FEATURE: Rise of the Beast-the new feature from STARS Pictures

I ended up deciding that rather than try to cut up a DVD case with tools I don't have, I would just re-enforce the cardboard loupe instead. I wrapped it in electrical tape and even created an eyecup by building up about three layers of tape folded in half. It's not the most beautiful thing in the world, but it cost me a total of $5 and it works. The best part is that I built it to be the perfect size for my shoulderpod so it fits perfectly to my face when shooting ENG style, which is how I'm shooting 90% of the film. Two rubber bands hooked around the Fresnel edge attach the device to the Rebel.

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Hey El, I apologize for ranting off topic that was never my intention. I have just gotten sick and tired of people telling Christians how to make their movies and what they should be like then turn around and make theirs own however they want. I truly wish you the best of luck and know that there are many of us out here who have your back and will watch your product. Even though I thoroughly disagree with your post tribulation rapture theory, we can still be friends and encourage each other. :-)
 
Thanks man. I agree. I'm all for differences in opinion (as long as both parties have researched it and come to their own conclusions), and I agree with you about how people basically put these movies in a box. I just didn't want to see this thread get shut down, especially since (as far as I know) we're the first movie being shot on a T2i with just the kit lens and no others. I hope that this can encourage people to go make their own movies with whatever they can get their hands on. So no worries, we're cool. I've never had an issue with you. =)
 
Off to film the first batch of Market scenes. This will also be the first time we have a computer set up to dump footage during breaks. Since we only have one 16GB card which gives us 49 minutes, this should allow us to film all day.
 
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Day 22


Shot most of the market stuff today. Two weeks from now we’ll shoot the fight and it’ll be good. In the meantime I’ll be looking for a good location for the bad guys.


So, for today: Rachel got pulled over on her way over and then was only able to film for an hour due to work. We quickly staged each of the scenes and filmed her part. After Rachel left we started over and busted out the first scene. By then it had almost been three hours so I sent two of the girls across the street to a Little Caesars for dinner. Gotta love those $5 pizzas! We finished up the night by 8:45pm, about 45 minutes ahead of schedule.


Part of what made tonight so neat for me (El Director) is that I got to test out the loupe I built the other day. It worked like a charm and by the end of the night, I was going completely handheld because the loupe against my face provided almost as much stability as the shoulderpod. We also set up a DIT station tonight where we dumped footage during lunch, seeing that we only had one 16GB memory card.


Natalya Alekseyva was cool enough to come play the part of Olia. She played Crystal in the last film, but was out of town this summer, causing us to recast. She did a great job and it was nice to work with a familiar face again. One of the store owner’s sons, Peter, played the part of Peter, the brother of Olia. This was his first film and he did a good job as well. I think he’s excited for his death scene next week.


Also, Charles’ girlfriend Kelly was there tonight so of course I had to put her to work. She became the official BTS photographer and took all of the pics you’ll see from tonight.
After filming, Peter, Alex, Igor (the other son) and I hung out for a bit and talked movies. All in all, a good night of filming.
 
LOL, don't you love it when that random person is on the set. You just hand them a camera and say start snappin'.

-Nate
 
Yep! It's the best. I think she'll be there for the market fight too, so that'll be cool.

I cut all the footage today and it looks good. Having to work around the one actress that I only had for an hour caused me to cross the axis a few times, but somehow the scenes still work. So everything is going great: I love my current editing setup with the two networked computers, and I fell in love with my loupe last night. Can't complain!
 
I might have a new laptop now for surfing and writing. My friend and fellow screenwriter was having me fix her old G4 Powerbook. We went to our local Apple store tonight to see if she could trade it in towards a new one. Unfortunately she won't get anything from turning it in, so she was considering selling it for parts since it's hard drive is toast and she doesn't have the install CD's to put OSX back on even if she bought a new hard drive. With nothing to loose, I pulled the hard drive from my Linux laptop and stuck it in the Powerbook. I had to install the Mac version of Linux, but I now have it up and running. I told her that the computer is now useable again, and that I'd be interested in buying it from her. We'll have to see. It's more powerful than my IBM Thinkpad T23 and has a larger screen too which is nice. I'm actually on it right now. The one drawback is that I feel like it's not as durable as my Thinkpad. I'm also curious to see what the battery life is compared to the Thinkpad. It would be nice though to use this as my new production laptop. We'll have to see what happens.
 
Linux on a Mac? Digital basphemy! The only reason to buy a Mac is the operating system. Beyond that you might as well get a PC. On the flipside, like Macs, I don't think there a lot viruses made for Linux. I still own a G4 laptop that comes in handy for moving files between computers via my external harddrive. I have a USB card reader that is very finicky. It will read on the G4 laptop but not the G5 desktop? It was a cheap one I got from Amazon. I'm going to get a new one soon.

-Nate
 
lol. I had a feeling you'd feel that way. If I do decide to purchase this, I may have to put OSX back on it. I've been working for the past two hours on trying to compile Celtx and it's not working. Usually I could just download, extract, and run. Not so in this case. Celtx wasn't designed to run on linux with Mac architecture. My other issue is that flash won't install either so youtube is currently out of the question, which for a filmmaker is a big drawback. In my "professional" opinion, Linux for production use is great on a windows laptop, but not so great on an apple. It's quite a shame.
 
One of my friends is a MS Certified guy but he's a big fan of Umbutu. He raps, draw and is doing a video game too and I think he's doing it all on Umbutu. But as for production use, I can't understand Linux on an Apple. Why pay more for an Apple then us Linux. In your case it may make sense because you bought a used computer, but for many they're buying for the operating system.

One of the problems I have with open source software is the compiling thing and it's always buggy for me. I prefer them to simply make an installer. LOL. But I have to admit, Celtx is really good. I miss a certain amount of automation with Final Draft, but I really like Celtx. I do all my scripts in it now.

But try this http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/10000 I don't know if it will help. Some Linux people like Umbutu and you may be able to run it as a "virtual OS" on your laptop. To me Umbutu is like the Mac OS for artsy people who love their PCs. Get it from here: http://www.ubuntu.com/ it's worth a try if you really want to go the Linux route. If all else fails revert back to the Mac OS.

-Nate
 
I'll look into those options. Thanks! Yeah, I would personally never buy a Mac retail but in this case it's better than what I have and the price is right at about $100
 
I don't buy them retail either normally. I did get a great black friday deal on my old Macbook a few years ago when I had it.

-Nate
 
The big problem I'm having (and why I'm pushing hard to use Linux on this) is that my friend had tossed the OSX install CD a few years back, so I have no way to install OSX on it even if I wanted.
 
Ebay. Or if there's an Apple Store near, take there and tell them the problem. Someone my help. They installed 10.5 on my G5.

-Nate
 
That's a good idea. We just got an apple store about two weeks ago, so I'll check it out. Hopefully I'll be able to buy a nicer windows laptop in the near future so I can come back to Linux :) But for now, this will work.
 
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