COLD CALLS by John Whalen featuring Blanchard Ryan (OpenWater) & Ben Bailey (CashCab)

Heh heh, yeah and they're hard to understand. Booze and speaker phones don't mix.

I really appreciated that call, and that you guys would call and share news on your internet pilot.

Look forward to hearing more about it when the smoke clears here.

Tomorrow is last day.

Bad news is, haven't been able to get set photos off camera yet. Good news is should have lots of content for the thread for the next two weeks.
 
Damn i still havent returned all the borrowed gear.... Shhesh....

Over all shoot went well. we finished on time.... :)

HPX170 Rocks hard. such a sweet camera....
 
Sorry for lack of grabs. Decompressing from the shoot while simultaneously busy with other things.

Will get some up this weekend or set photos for sure.
 
Thread-Jack Alert

Thread-Jack Alert

While Jack is mired with his footage, allow me to threadjack this place briefly. ...

God, sometimes living in L.A. is just priceless. Last night Fat Monster was invited as special guests of Nebojsa Stojonavich and Ana Alexander to attend their screening of Ana's new action movie pitch "Porcelain." Many of you will recall that Ana first acted for us in "Where the Heart Lies" and later was the female lead in "O2." She told us back then that she was "stunned" with what we were able to do with a small dedicated crew on a tiny budget. She was also particularly taken by Tim's editing chops and, thus, she and Nebojsa brought "Porcelain" to us to finish (they were very unhappy with the work done by both their production crew and their editors).

So, we ended up in Bel Aire above Beverly Hills for the screening which took place at the mansion of Mohamed Hadid. Coincidentally, our good friend Zak Forsman of SABI was screening "White Knuckles" in Hollywood at the same time. We dispatched Luis to Zak's premiere while Tim and I drove the battered Prius up into the Hollywood Hills.

I am not going to be able to do justice to the experience. Our host was Mohamed Hadid, a mega-developer who I noted has producing credit on "The Dead Girl." To give you a little flavor of the man, here's an opening blurb I found about him in an article online:

THE FIRST TIME Mohamed Anwar Hadid set foot in Aspen, he felt almost weightless. He stepped out of a Citation jet, took a deep breath of the crisp mountain air, and marveled at the wonders that surrounded him: the big sky, the jagged peaks, the emerald grass. A Palestinian who'd been exiled from his homeland at birth, he was a Washington developer on the rise. Now he was in America's most posh mountain playground, and he liked what he saw.

"I was intoxicated," he recalls.

Soon he would become infatuated -- infatuated with two pieces of land, one of which sat at the base of Aspen's main ski slope. Both were in foreclosure. Two hours after he touched down that day in May 1987, Hadid was scheming to buy his piece of the Rockies.

A week or so later, in Trump Tower, Donald Trump met with his lawyers from Aspen and New York to discuss the design of a hotel that Trump planned to build at the base of Aspen's main ski slope. Trump had put down $ 17.5 million to buy the six-acre property out of a pending foreclosure, and in a few days, when a waiting period expired, the land would be his. He'd heard that someone else was trying to acquire the property, but he didn't believe that anyone would challenge him. "We'll name the hotel Trump Palace," he said. On June 26 Hadid was back in Aspen. He'd discovered that there was a priority debt on the hotel site that Trump coveted. By paying the loan he could preempt Trump's contract. At 2:10 P.M. that day a London bank wired $ 42.9 million to Hadid's account in Aspen. Hadid presented the money to the public trustee and became the owner of Trump's hotel property, along with 66 acres of meadow across town.

Bye-bye, Trump Palace.

"Trump still claims that no one has ever beat him in a deal, but that's not true anymore," says Hadid. "I beat Trump."

The deal was vintage Hadid. It was quick, it required a lot of money in a short time, it was bold, it was risky. It was the kind of deal that has cloaked Hadid in mystery. WHO IS MOHAMED HADID? asked a headline in an Aspen newspaper.
Click to expand...

Let's just say that Mr. Hadid's digs are a bit more upscale than the Monster Shack. The joint is 45,000 Square Feet. No joke. Here's a sampling of photos (some from my iPhone and some culled from on-line):

HadidMansion01.jpg


And here's one of my favorites:

HadidAndTheDude.jpg


That's me with the illustrious Mr. Hadid. Looks like we're old friends, eh? Well, Tim snapped this in the kitchen just as the billionaire came up and mistook me for one of the serving staff! He is earnestly saying, "That young woman by the alcove requires a Chardonnay." Naturally, I summoned up my courage realizing this was an opportunity not to be missed and so I said, "Right away Mr. Hadid."

Interestingly, after I retrieved a Chardonnay for the attractive blonde she had disappeared. Tim advised after 5 minutes that the statute of limitations on my stint as serving butler had expired so I chugged the chick's glass and went to get more of the wine for myself.

The evening was spectacular in the end. Ana, as per usual, was the hottest chick in the house and she lavished attention on us throughout the evening. There were a number of notable producers, directors, composers and what-have-you in attendance. The screening was well received and Tim's edit looked fabulous on the big screen:
Edit.jpg


Shortly thereafter we were joined by Luis and we all went up to hit the food (much of which I could not identify) and Mr. Hadid's wine and liquor collection. Here's Tim with Ana after having a few:
TimAna.jpg


Eventually we tracked down the mysterious Mr. Hadid and I got a group pic with him:
LuisHadidAnaTim.jpg


Finally, here's a shot of moi with Hadid and Tim:
MarkTimHadid.jpg


By the end of the evening we had a pocketful of cards and phone numbers and a hell of a lot of fine memories.
 
:shocked: WOW, Mark! What a beautiful place! That is the job I have wanted for sometime, I just don't know how to get there, so I am tossing around other ideas as prerequisites of sorts. It looks like you had a great time!
 
Hey Mark, thanks for sharing FM's latest exploits.

I'm inspired by not only how quickly your making inroads into the industry but even more so by how much fun you're having doing it.

...

OK ok ok ... So I know this has been the "poster thread" but here's a final return to that arena preceding grabs.

First post updated with new (final) poster "A". New version "B" shown here as well for sake of argument but I think "A" is probably the stronger of the two.

 _A
coldbasicA.jpg


_B
coldbasicB.jpg
 
Poster is looking great! Also like the A version better. Only improvement would be to darken the credit block font a little bit more, so it is more readable. Just my 2 cents.
 
Nice job! She even looks a little like Sharon Stone (way back when).

I also prefer A to B, however, it looks like her pinky has been amputated! :huh:

The tag line, "He knows when you're kinda busy." looks awkward somehow. I'm not sure if it's the font, the spacing or ... something.

Also the tag line at the bottom of the poster "This fall 2008... " needs more breathing room. It looks like it was squeezed in as an afterthought. Also that font... I guess I don't like italics!

My 2 cents. :beer:
 
Thanks guys.

Haha, Maximus, you are right. Accidentally amputated her pinky as a last minute edit. Decided I liked the way "B" faded out better under the shirt, cut and pasted that verssion onto "A", and didn't realized I erased her pinky, lol.

Will fix after I get back from dinner with Mark Harrison.

And regarding the Stone / Blanchard resemblence. Yes. There's a scene where Blanchard is in the tub in Cold Calls and we were going to do a gag with a green facial mask, but she just looked so much like Stone / so pretty with the all white bathroom (in a BUBBLE BATH - don't get to excited guys) that I just couldn't do it to her. Especially since we're going for an eighties thriller thing and she looked alot like Stone in that scene.

Our make up artist Elizabeth has pics of us shooting that scene. Big giant crane over a giant tub with Blanchard and candles, etc. But I can't get her to email me the pics :crybaby:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top