"Corrado" - A production blog

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Dude, congratulations on the beginning of your journey. I hope it all works out for you, and we're all cheering for you on the DVX forums. You have taught me alot in just a small amount of time, and I am taking the lessons you have learnt (both good and bad) on board for furure projects.

We are currently doing the exact same thing as you are, but in Australia...I will be taking your advice and teachings into pre, onto the set, and into the ass end of our production too.

You have inspired many to create something others have told them its impossible to do. You have broken down the seemingly inpenetrable barriers between us and the big guns, and shown us that if you take the elad, others will follow.

I thank you personally for what you have said and the ordeal you have gone through. I am planning on visiting the US within the next year, and if I come across LA, I will surely let you know because in my books, you deserve a beer...and I like beer. If you don't drink, I'll drink yours and get you an OJ haha :P
 
Now that's inspiration. Holy crap, it just keeps getting better. It's not only the content of what you're posting, it's the way you're writing it that makes it so good.

Well done, sir.

-Kegan
 
Thanks so much, guys, but PLEASE go do this. Grab hold of your dreams. That's all the thanks I need, that you guys achieve what you want.
 
Mahvalous Adam!!! You played this so well and I especially appreciated hearing you share some personal motivations and philosophies for your game plan. It's good to view these sort of moves as a chess game rather than a recipe. You've shown that you had motives for prepaying and you recognized the risks for doing so. It's also a bigger picture than the admittedly primary objective of establishing a working relationship with Mr. Sizemore. You have established a level of respect and legitimacy with both agents in the room and, by extension, those people that they discuss you and your project with down the road. I thought you said it very well that "Legitimacy is priceless in Hollywood." So true. What people think about you matters.

I recall earlier in your thread you were discussing an agent for another actor who held things up and caused you some grief. I believe you said that you were told that she had a reputation for such behavior by others. Obviously, those comments and your own experience will factor into how you interact with her in the future. Actions have consequences and they are like ripples in a pond. How others perceive you will affect you in ways you can't even know.
 
I've been sitting here, staring at my screen for about the last 30 minutes debating with myself on posting to this thread. On the one hand I feel I need to say something, and on the other, I feel posting within this thread dilutes it somewhat.

Adam, in my past life I attempted a similar risk, except those risks were on the music front (I've been a musician for over forty years).

They didn't work.

The last 30 minutes reading and re-reading this thread, and just staring at the screen doing nothing told me why. It's kind of a cold feeling. It wasn't the risks I'd been taking, it was waiting on others to take the risks with me, and in some cases for me. I can see now that my biggest obstacle was the one I'd placed in the road myself, waiting and relying on others to help me make things happen. You've a lot more wisdom in what you're writing, then just the sentences marked "Wisdom". There's a bigger picture overall you're painting (and the most amazing thing of it is, the paint's still wet!!!).

You've bypassed that by doing it yourself and not waiting on others to get things done (sadly, in my case, waiting on my friends). Waiting on others will only accomplish one thing. You will get to experience the full measure of time as it passes.

All I can say is, thank you for sharing this and giving me at least, insight on keeping the road I've wanted to travel clear of the only obstacles that can get in the way. Myself.

Again, thanks - and please - don't stop writing.
 
Ditto to that and please, please, make sure the movie doesn't suck.
The story and the acting-directing, specifically. I'm scared about that!
 
As far as the movie sucking, who knows. Hopefully not. At least the story is good, hopefully I won't butcher it too badly ;-)
 
taormina said:
On a side note, I wanted to poll the collective about a certain aspect of Corrado. As you know, I am filming this on my HVX with Letus Extreme adapter and my set of Nikon primes.

Like my title says, I hate to rent. But I am on the horns of a dilemma.

Although my Nikkors have great image quality, I have become very concerned about the short throw for focusing on some of the lenses.

The longer the lens, generally speaking, the longer the throw on the barrel. My 135 has probably a 200 degree turn, which is great.

One of my problem lenses is my 50 f1.2 - an awesome still lens. I did some tests and had a person walk a taped off mark - the distance was about 5'. This resulted in a turn of the FF wheel of less than 10 degrees!!!!!! At that point, even the thickness of the dry erase marker line comes into play!

And forget pulling focus with a tape measure - the markings are too small to be of any value.

So I am currently thinking of buying a PL mount for the Letus and renting a set of PL primes - Cooke S4s, Zeiss Superspeeds, whatever.

I used Digiprimes on my TV pilot on an F900 and they were great (but B4 mount).

Much as I hate to rent anything, I am now weighing the cost of inaccurate focus pulling, delays, angry 1st ACs, you name it. I'm sure there is a quality difference as wellm but this is really secondary.

Also, we will be doing quite a bit of Jib and Steadicam work, and I need to rent a wireless Follow Focus such as a Bartech.

I felt like the Wireless FF would just magnify the problems of focusing with those short barrel turns.

So it's not etched in stone that I am going this route, but I would love to hear what you guys think.
Click to expand...

You should definitely break your No-Rentals rule for this one. Buy a PL mount and rent some SuperSpeeds or Cooke S4's. In fact, if you want to check out the Letus Extreme + HVX Combo with Standard Speed lenses let me know and we'll meet up so you can take home some DVCproHD footage.

You can get some great results from the best Nikon and Zeiss SLR lenses. There's NO denying that. In the end, however, there's a reason why Cinema Glass exists and SLR glass (straight out of the box) just isn't constructed to handle moving images. That goes for Focus Throw, Focal Marks, Chromatic Anomalies, Breathing, Color Matched sets and a few other things that may have slipped my mind.

For run and gun, small budget deals I would definitely say "forego the rental and use your Nikons to the best of your ability!". This project is obviously not Run-and-gun and your image is just as important.

Go PL mount and great Glass, don't regret it later on when you Rack Focus and your entire frame shifts.
 
Hey Guys, just wanted to add something. I've been getting many people asking me for a copy of the script, and I'm totally cool giving it out as soon as we're wrapped filming.

No, I'm not paranoid; it's WGA and Copyrighted, and if anyone wanted to steal it, more power to them.

It's just that I'm really not entertaining suggestions on modifying it in any way, and people can't help themselves on giving feedback.

Some of you already have the script because I've given it to you in conjunction with working on the project. If you do, please keep it to yourself until after we've shot the film. After that - give it to your neighbors as christmas presents or use it for ass wipe, I don't care.


Hey Kholi - thanks for the feedback.

My DP has a deal memo standing with a major rental house in LA - we got a set of superspeeds for the entire duration of the film for $1200!!!!!!!!

This is huge. The rate I ws quoted over the phone was $650 per day, 3 day week. I managed to negotiate it down to $2400. And he got it for half that.

Pretty cool, hey??????
 
Very VERY cool. Make sure you keep the rental houses' name out of the thread. What you don't want to do is ruin great deals in the future. That said, that's an awesome deal.

These are the kinds of things that other indie/no-budget filmmakers need to see. The talk of spending money as though it's a BAD idea? At the end of the day, something so simple as using these SuperSpeeds will be ONE LESS THING to worry about during the shoot. Of all the thousands of things you're going to be pulling your ear hairs out over, at least "is the lens breathing to much!?!?" won't be one of them.

Sick thread, Taormina. New standard set for the USER FILMS section blogs right here.
 
taormina said:
It's just that I'm really not entertaining suggestions on modifying it in any way, and people can't help themselves on giving feedback.
Click to expand...

Most insightful and useful comment ever posted on this board.

This thread is a gold mine of common sense and intelligence.

Kudos sir.
 
Our latest cast member is Michael Bailey Smith. I cast him today in the role of Brooklyn Bridges.

Now Brooklyn is supposed to be this huge bruiser who uses waaaay more force than is necessary to quell his opponents. He's almost comic book like in appearance.

I'd wanted Michael to play this role before I even met my agent. Fortuitously, he is repped by my agent as well.

He's probably best known as Pluto in the Hills have Eyes. He was the "thing" that perpetrated the infamous rape scene in the trailer.

I think he looks like exactly what I had in mind.
 

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Adam the info continues to be amazing and inspiring.

I'm am very glad to hear about the comments on your script, it puts into perspective how this is such fantastic production information, but to also remember that you began with this same hard work and determination on you script.

As always, looking forward to your updates.

Drew
 
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