"Corrado" - A production blog

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taormina said:
Hey Josh, when you say blank firing guns do you mean replicas that fire blanks or real guns with blanks?

You raise a great point about the actor's reactions. No one has mentioned that yet.
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I used a blank firing gun that took an 8mm blank round.

Here is a link for the type of gun I used.
http://www.westernstageprops.com/miva/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=WSP&Category_Code=BFP

I had to purchase the guns since at the time when I did my shoot there wasn't a decent facility in the Seattle area to rent from. The only disadvantage to these guns is that the barrel is totally closed off, so there is no flame or smoke discharged out of the barrel. Other than that they are totally like the real deal and are louder than crap! We had to get creative with the ear plugs our actors wore so they wouldn’t be visible on camera.

I have also worked with a real shotgun firing a blank round, which looked nice on camera and gave off some serious flames and smoke out the barrel.
 
... Waiting on our LAX paperwork to return. We are shooting at LAX for one day inside live Terminals 3 and 2. Terminal two is governed by a company called LAX2 that controls it. Everything looks good, I'm told, but yet we wait.
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One of the things that has really intrigued me from the beginning of this thread is your shoot at LAX. I'd hate to guess how many times I fly in and out of there and I've never seen a film shoot going on so I always figured it must be WAY too expensive to shoot there. You're going to have some seriously sweet production value from that location, Adam.

I'm curious about the fact that you're shooting inside both 3 and 2. How did this come about (just wondering why you wouldn't shoot everything in terminal 2?)
 
Josh - Cool

Mark - LAX is veeeery cheap. Our rate is $250 per hour to film in a live terminal. The permit is free. According to them, productions film there all the time.

We are using the interior of terminal 2 on the ground floor. We also have a curbside scene with an LAPD picture vehicle, and we aren't allowed to do that on the curb in front of terminal 2 because it is too busy. So they let us do it on the curb in front of terminal 3, the next building over.
 
Wow. I never would have guessed an airport would be possible in this day and age. Especially on an indie shoot. Congrats on that win.
 
Definitely. And like Mark said, having that location is going to blow the production value through the roof. As long as the cinematography is on par with the rest of the project, this could be one great film.
 
Do your guns use full size blanks? I know it bothers me when large calibre pistols only have 8mm recoil (hot fuzz comes to mind).
 
LAX is available for filming by anyone - even micro budget filmmakers. Not sure why it's not more publicly known. It did not require any wheeling and dealing on my part at all. Anyone could get the same deal as I got just by filling out some forms.

The blanks we are using are a specific to the chambering of the weapon it's used in. There is no such thing as an 8mm pistol round in a real gun. It's solely a blank round for non guns.

So at that point a 9mm pistol would make less of a bang than a .45ACP pistol, just like in real life. The chamberings for blanks match real loads perfectly but have no bullets.
 
Jeez - Loueez, there's ANOTHER nice little nugget that I've picked up from Adam the Wise. You can bet that Fat Monster is goin to be shooting at LAX in the near future at those rates! I never would have guessed and I'm flat amazed I haven't seen film crews out there (well, maybe they don't shoot at the SouthWorst terminal where I fly most of the time).

Many thanks again for the info.
 
Just keep in mind that LAX terminal 3 is nearly empty, and can be had for $50 per hour and a few other incidental fees ($10 per car to park, $50 per hour for the liaison, etc).

Terminal 2 is a little pricier - $250 per hour or $2800 per day. All these rates are for UNDER 25 people.

And we are not setting up any lights or bringing in heavy equipment. 2 cameras, one steadicam, a couple tripods, one guy with a battery belt and a sun gun, some bounce boards, etc.

If you showed up and unloaded 3 tons of grip and electric they'd bump your rate.

It's basically like run and gun, except you have some equipment and crew, and......you're actually allowed to be there for once!
 
sertorius said:
Do you really think that Matthew Marsden is the best choice for the leading role? He can't lead a cast because his acting is awful.
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Everyone has an opinion of who good actors are. One persons amazing performance is another persons bad acting job. The fact that you know his name is probably as or even more important than his perceived acting ability, especially for a low budget direct to DVD action flick.

Look how many other direct to DVD titles have become quite healthy financial successes with less than stellar acting ability in the leads. If you read the Variety articles on how direct to DVD has gained respect in Hollywood, you will see that Adam has a very well thought out strategy for who he is casting and why. At the direct to DVD end of things, this is definitely more show BUSINESS than anything else. It's all about pure entertainment, not Oscars and Adam seems to have a great game plan to make some money on the venture and to make a name for himself as a player.

Since I have never seen Mr. Marsden act, I can't comment on his ability or lack of.

Best,

Dan
 
sertorius said:
Do you really think that Matthew Marsden is the best choice for the leading role? He can't lead a cast because his acting is awful.
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I guess I haven't been following this thread as carefully as I thought because I didn't even know Adam had released the lead's name yet...
 
Dan, thanks for the support.

Sertorious, I just hate it when someone leaks something like this out. His name wasn't finalized, and to be honest, as of today, Marsden is out - of his own volition.

Like I've mentioned before - I'm easy to find on the internet and so is info about this movie. If you want this thread to continue, I will divulge the information from now on. Let me reveal it in my own time.

Matthew is a great actor. His ability to crack off a look is uncanny and he's got great presence.

As of this morning, he decided to back out of the project. Or at least I think he did.

I am a little unsure, because this morning, I had a serious run in with his manager.

It went kind of like this - After I met Matt, I was under the impression that we had a verbal agreement. I thought he was too. In fact, I know he thought we had a deal.

I submitted a deal memo to his people for consideration. It had been over a week since I had heard about the memo after submitting it. I've been calling every few days to see what was up.

This morning I was like "OK, we shoot in 3 1/2 weeks, were is my memo so we can close this guy"

The manager then decided he was going to ask me about back end compensation. I explained to him that we already had a deal, and that I would not pay back end at all - that no one else was getting a back end.

He proceeded to tell me that Matt should receive a back end and we argued the point for a few minutes.

I told him that I already had a deal and that I felt this re-negotiation was unethical and shameful.

The phone call ended.

He called back two minutes later while I was on another call and left me a voice mail stating that Matt wanted to pass on the project.

I don't know if his manager is just saying this or if Matt really wants to pass. We had a verbal deal, and Matt seems like a stand up guy, a real man of his word, so I don't think he is the one who shut it down.

Anyways, that's where it stands.

Had you not mentioned his name, I could have gone into further detail, but now that it's exposed, this is all you get - the public version.

A note to any other Colombos out there: If you post a guy's name it removes the anonymity of the discussion and prohibits me from quoting conversations or telling you guys the full details of what transpired without creating a libel suit for myself.....capisci?
 
Sertorius, what was your motivation for doing that?
Here we have a guy willing to give us some real insight into the world of showbiz with a simple condition (which he clearly states) of releasing information when he is ready to and you have to mess with him. Not cool.
 
I know Dan didn't release it. I know Dan well enough to know he would never do that. I was referring to Sartorious.
 
Look man, no worries. Fugghedaboutit.

Just no one make that mistake again......k?

The internet is a big place with lotsa big mouths and we want to preserve what we have here. If we start naming names, I can't speak freely. If I've said the guys name, everythings cool.
 
I just checked, it looks like the myspace was changed to take out Marsden's name. Although the leaked info is still on the google cache version.

And it is your fault for brining up the guys name in a thread where the director has gone out of his way to keep it under wraps. I'm not saying you're the first person to put it on the internet, but you did put it here. But like Taormina said, it's over now so don't worry about it.

p.s. I had forgotten how bad myspace is.
 
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I predict if you had cast Matthew Marsden subconsciously you would have thought about the fact that you have already cast an actor who is sometimes confused with Michael Madsen, Tom Sizemore, and would have wound up accidentally calling Sizemore "Michael Madsen" thereby triggering him to walk off your movie.

So it's all for the best :)


"Although I get so much fan mail from Great Britain, tell me, am I more famous there than Michael Madsen?"
- Tom Sizemore
 
Ha!

True story. Before I knew of the rivalry that existed between Madsen and Sizemore, I wanted to cast Madsen for a role opposite Sizemore.

I phoned his agent, and before I got into numbers, he asked - who's in it?

Tom Sizemore, says I, proudly.

Needless to say I was informed that Madsen would never be in a movie with Tom.

Still don't know how it all started.
 
Interesting. I didn't know there was a real rivalry. But it makes sense. They would clearly be up for the same roles and both very talented and similar level of celebrity and career status. If ever there was a recipe for rivalry...
 
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