"Corrado" - A production blog

Status
Not open for further replies.
Sorry to jump in here, but re: my post where I said I was a "big Sony fan," I should just mention that I don't own any Sony products, but I do admire Sony. I was hoping that my wife would buy me a PS 3 for my 50th birthday, but instead she gave me an old 8mm film projector. It's a beautiful, Austrian-built, Eumig. Does 3-18 fps and in fantastic condition. Right now I'm doing a telecine on some old family films which are 40 years old.

Anyways, next year, I'll get that PS3, it has a great Blu-Ray player in there. There's your 'money where your mouth is.'

I'm sorry to digress.
-HnR
 
I will be interested to hear how the dialogue part of your sound turns out.
You never mentioned anything about the time it took you to sync all your video clips with the
audio off the recorder, which leads me to believe you did the entire edit with a 2 track feed
your sound mixer gave.

No doubt he intended that "guide" track to be used for dailies, playback on set..etc
and not for his final mix.

Using the onboard sound (especially if you had it recorded to a "real" recorder) is a huge compromise as the camera's S/N isnt great (its good for a small format camera),
you lose a lot of the low end freq wise, etc.
Not to mention the mixer was probably not monitoring that feed much when he "knew" it was just a scratch.

Now that you removed the slate from your cuts it would be a total nightmare to try to
sync every shot.

I'll be interested to hear how ya do.
Good luck with your project, sincerely.


And yes, ive done a few features with this camera. 1 straight to camera (they didnt want the expense of double system sound), and a few where I insisted we (myself, boom op) would only do it if it was double system.

In those cases I sent nothing more than a comtek feed to camera for on set playbacks..etc.
Its fast (no cable) its just fine quality wise for playback, and did i mention its fast.
 
HVX2006 said:
Directing #2

When Tom or the main actor was wrong/off, how did they react? Did he want to move on or go back and get it better? What was there attitude to failure and the process involved to getting to perfection (not always pleasant)? What was your attitude to it? Move on and hope to save it in post? Try to be positive and let it go? How did you deal with "crisis" in the realm of acting? What would you differently when dealing with performance on your next project?

Often it seems that there is a perception that a great actor gets "there" easily because he is "great" and that the performance is always great in take #1 and perfect by take 3. It has often struck me how little actors know about there own performance, even great actors like Gorge Cloney are always allot less good in the films where they direct them self.
Click to expand...

i meant to ask this question earlier as well. if tom or johnny did something that you wanted them to redo or they didn't hit it the qay you wanted to....is that attitude to reshoot "no problem man, let's do it over" or more like "jeez man you act like this is a $50 million dollar budget film"

i'm curious how do you gain respect from an established actor on your first larger budget film whether it be $250k or $50 million production budget?
 
HVX2006 said:
Directing 3#

Did the actors want to see the takes at the end of a scene? How do you feel about that as a director? Would you have been comfortable saying no? How was it directing your wife? Did you have to scream at her allot? What takes president for you when choosing a "print", the actor hitting his mark, great performance, correctly executed blocking.....? Did you end up using allot of traveling shots? Did you block the takes and set marks or did you leave it mostly to the actor? Did you do complicated set ups and blocking? Did you do standard "coverage"? Did actors need allot of "explaining the character"? Did you take time off to talk to actors one-on-one if things weren't working? Did actors when waiting for the lighting, rome the set and talk to crew or did they want to be somewhere off by them self? Did you provide such a space at all times? What in your opinion are the 3 dont's and do's when dealing with stars, i mean practically on set, in your day to day interaction?
Click to expand...

HVX:

It's the writer in me. Nothing personal here and I am probably being too pedantic but for some reason, these are just sticking out at me like a sore thumb...

1. allot=a lot
2. president=precedence
3. rome=roam

Dan
 
Well, I'm sure Adam played every take to his actors and asked their opinion whether to "print" or not to "print" and after a long, protracted existential discussion he took a vote and then took that into consideration before he picked the shot that he had in mind to begin with, you know the shot that he'd written in his own script.

He had two weeks to shoot the movie, what are you talking about?

Adam is walking around Hangar 14 and figuring out how to shoot that movie.


Are you sincere about having your questions answered? Read Filmmaking A to Z.

But I warn you, it has nothing to do with digital or video. It's only about making 35mm films. It does have a lot about directing though.

Do a search for it on Amazon.com or just Google it.

I can't imagine Adam will have the time to answer all these questions regarding what happened on the set of Corrado every minute of the day; however, if you read the thread carefully every one of these points has been touched on.
 
puredrifting said:
HVX:

It's the writer in me. Nothing personal here and I am probably being too pedantic but for some reason, these are just sticking out at me like a sore thumb...

1. allot=a lot
2. president=precedence
3. rome=roam

Dan
Click to expand...


Sory lenglich is nod me frist langage! But thanks for the attention:thumbup::)
 
Last edited:
HVX, I'm really curious -- I mean no disrespect and I really am not trying to put you down; on the contrary, I'm impressed by the amount of knowledge you have regarding the workings of the set -- have you made any feature films yet? How many short films have you made? -- I'm assuming you must have made some, because you have so much knowledge, the kind of knowledge I can't imagine anybody picking up in film school.

I'd really appreciate a reply.
 
filmman said:
Well, I'm sure Adam played every take to his actors and asked their opinion whether to "print" or not to "print" and after a long, protracted existential discussion he took a vote and then took that into consideration before he picked the shot that he had in mind to begin with, you know the shot that he'd written in his own script.

He had two weeks to shoot the movie, what are you talking about?

Adam is walking around Hangar 14 and figuring out how to shoot that movie.


Are you sincere about having your questions answered? Read Filmmaking A to Z.

But I warn you, it has nothing to do with digital or video. It's only about making 35mm films. It does have a lot about directing though.

Do a search for it on Amazon.com or just Google it.

I can't imagine Adam will have the time to answer all these questions regarding what happened on the set of Corrado every minute of the day; however, if you read the thread carefully every one of these points has been touched on.
Click to expand...


Is this for me??? I think questions like do you think Vegas is a good editing system? Or is your equipment van parked outside your house? Are the kind of questions that should stop and are pointless, i think the questions i asked are completely valid nut's and bolt's questions about the process of making the film and am sure there are many many people interested to hear the answer, in any case i am. And in any case Adam is free to answer them or not, this after all is a open forum. But thank you for your "moderation" filmman, i dont know how i would get through life without it.:beer:
 
filmman said:
HVX, I'm really curious -- I mean no disrespect and I really am not trying to put you down; on the contrary, I'm impressed by the amount of knowledge you have regarding the workings of the set -- have you made any feature films yet? How many short films have you made? -- I'm assuming you must have made some, because you have so much knowledge, the kind of knowledge I can't imagine anybody picking up in film school.

I'd really appreciate a reply.
Click to expand...

What on earth does that have to do with anything????? I was asking questions right, not stating my extended knowledge. Asking! Maybe you should go easy on the sugar bro, you are seeing the world a bit up side down.
 
i think hvx asks valid questions and i'm interested to see how adam will answer. sure the questions feel like an SAT exam, lol, but whether he has the time to answer all the questions or not is anybody's guess, he did mention he had more time since corrado is in post and that's why he's even been able to discuss this much so far.

Do a search for it on Amazon.com or just Google it.
Click to expand...

that's got to be the most useless bit of advice on this forum. hvx asked specific questions for THIS production how the hell are you gonna find it on google or amazon?
 
HVX2006 said:
Hey Adam,

Just a quick question and this is not a criticism but simply I'm curios. What is the central need of the hero, i was kind of expecting him to be at the cemetery because of his dead ex or something, at what point/page in the script does it become clear what Corado wants?

Hey and how does the story end?:Drogar-Dum(DBG):
Click to expand...

How cliche about the cemetery. His central need is retribution.
 
HVX2006 said:
When you presented the script to Tom or his agent, did you somehow highlight the scenes he is in or print out his pages separately? Did you have the script in some fancy coat/sleave with your production company name on it? I saw a Miramax script the other day and it had blue cardboard back and front pages with the logo on it.
Click to expand...


No, it was an e-mailed .pdf, and nothing was highlighted.
 
HVX2006 said:
Can you reveal the day rates for the following crew?

DP
Gaffer
Best Boy Electric
Key Grip
Grip
1st AC A cam
1st AC B am
2nd AC A cam
Makeup
Makeup asst.
Sound man
boom op
Script supervisor
1st AD
2nd AD
Two PAs
transpo dude to watch and move the truck
Click to expand...

No, but none of these guys made more than $250 per day, if that helps. Well one did. Just one.
 
HVX2006 said:
I also wanted to add, that i did like the 10 pages, but as stated before i was expecting/hoping to know what Corado wants by page 10.

At times i found the voice over restating the same info 2,3,4 times and i think this was not so necessary and almost distracting.

At times it walked a thin line of "I'we seen it before moments" not necessarily bad since you also managed to give them a "new" twist most of the time.

But my overall sense of this project was that you where not really trying to push the envelope and rewriting film history but that in some way you wanted to make a typic straight to DVD action flick, so the above is less a critic as it is a observation. In any case it seems like you have succeeded.
Click to expand...

Why did you need to know what he wants by page ten? What script formula book does that come from?
 
HVX2006 said:
As for directing -

Did you call out directions during a shot? How many takes did you do on average? Did you check playback after every scene to "know if you actually "had it"? In my experience simple things like walking, picking something up, doing stuff is often the hardest thing to get just right. How do you feel about the "choice" of not rehearsing? How did Tom feel about that? How much time do you think you could have talked him and his agent in to for "the good of the project" to rehearse? Would that have been at full rate?
Click to expand...

1) No
2) 2-3
3) No
4)Just fine
5) Pro actors are used to showing up and doing their job with minimal rehearsal. Unless it's a big choreographed action sequence you will never get actors to simply run lines.....never. This isn't a school play.
6) None, as stated above. It's unheard of!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top