THE BEGINNER - A film by J. Anthony Gonzales

Theodore J Arabian said:
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
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I have to say, though, that even with all the crap-ola, we had a blast shooting it. Watching the raw footage, there's some funny stuff going on, I tell ya.

On the night after the shoot, Paul (the lead actor) and I came back to my place and offloaded all the footage off his camera. (Side note: we actually shot some additional footage in my garage to make up for some of the stuff we didn't get). Anyway, it was after midnight and we both had had little sleep over the last 48 hours and at the stage where everything seemed funny. Not to give too much away, there's one scene in the film where we needed a blood spray effect so we rigged up one of those weed sprayer/hose combos (awesome effect for $20). Anyway, on one take, we had problems with clogging up the hose, so we used less sponge pieces AND thinned out the blood. Well, the money shot came and I swear the blood SPRAYED out like a ****in' fire hose! And with the way we had the shot framed, I swear it looks more like somebody got harpooned instead of shot. Paul and I must have laughed for a good 15 minutes!

I just love making films, I have to say! And I hope one day I can actually do this for a living. :)

Thanks for the support, Ted.
 
AAAAAAaaaarrrrrrggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, now back to rendering.

I actually think I've got it this time. Crossing my fingers. My first go came out 25MB. My next one came out 128MB. So Hopefully this one will settle out at 50.
 
cinealma said:
AAAAAAaaaarrrrrrggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, now back to rendering.

I actually think I've got it this time. Crossing my fingers. My first go came out 25MB. My next one came out 128MB. So Hopefully this one will settle out at 50.
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Dude, that was so just the last five hours of my life! I think I made 12 copies of my film, finally got to 44mb and called it good.

Good luck on the rendering. You'll get there. :)
 
No doubt, Amy.

I just finished rendering and came out at 40MB. Looked great, EXCEPT I get pixelated splotches every second or two in the video. I'm going to try again and see what happens. I'm going to start the render and then I'm hitting the sack or I'll be hating it at work tomorrow. Hopefully Barry and Larry will take my upload in the morning.
 
Finally got the gosh darned thing uploaded. My main problem was that I was getting what I call "throbbing pixelations from hell." Basically, every second or so, I get a huge area of the frame all pixelated. I swear I was banging my head against the wall all night and day. FINALLY, I figured out what the damn thing was.

So i'm rendering out of Vegas to an .mp4 (I gave up on the whole h.264 QT stuff after about 2:00am). And here's a tip for everyone:

DON'T HAVE THE PREVIEW WINDOW OPEN IN VEGAS WHILE YOU ARE RENDERING!

I noticed that in the preview window, the frame counter would stutter every so often. And then the light bulb turned on. I closed the preview window and after rendering, my film was free of "pixelation sensation".

So now I'm going to go make myself a margarita and post some BTS shots, new poster, etc.

Congrats to all! Can't wait for the fest to start!
 
Ladies and gentelmen, here's the new poster for The Beginner:


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I hope you guys and gals enjoy the film!
 
Now that is a CLASSIC poster , The 60's look .

You have me wondering is the short done in 60's style .

Enjoyed Cure for writers block . it was well done . Looking forward to this one .

Ian
 
Thanks Matt and Ian.

I was going for the retro 60's look with the poster. I really like the film posters from that era.

This film is kind of a mish-mash of stuff. Definitely not one of the VFX bad boys in the fest. I hope you like it.
 
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Bts #1

Bts #1

Behind the Scenes #1:

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Jim Crawford (Agent Solak) watches the action off camera. Behind him, you can see one of our guerilla ghetto lights mounted on my trusty 1 ton Gitzo.
 
Bts #2

Bts #2

Behind the Scenes #2:
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Matt Garrett (matty_g) man-handling the Fig Rig; getting ready for the first shot of the day.
 
Bts #4

Bts #4

Behind the Scenes #4:

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"Location Flag Fifty-Two"

We shot at the Pleasant Valley Co-op Preschool in Camarillo, CA.
 
Bts #5

Bts #5

Behind the Scenes #5:

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Paul demonstrates Rule No. 28.

After a "wonderful" ( :zombie_smiley:) experience on a USC grad film, Paul made himself a list of 30 or 40 rules for himself as an actor. The one that cracked me up was this one:

"NEVER put your fingers in the salad."


So here's the story. Paul grabbed a slice of avocado out of the giant salad on the catering table at this USC shoot. He heard some ghasps behind him and saw two ladies who were on the crew glaring at him and then mumbling to each other under their breaths. He had all ready won the ladies over on this one by playing the role of a real womanizing bastard to a tee. At the end of the day, he happened to glance over the table. Word must have got out about his "fingering the salad" because nobody had eaten any of it.

Thus rule #28.

BUT HERE'S THE FUNNY PART...

So here were are in the kitchen, laughing about his story and he digs in to the chips and salsa (we served up Baja Fresh for lunch). He didn't put his finger into anything, BUT HE ATE OVER THE SALAD WE HAD AND A BIG GLOB OF SALSA AND CHIP CRUD FELL OUT OF HIS MOUTH! AND HE DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE IT!

****ING ACTORS! :grin:

We gave him quite a ribbing after that. Needless to say, he added a new rule.
 
Hey, thanks for checking out the "Don't Look" thread. Sorry there wasn't more to see. And gosh, what an awesome poster. Can't wait. Good luck.
 
Awesome new poster, John! And BIG CONGRATS on the "uploaded and verified" status!!!

Looking forward to your flick!

-Ted
 
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