Documentary Update 1

The first two weeks of my documentary have been spent trying to gather information about the current problems our local kelp forests face as well as trying to contact professionals that work with kelp forest restoration and marine protected areas. So far I have successfully contacted three very important people in this field: Tom Ford, Michael Quill, and Brian Meux. We are currently trying to set a date to get an interview with them and their team. I just talked with Tom on the phone today, and unfortunately I will not be allowed to dive with them because I am not properly certified nor am I 18 yet. This shouldn't be too much of a deterrent because I think one of their team can record while they dive if they strap the go pro to themselves while they work; however, this is only an assumption. I am also trying to see if I can just wait on the dive boat while they dive too. I'm slowly but surely making progress, but it may take a week or two to get these interviews.

Cooking in 'Merica

Our new project, Cooking in 'Merica, is still in preproduction. We have our lighting setup, shot list, and prop list all ready and are just waiting to do a practice shoot. I am the technical director, which is honestly not very hard compared to some of the other job on the shoot. The job consists of basically hitting 3-6 buttons that correspond to the camera the director wants to make live. Mark is the director and Amber is floor manager. We are looking forward to our practice shoot on monday.

French Toast in the Hizzy

New project is a how to video, and for our how to video we are making French toast. We had debated making it into communist toast by adding cherries and jam on top, but it is still under debate. Either way I am loving my group so far. I can't tell you the last time I worked with Amber or Mark. This project will be fun.

Toxic Relationships

Our group is fairly toxic and unfriendly at the moment. There is little to no talking between us and whenever I suggest something I am ignored. It really bothers me that nobody talks to each other unless it is a negative comment or complaint.

The only people who seems to stay positive anymore are Ramiro and Collis. They act to relieve the tension of the group, but usually fails.

I'm trying to stay positive but the distance between this group is unbearable. I don't like the negative comments made by everyone or the fact that nobody trusts anyone else in this group. Even worse, I feel not everyone is being heared pr cared for. Some people are just completely being ignored by the director until she needs something from them that pertains to the film. It is just depressing how toxic our group is.

Powering Through To The End

    We are almost done shooting all of the footage for Long Legs. It's been such a long process of shooting for what seems like hundreds of hours after school. Thanks to Nick, our VERY FAITHFUL actor, we were able to finally finish all of the Mr. Adams scenes. At one point I thought we wouldn't finish this film, but through some serious hard work and dedication from the whole team, we were able to get just about everything done.
     It was a pretty slippery slope to get to where we are now. I was getting very forgetful with the props this week. This lead to scenes being changed so that we could make it all work. The main reason we weren't getting things done as quickly as we could be was the sheer amount of funny moments we had during the shoot. We all have had equal roles in making those though. A HUGE problem was that at the beginning of the week, me and Stephanie didn't know our lines. I studied them and did a lot off of memory, but I did need to use improv every so often. This shoot definitely taught me how much improv can help a movie and get you out of tough situations. I can personally say it has saved my ass quite a few times this week.
    Now we have one more scene to do until we move on to postproduction. I have to say, I'm happy to finally be done shooting so that I can stop slacking off in my other classes. I've been putting off a lot of homework to make time to shoot after school. I need to get back to my make-up work... see you next week space cowboys.

Things Are Finally Settling Down

   After a long and stressful week things are finally settling down. We've gone through two leading actors and two leading actresses in the past week. Today our leading actor quit and our leading actress can't perform because she was in the ER because of an infected tooth that she needed the nerve removed for. This lead to Stephanie and I playing the roles of Ted and Sylvia. Thank god we know the lines at least.
   Honestly our hired help was not very good. They lacked connection to character,  wouldn't take the time to study their lines, and they would never respond to our emails or messages. They couldn't act either.
    Everything is back on track now. The bonus of us being the actors is that it cut our time restrictions by more than half. Our group is shaping up and we actually made some progress shooting after school today. Things are looking up!

Three Times The Charm

So this week we had our third draft and beat sheet due... Too bad neither are done yet. I had to almost completely rewrite our story. I just want to get done scripting it and get shooting. The reason I teamed up with Jose isn't just because he's my friend, it's because he's undoubtedly the best movie maker in the class. Although I'm quite jealous of his great productions, I know if we get our movie made it will be amazing.
I'm frustrated now because of the crippling writers block I have. I don't know where to go with my story anymore. It's looking like a twenty minute film too.
I do have to say one thing though. My teacher Mr. Lemos and my friend Patricia have been really helpful. They gave me a lot more to work off of when I went to them for advice.
Well... I guess I better get back to writing this damned treatment. See ya next Thursday.