Corrado Part II

You're right - there was a 10 page excerpt. It was the first 10 pages, and I read it too. I thought it was excellent. Don't know if that's still up anywhere. Kinda doubt it. In any case, looks like we'll just have to wait for the movie to come out to know what the rest was... : )
 
I read both threads. Were there any problems you experienced in the production process that you overcame? I'd like to try to learn from other people's mistakes where I can. Any obstacles you had to overcome that caused some frustration?
 
Haha, it has been many months since Adam has posted on this site. Good luck getting those answers! You'll probably have a lot more luck if you contact him via his own site/blog.
 
On a side note I saw Adam on the final episode of Celebrity Drug Rehab the other day, I guess he and his wife were there to support Tom.
 
Just found this thread, I sent to his web page and it said it was closed. Does anyone have any updates on the movie? Is it out? Is Tom alive?
 
Yep, the Corrado blog is closed. In other news, it appears the film's name has been changed to "Bad Ass", and the DVD is now for sale on Amazon. It's also listed on Blockbuster and Netflix, but not yet available at either. I put it in my queue, so I guess she'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes...

There was a lot of fascinating information in these two mega-threads which I enjoyed greatly at the time, in spite of the auteur's all too frequent lapses into swagger and hubris...

Gonna be fascinating to finally see it...
 
Thanks ted. I'm still following Adam's progress on newer films on the Film Specific message boards. Wasn't aware of the title change for Corrado.
 
Hi Guys,

Adam here reporting from the set of Hangar 14. Yes, the movie's name has been changed to Bad Ass - not by me, either. The North American distributor, Well Go, asked me if they could change the name for North America only....to Bad Ass. They felt it would boost their sales and it was within their rights to change per their contract so i gave it my blessing. It has sold in just about every other territory in the world and is still known as Corrado there. I think they rolled it out (or began rolling it out) stateside in early November.

Corrado is an example of what can be done for 350 odd thousand dollars. There are better films in this budget range than Corrado (much better) but they are usually less ambitious (dramas, small horror films, limited locations). The only reason I'm continuing to make action films today is directly because of Corrado. Not because it was that good, but because it sold very well and people saw what could be done with more locations than usual, decent cast and decent production value. Honestly, not that great of a movie......but it sold!

Hangar 14 is shooting right now. Going on Day 7. Much, much larger budget. I have my own trailer (to give you an idea of the budget) and our crew numbers 70 odd. Two MX reds, one Weisscam, A fisher dolly, a crane, steadicam, camera cars......you get the picture.

Try and go commerical on your pcitures. Make something that sells. It will lead to other films if you are any good at it at all.
 
Hey Adam, great to hear from you again, and glad to hear that Hangar 14 in shooting! Sounds like you've really managed to leverage "Corrado"'s momentum (such as it was!) into much bigger and better things. I eagerly await Corrado's 'available' status in my Netflix Queue, as well as further news on H14. Break a leg!
 
taormina said:
Hi Guys,

Adam here reporting from the set of Hangar 14. Yes, the movie's name has been changed to Bad Ass - not by me, either. The North American distributor, Well Go, asked me if they could change the name for North America only....to Bad Ass. They felt it would boost their sales and it was within their rights to change per their contract so i gave it my blessing. It has sold in just about every other territory in the world and is still known as Corrado there. I think they rolled it out (or began rolling it out) stateside in early November.

Corrado is an example of what can be done for 350 odd thousand dollars. There are better films in this budget range than Corrado (much better) but they are usually less ambitious (dramas, small horror films, limited locations). The only reason I'm continuing to make action films today is directly because of Corrado. Not because it was that good, but because it sold very well and people saw what could be done with more locations than usual, decent cast and decent production value. Honestly, not that great of a movie......but it sold!

Hangar 14 is shooting right now. Going on Day 7. Much, much larger budget. I have my own trailer (to give you an idea of the budget) and our crew numbers 70 odd. Two MX reds, one Weisscam, A fisher dolly, a crane, steadicam, camera cars......you get the picture.

Try and go commerical on your pcitures. Make something that sells. It will lead to other films if you are any good at it at all.
Click to expand...

That is quite an upgrade :) Thanks for the update, and congrats on your distribution success... You shot Corrado on HVX's if memory serves? Hanger 7 on MX R1's.... how are you liking that?
 
taormina said:
Hi Guys,

Adam here reporting from the set of Hangar 14. Yes, the movie's name has been changed to Bad Ass - not by me, either. The North American distributor, Well Go, asked me if they could change the name for North America only....to Bad Ass. They felt it would boost their sales and it was within their rights to change per their contract so i gave it my blessing. It has sold in just about every other territory in the world and is still known as Corrado there. I think they rolled it out (or began rolling it out) stateside in early November.

Corrado is an example of what can be done for 350 odd thousand dollars. There are better films in this budget range than Corrado (much better) but they are usually less ambitious (dramas, small horror films, limited locations). The only reason I'm continuing to make action films today is directly because of Corrado. Not because it was that good, but because it sold very well and people saw what could be done with more locations than usual, decent cast and decent production value. Honestly, not that great of a movie......but it sold!

Hangar 14 is shooting right now. Going on Day 7. Much, much larger budget. I have my own trailer (to give you an idea of the budget) and our crew numbers 70 odd. Two MX reds, one Weisscam, A fisher dolly, a crane, steadicam, camera cars......you get the picture.

Try and go commerical on your pcitures. Make something that sells. It will lead to other films if you are any good at it at all.
Click to expand...

Gotta say, Adam, that as tough as it is to do what you're saying... I agree... damned-near one hundred percent. The fact that you can google Hangar 14 and the leads show up, and some excitement for the fans of the leads, pretty much speaks for itself. I am also VERY impressed with the attitude that you've shown in this post about your first feature. To be able to come out and say "hey, it's not that great...but it did what I wanted it to do, so I'm good"... now THAT is the real deal.

Hoping to join you soon, man!

I wish we could get some updates on Hanger, but I'm sure it's too high profile for the User treatment. Might have to talk to you behind the curtain about some experiences while I'm headed into my seventh and eighth day of shooting my own feature!
 
Jason Ramsey said:
That is quite an upgrade :) Thanks for the update, and congrats on your distribution success... You shot Corrado on HVX's if memory serves? Hanger 7 on MX R1's.... how are you liking that?
Click to expand...


Before I comment on that, keep in mind I am only the writer/director on Hangar 14 - I do have a producer credit but I am not the guy who found the money and all that jazz, although i did get most of the distribution - so I am MUCH more removed from the production than I was on Corrado, although I have finally achieved my dream of being a writer/director and am being paid well for that role.

The cameras were decided on by the production and my DP and his team, but having said that, I am STUNNED by the footage! We're using R1s with the MX as you said, and a full set of Cooke S4s and one Angeniuex Optimo zoom. We are also using the Weisscam for high speed work (couple of 500 frames shots). We have an on set DIT who is transcoding all the footage; every so often I pop into his room to look at some of our "one light" takes that have a rudimentary look applied to them to see where we're at.

This footage then gets routed off to the editor who cuts it simultaneous to our shooting....for example, he is already caught up to camera and is waiting for more. it's a really good setup.

We're using the red drives fro most of the footage, but need to use the cards whenever we do gunfire as the gunfire causes the REDs to drop frames left and right. Funny, i'm so removed from the camera department that I don't know most of this stuff anymore....it's all so big and at this budget level ($5M)...most of this stuff is not my problem anymore.

I shot Corrado on two HVXs with Letus Extreme Adapters and Nikon still glass. This is obviously a huge upgrade...but hey, i have spotted a lone HVX on my set running around getting EPK footage, so that's cool, LOL!!!!!
 
taormina said:
Hi Guys,

Adam here reporting from the set of Hangar 14. Yes, the movie's name has been changed to Bad Ass - not by me, either. The North American distributor, Well Go, asked me if they could change the name for North America only....to Bad Ass. They felt it would boost their sales and it was within their rights to change per their contract so i gave it my blessing. It has sold in just about every other territory in the world and is still known as Corrado there. I think they rolled it out (or began rolling it out) stateside in early November.

Corrado is an example of what can be done for 350 odd thousand dollars. There are better films in this budget range than Corrado (much better) but they are usually less ambitious (dramas, small horror films, limited locations). The only reason I'm continuing to make action films today is directly because of Corrado. Not because it was that good, but because it sold very well and people saw what could be done with more locations than usual, decent cast and decent production value. Honestly, not that great of a movie......but it sold!

Hangar 14 is shooting right now. Going on Day 7. Much, much larger budget. I have my own trailer (to give you an idea of the budget) and our crew numbers 70 odd. Two MX reds, one Weisscam, A fisher dolly, a crane, steadicam, camera cars......you get the picture.

Try and go commerical on your pcitures. Make something that sells. It will lead to other films if you are any good at it at all.
Click to expand...

Nice.

Good to hear it going well for you.

Drop in when you can as you can tell, lots of folks interested in hearing from your experiences.

Congratulations.

-Martay
 
cool... well good luck with the rest of the project. I hope you will come share some footage with us (if you want) when the time is right...
 
Kholi said:
Gotta say, Adam, that as tough as it is to do what you're saying... I agree... damned-near one hundred percent. The fact that you can google Hangar 14 and the leads show up, and some excitement for the fans of the leads, pretty much speaks for itself. I am also VERY impressed with the attitude that you've shown in this post about your first feature. To be able to come out and say "hey, it's not that great...but it did what I wanted it to do, so I'm good"... now THAT is the real deal.

Hoping to join you soon, man!

I wish we could get some updates on Hanger, but I'm sure it's too high profile for the User treatment. Might have to talk to you behind the curtain about some experiences while I'm headed into my seventh and eighth day of shooting my own feature!
Click to expand...

Happy to fill you in more, Kholi, just write me - you have all my contact info. Yes, I cannot do a full on blog anymore. Just caught **** for releasing one lousy still from the production...I can't maintain that level of transparency anymore, unfortunately. I'm almost bordering on saying too much here, lol.

Re: Corrado: - why sugarcoat it. It's a product, a vehicle, a sales tool. I confess that I REALLY did try to make something special, something that would receive acclaim, but it did not happen that way. Exigencies during production, failures on my part, budgetary woes, and a short shoot schedule all conspired to make it much less than it could have been with more time and more money.

Still, I impressed some producers with what I could do with so little funds....real guns, lots of big locations, some action sequences, good cast....was the end product noteworthy...NO. corrado is quite forgettable as a film, in my opinion. YET....I did have producers saying stuff like "I liked the dialog." or "You did a lot with a little" and in the end, it was that spark, that scintilla of ability that shone through and convinced others I was capable of better.

And in the end, isn't that what your current movie is...a vehicle to get you closer to where you want to be?

I really do wish Corrado got all the awards and acclaim that "Lonely Place for Dying" got, for example. I can honestly say he made a better movie than I did on a creative level (I have not seen it but the awards speak for themselves). Then again, he never achieved the worldwide distribution I did, so who won in the end? We both did, in different ways.

Remember what I said early on.....your movie stands on it's own two feet. i won't always be around to apologize for Corrado....to tell that viewer that the reason why some of the scenes looked short was because my actor got a DUI during filming.....to tell them that the restaurant scene was truncated due to the fact we got kicked out...to tell them that the mix was only as good as what I could afford. None of that matters.....the film must stand on it's own two feet.

Like we are fond of saying in the military - What's the maximum effective range of an excuse.......ZERO METERS! (lol). There are no excuses. The film is what it is, period, end.

I'm at peace with it now, and I will do better next time. That's all I can aim to do.
 
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