage. A challenge, but heck, I'm game.
The direction I'm going to take this film will be kind of fun and interesting at the same time. I won't reveal much, but I will say this:
... it's going to be kind of like Kurosawa meets Magnum P.I..
The direction I'm going to take this film will be kind of fun and interesting at the same time. I won't reveal much, but I will say this:
... it's going to be kind of like Kurosawa meets Magnum P.I..
cinealma
Veteran
The deadline is looming, but editing is going surprisingly well. I hope to have a more than rough cut by Friday so I can start working on sound for the weekend.
Here's a few quick ok-res grabs:
Completion code? What completion code?
Agent Zechariah Solak wants to know:
Where IS that ****in' guy?
Agent Robert Mann, shoots and asks questions
at the SAME TIME!
Agent Mark Tarkovsky's looking for answers.
ACTION! ACTION! ACTION!
Cheers!
Here's a few quick ok-res grabs:
Completion code? What completion code?
Agent Zechariah Solak wants to know:
Where IS that ****in' guy?
Agent Robert Mann, shoots and asks questions
at the SAME TIME!
Agent Mark Tarkovsky's looking for answers.
ACTION! ACTION! ACTION!
Cheers!
cinealma
Veteran
Does anybody know how I can get the title of my thread changed? It's no longer a Spanish language film, so I'd like to change it from:
El Principiante (The Beginner) - A film by J. Anthony Gonzales
to:
The Beginner - A film by J. Anthony Gonzales
I sent a PM to the powers that be a week ago, but nothing yet.
Thanks.
El Principiante (The Beginner) - A film by J. Anthony Gonzales
to:
The Beginner - A film by J. Anthony Gonzales
I sent a PM to the powers that be a week ago, but nothing yet.
Thanks.
Go to your original post in this thread. Click on the Modify button (next to the Quote and Reply buttons at the bottom of your entry), then at the bottom of the edit window, you should see a button marked "Go Advanced". This will take you to a page where you can modify the title of the thread.
May be a bit late to say this, but I'm seeing the thread title as "The Beginner" now. Don't know if that was because of what you did or not. Perhaps your browser was using a cached version of the page and therefore showing the old titile??? Anyway, looks like it's fixed now. 
Ted Arabian
Member with Ladder
Hey John....
GREAT GRABS! WOW! I love them. Great framing. I am very anxious to see this. I just loved what you did in "CFWBN9."
Only a mod can change the title of a thread... someone must have heard your plea! (probably mikko.... he did mine. He's like EVERYWHERE! I guess that's why they made him a mod! Great job, Mikko :thumbsup: )
Great job, John! :thumbsup:
-Ted
GREAT GRABS! WOW! I love them. Great framing. I am very anxious to see this. I just loved what you did in "CFWBN9."
Only a mod can change the title of a thread... someone must have heard your plea! (probably mikko.... he did mine. He's like EVERYWHERE!
I guess that's why they made him a mod! Great job, Mikko :thumbsup: )Great job, John! :thumbsup:
-Ted
Ted Arabian
Member with Ladder
OMG, John.... I JUST read your "production highlights!" WHAT A NIGHTMARE!
I mean, I know that every shoot has it's glitches but you seem to hit the jackpot!
And that story of the baseplate GLUED to the bottom of the dvx was just unbelievable!
Whew! I hope that you got everything shot that you needed.
btw... I can't sleep before a shoot! Way too excited! (or nervous!!!)
-Ted
I mean, I know that every shoot has it's glitches but you seem to hit the jackpot!
And that story of the baseplate GLUED to the bottom of the dvx was just unbelievable!
Whew! I hope that you got everything shot that you needed.
btw... I can't sleep before a shoot! Way too excited! (or nervous!!!)
-Ted
cinealma
Veteran
AmyO said:May be a bit late to say this, but I'm seeing the thread title as "The Beginner" now. Don't know if that was because of what you did or not. Perhaps your browser was using a cached version of the page and therefore showing the old titile??? Anyway, looks like it's fixed now.
I pm'd Larry and he was able to change it for me. I really appreciated it!