"The Unassumed"

Marlon Ladd

Marlon Ladd

Veteran
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Things are not always what they appear to be. Be careful!

This will be my first DVX competition entry and I'm excited. I'll be filming with the DVX100a and I plan to start next weekend and hopefully just a two day shoot.

Camera - DVX100a (IFocus Lens Adapter)
Editing System - FCP (Mac G5)
Budget - $150 - $200
Locations - 3 (House, Gas Station, Neighborhood Street)
Actors/Actresses - Elizabeth Oliver, Erika O'Bar, Phillip Borghee, Marlon Ladd
Cinematography - Douglass Conrad, Ricci Jett
Audio - Ricci Jett, Juba Allen
Written, Directed and Edited by Marlon Ladd

I finished the script 2 weeks ago and haven't had a whole lot of time to do anything else yet. I'm in the process of finding the cast and then we'll go from there. I've been hesitant to post anything, because I don't have anything done yet, but I guess this is what it's all about - step by step.

Let's have some fun!
 
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Erika O'Bar as "Joan"

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Elizabeth Oliver as "Sarah"

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10/15/07
Filmed 90% of the "The Unassumed" this weekend and it seemed to take forever!
Friday from 8 p.m. - 2:30 a.m. (Didn't get too much done)
Saturday 6:30 p.m. - 9 p.m. (Regular, like clockwork)
Sunday 8:30 p.m. - 11 p.m. (Regular, like clockwork)

It's coming along pretty good. Can't wait to edit. Will have pics loaded tonight!!
 
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The Unassumed production timeline (Also on page 1)

10/11/07
I ordered the mask for the shoot and ordered it for 2 day delivery. Must have it by Fri., because that's when I plan to shoot.
10/10/07
Today I finalized days and times to shoot for the weekend. Plan to shoot Fri. (10/12/07) at 7:30 p.m. until - and then Sat. (10/13/07) from 5 p.m. until finished.
I had already told the cast and crew (basically my friends and family) earlier that we would shoot on this weekend, but sent emails to get confirmations from everyone. Also, sent the Halloween store online an email to see if the mask has been shipped. Got confirmation that it will arrive tomorrow, Thursday (10/11/07).
10/11/07
Went to the mailbox and picked up the mask. Looks good, but on the original picture I saw, there was hair with it. No hair with it though. Still, it looks pretty creepy. Met with one of the actors, Phillip (who also helped produce "Recoil") and cinematographer, Douglass Conrad (good friend of mine) for lunch. Purpose - Phillip had invited an actress that was interested in playing one of the parts. She was getting her hair done and ran a little late, so I was not able to meet her before I had to take Doug back to work. She sent pics and directed me to her myspace page. All I was looking for was a look and enthusiasm to work. She passed.
9 p.m. - Phillip tells me that the actress, Liz was called into work and could not do the film Friday, but would be available any other day. He asked me if I could film her scene any other day and I told him, 'nope.' We're already pushing for starting so late. I did have 1 or 2 other girls that could do the part, so he told me he would get back to me, because she really wanted to play the role.
10:30 p.m. - Phillip said Liz is a go. We're on. Now I need to memorize my lines.

10/12/07
Got up at 9:30 a.m. to get some things knocked out before I have to go to work at 3 p.m. Cut my hair, shaved and got dressed to head out. 11:30 a.m. - Went to Walmart to look for prop eye glasses, but didn't find any. Also picked up trashbags and a few incidentals and then went to the Dollar Tree to get some cheap glasses to break in the fight scene for the movie (cost - $20). Next I picked up my camera (let a friend borrow it) and borrowed his still camera for photography on the set.
While at work from 3 p.m. - 7 p.m. I typed up a shot list. Not to go by necessarily (I hardly ever look at them on set), but rather writing the shots down helps me memorize the shots that I absolutely want to get.

7 p.m. - Left work and picked up 3 pizzas and pop from Little Ceasar's for the shoot (Cost - $18.43).

7:30 p.m. - Arrived at shoot location (my house).

7:45 - 8:30 p.m. - Cast and crew arrive. Getting started was a horror flick in and of itself! Dougie D. didn't bring all of his lights, which would have given us 2000 more watts. I'd rather have too much light than not enough. Then I forgot Corey had my lights, had to send somebody back over to get them. I couldn't find alot of my equipment, because I had not filmed anything (beside church stuff) since "Recoil" and my wife loves to pack stuff away in an attempt to clean. Everything was rushed and we didn't get hardly anything shot and still didn't get finished until 2 a.m. I was so tired and drained after the shoot and when everybody left, everything, all the equipment, was still out and all over the freakin' place. I had to clean up and pack it all up and make the house neat again, so I went to bed (at 4 a.m.) frustrated wondering if I ever wanted to film again (unless I had the money to pay somebody to do EVERYTHING).

10/13/07
Woke up sore and tired. Seriously considered cancelling everything until maybe the following weekend. Yeah, right! Decided to shoot half of the stuff left today and half tomorrow. Set up most of the set before time to film and pushed back the shoot time from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. This time had a crew of 3 plus 2 actors (including me). Erika, my other actress needed to leave at 9 p.m. for a lottery shoot, but then could be back at 10:30. However, I wanted to get finished completely so she wouldn't have to come back. We did it! Got some great shots and Erika is the FX/makeup lady and did her own makeup and did a heck of a job.

10/14/07
Call time was 7 p.m. Had to cancel one scene, because of rain (will shoot that next weekend). I was able to get alot of things set up ahead of time, but when Ricci (audio/DP) showed up (after the Dallas Cowboys' game - he's a huge fan) he had forgotten my character's eye glasses. He had to go all the way back home to get them (20 mile round trip). So, while we waited on him, we got some great pick up shots!

8:30 p.m. - We start filming and everything goes great until I accidentally kicked the camera during the fight scene. It was okay though! Lucky for me! Shot fast and furious (everybody had to go to work the next day). Cut down some of the fight scene and everything went smooth - finished by 11 p.m.

10/15/07
I don't have intertnet at the house, so I uploaded some pics and put them on a jump drive after I got off work. Went to get on the internet later at a friend's house and uploaded a few pics. Got home around midnight and looked at some of the footage. Looks pretty good, but you never know until you start editing.

10/16/07
Once I got off work (after working a 10 hour day), I took a nap. When I woke up an hour later I started going through the footage and logging time codes. I'm sure there's a program or an easier way to do this, but until I figure that out, I just get a pen and pad and go through each shot. Since we had 3 1/2 hours worth of footage, it took me quite some time. By the time I logged the last time code, I was spent. It was about 1 a.m. and I had to get up in 5 hours (@ 6). Needless to say, I won't be able to log the time codes onto the computer until tomorrow (after work)!

10/17/07
Got home after work, ate, took a quick nap and went right to the computer to log the time codes. It took a little while, because I had quite a few shots. After that I set up the camera to capture and was underway. I don't know about you, but I've been in the position too many times where you walk away from the computer and come back an hour later and there's an error. So, every 15 or 20 minutes, I check on it. Well, one scene seem to drag on over 4 minutes, so I knew something was wrong. I cancelled out and instead of logging all 60 + clips, I just selected a few on the first tape. Turns out one of the timecodes was off (computer error) and was set to log 42 MINUTES! I tried to change it back to what it was supposed to be, but it just would not do it. I had to re-log that clip and erase that one. Once I did that, it was smooth sailing. I stayed up until 2 a.m. and when I got up at 6 the next morning, I set the last tape to log while I was at work.

10/18/07
Got a call from my wife letting me know that OG&E was having electrical problems in our area and the power had gone off at the house. Great! What the freak?!!!

6 p.m.
Got home, everything was back on and the clips did log. Whew! Okay, I had a plan to get the poster done first and then start editing. Took a nap and got up at 8:30 p.m. I was dead tired, but excited to finally get started. Worked on the poster until 10, but nothing seemed to look good. Decided to start editing anyway and put together a rough cut of the first 60 seconds. Looking pretty good. Shut it down at 2 a.m. (again, dead tired), but the good news is that I don't have to be at work until 3 p.m. the next day.

10/19/07
Got up at 9:45 a.m. Ate a quick bite and got right on the computer. I was just moving along all to the good and got up to getting 1:56 of the movie done. I was all set to watch the whole playback (still a rough cut - no audio sweetening yet) when FCP just QUIT!! It just shut down. I was worried, because it's set to save every 30 minutes, but I didn't want to lose those changes from the last 30 minutes, because I did some real detailed stuff that I might not be able to remember. It's like not being able to paint the same exact painting twice. Well, hell, it turns out that even though it had been autosaving every 30 minutes, it took me back to the version it saved after the first 30 minutes I had worked on today! So, everything I had edited for the past 2 1/2 hours (it was 1:37 p.m.) was gone! Then I only had about 45 minutes before I had to stop and get ready for work. Well, I went back through and patched it up as best I could and went to work.

Will get back on it as soon (and I mean as soon) as I get off at 7.

7:30 p.m. - Edited straight through until about 1 a.m.

10/20/07 - 11:15 a.m. Edited pretty much all day on and off. Missed most, if not all of the college football games. Only got to see OU off an on. You miss so much stuff when you spend so much time behind the computer. Was supposed to film the other scene, but just couldn't get around to it. Too many other things going on. Decided to wait until tomorrow.

10/21/07 - Started working on the poster. I had a really good idea that I thought would work, so I saved the idea on my phone a few days ago and tried to make it happen. It took a few hours to finally get the vision right, but it worked. Saved it to my jump drive, went to the gym to get a quick workout and headed to a friend's house to upload pics and the poster on the computer. Got over to my friend's and realized I had saved the poster as a wrong file type for that particular program. I drove immediately back to the house (8 miles), saved it right several different ways and then headed back. Posted it, but then realized I really couldn't see the credits like I wanted to. Un-posted it, then went back to the house and re-did the credits in Adobe Illustrator. After that, I continued to edit until 11:30 p.m., so I could wind down and go to bed (had to get up at 6 for work). Really worried, because I chopped and cut the movie down a whole helluva lot and it's still 6 minutes, 24 seconds.

*Couldn't shoot the other scene, because it's an outdoor scene and the weather didn't cooperate. I don't really need the scene now anyway, so I may not shoot it at all.

10/22/07 - Got to work and used a friend's computer to post the poster. Got off work and started editing at 6 p.m. and made myself stop at 10 p.m. Cut the movie down to just over 5 minutes, but a 10 second shot is missing (I haven't filmed yet) and no credits. I feel alot better after being able to cut it down though. It still actually makes sense. I was able to get most of the audio tightened and added virtually all of the sound effects.
 
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Hey Marlon...any updates? From the looks of Recoil, it sure seems like you have the talent to put together some great stuff!
 
Thanks, Glideshot. I appreciate the compliment.

I just checked out your link. Love the poster! The pics are cool too. I'm gonna' check out your post to get some updates on what's going on with yours. By the way, the girl playing Val is off the chain (hot). If she can act as good as she looks, she's a superstar.

Update:
1. Still finalizing actresses.
2. Deciding which day to shoot this weekend (will probably be Fri. night).
3. Working out the direction of everything in my head.
 
Thanks, guys. I should have some more pic and information on the production soon.

BTW - Can somebody tell me how to get my banner up on my signature? Don't you just link the URL like you do pics? I've done that and it doesn't work.
 
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