We're Making a Movie

Photo - October 2010

2010-10-02T00:05:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts and photos. Twitter has been much easier to do mini-updates in the event that anyone ever wants to see what's going on.

In the interest of documentation, here's a photo and the DVD of what we sent to Sundance. We submitted a rough cut on September 16, but they won't let us know if we're in or not until December. Then the festival is in January.

November 2009 - A Picture

2009-12-09T12:55:00.001-06:00

October 2009 - A Picture

2009-12-09T12:54:00.001-06:00

September 2009 - A Picture

2009-12-09T12:53:00.000-06:00

Production Diary

2009-12-09T12:22:00.002-06:00

Production Diary

This is a very boring read, but it maps out every day of production in skeleton form. Pictures will be added evnentually

Day 1 – 9/5/09
Full day rehearsal with Danny Hassel/Daylen

Day 2 – 9/6
Danny script work, Taylor Engel/Maggie arrives
Taylor/Danny/DJ – get to know each other exercise – Truth or dare

Day 3 – 9/7
Danny/Taylor read through script
Makeup Meeting with Sarah-Beth and Jessica – Jessica takes over
Watch Fear DVDs
Discussions on co-interaction and stamina

Day 4 – 9/8
Finish script read through with Danny/Taylor
Filmed rehearsal of industrial factory scene in parking lot
Discussions on stamina and co-interaction
Maurice Winsell (Toll Booth Dean) and Danny rehearsal for theme park scenes

Day 5 – 9/9
Taylor and I meet Nola (Little Girl in the movie)
Late start for rehearsal
Attempt rehearsal exercises
Emana Rachelle, Jeremy Windham, and EJ Graff arrive for diner rehearsal with Taylor
Photo meeting with Elissa (production designer), and Joe De Sciose (photographer)
Danny solo work – fear
John Arturo arrives (cinematographer)

Day 6 – 9/10
Danny and Taylor exercises – read it like _____, walking, and character dialect
Show Behind The Scenes of films for inspiration
Production work with John and DJ
*FIRST SHOT – plant burial scene 11PM-3AM
Problems – no lighting on the field, police interruption, problems drawing power from cars, location contact not present
Melora Walters agrees to do the film in January instead of during the bulk of filming in August

Day 7 – 9/11
Filming industrial factory scene Day 1 of 4 – 8AM-8PM
Tough shoot – very physical work, hard rainfall, hurried 80 foot crane shot, props mistake, audio problems (not noticed during filming), enormous location made for slow filming and difficult communication

Day 8 – 9/12
Filming industrial factory scene Day 2 of 4 – 8AM -8PM
Same conditions

Day 9 – 9/13
Diner scene – 11:30AM-10PM
Approx. 30 extras
Problems – shoot taking longer than agreed with location, not enough time to get close ups, not enough coverage of one scene because everyone was tired – we come back later for close ups and additional coverage

Day 10 - 9/14
Work on scheduling
John and DJ work on house inventory and misc production construction/errands
Scout party scene location
Taylor/Dr. Philip Cox rehearsal for Coffee Shop scenes

Day 11 – 9/15
-Ava Kelly/Lisa arrives from New York and rehearses with Danny and Alaana Jordan/Park Worker Ana for party scenes
-Taylor and Matthew Martin/Manager Richie go out for lunch to get to know each other
-Coffee Shop scene filming
Extras - 10
Problems – Location agreed to allow unlimited filming time and restricted the time to 4 hours when we arrived (NOT ENOUGH TIME), and the location would not let us turn off the fridge which made for bad sound

Day 12 – 9/16
Taylor and Matthew Martin/Manager Richie rehearsal for grocery store scenes
Nadine Sisson/Park Manager and Danny rehearsal for Daylen firing scene
Ava , Alana, and Danny phone recording
Problems – none
Party Scene – 6PM-3AM
Extras – 30 (100 promised/needed)
Problems – difficult lighting, not enough extras (event coordination problems)

Day 13 – 9/17
E-mail and phone call work
Record Store shoot
Problems – none

Day 14 – 9/18
PROBLEM - Theme Park location backs out as we drive to filming location
PROBLEM - Grocery store location backs out
Buy props, etc.
Work on car flip coordination and other misc. logistics
See movie – “9”

Day 15 – 9/19
Phone scene with Taylor and Gloria Lundberg/Maggie’s Mom/my Grandmother
Problems – the key to the scene was to give my grandmother a brownie so she would concentrate on getting brownie out of her teeth instead of “acting”
Dream sequence shot of Danny in a big paroking lot

Day 16 – 9/20
Industrial Factory Day 2/3
Problems – focusing
Location scouting for apartment interiors

Day 17 – 9/21
Phone calls all day trying to secure grocery store location

Day 18 – 9/22
Matthew Martin/Manager Richie and Taylor walking with couch scene
Problems – 1 hour into filming, we realized the sound was bad. We had to re-scout and film that day before Matthew had to be at work that afternoon
Corporate meeting with Western grocery stores – new grocery approved
Dramatic evening

Day 19 – 9/23
Find accountant for SAG – Ben Jones steps in to help. Otherwise a payroll house must complete work.
Supplies for lake (tire, barrels, etc.)
Rehearsal for lake scene
DJ, John, and Danny build raft

Day 20 – 9/24
Lake shoot day 1 – 4AM – 6PM
Problems – boat breaks down at 6AM, difficult landscape and logistics to shoot a scene on a raft, break pond tune boat overhand, difficult to make tire swing

Day 21 – 9/25
Lake shoot day 2 – 4AM-6PM
Problems – overnight storm changes tire swing location and water level, DJ fixes tire swing, and Danny makes home-made waves
Myles Webb/Myron arrives in Birmingham
Stay up late fixing broken lake items (pond tune awning and deck light)

Day 22 – 9/26
Clean up lake house – strong downpour
Taylor and Jazelle London rehearsal for plant store scene
Plant store scene
Extras – 10
Problmes – difficult lighting
Stranger in the Parking Lot scene
Leaving plant store happy scene
Overall 5PM – 2AM

Day 23 – 9/27
Car flip day
Problems – poor location, poor planning, bomb squad contact backing out to help, trying to gather materials too late
The car flip failed, and we smashed a window instead to simulate a car crash
Myles and Danny hang out

Day 24 – 9/28
Myron and Danny hang out and rehearse
Bob Fitts/Paul/Manager Gordon rehearsal with Danny
Shoot family portrait of the Gordon’s
e-mails and scheduling catch up

Day 25 – 9/29
Meeting with Grocery store general manager, errands
Danny/Myles/Bob scenes at Gordon house and driving around neighborhood scenes (2PM-11PM)
Problems – running out of light, strapping camera to car takes a little bit of time

Day 26 – 9/30
More Gordon house driving scenes 1PM-4PM
Problems – timing issues
Picking up Myron at the school scene 4PM-7PM
Problems – running out of light

Day 27 – 10/1
Sunrise shot for fast food scene with Danny and Myron – 4:30AM-9AM
Problems – sun coming up makes lighting match hard, used production van to block light, focus issues, costume continuity with jacket
Scene – Myron plays guitar, Danny says “hey”
Problems – promptness
Jocelyn Druyan/Maggie’s Mom arrives very late – airport pickup and go over costumes

Day 28 – 10/2
Jocelyn and Dean Elmore/Stranger scene – “getting directions”
Problems – none
Jocelyn/Taylor rehearsal
Location Scouting for driving shots

Day 29 – 10/3
Open Mic Scene
Extras – 30 kids, 10 adults
Problems – location
School Hallway scene
Problem – focus pulling
Location scouting

Day 30 – 10/4
Jocelyn/Taylor/Matthew – big grocery store scenes – 6:30AM-6PM
Problems – rain on equipment, cursing in front of patrons, miscommunication regarding technique

Day 31 – 10/5
Jocelyn/Taylor/Grandmother – more phone call scenes
Problems – continuity of blanket
Plant store additional footage shot to extend scene (man-lift shot)
Problems – Missing costume
Danny/Alana rehearsal

Day 32 – 10/6
*Theme park crisis – scout most of the day to find location alternative after theme park location completely backs out
Nervous Driving scene
Problems – shooting at incorrect resolution, mic battery dies, exposure problems
Myron and Jocelyn go home

Day 33 – 10/7
Grocery Store shoot (after the phone call and name tag scene) with Matthew Martin, Taylor, Dylan Dunn, and the Dunn Family
Problems – none
Location scouting and Bomb squad meeting
Victoria Mullen/Flower Shop Owner arrives
Mark Boone Junior arrives, go over costume

Day 34 – 10/8
Sunrise shot – Toy Store – 4AM-9AM
Problems – race against the light, camera visible in window reflection, stopping cars from parking in spaces
Boone rehearsal – solo and with Victoria

Day 35 – 10/9
Apartment complex exterior shoot and driving shots (end of the movie and leaving/arriving at apartments) 4AM – 11PM
Problems – tenant car continuity, story continuity thinking, forgotten costumes, props suitcase lost on the interstate, finding apartments to use on the day, finishing before nightfall

Day 36 – 10/10
Junk yard shoot – 10AM-2PM
Problems – took longer than expected
Hospital Shoot – 2-4PM
Problems – finding the room
Middle of nowhere landfill pickup shots – 4-7PM
Problems – unstable terrain, running out of daylight

Day 37 – 10/11
Delivery truck inserts, driving shots 9-3PM
Problems - none
Danny rehearsal with Alana
Kidnapping Daylen scene 8-10PM
Problems – waiting on a lava lamp to warm up

Day 38 – 10/12
Flower Shop scenes - 9-5:30
Problems – running out of time, fridge water dripping, original flower shop dropping out one week before filming
Taylor leaving restaurant – 5:30 – 7PM
Problems – forgotten costume piece

Day 39 – 10/13
Theme Park scenes part 1 with Danny, Maurice, Alana, and Boone – 7AM-3PM
Problems – promptness, focus
Park – shattering glass – 3PM-830PM
Problems – glass shatters in larger radius than anticipated, difficult clean up, running out of light to clean up

Day 40 – 10/14
Grocery Store scenes with Boone and Taylor – 9AM-11AM
Problems – previously-acquired pay phone is stolen
Look for replacement pay phone and nearly get arrested

Day 41 – 10/15 - 4PM-7PM
Theme Park Day 2 with Danny and Nadine/Park Manager – 8AM-4PM
Problems - promptness, rain delays, missing costume piece, cloud coverage
Grocery Store phone scene
Problems – losing daylight, getting into the moment

Day 42 – 10/16
Explosion scene day 1 -
Problems – promptness, coordination of everyone and the location, walking everyone through all actions too too much time, steadicam delays in assembly, BOMB SQUAD BACKS OUT THE DAY BEFORE THE EXPLOSION, make up delays, tire burning learning curve, costume purchase delays

Day 43 – 10/17
Theme Park Day 3 – with Danny, Alana, and Boone – 10AM – 5PM
Problems – promptness, focus, cold weather and summer costumes

Day 44 – 10/18
Grocery store scenes – Boone and Taylor (loading dock and storefront) – 9AM-3PM
Problems – sun changes, DJ (soundman) gone
Van kidnapping scene – 7PM-10PM
Problems – lighting realistically

Day 45 – 10/19
Toy Store scene – 9AM-2PM (trying to secure art museum)
Problems – customer intrusion
Delivery Headquarters – exterior shot – 2-3:30PM
Problems – coordination from across-the-street parking lot, directions to location
Delivery Headquarters – 4-7PM
Problems – blocking daylight, time constraints, dealing with real business

Day 46 – 10/20
Library scene – 630AM-9AM
Problems – dropping Red camera, logic delays
Boone inserts of driving and dragging bench (in quarry) 9AM-1230PM
Problems – difficult terrain
Art Museum – 1230PM-2PM
Problems – location clearance challenges, short filming time, no lighting allowed
Delivery Truck – Dosing Danny and Taylor – 2-4PM
Problems – none

Day 47 – 10/21
Puzzle heist and montage – 10AM-2PM
Problems – finding location the day of
LAST MINUTE BOMB SQUAD SCRAMBLE
-Since the first bomb squad backed out the day before the explosion, 4 other bomb squads agreed to do it and subsequently backed out. The day before the newly planned explosion, the Gadsden bomb squad agreed but not without a permit from the state fire marshall. Arranging for a permit 3 hours before close was nearly impossible.
Football stadium shot – 4PM
Problems – Boone gets recognized during a stolen shot, we get in trouble and aren’t allowed to film it – but we steal it anyway

Day 48 – 10/22
Explosion day – shooting day 2
Problems – promptness, costume issues, logistics, explosion rehearsals take time, explosions don’t work properly, fighting daylight, cloud coverage

Day 49 – 10/23
Salon scene 9AM-1PM
Problems – cloud coverage delays
Boone leaves

Day 50 – 10/24
Taylor apartment shoot – interior night – 7PM-12AM
Problems – DJ is off

Day 51 – 10/25
Taylor apartment shoot – interior day – 7AM-10AM
Problems – none
Courtney’s diner reshoots and Bob Fitts/manager scene – close ups and other scene reshoot – 12PM-5:30PM
Problems – refrigerators sound issues and time
Apartment redecorate
Emergency recasts of 2 characters – Grocery Lily and Grocery Jeff

Day 52 – 10/26
Grocery scenes – Hannah Hughes and Judson Entrekin and Taylor 9AM-3PM
Problems – extras inconsistencies
Grocery inserts and additional close up shots (John shoots)
Problems - none

Day 53 – 10/27
Sylacauga shoot with Danny and Taylor – waking up – 6AM-12PM
Problems - rain
Cullman reshoots with Danny and Taylor – 12PM-4:30PM
Problems – running out of time

Day 54 – 10/28
Industrial factory day 4 – audio reshoots
Problems – focus, nearby train audio delays
Danny apartment interior shots
Problems – focus
Ghetto reshoots – apartment exterior shots with Taylor
Problems – focus, we left the microphone in the ghetto overnight
Dream shot and sleeping shot with Taylor
(Dramatic morning with Danny – 2 hour delay)

Day 55 – 10/29
Get to theme park to shoot, but we forgot to get the microphone
Danny driving shots
Danny apartment interior night shots – 7PM-4AM

Day 56 – 10/30
Theme Park day 5
Opening sequence with Danny (driving and arriving at toll booth) – 10AM-6PM
Problems – numerous coverage, accidental deleting of footage

Day 56 – 10/31
No filming – prepare for road trip

Day 57 – 11/1
Leave for road trip
Problem – extreme car problems – don’t leave until 4PM
Arrive in Fort Smith, Arkansas at 3AM – sleep at grandmother’s house

Day 58 – 11/2
Driving all day
Sleep in Dodge City, Kansas

Day 59 – 11/3
Get materials in Garden City, Kansas
Drive to Chalk Pyramids – look at pyramids with Rick the crane operatore
Camp in Chalk Pyramids

Day 60 – 11/4
Film all day in Chalk Pyramids – Crane day
Problems – difficult terrain, cold weather at night, fighting light, crane visibility, crane noise
Night shoots
Problems – abrupt film end

Day 61 – 11/5
Film all day in Chalk Pyramids
Problems - focus
Night shoots
Problems - cold

Day 62 – 11/6
Film in the morning
Problems – abrupt film end
And insert shots as DJ takes care of car problems

Day 63 – 11/7
Location scouting and purchasing supplies in Rapid City, SD

Day 64 – 11/8
Filming in Rapid City, SD
Problems – difficult terrain, running out of light, not enough coverage, missed long shot opportunity

Day 65 – 11/9
Driving all day
Sleep in Denver – nice hotel (donated hotel points)

Day 70 – 11/10
Arrive in Leadville, CO
Location scouting, clothes purchasing, and props preparation

Day 71 – 11/11
Filming – snow river scene
Problems – difficult terrain, altitude tiredness

Day 72 – 11/12
Filming – walking in the snow scene, snowfight
Problems – no John, audio difficult to capture

Day 73 – 11/13
Filming – top of the mountain scene
Problems – snow chains, snow very deep, cold weather, tiredness

Day 74 – 11/14
Filming – crane day – establishing shot walking up the mountain, and sledding down the hill shot
Problems – lots of coverage for a single day, moving the crane

Day 75 – 11/15
Filming – sledding inserts, additional shooting of dialogue shots
Problems – promptness
Driving at night, have to stop in Vale, CO because of the snow

Day 76 – 11/16
Driving to Salt Lake City, UT

Day 77 – 11/17
John and I scout the Salt Flats
Purchase props

Day 78 – 11/18
Filming – Salt Flats and crane day – 4AM-4PM
Problems – focus, lizard movement

Day 79 – 11/19
Drive to Arches national park
Film – Arches
Problems – focus

Day 80 – 11/20
Drive to Albequerque, NM

Day 81 – 11/21
Drive to Oklahoma City, OK

Day 82 – 11/22
Filming – smoke bomb scene in Oklahoma
Problems – locations disagreements, costume delays focus
Road trip ends

Sunrise Still

2009-09-28T12:41:00.003-05:00

This shot is a little dark, but it's a still from a moving camera shot. The orange dot is the light from a raft (click on the image to see a larger image).

We woke up at 3:30 AM to get this sunrise shot on the lake.

Brion's sketches

2009-09-21T17:16:00.003-05:00

Elissa's phone shots

2009-09-18T23:55:00.005-05:00

Three quick cell phone pictures from Elissa's phone (many more taken by professional photographer, Joe De Sciose)

Professionalism - Boone and Melora

2009-09-18T23:32:00.005-05:00

Professional Actors Mark Boone Junior and Melora Walters gave the green light for playing two of the leads in our film last week.

Boone acted in Batman Begins, Memento, Se7en, etc: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0095478/filmovote

Melora acted in Magnolia, The Butterfly Effect, Cold Mountain, Big Love, etc: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001828/filmovote OR http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5OOKoVOzxs

It took over eight months for them to agree and to get schedules worked out, but it's very exciting to be able to work together on the film :)

Brion's Finished Paintings

2009-09-18T23:19:00.006-05:00

These are Brion Barron's paintings around which our plot is based.

Boat to Explode

2009-09-04T19:08:00.001-05:00

Here's a boat at our landfill location that the owners are allowing us to blow up.

Real Patch

2009-09-04T00:50:00.001-05:00

Custom-embroidered theme park patch. Design by Korey.

Skip this post #3

2009-09-04T00:44:00.002-05:00

More copy/paste from Twitter as there is no time to write a proper update.

1. Trying to figure out a cheap alternative to insurance so we can get our scenes filmed (#missingpieces)9 minutes ago from web

2. Nick and Ryan have been scouting forever, and today they have a strong lead for a working Geo Prism & location for car flip (#missingpieces)about 1 hour ago from web

3. Ordered the Iron & Wine vinyl album prop for the movie! Sweet relief of a big burden (#missingpieces)about 1 hour ago from web

4. apparently, the movie was covered in one of Birmingham's local papers (#missingpieces)about 2 hours ago from web

5. Pauleka arranged for coverage in American University's newspaper! (#missingpieces)about 2 hours ago from web

6. scouting Danny's new apartment. Cool place, but it won't work. The search for appt.s continues :( - hangin' w/ Danny (#missingpieces)about 2 hours ago from web

7. e-mails at the library (#missingpieces)about 2 hours ago from web

8. picked up an expensive 300mm lens to borrow for production from our generous photographer, Joe De Sciose (#missingpieces)about 2 hours ago from web

9. rehearsal with my grandmother for 2 hours at Panera Bread (#missingpieces)about 2 hours ago from web

10. IRON AND WINE'S MUSIC/ALBUM COVER WILL BE IN THE MOVIE!!! CHOICE #1 for music licensing!!!! 2 months of negotiations! (#missingpieces)7:00 PM Sep 2nd from web

11. Secured the 110 foot crane from the 11th to the 13th for the big industrial factory scene (#missingpieces)4:39 PM Sep 2nd from web

12. $1,600 worth of professional business signage for $160 :) - Thanks www.Buildasign.com (#Missingpieces)3:11 PM Sep 2nd from web

13. Check out this guy's music. Fumio, one of our music supervisors found him - amazing - http://www.myspace.com/wess... (#missingpieces)2:19 PM Sep 2nd from web

14. paperwork, utilities, and leasing for the apartment set (#missingpieces)2:16 PM Sep 2nd from web

15. 1,700 real e-mails in 20 days -inbox only, not counting sent mail (#missingpieces)6:14 AM Sep 2nd from web

16. FIRST GREAT DAY EVER! Apartment - done, Car explosion location - done, grocery store - done, helicopters - done :D (#MissingPieces)10:31 PM Sep 1st from web

17. Has two options for a free helicopter for our action scene. Both coordinated by Reid Krackower - our savior! (#missingpieces)6:56 PM Sep 1st from web

18. Today is locations day - a meeting tonight with a grocery store (#missingpieces)6:15 PM Sep 1st from web

19. has a place to blow up the car!!!! Culman County Landfill. Landfill Manager "Tadpole" and I are buddies (#Missingpieces)5:42 PM Sep 1st from web

20. found THE apartment for filming! Now just trying to wrap the brain around it and adapt all the scenes to the given space (#missingpieces)1:45 PM Sep 1st from web

21. real people = I live in my head, and it's amazing that so many talented individuals would be donating their time and skills to this @analein1:34 AM Sep 1st from web

22. production is actually happening. Who knew. Now it's about coordinating tangible things on tangible dates with real people (#missingpieces)12:16 AM Sep 1st from web

23. why does it take 4 months of daily calls to NOT have permission to film in a grocery store, apartment complex, or quarry? (#missingpieces)4:23 PM Aug 31st from web

24. can't express how thankful he is that Pauleka is on board!!! She's our line producer, and she kicks butt! (#missingpieces)3:52 AM Aug 31st from web

25. working on scheduling, people coordination, logistics, legal, and general communication (#missingpieces)3:09 AM Aug 31st from web

26. Made instructions for background actors, spammed Craig's List, and research on acting (#missingpieces)11:29 PM Aug 30th from web

27. Coming up with instruction sheets for background actors in the movie (#missingpieces)3:06 PM Aug 30th from web

28. google earth grocery store scouting (#MissingPieces)3:05 PM Aug 30th from web

29. re-writes, and coordinating lots of folks to take care of business (#missingpieces)5:27 AM Aug 30th from web

30. met with our production designer and photographer to map out some upcoming stuff - i.e. backstory photo shoot (#missingpieces)5:26 AM Aug 30th from web

31. @wcabral E-mails better for me usually at responding, but we'll find a quarry - it's at the top of my list. Been trying since May2:05 AM Aug 29th from web in reply to wcabral

32. got the motivation to start re-doing the production schedule. Ugh. (#missingpieces)1:42 AM Aug 29th from web

33. @wcabral Sounds good, just give me a call tomorrow1:33 AM Aug 29th from web in reply to wcabral

34. pleading with folks to find a place to blow up our car (#missingpieces)1:32 AM Aug 29th from web

35. Sending feedback to lots of hard-working folks working on different aspects of the movie (#missingpieces)12:16 AM Aug 29th from web

36. contacting prospective supporting actors to work on the movie (#missingpieces)12:15 AM Aug 29th from web

37. meetings with a local high school and our custom t-shirt designer (#missingpieces)12:10 AM Aug 29th from web

38. making final offer and negotiations with Boone and Melora (#missingpieces)11:40 PM Aug 28th from web

39. Mark Boone Junior and Melora Walters are confirmed on the movie! Just one last detail with Melora's schedule (#missingpieces)11:40 PM Aug 28th from web

40. faxing legal documents to a landowner and returning some amazon items (#missingpieces)4:58 PM Aug 26th from web

41. Pauleka is organizing everyone who wants to help on production :) She's helping w/ tons of other stuff too (#missingpieces)2:12 PM Aug 26th from web

42. our costume designers are hard at work scouring the city finding the perfect pieces for our characters (#missingpieces)2:10 PM Aug 26th from web

43. has a car for filming - 91 honda civic with paint chipping (#missingpieces)2:10 PM Aug 26th from web

44. sorting out some actor to actor communication (#missingpieces)5:20 AM Aug 26th from web

45. has a bunch of supporting cast celebrity inquiries ready to go as soon as we are given the go ahead (#missingpieces)4:10 AM Aug 26th from web

47. Just got a direct e-mail from Boone :D - this is becoming very real very quick (#missingpieces)3:33 AM Aug 26th from web

48. has a new line producer! Pauleka Cooper, and she's already hard at work (#missingpieces)1:02 AM Aug 26th from web

49. Both of the actors will be leads in the movie!! If the scheduling works out (#missingpieces)1:01 AM Aug 26th from web

50. two of my favorite film actors are making their final decisions (#missingpieces)4:57 PM Aug 25th from web

52. panic attack (#missingpieces)1:41 AM Aug 25th from web

53. is a dog catching his tail - ut oh (#missingpieces)12:42 AM Aug 25th from web

54. Velveteen Rabbit it is - and Christie gave us her vintage copy (#missingpieces)11:41 PM Aug 24th from web

55. John is getting these lights: http://atlaslightingsupply.... (#missingpieces)11:25 PM Aug 24th from web

56. making a list of in-town production assistants (#missingpieces)6:03 PM Aug 24th from web

57. working on hotel sponsorships, crane sponsorships, speaking with an investor, and a stunt man (#missingpieces)4:50 PM Aug 24th from web

58. is expecting a call from Mark Boone Junior!!!!!!!! (#missingpieces)4:49 PM Aug 24th from web

59. sending book design and t-shirt design feedback (#missingpieces)6:08 AM Aug 24th from web

61. is getting his hopes up for tomorrow - it's decision day (#missingpieces)3:26 AM Aug 24th from web

63. finding it hard to stay focused on script re-writes with so many other obligations (#MissingPieces)6:51 PM Aug 23rd from web

64. ordering a jib (#missingpieces)6:38 PM Aug 23rd from web

65. dolly crisis hopefully resolved (#missingpieces)6:38 PM Aug 23rd from web

67. Calling some people to tell them they are in the cast (#missingpieces)6:33 PM Aug 23rd from web

69. First meeting with Danny Hassel, our lead actor in the young adult role of Daylen (#missingpieces)5:47 PM Aug 22nd from web

70. setting up our field-transfer hard drive, walkie talkies, and lap top case (#missingpieces)5:10 PM Aug 22nd from web

71. biting nails waiting for the decisive phone call from our last celebrity lead (#missingpieces)3:38 PM Aug 22nd from web

72. Adam and Amanda just brought over 3 blow up mattresses for folks to sleep on (#missingpieces)3:32 PM Aug 22nd from web

73. more people on board, script re-writes (#missingpieces)3:32 PM Aug 22nd from web

74. holy smokes - one last celebrity lead. 24 hours until that bubble pops. (#missingpieces)8:39 PM Aug 21st from web

75. celebrities will not be working on this project. Sincere disappointment (#missingpieces)6:05 PM Aug 21st from web

76. John's going crazy on ordering cinematography stuff, and I just ordered some heat gloves, and our custom theme park patches (#missingpieces)5:07 PM Aug 21st from web

77. coordinating cast costumes, casting some bit roles, more licensing stuff, and managing some extra help offers (#missingpieces)4:19 AM Aug 21st from web

78. writing some of the last celebrity inquiries pleading for a yes/no decision (#Missingpieces)2:11 AM Aug 21st from web

79. making a morale-boosting collage to post in the production studio (basement) bathroom (#missingpieces)2:10 AM Aug 21st from web

80. Has a second interested event planner - with her own event planning company! (#missingpieces)2:09 AM Aug 21st from web

81. script re-writes and internet meeting with Lene, one of our fundraisers (#missingpieces)10:53 PM Aug 20th from web

82. meeting with Brion - one of our paintings artists (#missingpieces)6:03 PM Aug 20th from web

83. calls - parking lot permissions, children's book permission, car explosion location, restaraunt location, track/field loca. (#Missingpieces)6:03 PM Aug 20th from web

84. meeting with a local diner for locations permission (#missingpieces)6:02 PM Aug 20th from web

85. late night location scouting - looking for running tracks, grocery stores, and well-lit neighborhoods (#missingpieces)5:07 AM Aug 20th from web

86. made the production closet with all our gear and stuff (#missingpieces)10:41 PM Aug 19th from web

87. is unbelievably fortunate to be able to work with such devoted and talented people every single day - all working for free (#Missingpieces)5:58 PM Aug 19th from web

88. Flower shop location secured (#MissingPieces)5:36 PM Aug 19th from web

89. request submitted for apartments at the local housing board (#missingpieces)2:54 PM Aug 19th from web

90. is reviewing the 7 minute video of song ideas from our additional music-maker, Michael Battito (#Missingpieces)3:47 AM Aug 19th from web

91. is working with our two costume designers and production designer on some misc. costume/prop/location stuff (#missingpieces)3:46 AM Aug 19th from web

92. wishlist of fireworks from our fireworks sponsor - just updated the website with their logo (#missingpieces)2:37 AM Aug 19th from web

93. The final plan for celebrity involvement is in action. Never take no for an answer. They'll still say no, but whatever (#missingpieces)2:36 AM Aug 19th from web

94. The Velveteen Rabbit is in public domain! Hopefully that's the ticket for getting clearance for the Children's book (#missingpieces)6:57 PM Aug 18th from web

95. a team of 8 people, lead by my friend Nick Cox are coordinating our car flip. They are holding the first meeting for it now (#missingpieces)6:02 PM Aug 18th from web

96. it's looking like some free hotel rooms :) (#missingpieces)6:01 PM Aug 18th from web

97. has a helicopter for the salt flats in Salt Lake City Utah! (#missingpieces)6:00 PM Aug 18th from web

98. is negotiating to get 85-100 foot cranes for some of our big shots (#missingpieces)5:38 PM Aug 18th from web

99. still hope with Iron & Wine licensing! (#missingpieces)4:16 PM Aug 18th from web

100. half the battle has been won for locations permission for filming outside of a local middle school (#missingpieces)3:50 PM Aug 18th from web

101. has a prospective event planner for our party scene! (#missingpieces)3:32 PM Aug 18th from web

102. endless calling to secure our car explosion location - shut down by a few prospective quarries :( (#missingpieces)3:30 PM Aug 18th from web

103. new production assistant! (#MissingPieces)5:37 AM Aug 18th from web

104. finding a creative writer to author our situations so the plot makes sense (#missingpieces)5:19 AM Aug 18th from web

105. more fielding e-mails, script polishing, pro-active help-seeking, google earth scouting, and licensing seeking (#missingpieces)4:43 AM Aug 18th from web

106. bought some tin containers to make a prop for the movie (#missingpieces)4:29 AM Aug 18th from web

107. celebrity involvement is a sinking ship. Many many many months/weeks/days/hours of work down the drain (#Missingpieces)8:18 PM Aug 17th from web

108. cannot keep up with these e-mails - bout to get worn out (#Missingpieces)8:18 PM Aug 17th from web

109. Boy Scouts are hopefully going to make a legit raft for us! Think Tom Sawyer (#missingpieces)8:18 PM Aug 17th from web

110. Lakeshore foundation is posting a call for actors in wheelchairs for the film (#missingpieces)8:15 PM Aug 17th from web

111. hotel group rates confirmed - $100 off (#missingpieces)8:14 PM Aug 17th from web

112. new sponsor! www.BigFireworks.com is providing sky lantern and spark fountains (#MissingPieces)8:14 PM Aug 17th from web

113. google earth scouting for a high school running track location (#missingpieces)8:14 PM Aug 17th from web

114. coordinating in-town help and extras (#Missingpieces)8:14 PM Aug 17th from web

115. script polishing (#Missingpieces)6:33 PM Aug 17th from web

116. Nick is coordinating our car flip – phone meeting to pin down dates (#missingpieces)6:32 PM Aug 17th from web

117. reading a stack of books about acting (#missingpieces)6:32 PM Aug 17th from web

118. seeking extras and production help from those who auditioned last week (#missingpieces)6:32 PM Aug 17th from web

119. getting tarp and mulch for our playground glass shattering sequence (#missingpieces)6:32 PM Aug 17th from web

120. library run for posting on craig’s list, home depot and Sam’s club for misc supplies (#missingpieces)6:31 PM Aug 17th from web

121. rejected from our grocery store location after three weeks of indecision – now negotiating (#missingpieces)6:30 PM Aug 17th from web

122. ing support from local communications school (#missingpieces)6:30 PM Aug 17th from web

123. looking for backup Red One camera in case of mid-shoot breakdown (#Missingpieces)6:30 PM Aug 17th from web

124. edited and made our Bob Ross DVD for filming (#missingpieces)6:30 PM Aug 17th from web

125. searching for hotels to contact around B'ham (#missingpieces)6:30 PM Aug 17th from web

126. answering e-mails, reconciling the budget, cleaning up the house from the wreck that is this movie (#missingpieces)6:29 PM Aug 17th from web

127. working on getting free hotels in town (#missingpieces)7:59 PM Aug 15th from web

128. updating the blog, transcribing notes from the day, and sending e-mails (#missingpieces)3:30 AM Aug 15th from web

129. updating the website - casting webpage down (#Missingpieces)1:54 AM Aug 15th from web

130. location scouting with Elissa all day - salon, diner, and 24/7 spot scoped out and secured (#missingpieces)1:54 AM Aug 15th from web

131. Will's done with both 8X8 ft. paintings!!! He stayed at the house for a week and rocked it out :) (#missingpieces)1:53 AM Aug 15th from web

132. final meeting with Birmingham's park board in preparation for our glass-shattering/playground scene (#Missingpieces)1:53 AM Aug 15th from web

133. calling back a few people for auditions (#MissingPieces)4:29 AM Aug 14th from web

134. looking for independent children's book publishers to get a book cleared (#missingpieces)4:28 AM Aug 14th from web

135. cool costume ideas from Angel (#MissingPieces)3:15 AM Aug 14th from web

136. lighting lesson from Will (#MissingPieces)3:12 AM Aug 14th from web

137. just got a list of event planners to contact from our production assistant, Patrick (#MissingPieces)12:20 AM Aug 14th from web

138. Holy crap, 54 people are on the crew. And that doesn't even scratch the surface of all the people helping on this (#MissingPieces)12:19 AM Aug 14th from web

139. just got explosives quantities from our Bomb Squad Sergeant and is still trying to clear a rock quarry location (#MissingPieces)5:54 PM Aug 13th from web

140. Goodnight moon is a bust $3,500 for a prop is too much (#Missingpieces)1:30 PM Aug 13th from web

141. sent our big "welcome to the cast" letter, the script, philosophies, the color scheme, and instruction to some of our cast (#missingpieces)2:19 AM Aug 13th from web

142. has a location in the salt flats of Utah and is now searching for a hot air balloon pilot in the area (#missingpieces)5:32 PM Aug 12th from web

143. just got off the phone arranging for a 30ft high electronically operated camera crane, kind of expensive though :( (#missingpieces)4:41 PM Aug 12th from web

144. got a list of interested background actors/extras from Kyle (#missingpieces)1:34 PM Aug 12th from web

145. met with an kind gentleman who is helping us with our industrial and car explosion scenes - and piloting his helicopter (#missingpieces)1:34 PM Aug 12th from web

147. is working with our amazing production designer, Elissa, on finding sweet apartment locations for the film (#missingpieces)12:04 AM Aug 12th from web

148. making the "you got the part" calls with Leeanna :D (#missingpieces)10:44 PM Aug 11th from web

149. is entering all the info from our audition session this weekend to figure out who wants to be extras (#missingpieces)9:35 PM Aug 11th from web

150. sent references to our new costume designer, Angel Vuong (#missingpieces)9:34 PM Aug 11th from web

151. has an 8AM meeting for locations - no fun (#Missingpieces)6:58 PM Aug 11th from web

152. is working on getting hot air balloon pilots for the desert and in Birmingham (#missingpieces)5:47 PM Aug 11th from web

153. got clearance to smash light bulbs on a playground (#missingpieces)5:46 PM Aug 11th from web

154. has gotten over 180 real e-mails that require responses in the past three days. It never stops (#Missingpieces)4:24 PM Aug 11th from web

155. Joe, our photographer is reading the script and coming up with ideas of backstory photographs for set decoration (#missingpieces)1:53 PM Aug 11th from web

156. Check out my friend's blog as she tracks losing weight and teaches everyone how to cook: http://anacooks.blogspot.com/ @analein1:45 PM Aug 11th from web

157. just got two new production assistants and a costume designer from the local school (#missingpieces)5:08 AM Aug 11th from web

158. is recruiting local boy scouts to make a raft and help out on the film (#missingpieces)5:07 AM Aug 11th from web

159. just got two amazing original songs from Justin Wilder - truly fantastic! (#missingpieces)3:55 AM Aug 11th from web

160. has a prospective costume designer! (#missingpieces)3:08 AM Aug 11th from web

161. is trying to find a photographer to take backstory photos (#missingpieces)2:16 AM Aug 11th from web

162. A local college's film production club is getting involved in helping with our movie (#missingpieces)2:14 AM Aug 11th from web

163. sent packaging references over to a professional package designer and sticker maker (#missingpieces)1:41 AM Aug 11th from web

164. just got 10 awesome bands sent over from Fumio, one of our music supervisors (#missingpieces)1:30 AM Aug 11th from web

165. Had to give decision feedback to a deserving actor (#missingpieecs)12:55 AM Aug 11th from web

166. Will's first finished 8X8 foot painting on ply board http://trunc.it/1b8gz (#Missingpieces)12:55 AM Aug 11th from web

167. these people are designing our prop arm bands for the kidnapping device: http://tinyurl.com/kqtex4 (#missingpieces)7:21 PM Aug 10th from web

168. long phone meeting with Elissa (production design) (#missingpieces)7:20 PM Aug 10th from web

169. panty hose tests - looks like the ones on sale at CVS are the best ones to use - Leggs! (#missingpieces)7:20 PM Aug 10th from web

170. is sending out cast pictures to our celebrity prospects (#missingpieces)4:13 PM Aug 10th from web

171. Got a huge discount on top notch songs for the movie from Midlake and the Trials of Van Occupanther (#missingpieces)2:37 PM Aug 10th from web

173. sent references over to a song writer and finalized plans for purchasing signage for our fake delivery company with Shea (#missingpieces)12:52 AM Aug 10th from web

174. just made a spreadsheet of our A and A+ cast with pictures :) (#missingpieces)10:57 PM Aug 9th from web

175. Just got clearance for our middle school!! (#missingpieces)10:21 PM Aug 9th from web

176. Has a new t-shirt designer for crew shirts and a full sponsorship with a t-shirt making company (#missingpieces)6:14 PM Aug 9th from web

177. Elissa finished location scouting Florence, Alabama, and it has truly amazing places (#Missingpieces)6:08 PM Aug 9th from web

178. just got smashable light bulbs from Kyle (#Missingpieces)6:07 PM Aug 9th from web

179. got our final discount from SetWear (#missingpieces)6:05 PM Aug 9th from web

180. Theme park logo = complete (#missingpieces)6:03 PM Aug 9th from web

181. has three friends composing songs for the movie, and just listened to the first demo by Dean - amazing :) (#missingpieces)6:03 PM Aug 9th from web

182. has a hopeful full-time production assistant (#missingpieces)6:02 PM Aug 9th from web

183. has a new music supervisor (#missingpieces)6:02 PM Aug 9th from web

184. a vinyl record store is securing album covers for us to film, and will make a custom album jacket for us for free (#missingpieces)5:54 PM Aug 9th from web

185. getting clearance for children's books and music in the film (#Missingpieces)5:53 PM Aug 9th from web

186. last minute audition - grace of God (#missingpieces)5:33 PM Aug 9th from web

187. up late with Leeanna pulling together the cast (#missingpieces)5:33 PM Aug 9th from web

188. Birmingham casting all day (#missingpieces)5:32 PM Aug 9th from web

189. has been working on getting supplies for Will's two 8X8 foot paintings on plyboard (#missingpieces)5:29 PM Aug 9th from web

191. Kyle is awesome as usual - he arranged for fluorescent light bulbs and refrigerator boxes! (#missingpieces)11:54 PM Aug 5th from web

192. searching for independent artists to clear their music for free (#missingpieces)11:50 PM Aug 5th from web

193. sent the project details to a local producer looking to finance Alabama films (#missingpieces)10:23 PM Aug 5th from web

194. Has access to 1,000,000 square feet/116 acres of industrial land!!! The biggest location in the Southeast! (#Missingpieces)3:34 PM Aug 5th from web

195. just spoke with an angel - cleared industrial factory location, rock quarry location, and flew a helicopter (#missingpieces)3:18 PM Aug 5th from web

196. has a sponsorship with a local t-shirt manufacturer to make crew t-shirts (#missingpieces)2:19 PM Aug 5th from web

197. updated the website (#missingpieces)6:27 AM Aug 5th from web

198. sent off for filming location in a local school (#missingpieces)5:00 AM Aug 5th from web

199. trying to do more outsourcing with more interested folks, who knew making a movie would require so much? (#missingpieces)10:01 PM Aug 4th from web

200. new approach for securing a rock quarry = exponentially more promising - should hear back by week's end (#missingpieces)5:11 PM Aug 4th from web

Poison Sticker

2009-09-04T00:40:00.000-05:00

Jamie Cain's custom poison sticker.

Michael Battito song sketch video

2009-08-19T18:44:00.004-05:00

Michael had some song ideas, and because we don't live near each other, he recorded a video of himself to explain his ideas and see what would fit best with the movie.

Bob Ross Video Segment

2009-08-16T02:44:00.005-05:00

Here is our Bob Ross instructional video segment that will be included in the finished film. The main clip that will be featured lasts from 1:24-2:40. The rest is filler for the rest of the scene.

August 2009 - a picture

2009-08-15T01:48:00.001-05:00

Mr. Will Braden - kickin' it. Then some other joker, standing.

Will's 8 X 8 Foot Paintings

2009-08-15T01:39:00.004-05:00

Will's two 8X8 foot paintings on plyboard. He stayed at the house for a week working on these every day.

8X8ft Painting #1 by Will

2009-08-09T21:59:00.002-05:00

Will is working on two 8X8ft paintings on plywood. This is the nearly-complete first painting. He is living at our house to paint them.

Victoria's mascot mask creation

2009-08-06T13:33:00.005-05:00

The foundation of Victoria's mascot mask - our kidnapper wears this mask to conceal his identity.

Theme Park Logo

2009-08-05T20:54:00.003-05:00

Awesome theme park logo designs by Korey Nadolny. These will be translated into t-shirt patches and visor embroideries.

Skip this post #2

2009-08-05T02:18:00.002-05:00

No time for blog updates, but here are all the micro, Twitter updates for anyone using this as a future resource of how to make a movie.

1.
trying to do more outsourcing with more interested folks, who knew making a movie would require so much? (#missingpieces)about 5 hours ago from web

2.
new approach for securing a rock quarry = exponentially more promising - should hear back by week's end (#missingpieces)about 10 hours ago from web

3.
has a salon location secured (#missingpieces)about 11 hours ago from web

5.
went to every industrial factory location in B'ham on google earth (#missingpieces)about 21 hours ago from web

6.
's friend Nick is gathering his engineer friends to flip our car! (#missingpieces)about 22 hours ago from web

7.
Prepped the Bob Ross videos for editing (#missingpieces)about 23 hours ago from web

8.
amazon shopping for movie stuff (#missingpieces)1:47 AM Aug 4th from web

9.
Getting a message over to Sufjan Stevens! (#missingpieces)9:53 PM Aug 3rd from web

10.
WE GOT MATERIAL THROUGH TO A FANTASTIC ACTOR!!! (#missinpieces)9:05 PM Aug 3rd from web

11.
casting threads are unraveling - keep your fingers crossed for those last final strands (#missingpieces)7:51 PM Aug 3rd from web

12.
my grandmother's going to play a part in the movie :D (#missingpieces)3:33 PM Aug 3rd from web

13.
negotiating with the Goodnight Moon folks (#missingpieces)3:17 PM Aug 3rd from web

15.
got and extra free customized puzzle (#missingpieces)4:56 AM Aug 3rd from web

16.
is trying to get a free hot air balloon ride to film our action scene from the sky (#missingpieces)10:57 PM Aug 2nd from web

17.
Trying to get clearance for music in our movie (#missingpieces)10:45 PM Aug 2nd from web

18.
sent feedback for Ahmad's book design (#missingpieces)10:44 PM Aug 2nd from web

19.
mowed the lawn - rent (#missingpieces)10:44 PM Aug 2nd from web

20.
is making a picture diagram to communicate our big action scene to the steadicam operator and explosives experts (#missingpieces)2:56 PM Aug 2nd from web

21.
feels like the Wizard of Oz (#missingpieces)4:24 AM Aug 2nd from web

22.
hates playing cards (#missingpieces)3:51 AM Aug 2nd from web

23.
just got a long e-mail from a contact with a lot of connections in the investment field (#missingpieces)1:55 AM Aug 2nd from web

24.
has a seasoned steadicam operator who is financing himself to rent the gear and travel to Birmingham! (#missingpieces)9:10 PM Aug 1st from web

25.
Scouted rock quarries all day with Mom (#missingpieces)9:09 PM Aug 1st from web

26.
working with a new designer on custom theme park costumes (#missingpieces)6:39 AM Aug 1st from web

27.
James has been doing locations research and phone calls to secure a desert location for us (#missingpieces)4:47 AM Aug 1st from web

28.
is trying to reach out for some help on this (#missingpieces)1:38 AM Aug 1st from web

29.
another day on the phone (#missingpieces)8:34 PM Jul 31st from web

30.
It's looking like all actors at a certain agency are out of the question (#missingpieces)5:43 PM Jul 31st from web

31.
has permission in a back-up quarry to blow up the car! We will scout it tomorrow. (#missingpieces)5:42 PM Jul 31st from web

32.
sent script feedback to a very smart and motivated actor (#missingpieces)2:31 AM Jul 31st from web

33.
Finished the new short film http://www.KentonBartlett.c... (#missingpieces)2:03 AM Jul 31st from web

34.
juggling too many balls (#missingpieces)8:02 PM Jul 30th from web

35.
is doing some down-to-the-wire negotiations with actors (#missingpieces)4:27 PM Jul 30th from web

36.
finished planning our road trip with John (#missingpieces)3:22 AM Jul 30th from web

37.
finalized t-shirt designs and prop motif symbolism stuff - again, not pretentious. Heather is making the shirts now (#missingpieces)3:09 AM Jul 30th from web

38.
a couple scheduled phone calls for interested actors tomorrow (#missingpieces)2:55 AM Jul 30th from web

39.
trying to get clearance for a middle school location (#missingpieces)2:55 AM Jul 30th from web

40.
Curt is going to get clearance for album covers in the movie (#missingpieces)1:49 AM Jul 30th from web

41.
is trying to get someone to flip our car (#missingpieces)1:49 AM Jul 30th from web

42.
looking for the coolest abandoned factory ever (#missingpieces)12:42 AM Jul 30th from web

43.
Happiness may be a warm puppy, but the book "Happiness is a Warm Puppy" will not be in our movie (#missingpieces)9:39 PM Jul 29th from web

44.
arguing with Peanuts to try to get their book in our movie (#missingpieces)2:39 PM Jul 29th from web

45.
Abbott is calling around sending in materials for the untouchable celebrities!!! (#missingpieces)2:39 PM Jul 29th from web

46.
working on clearance for vinyl albums in the movie and finding a pilot to film the overhead shot in our action sequence (#missingpieces)5:36 AM Jul 29th from web

47.
A kind gentleman will be calling all over town to secure our apartment locations! (#Missingpieces)4:50 AM Jul 29th from web

48.
SAG stuff in the mail, celebrity follow up stuff, local contacts (#missingpieces)4:49 AM Jul 29th from web

49.
finished going through the script and production schedule w/ John - then Home Depot/around town (#missingpieces)4:49 AM Jul 29th from web

50.
sent of the locations request for THE grocery store (#missingpieces)6:24 AM Jul 28th from web

51.
Harrison and his girlfriend went through the Bob Ross DVD and picked the best clips (#missingpieces)11:16 PM Jul 27th from web

52.
Melora read the script and asked to see our new short film! (#Missingpieces)10:33 PM Jul 27th from web

53.
spoke with a receptive grocery store owner, then had some sweet finds at a thrift store with John (#missingpieces)9:27 PM Jul 27th from web

54.
went to a veyr kind man's house who lent us a very nice tripod, a lighting kit, and offered his cinematic home for filming (#missingpieces)9:19 PM Jul 27th from web

55.
Got SAG work taken care of - just gotta send it off (#missingpieces)9:18 PM Jul 27th from web

56.
more LA calls and follow ups with actors (#missingpieces)9:17 PM Jul 27th from web

57.
trying to find a coordinator for flipping a car in our dream sequence (#missingpieces)6:28 AM Jul 27th from web

58.
sending out song licensing requests (#missingpieces)6:27 AM Jul 27th from web

59.
asked for for free custom patches, free visors, and sent references for a friend who wants to make a song for the movie (#missingpieces)6:23 AM Jul 27th from web

60.
sent instructions over to Abbott (legal) who will be calling around to get info to some actors repped by a tricky agency (#missingpieces)4:45 AM Jul 27th from web

62.
been scripting all day with John, then SAG paperwork, then location scouting at the corner, now camera tests (#missingpieces)9:35 PM Jul 26th from web

64.
looking for symbolism for the movie's costumes/sets -nothing pretentious.Just something for the attentive/analytical viewer (#missingpieces)5:07 AM Jul 26th from web

66.
50 pages of SAG contracts - 1 page at a time. (#missingpieces)3:11 AM Jul 26th from web

67.
practiced using a fog machine to light a room with John - then continued on the endless script work together (#missingpieces)3:11 AM Jul 26th from web

69.
read a cinematography text book today - good stuff, it's called New Cinematographers (#MissingPieces)9:37 PM Jul 25th from web

70.
spent the day location scouting Smith Lake in North Alabama w/ John and we found our tire swing scene location! (#missingpieces)9:36 PM Jul 25th from web

72.
sent in the authorization form to get our light sponsorship from Kino Flo (#missingpieces)3:02 AM Jul 25th from web

73.
spent a couple hours doing a manual workaround to Google's mis-flagging our website as containing a virus (#missingpieces)1:45 AM Jul 25th from web

74.
going through the Bob Ross DVD - fantastic shot of a fox playing in Bob Ross's hair - epic (#missingpieces)12:26 AM Jul 25th from web

75.
got a shipment of free Bob Ross paraphernalia (DVD, book, paint bucket, oil paints, paint brushes, etc.) (#missingpieces)11:42 PM Jul 24th from web

76.
got a fogger from a neighbor (#missingpieces)11:41 PM Jul 24th from web

77.
is in SAG hell (#missingpieces)5:06 PM Jul 24th from web

78.
involuntary sleep is disorienting (#missingpieces)5:40 AM Jul 24th from web

79.
got the fourth version of the sound design for Picnics - almost done! (#missingpieces)3:16 AM Jul 24th from web

80.
just got a donation of 40,000 Hyatt hotel points :) (#missingpieces)3:08 AM Jul 24th from web

81.
DVD reference festival with John (#missingpieces)2:38 AM Jul 24th from web

82.
MELORA WALTERS IS READING OUR SCRIPT!! (#missingpieces)6:48 PM Jul 23rd from web

83.
camera and sound tests with DJ and John (#missingpieces)6:23 PM Jul 23rd from web

84.
got locations permission from a record store and a toy store (#missingpieces)2:56 PM Jul 23rd from web

85.
wishes Google would remove its incorrect flagging of our website as containing a virus (#missingpieces)5:51 AM Jul 23rd from web

86.
redid the business plan after several complaints (#missingpieces)5:51 AM Jul 23rd from web

87.
sending a million follow up e-mails feeling like a pest (#missingpieces)4:37 AM Jul 23rd from web

88.
got the first draft of one of our prop books: How Kidnappers Did It (#missingpieces)4:37 AM Jul 23rd from web

89.
big script/camera day, then e-mails and phone calls (#missingpieces)4:12 AM Jul 23rd from web

90.
Hard core home depot run, John's making stuff, e-mails for me, just posted in 25 southern cities for casting (#missingpieces)3:07 AM Jul 23rd from web

91.
went google earth scouting with John to show him all the sweet spots around the country (#missingpieces)3:07 AM Jul 23rd from web

92.
reconciling the budget (#Missingpieces)3:06 AM Jul 23rd from web

95.
has a public relations manager and a couple new production assistants on board! (#missingpieces)5:49 PM Jul 22nd from web

96.
sent feedback for the first batch of paintings for our painting artists (#missingpieces)6:05 AM Jul 22nd from web

97.
got a free junk car to blow up and some free black panty hose!! (#missingpieces)5:19 AM Jul 22nd from web

98.
fellow Red camera owner wants to help on the movie! This may mean a second camera for our action sequence (#missingpieces)4:59 AM Jul 22nd from web

99.
Mark Boone Junior's agent might help "package" the film (get other actors involved) (#missingpieces)4:52 AM Jul 22nd from web

100.
worked all night with John going through the script, reference photos, and planning camera engineering stuff (#missingpieces)4:51 AM Jul 22nd from web

101.
spent 2 hours writing an e-mail to Mark Boone Junior's agent outlining the project more thoroughly (#missingpieces)4:13 AM Jul 22nd from web

102.
Our lead actresses' dad just donated 50,000 frequent flyer miles! (#missingpieces)9:00 PM Jul 21st from web

103.
got a crane for the pyramids in Kansas! (#missingpieces)4:25 PM Jul 21st from web

104.
The kind folks at Bob Ross are donating Bob Ross DVDs and Bob Ross supplies! (#missingpieces)3:45 PM Jul 21st from web

105.
got clearance for shooting in a hospital room! (#missingpieces)3:43 PM Jul 21st from web

106.
has been going over the script all morning with John. Right now he's playing with the camera for the first time - landmark? (#missingpieces)3:42 PM Jul 21st from web

107.
sent a request over to our sponsor, http://www.setwear.com to see if they can donate some supplies (#Missingpieces)6:03 AM Jul 21st from web

108.
4:30 AM - empty inbox... excited for a fresh, never-ending batch after sleeping... (#missingpieces)5:38 AM Jul 21st from web

109.
working with a generous contributor who is helping get us a pilot for our aerial desert shots... & freq. flyer/hotel points (#missingpieces)4:54 AM Jul 21st from web

110.
is working with a designer in North California on the kidnapper's mask (#missingpieces)4:44 AM Jul 21st from web

111.
is scouring the music library to contact musicians for pre-production music licensing (#missingpieces)3:06 AM Jul 21st from web

112.
Kyle went door to door today and has some really promising food sponsors! (#missingpieces)10:44 PM Jul 20th from web

113.
John, our cinematographer, should arrive any minute - he's in town for 10 days for pre-production- workin' time (#missingpieces)10:27 PM Jul 20th from web

114.
the score for Picnics is finished and sounds amazing - Richey rules (#missingpieces)7:43 PM Jul 20th from web

115.
BOB ROSS IS GOING TO BE IN THE MOVIE!!!!! Google him. (licensing permission granted for his video to be played) (#missingpieces)7:12 PM Jul 20th from web

116.
looks like we're going to be in the green for filming on the Chalk Pyramids!!! Now we just gotta find a crane.... (#Missingpieces)5:20 PM Jul 20th from web

117.
people in Kansas are really really really nice. All of them (#missingpieces)5:15 PM Jul 20th from web

118.
Got off the phone with an extremely helpful Register of Deeds in Kansas - help for filming here: http://tinyurl.com/kouj7l (#missingpieces)4:59 PM Jul 20th from web

119.
no dice for Bon Iver's music in our film for free :( (#missingpieces)4:57 PM Jul 20th from web

120.
James sent the fourth and final version of his song for Picnics! Just the score and sound design left :) (#missingpieces)2:59 AM Jul 20th from web

121.
rummaged through an abandoned school and through the creepiness walked away with some cool stuff (#missingpieces)2:35 AM Jul 20th from web

122.
questionably now has a full size pay phone and stand in the back of the van (#missingpieces)2:35 AM Jul 20th from web

123.
location scouted all day (mostly pre-scouted parks) (#missingpieces)2:33 AM Jul 20th from web

124.
is working on audio stuff with DJ (#missingpieces)3:10 PM Jul 19th from web

125.
sent feedback to Richey's third version of the score and is working on feedback for James' third version of the song (#missingpieces)3:57 AM Jul 19th from web

126.
is working on getting clearance form iron and wine for a song and prop in the film (#missingpieces)2:07 AM Jul 19th from web

127.
just sent out the 'big help list' and hopes nobody is offended http://www.kentonbartlett.c... (#missingpieces)2:06 AM Jul 19th from web

128.
finished google earth scouting all 107 parks in the Birmingham area (#missingpieces)1:30 AM Jul 19th from web

129.
spent most of the day with Elissa, our production designer - going over script & location scouting (#missingpieces)1:29 AM Jul 19th from web

130.
is takin' care of business with finances and equipment problems and scouting parks on google earth (#missingpieces)2:34 PM Jul 18th from web

131.
just finished the "Big Help List" & is prepping for our work day with Elissa (production design) tomorrow (#missingpieces)3:08 AM Jul 18th from web

133.
is working on feedback for a sound design for Picnics (#missingpieces)11:27 PM Jul 17th from web

134.
Melora Walters' agent is reading the script this weekend!!!!!!!!!! (#missingpieces)7:39 PM Jul 17th from web

135.
is shopping for a pay phone (#missingpieces)6:13 PM Jul 17th from web

136.
the Triana city council rejected our request for filming on top of their water tower (#missingpieces)3:46 PM Jul 17th from web

137.
Kyle Neeley is our new production assistant & he's been amazing and enthusiastic about jumping in head first on the project (#missingpieces)4:34 AM Jul 17th from web

138.
feels soulless when typing my name I reflexively write a .com at the end. Good for backspace (#missingpieces)3:06 AM Jul 17th from web

139.
is scouting 107 parks in the Birmingham area on Google Earth to select which park to shatter light bulbs (#missingpieces)3:03 AM Jul 17th from web

140.
finished another round of follow up with celebrities - a couple glimmers of hope (#missingpieces)9:21 PM Jul 16th from web

141.
followed up by phone with David Gordon's Green agent - fan mail is tricky (#Missingpieces)7:08 PM Jul 16th from web

142.
is sending instructions over to our new P.A. - Kyle Neeley (#missingpieces)6:19 PM Jul 16th from web

143.
is working with a talented friend/neighbor/musician on a song for the film (#missingpieces)6:18 PM Jul 16th from web

144.
got pseudo-approval to smash light bulbs on a park in Birmingham! (#missingpieces)6:18 PM Jul 16th from web

145.
faxed forms over to SAG (#missingpieces)5:21 PM Jul 16th from web

146.
has a new production assistant (#missingpieces)1:54 PM Jul 16th from web

147.
is reviewing delivery company designs by Shea Cadrin and getting ready for a meeting w/ the parks/recreation board of B'ham (#missingpieces)1:15 PM Jul 16th from web

148.
sent out some checks to pay for stuff (#missingpieces)2:18 AM Jul 16th from web

149.
is location scouting in library books (#missingpieces)2:18 AM Jul 16th from web

150.
measured a book for our book designers to make a custom book prop for the movie (#missingpieces)11:31 PM Jul 15th from web

151.
has been following up with phone calls and e-mails with celebrities - turned down by a lot but a few are interested (#missingpieces)9:07 PM Jul 15th from web

152.
got in contact with an amazing landlord who owns some empty apartments (#missingpieces)9:06 PM Jul 15th from web

153.
broke down and submitted SAG paper works so Melora Walters could get the proper information (#missingpieces)9:03 PM Jul 15th from web

154.
's friend talked with a grocery store manager today for locations purposes (#missingpieces)2:32 PM Jul 15th from web

155.
has another interested steadicam operator! (#missingpieces)11:07 AM Jul 15th from web

157.
is making the one-time-only "master help list" (#missingpieces)4:37 AM Jul 15th from web

158.
is reviewing the second round of tapes from our NYC casting session run by Leeanna, our casting director (#missingpieces)2:37 AM Jul 15th from web

159.
called many more celebrities today and is about to ride to school on the e-mail bus (aka sending e-mails to celebrities) (#missingpieces)11:28 PM Jul 14th from web

161.
just finished mowing the lawn... rent (#missingpieces)9:49 PM Jul 14th from web

162.
is working with another owner of an apartment complex and is getting help in contacting a grocery store owner (#missingpieces)5:37 PM Jul 14th from web

163.
gonna have a heart attack at age 25 I think (#missingpieces)5:30 PM Jul 14th from web

164.
"unsolicited materials" don't get very far sometimes (#missingpieces)3:57 PM Jul 14th from web

165.
met with an insurance agent to take care of our lighting sponsorship agreement (#missingpieces)3:48 PM Jul 14th from web

166.
still working on Nick Drake licensing (#missingpieces)3:48 PM Jul 14th from web

167.
is getting a lot of e-mails back from celebrites - mostly negative :( (#missingpieces)3:47 PM Jul 14th from web

168.
met with a building owner to check out a huge, abandoned place (#missinpieces)3:47 PM Jul 14th from web

169.
just finished with all the celebrity e-mails and now has to take care of the normal business for the day (#missingpieces)4:23 AM Jul 14th from web

171.
is sending about 80 e-mails to different celebrities (after calling their agents) to see if they are interested (#missingpieces)1:15 AM Jul 14th from web

175.
is off the phone for the day and now in e-mail hell (#missingpieces)8:42 PM Jul 13th from web

176.
got permission from Alabama Adventure to film in their theme park... and use their cherry picker crane for free! (#missinpgieces)4:48 PM Jul 13th from web

177.
is getting something forwarded directly to Mark Boone Junior!!!!! (#missingpieces)3:00 PM Jul 13th from web

178.
feels like a slimey producer calling every agent in LA (#missingpieces)2:53 PM Jul 13th from web

179.
is finalzing a list of celebrities to call tomorrow - a lost cause, but we're still trying (#missingpieces)5:35 AM Jul 13th from web

July 2009 - A Picture

2009-08-05T02:11:00.002-05:00

This is our only picture together thus far. John is quite the stud.

DJ Davis - How Kidnappers Did It

2009-08-04T19:47:00.002-05:00

This is DJ Davis' final book design for his book in our movie: "How Kidnappers Did It."

Action scene diagrams

2009-08-02T18:49:00.007-05:00

These are step-by-step diagrams of our big action scene. We are using these to communicate with our actors, explosives experts, and other individuals involved in executing this scene.

Picnics - Test Footage Short Film #2

2009-07-31T00:33:00.003-05:00

This is our second test footage short film.

Picnics Color/No Color Correction

2009-07-31T00:21:00.001-05:00

Before it's finished - this shows the difference color correction, scoring (this uses un-cleared temporary music), and sound design makes in the final product. Finished film coming soon :)

Book Sketches (Third prop book)

2009-07-25T02:03:00.003-05:00

Book design sketches by Ahmad Toure. He's working on making a book on romantic matchmaking.

Kidnapping Book - Draft

2009-07-22T23:15:00.001-05:00

Awesome book design by designer, DJ Davis. This will be one of the books our main character checks out to learn the tricks of the trade.

June 2009 a picture

2009-07-20T03:10:00.002-05:00

Self-taken picture... didn't know if I'd make it down a steep 7-story unstable rock hill (trespassing doesn't make for safe terrain).

Designs for props - concepts

2009-07-17T20:59:00.002-05:00

These are the concepts for delivery company logos by Shea Cadrin. They're amazing! We are going to go with "Swift," and she's going to create the company based on the logo.

This is the first draft of a concept for a prop book made by Will.

Skip this post

2009-07-13T03:02:00.001-05:00

I have no idea why you would want to read all these Twitter posts, but this is the blow by blow of what's been happening. I don't have time to write on the blog, but I've been trying to track progress by these little status updates. If you're hardcore into knowing what's been going on, feel free to read. We're almost done with the new short film, so that will be something legit to post soon. Sorry for the lack of posts - time's escaping. 120ish days until it's all over!

2.
finished going through all the movie notes - organized... now just gotta re-read them all (#missingpieces)27 minutes ago from web

3.
fixed the website and is prepping for the meeting with the theme park human resources manager (#Missingpieces)27 minutes ago from web

4.
is trying to get a virus off the film's website (#missingpieces)about 4 hours ago from web

5.
found a grocery store location after google earthing every grocery store in Birmingham (#missingpieces)about 4 hours ago from web

6.
was on the phone for three hours going through the script with our lead actress (#missingpieces)about 4 hours ago from web

7.
is organizing a bunch of notes from over the past 4 months (#missingpieces)about 13 hours ago from web

8.
just made a letter head so folks can think we're legit and give us free stuff (#missingpieces)about 22 hours ago from web

9.
added the hoover police bomb squad to our website http://www.kentonbartlett.c... (#missingpieces)about 23 hours ago from web

10.
sent lots of notes over to our lead actress (#missingpieces)3:48 AM Jul 12th from web

11.
is breaking down the script and consolidating the costumes list for actors (#missingpieces)2:00 AM Jul 12th from web

12.
sent some feedback for Richey's latest version of the score for Picnics (new short film ) (#missingpieces)9:33 PM Jul 11th from web

13.
just met with our two artists - Brion and Hollie who are working on paintings for the movie (#missingpieces)6:57 PM Jul 11th from web

14.
is working with a propmaker to create one of the kidnapping devices for the movie (#missingpieces)3:13 PM Jul 11th from web

15.
is making a master props list to send out to folks (#missingpieces)2:54 AM Jul 11th from web

16.
is doing research on acting (#missingpieces)1:14 AM Jul 11th from web

17.
bought something to hopefully fix the microphone (#missingpieces)11:37 PM Jul 10th from web

18.
is gonna give the celebrities another shot - phone calls this time - get ready for some awkward pitching (#missingpieces)10:21 PM Jul 10th from web

19.
went through several folks and sent an offer over to Patricia Clarkson - keep your fingers crossed (#Missingpieces)9:33 PM Jul 10th from web

21.
panic attack (#missingpieces)9:05 PM Jul 10th from web

22.
one of our lead actresses is under 18, so we now have to jump through ridiculous "Man" hoops (#missingpieces)6:57 PM Jul 10th from web

23.
has 2 meeting with park directors for one of our stunt scenes involving smashing fluorescent lights over the playground (#missingpieces)6:56 PM Jul 10th from web

26.
sent over some feedback for a sound design and notes for our new painters (#missingpieces)4:13 AM Jul 10th from web

27.
is seeing strips of green - that's not a metaphor, I'm literally seeing strips of green.12:17 AM Jul 10th from web

28.
is working with two of our artist on the paintings for the film (#missingpieces)8:21 PM Jul 9th from web

29.
went fabric shopping for the main costumes in the film (#missingpieces)8:21 PM Jul 9th from web

30.
just paid for a 180mm, f2.8 lens (#missingpieces)8:21 PM Jul 9th from web

31.
is working with Peanuts and Nick Drake’s licensor to get stuff in the movie (#missingpieces)8:21 PM Jul 9th from web

32.
returned stuff, bough paint, checked out the free 300mm awesome lens, bought a $5.99 suitcase for sound equipment (#missingpieces)8:21 PM Jul 9th from web

33.
has a location scouting appointment next week to scout some old buildings with a willing owner (#missingpieces)5:55 PM Jul 9th from web

34.
THE HOOVER BOMB SQUAD IS COORDINATING/EXECUTING/SUPPLYING MATERIALS FOR OUR EXPLOSION FOR FREE!!!!!!!!!!!! (#missingpieces)5:50 PM Jul 9th from web

35.
is returning a broken audio mixer and a recalled charger for Red One Batteries & feels lame for posting on twitter so much (#missingpieces)5:16 AM Jul 9th from web

36.
finished prepping for an explosive meeting tomorrow and sent feedback on promo flyers (by Christie) for getting free food (#missingpieces)5:10 AM Jul 9th from web

37.
just got a sound design mix from a talented sound designer! (#missingpieces)4:28 AM Jul 9th from web

38.
I think the heart/brain/nerves might be getting annoyed with me (#missingpieces)10:43 PM Jul 8th from web

39.
may have a steadicam operator for our big action shot!! (#missingpieces)8:38 PM Jul 8th from web

40.
http://blueeyecreations.com/ our t-shirt sponsor :D (#missingpieces)8:08 PM Jul 8th from web

41.
just got a cutsomized t-shirt sponsor from a friend and local clothing designer! (#missingpieces)7:31 PM Jul 8th from web

42.
is securing locations like a demon (#missingpieces)4:51 PM Jul 8th from web

43.
is buying one telephoto lens and getting another donated! (#missingpieces)4:50 PM Jul 8th from web

44.
is working to get licensing from Bon Iver, Sufjan Stevens, or Nick Drake... and Happiness is a Warm Puppy (#missingpieces)4:50 PM Jul 8th from web

45.
got some lens testing stuff from a lens specialist (#missingpieces)4:39 PM Jul 8th from web

46.
has a meeting with an explosives expert tomorrow! (#missingpieces)3:08 PM Jul 8th from web

47.
just riding that boring e-mail train trying to get things done (#missingpieces)1:10 PM Jul 8th from web

48.
has been trying to make a lens out of an aluminum can. Looks kind of trippy (#missingpieces)12:41 AM Jul 8th from web

49.
just got back from the Birmingham film salon - lot's of great and helpful people! (#missingpieces)12:28 AM Jul 8th from web

50.
@wcabral can you e-mail me at Kenton@KentonBartlett.com? Twitter is not amazing at giving enough space to write anything4:45 PM Jul 7th from web in reply to wcabral

51.
@wcabral Yes, we are. What is your experience level/geographic location/monetary requirements (no crew or actors are being paid)?3:30 PM Jul 7th from web in reply to wcabral

52.
has two new artists and a designer for our film (#missingpieces)5:10 AM Jul 7th from web

53.
looking for the perfect song to include in our movie (#missingpieces)5:10 AM Jul 7th from web

54.
who knew finding a playground that will let you smash fluorescent light bulbs all over it would be so difficult (#missingpieces)3:44 AM Jul 7th from web

55.
tired. (#missingpieces)12:14 AM Jul 7th from web

56.
just posted for a Steadicam operator for the film (#missingpieces)11:23 PM Jul 6th from web

57.
is giving feedback to our composer for Picnics - the new short film (#missingpieces)9:28 PM Jul 6th from web

58.
a demolition company might be able to help with some abandoned apartments and explosives! (#missingpieces)4:40 PM Jul 6th from web

59.
@kaytoday why do men make you nauseous?3:32 AM Jul 6th from web in reply to kaytoday

60.
just sent over feedback for the second draft of James Markham's song (#missingpieces)3:18 AM Jul 6th from web

61.
did some craig's list postings (#missingpieces)3:17 AM Jul 6th from web

62.
is trying to find a playground company that will let us smash fluorescent bulbs on their equipment (#missingpieces)11:32 PM Jul 5th from web

63.
finished going through the script, annotating it, and putting it back into the computer in final draft (#missingpieces)10:53 PM Jul 5th from web

64.
is watching one of the two discs from the NYC auditions (#missingpieces)4:31 PM Jul 5th from web

65.
@analein his manager just passed the message over to him. Which is super cool in my book. I'll follow up in a week or so if we ain't hurd7:30 PM Jul 3rd from web

66.
Got 1/2 the clearance for Happiness is a Warm Puppy (#missingpieces)7:29 PM Jul 3rd from web

67.
is trying to get copyright permission for Happiness is a Warm Puppy http://tinyurl.com/maanch (#missingpieces)2:47 AM Jul 3rd from web

68.
updates this thing too much to fill the void of human interaction2:45 AM Jul 3rd from web

69.
needs help (#missingpieces)2:44 AM Jul 3rd from web

70.
thinks caterpillars are pooping on him (#missingpieces)2:44 AM Jul 3rd from web

71.
was mooching internet off someone's house when the sprinklers came on... everything's wet now. (#missingpieces)2:10 AM Jul 3rd from web

72.
just wrote 2,500 words of e-mail - bout to send them out mos def (#missingpieces)2:03 AM Jul 3rd from web

73.
got a message sent to Sufjan Stevens!! http://www.asthmatickitty.com (#missingpieces)2:03 AM Jul 3rd from web

74.
is trying to track down a bomb specialist, finding new audio equipment, ordering Red One accessories (#missingpieces)4:23 PM Jul 2nd from web

75.
is wurkin that phone - endless call style (#missingpieces)2:57 PM Jul 2nd from web

76.
is looking for demolition companies to secure some slammin' locations soon-to-be destroyed (#missingpieces)3:13 AM Jul 2nd from web

77.
just put buildasign.com on the website - sponsor style (#missingpieces)2:40 AM Jul 2nd from web

78.
is trying to track down a designer to work on props and things for the movie (#missingpieces)8:12 PM Jul 1st from web

79.
is about to meet with our paramedic in Panama City, Florida (#missingpieces)7:43 PM Jul 1st from web

80.
is working with Will to develop the style for the paintings in the film (#missingpieces) @willbraden7:28 PM Jul 1st from web

81.
@willbraden which one? I just posted like a million twitter stuffs to recap the past 2 days6:49 PM Jul 1st from web in reply to willbraden

82.
is trudging through lots of e-mails at Panera Bread (bootleg internet style) (#missingpieces)6:48 PM Jul 1st from web

83.
is working with insurance companies to be able to get our light sponsorship from Kino Flo to come through (#missingpieces)5:51 PM Jul 1st from web

84.
is working on getting clearance to blow a car up in a rock quarry in Sylacauga (#missingpieces)5:51 PM Jul 1st from web

85.
has been going through the 60 pages of 1/2 inch margin, single space notes taken over the past year and a half - game time (#missingpieces)5:50 PM Jul 1st from web

86.
new sponsor! http://www.buildasign.com/ (#missingpieces)5:48 PM Jul 1st from web

87.
has been coming up with film references to communicate with actors/actresses (#missingpieces)5:48 PM Jul 1st from web

88.
finished the freelance business plan project (#missingpieces)5:48 PM Jul 1st from web

89.
just made a http://www.getdropbox.com to be able to see the NYC casting videos (#missingpieces)7:09 PM Jun 30th from web

90.
http://www.giveforward.org/... (#missingpieces)7:07 PM Jun 30th from web

91.
is making a profile for a new fundraising website (#missingpieces)6:24 PM Jun 30th from web

92.
has been going through the script making very detailed notes for production, acting, references, logistics, and revisions (#missingpieces)6:24 PM Jun 30th from web

93.
spent all day yesterday making the production schedule (breaking down locations, characters, and setting dates) (#missingpieces)6:23 PM Jun 30th from web

94.
is going out of town for location scouting for a week (#missingpieces)3:30 AM Jun 29th from web

95.
compiled all the location scouting pictures from the past 6 weeks (#missingpieces)3:30 AM Jun 29th from web

96.
tried to get some free delivery van decal magnets (#missingpieces)3:30 AM Jun 29th from web

97.
talked for a while with our make up artist, Sarah-Beth Alfree to discuss all the makeup for our film (#missingpieces)11:48 PM Jun 28th from web

98.
just got back from raiding a yard sale's leftovers for free (#missingpieces)5:13 PM Jun 28th from web

99.
thinks making sound effects while going into google earth street view makes life more interesting. Most fun in a while (#missingpieces)3:28 AM Jun 28th from web

100.
was out and around town ALL DAY with our amazing production design team (#missingpieces)12:29 AM Jun 28th from web

101.
@analein is awesome2:09 AM Jun 27th from web in reply to analein

102.
may have a paramedic for the film (#missingpieces)12:45 AM Jun 27th from web

103.
is trucking along with the production schedule (#missingpieces)11:19 PM Jun 26th from web

104.
talked for a couple hours with our production designer (#missingpieces)8:53 PM Jun 26th from web

105.
got lots of free furniture from a guy on Craig's List (#missingpieces)8:52 PM Jun 26th from web

106.
a woman sings in the Across the Universe behind the scenes special features... it's better than the movie itself5:24 AM Jun 26th from web

107.
just figured out a makeshift system of doing the schedule in excel and saved $500 by not buying the legit software (#missingpieces)4:48 AM Jun 26th from web

108.
has spent the whole night trying to figure out how to even begin making a production schedule (#missingpieces)4:04 AM Jun 26th from web

109.
just finished transcribing pocket notes from a while back (#missingpieces)12:40 AM Jun 26th from web

110.
is working with our musician James Markham on the song for our new short film. It sounds awesome! (#missingpieces)12:18 AM Jun 26th from web

111.
got back from location scouting all day today - found a pretty slammin' quarry in Sylacauga (#missingpieces)12:17 AM Jun 26th from web

112.
is location scouting on google earth... kind of lame, but the gasoline man is thankful (#missingpieces)2:24 AM Jun 25th from web

113.
wrote some letters - old school style (#missingpieces)12:57 AM Jun 25th from web

114.
just finished and is uploading the final cut of Picnics (#missingpieces)9:40 PM Jun 24th from web

115.
has been writing e-mails and making phone calls (getting locations cleared/working w/ new crew members) (#missingpieces)9:40 PM Jun 24th from web

116.
went location scouting all day yesterday (#missingpieces)9:38 PM Jun 24th from web

117.
just asked permission to use Bob Ross footage in our movie (#missingpieces)12:45 AM Jun 23rd from web

118.
is breaking down the script in the library (#missingpieces)7:59 PM Jun 22nd from web

119.
just bought a bunch of equipment (#missingpieces)6:22 PM Jun 22nd from web

120.
is going through 2,400 e-mails from the old casting e-mail address (#missingpieces)1:08 AM Jun 22nd from web

121.
is working on breaking down the script for props, locations, scheduling, casting, scene intent, etc. etc. (#missingpieces)2:29 PM Jun 21st from web

122.
just went through about 300 audition inquiries for the film - you can even youtube "missing pieces auditions" crazy stuff (#missingpieces)2:29 PM Jun 21st from web

123.
just went through about 80 dvds and got 370 reference images for production design, acting, and cinematography (#missingpieces)4:38 PM Jun 20th from web

124.
just got $8,200 worth of lights from Kino Flo!!!! (#missingpieces)6:46 PM Jun 19th from web

125.
gathered a list of thrift stores and wrote a letter to find some places that will let us get stuff for free (#missingpieces)5:32 PM Jun 19th from web

126.
printed letters and envelopes for food sponsors (#missingpieces)5:32 PM Jun 19th from web

127.
is working with our production designer to develop the feel of the movie (#missingpieces)5:32 PM Jun 19th from web

128.
is working with several sound designers for the new short (#missingpieces)5:31 PM Jun 19th from web

129.
has been color correcting the new short film all day (#missingpieces)4:26 AM Jun 19th from web

130.
possibly just cast Maggie (#missingpieces)3:08 PM Jun 17th from web

131.
met with Alan Hunter, the first MTV VJ and now local filmmaker and community leader (#missingpieces)12:49 AM Jun 17th from web

132.
is editing the new short film... see ya later (#missingpieces)1:31 PM Jun 16th from web

133.
is making up for lost time updating the contributor and crew only blog (#missingpieces)12:56 AM Jun 14th from web

134.
just wrote a bunch of donation thank yous (#missingpieces)5:13 AM Jun 13th from web

135.
has been filling in rebates, fixing the tripod, strapping panty hoses to the lenses, and making notes/pics/songs for Sunday (#missingpieces)4:46 AM Jun 13th from web

136.
now has 2 artists working on paintings for the film (#missingpieces)6:20 PM Jun 12th from web

137.
is trying to get permission from a quarry to blow up a car inside for our big action scene (#missingpieces)5:07 PM Jun 12th from web

138.
now has 4 actors for the short (#missingpieces)5:07 PM Jun 12th from web

139.
finished rewriting the short script (#missingpieces)2:38 PM Jun 12th from web

140.
has an extra actor working on the shoot (#missingpieces)2:38 PM Jun 12th from web

Overdue Post - really long

2009-06-14T00:43:00.000-05:00

Where to start…

We are trying to hone the camera settings to achieve a good “look.” And this requires some of the most tedious testing you could think of to make it all look right. Changing one fraction of a setting on the camera can change the whole look of the picture. I wish I could post before and afters to show you how things change, but hours upon hours of footage have been shot, and it’s just impractical to upload it all.

We are trying to get an art sponsorship so Will can start painting. He has been practicing a bit with borrowed supplies, and the first complete one is below. A Florida artist may be helping collaborate as well.

We have a production designer! Elissa Cain is excited to jump right in. She’s taking off work to do this, but we have the same work ethic and tastes – even in obscure movies and music (a must in my book for this job).

We have three new fundraisiers – Jinae, Kris, and Jackie.

We have two engineers – Michael Guntherberg and Robert Hill. They are working to make camera dollies (to move the camera smoothly).

We have two communication assistants – April Washko and DaVaughn Lucas who are arranging sponsorships from around the country.

We have a photographer! He is an established professional named Joseph De Sciose. He was a tenured photographer for Southern Living magazine shooting many of the cover photos and pictures inside of the magazine.

Christie has written about 39 letters to food places around Birmingham.

Hannah is delivering several thousand flyers around the south to raise money.

Leeanna is knocking casting out of the park. We are having live sessions in NY, LA, and B’ham. She has been putting ads in the right places and we are getting tons of great responses. I cannot tell you how hard she is working and how much of her heart she is putting into this. It’s absolutely incredible, and I’ll never be able to thank her.

Richey (composer) and James (additional music) have been working away on new sounds. We have been sending sound refernces back and forth

John has been doing a lot of research and watching movies w/o sound to study the cinematographer. He has been trying to get his hands on the Red camera, and has an internship, but the economy is bad and there haven’t been any jobs to work on. He’s ordering lighting equipment now.

Every crew member is working hard, and there’s too much going on to write it all down!

Several people have helped with location scouting. Especially our new crew member, Ward Neely. He’s been on the ball with helping and is going to act in our next short film.

We have been preparing and writing the new short film – shooting tomorrow. This is an exercise in writing and directing something dramatic as well as testing a new look for the film (and practicing sound). The new look is achieved by putting pantyhose on the front of the lens as well as using two glass filters (UV and IR/Hot Mirror). The other key is the shutter speed (fraction that light hits the sensor). We are using either 1/454.5 or 1/43.4 seconds.

About 12 sound designers will be adding sounds to the short film as an audition of shorts.

Location scouting has been a huge priority. I have been to Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and all around Alabama over the past three weeks, and we have found a few places. Much more scouring to come. Two locations are going to the highest channels of approval – city hall for a Water Tower and Vulcan Materials corporate office for a rock quarry.

25 people are working on the film now!

The short film, “Suitcase” was entered into a local festival playing tonight.

Pro-active Craig’s List spamming is still producing results all the time.

Again, it’s hard to see where the time is going, but fielding e-mails from the crew – communicating so they know what to do as well as doing my part in the relationship takes a while. Additionally inquiries from misc companies and communication with companies – the time all just adds up.

We are still truckin’ along with equipment research/purchase/rebates/returns, etc.

Our tentative start date for the big production is September 13 (and finishing by Thanksgiving).

I wrote a 20 page business plan for a Jewish Arts film project as a freelance job to raise money for this, and it has proven time consuming as well.

Color Correction and Film Out

2009-06-14T00:07:00.003-05:00

We want to take one minute of film from beginning to end. This would include professional color correction (this video) and printing the digital video onto tangible 35mm film strips. Doing this adds organic imperfection to the picture which makes it look like a big budget movie (we hope). Two color correction places (Independent Studios - shown here (http://www.independentstudios.tv/work9.html) and another) have offered to do a free sample, and one “print to 35mm film” house has offered to do it for $250 – paying for 35mm film materials costs.

Camera Tests

2009-06-14T00:01:00.003-05:00

It's too time consuming to post actual videos here, but I hope the pictures help a little.

The image on the left has a black panty hose over the front of the lens (and a UV filter and IR filter). The image on the right is just what the camera picks up (with our custom settings).

Lens test - comparing shutter speed. The difference in image quality is affected by simply changing the amount of light that enters the camera (shutter speed) by a fraction of a second.

Locatin Scouting

2009-06-13T23:41:00.014-05:00

Possible grocery store location (1.5 hours outside of B'ham). Ward Neely found this one.

Our Colorado "snow" location - very abandoned. See more pictures here (http://www.theronwelch.com/mountains/gore/dora/index.htm) I hope the link works when you read this. Jackie Glenn found this one and is helping w/ housing in Colorado :)

Truck loading zone (main character is a delivery man).

Tower #2. Our request is going up for Triana City Hall on June 22.

Tower #2.

Tower #2 base - no longer in use.

Tower #1 base.

One of two Triana city towers - both are awesome. This will be tower #1.

B'ham tower - mediocre.

We're shooting our short film here tomorrow.

Different quarry - still enormous.

Same quarry, different view.

The prize quarry - our request has been sent to corporate. This picture does not nearly do justice to this. The spec on the opposite side of the canyon is a full size dump truck.

Parking Lot - different view.

Parking lot near Birmingham.

North Carolina mountain view.

Harrison (brother) and I climbed a mountain in North Carolina to find a cool spot... we got to the top but nothing was amazing.

One possible industrial factory up in TN.

Pics Galore

2009-06-13T23:30:00.006-05:00

This is one of my favorite singers - Katie Herzig. I talked to her after the show and asked about using her music in the film. Obviously she was unsure, but at least she knows about the movie :)

Will is painting the paintings in our movie - this is his first - he's developing a style.

DJ sound testing - Day 1

Casting puzzles- off to the post office - $162 worth of stamps

Mom's celebrity puzzle assembly line

Casting Puzzles - a bunch of em

Equipment boxes

Tired

2009-06-06T01:06:00.003-05:00

I think being too burnt out/overwhelmed/tired to post progress is part the story of making this thing. I'm sorry.

Things are going very very well, it's just a lot to keep up with.

Suitcase - A Test Footage Short Film

2009-06-06T00:48:00.002-05:00

We made this to practice with our camera as an alternative to shooting arbitrary test footage (which we also do). It's playing in a Birmingham film festival. We filmed the entire thing within 24 hours of being informed of the opportunity. More shorts to come.

May 2009 a picture

2009-06-06T00:26:00.001-05:00

May 2009 - a picture

Trying to Keep Up

2009-05-24T22:17:00.000-05:00

Not really sure where all the time is going, but every hour is filled. Whether it’s field tests, e-mail writing, phone calls, buying, selling, fixing, and returning equipment, website work, research, meetings, craig’s list posting, computer fixing, working freelance to make money, or manual reading, it doesn’t leave time for much else.

The Red camera is working! Test footage is underway. It’s a challenge to make it look like “film,” and we’re not there yet but working and researching all the time to get it there. Finding the most efficient way to work with the enormous data files is also tricky. This is a huge time suck and quite the puzzle.

We now have 17 people working on the movie! It’s getting hard to keep up with everything and everyone. Everyone is working so hard, and I wish there was more time to do really nice things for every one and tell them how grateful I am. This is truly a team effort, and no one should ever think that someone makes a movie by themselves. Everyone is making this movie together.

We have a new casting director! Leeanna Rubin is taking this thing by the horns and tackling it full force. We have revamped the website and casting process completely. She is responding to every single e-mail that we have received (over 2,300) and setting up live casting sessions in New York, Los Angeles, Birmingham, and Atlanta. We are running a paid advertisement in Backstage magazine which is very legit and should turn out a lot of serious actors.

Will has agreed to be the painter for the movie (story based heavily on the art created by main character, Delia). He’s certainly the go-to man for anything visual on the project, and I’m really glad we can work together.

We have a Line Producer! Jeff Nixon is a Birmingham event planner who is very enthusiastic about movies and wants to help on the project by organizing companies and people in and around Birmingham to pull everything together.

Abbott is busy writing contracts for everyone and keeping the legal matters in order.

Tony is redesigning our myspace page: www.myspace.com/kentonbartlett

The celebrity letters are in the air. Keep your fingers crossed this week.

DJ and I are testing out both the camera and sound equipment. We got sound!

Craig’s List posting is a go again. Using the library computers is the key.

We may have a production designer.

Pictures and videos coming soon!

Some Pictures from Home

2009-05-17T04:15:00.003-05:00

Downstairs, basement "office."

The Red One Camera.

Some of the completed packages.

Some of the puzzles.

Mom working on the puzzle packages.

The boxes from the past couple weeks, stacked inside the front door (back from college).

James Markham song

2009-05-17T02:48:00.004-05:00

James Markham's original composition based on "Asleep on the Train" (below).

The original song - we do not own copyrights.

Equipment and Back at Home

2009-05-17T02:33:00.001-05:00

School’s done, and 100% of attention can be focused on the movie.

The past several days have been incredibly busy. Most equipment has arrived, and I’ve been unpacking, organizing, reading manuals, learning, assembling, testing, installing programs, buying missing parts, and waiting for more stuff to come in. Additionally, setting up a home “office” in the basement has made this feel a little legit and truly independent.

Since we’re missing a part for the Red One, most of the tests have been focused on time lapse, lens, filters, and computer software. The Red part should come in Monday, then we’ll get more tests up with the big camera.

We have a new crew member! James Markham will be credited as Additional Music. He is a very talented musician who’s talent is taking pre-existing music, imitating it, modifying it, then making it his own to sound significantly different and avoiding copyright infringement.

All puzzles have arrived, and the packages are physically ready to send out to celebrities. We are waiting on advice from Michael Papajohn, then we’ll send them out.

A couple of promising individuals may help out in very real ways. I’ll update you as soon as they sign on.

HDR Success

2009-05-16T02:02:00.002-05:00

This is a successful HDR timelapse. The framing isn't great, and the cloudy weather wasn't great, but this is the a 1 hr 20 minute shot with 7 pictures taken every 15 seconds. Automating the process to combine them all was a little tricky, but the principles are down, and we can apply them to better locations very soon.

More Time Lapse Tests

2009-05-15T02:47:00.003-05:00

These are tests for the High Dynamic Range function of the still camera. Basically, the idea is that you can see both the shadows and the highlights in the same image instead of having something over or under exposed. It's a little tricky to get to work, but it's all figured out now. These are lame, but more to come!

A couple rough rough rough tests

2009-05-14T00:02:00.003-05:00

Testing the auto timelapse feature of our new camera

Continuous still frame shooting test.

Both of these are very raw. I will upload some more tests soon. Things have been very busy testing out all the equipment, but I will write more soon.

Workin on that movie

2009-05-11T00:21:00.003-05:00

Apologies for the delayed post. Severe computer failure (a virus deleted every program and document… twice – there were backups), final exams, moving out, graduation weekend, saying goodbye to friends, and travel has slowed down progress a little bit, but here’s what’s been going on:

We have a composer! Richey Rynkowski is signed on to the project. About 100 people have inquired about the position. Many are qualified and enthusiastic. We originally planned to hold auditions – and I told this to Richey. However, he proceeded with the opportunity as if he was already the official composer. He made three songs tailored to the music for this film (the soundtrack to the script). His songs are all great (listen below) and give a taste of what’s to come. He is both talented and hardworking. We get along great and have the same tastes in music.

Tony and I have to develop the social media front. We have a Linked In account (www.linkedin/in/kentonbartlett), a twitter account (www.twitter.com/kentonbartlett), and we have Facebook back (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kenton-Bartlett-Movie/74342639138?ref=ts)! We are re-building our online presence for sure. A MySpace page is coming soon.

The website (www.KentonBartlett.com) is re-designed. The homepage and page backgrounds are the main differences. See pics below.

Craig’s List created new spam filters to block folks like us. The new hurdles are tricky, and I thought we would have to resort to other means of virally spreading the word, but we just developed a new plan to circumvent the new smart filters. We will post onwards!

We are going to forego the film stock donation for logistic, visual, and expenditure reasons.

Christie and I drafted a letter to send for food sponsorships. Christie and Hannah are looking for the contact info for establishments around Birmingham.

Many more e-mails arrive every day with new and different leads – from offers to help, potential investors, interested crew members, and questions from actors. Fielding the e-mails and following up with everyone is a top priority. We’ll keep you up to date on promising developments, but it’s hard to list every single lead.

Casting is moving forward. More auditions are coming in every day. Fenix is working full time on it, and two of my acting friends are interested in helping out full-time as well.

This week will be all about making up for lost time and start working with the mound of equipment we’ve been ordering for the past month.

We didn’t win the screenplay award (the third draft was submitted) and haven’t heard back from the movie studio.

Social Media - Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

2009-05-11T00:03:00.005-05:00

Updated website
Our LinkedIn page: http://www.linkedin.com/in/kentonbartlett
Our Twitter Page: http://twitter.com/KentonBartlett
Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kenton-Bartlett-Movie/74342639138?ref=ts

Richey Rynkowski Draft Composition - Love Theme

2009-05-06T15:47:00.002-05:00

We have an official composer! Richey Rynkowski is an extremely devoted, talented, and hard-working music maker living in the UK. Listen to this song and the ones below. These are a few ideas without much direction or collaboration - and these tunes were created without being signed on to the project (proactiveness pays off always).

IMDB! Student Short Film

2009-05-01T12:53:00.001-05:00

We are on IMDB! Go to www.imdb.com, then search "Kenton Bartlett" or "Student Short Film" and pages will come up.

Or, click these links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1414278/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3400082/

Celebrity Casting, Equipment Purchasing, and Fourth Draft

2009-04-29T22:05:00.001-05:00

This week has been filled mostly with detailed equipment research and purchases, script writing, e-mail answering, and casting contact work.

It’s pretty boring to write about the equipment purchases (or too lengthy to read about), but very time consuming. I will post pictures and final lists later. Long story short – we have the equipment to record a movie! Packages are being ordered and other packages are arriving every day.

We have finalized our 100 actors casting list, their letters, produced all the puzzles, created every website, and my mom is organizing the shipments. She is folding, packaging, and sending them off in the next couple weeks. Our friend, Cathy Tracy, knows calligraphy and is penning the addresses of as many as possible to help draw attention to the packages and get the opened.

The fourth draft is finished! The third draft drifted a little off course in making so many drastic changes, but the fourth draft fixed them and made it stronger.

The script (third draft) was nominated for an AWARD at American University. It is the end-of-the year competition for undergraduate and graduate students in the School of Communications. It is very competitive, and we will find out the results Friday.

The generous folks over at Tryptonaut Pictures offered to donate 27,000 feet of Kodak 500T 35mm film stock (about $2,000 worth!). That records many hours of professional footage. If we can find a way to use the film without impacting our budget, we will be able to accept the donation and make something cool.

We are waiting to hear back from the kind person with a possible movie studio lead (should hear something tomorrow).

Web traffic is up to about 7,000 visitors this month. We are about to break the maximum web hits allowed for my current website ownership plan.

I post in 30 Craig’s List cities every two days.

A music supervisor offered to come on board and raise money to pay for music licensing fees and his own salary. That’s an offer no one can refuse. I will write more when things are confirmed.

Front Page Story

2009-04-29T21:57:00.002-05:00

Our story was on the front page of American University’s website: www.american.edu. It is gone now though, so here’s a screen capture of it.

Major Studio, equipment, new crew, celebrities,

2009-04-23T21:59:00.002-05:00

One extremely kind individual offered to pitch the project to his friend in a high-ranking position at a major film studio (cannot disclose the studio at the moment) and two interested producers.

Over 1,500 casting applicants. Audition tapes are starting to trickle in.

We have a makeup artist! Sarah-Beth Alfree has already arranged a makeup sponsorship and an assistant (Scott Forrester) to cover the hair and makeup of the film. Both Sarah-Beth and Scott live in Birmingham.

We have a Social Media Consultant as well. My friend, Tony Romm is an experienced journalist and has offered his help spreading the word through creative online mediums.

Equipment orders are in full swing. The sound equipment deals have been arranged. The list price of our equipment is $6,380, and we are getting it for $2,917. This is thanks to James Lunsford’s smart equipment research and Sennheiser’s generous deal.

The Red Camera is in shipment. This week, we also ordered 3 lenses, a hard drive, a package of 50 glass camera filters, a tripod, and professional equipment cases. I will post details and pictures of equipment down the road to serve as a reference for anyone interested.

Several interested investors have contacted me to read the script.

Southwest said no to the project as is, but they are excited to work together if the film develops into a project with more promise of distribution (i.e. if a celebrity signs on).

I got kicked off Facebook for promoting the movie too hard. Even though this is an annoyance, I see it as a crowning victory to extreme promotion (and hopefully no one was annoyed in the process. (They have agreed to let me back on under a personal account with terms of cooperation).

We finished up the celebrity letter and celebrity production information and are ready to distribute the puzzle packages.

Accomplished actor and Vestavia Hills community member, Michael Papajohn (the robber in Spiderman) has agreed to help out with the film. We are going to talk more next week.

The fourth draft of the screenplay is underway (after a third draft consulting session with my smart professor, Claudia Myers).

Craig’s List posting is the #1 reason for most of these developments.

April 2009 - a picture

2009-04-21T00:44:00.002-05:00

Red One Order (Serial)

2009-04-18T14:49:00.003-05:00

We ordered the Red One camera yesterday and received our camera number! It's a christening of sorts in the industry. I will post the full list of what Red equipment we ordered and the price paid when all orders are complete.

Steven Poster Shoot

2009-04-18T14:25:00.002-05:00

John is working with Steven Poster (Donnie Darko cinematographer) on a documentary, and John needed someone to cover for a couple hours. I didn't work too long, but working with their crew is a great opportunity for John, and I certainly learned a lot in the brief time I was there.

Look at Steven Poster's work here:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0692925/

Casting is working, PR, sound decisions, and composing

2009-04-15T13:40:00.000-05:00

Casting is working! We have over 1,000 applicants!

We tried a new tactic – Craig’s List (online classifieds). I tried it a while ago, but my posts were deleted because you cannot post the same post twice, and you cannot post in more than one city. To make a long story short, we circumvented the spam filter and can now post all over the country. So far we have contacted only 60 cities. There are plenty more cities around the US, and we can always re-post, so needless to say, the doors are wide open for casting!

Fenix and I have developed a more streamlined audition process and means of auto-responding to applicants. We would prefer to be personable, but it’s simply not possible at this point.

Along with inquiring actors, we have had many telephone calls and e-mails from people who want to help the project (casting assistants, production assistants, make up artists, more composers, sound designers, equipment company owners… even a trick rope rodeo person and a craft services provider!)

The celebrity casting is moving forward as well. Will’s package design is finished! It’s attached below. My parents printed it out, and my mom is cutting and folding each of the packages.

Christie finished her second draft of the celebrity letter and is working on the third. It’s coming right along.

Amanda (PR) is working on the public relations campaign. She is very busy this week, but she contacted two newspapers and will get back to me soon with phone interviews for journalists. She will also respond soon with the proper contact information to get in touch with celebrities so we can send out the packages.

This week, we are ordering the Red Camera! It should arrive in a couple weeks. John has his first hands-on experience with the camera this week in his cinematography, so at least we aren’t buying blind. We are making more ‘buy’ decisions every day.

Our sound consultant, James Lunsford has been working full-time on the project for the past month. We have not mentioned his involvement as we were not certain if he would be able to be the sound designer. He has developed the equipment purchase list for audio and is working on finalizing our purchase decisions (taking from quotes from five sources – including Sennheiser).

A very talented and pro-active composer, Richey Rynkowski won’t listen to my plea to “wait for composer auditions.” He is taking charge of this project and composing music anyway. He sent two songs based on the online cues at www.kentonbartlett.com/script. They sound GREAT! I’ve attached them below so you can listen. He put two days of work into these songs knowing that composing was premature. He is also well connected with a conductor and a performing orchestra and offered to pay for live recording of his score. Even though we can’t promise anything at this point, this is the kind of determination that stands out.

After the first two songs, he said he wanted to compose more original songs. If he’s going to go against advice of waiting for auditions and work on the music full time, then I feel it’s my responsibility to give him instruction. I sent over several musical references, and he is working full-steam on some new songs. He is obviously very determined, and we are very excited to hear more of his work!

We keep sending out more e-mails to ask for help from a variety of places, and we will keep you updated on any leads.

Richey Rynkowski - Original Compositions

2009-04-15T13:17:00.003-05:00

Richey Rynkowski's first original composition based on the 23 songs that correspond to the script. He was pro-active and composed prior to the composer audition.

Richey Rynkowski's second original composition.

Final Package Design

2009-04-13T20:09:00.004-05:00

Will's final package design. My dad printed them, and my mom is cutting, folding, packaging, and sending them out as soon as we get the addresses.

New Celebrity Casting Site Design

2009-04-13T19:12:00.006-05:00

The re-vamped celebrity casting site to be consistent with Will's final package design. http://www.missingpiecescasting.com/johnnydepp.

Newsy News

2009-04-07T22:25:00.001-05:00

Some big news… My friend, neighbor, and ex-babysitter, Amanda Leesburg started and runs a very successful Public Relations company in Atlanta. I contacted her to see if she could help find someone to help with casting and with PR… she offered to help on the project immediately!

She represented Jane Fonda last year, and is responsible for Animal Planet, Jeff Corwin, some Nike accounts, and helped cast the TV show, America’s Got Talent. She is extremely friendly and connected, and she offered to post the casting call around the internet, talk with her friends in the industry, hold casting sessions for us (announced through radio) in Atlanta and in Birminhgam. She is also very connected in the celebrity circuit and is going to help attract celebrities to the project. After discussing the possibility of working with celebrities, she said it was highly probable that we could get some people on board!

The script is now registered with the Writer’s Guild of America!

Fenix is hard at work on casting. We finalized audition plans, script excerpts, and the casting form. We should be getting some audition tapes in very soon. We gathered a list of about 20 websites and e-mail list-serves to post our casting call on, and that should also increase responses.

Christie and I are still working on drafting letters for celebrities. We had two versions and sent out for votes on which angle people liked better. She took the feedback and is working on a new version.

Friends are still sending e-mails out to help with the casting.

The puzzles are in! Our first 25 puzzles have been delivered for packaging prep, and they look great. Will is almost done with the packaging, and they will be ready to send out as soon as the letters, addresses, and customized websites are in place.

Southwest airlines should get back by the end of the week with their decision on helping with the project.

I talked to the Birmingham film commissioner this week on the phone. He finished the script, liked it, and wants to help see it through. He walked me through a list of about 15 questions I made up. He cleared a lot of things up and is working on the project to help us out in securing locations and making production run smoothly.

John and I honing in our equipment decisions, and we have contacted several professionals to get their feedback and guidance on the project.

We have a comprehensive sound equipment list created by our prospective sound designer, James Lunsford. He has been an enormous help on the project! He came up with an equipment list spreadsheet and got quotes from about four different places. Our budget for sound is $3,000, and his product list came in at $2,994. He’s awesome. We sent out his product list to another place in the DC area for a second opinion.

Also, my former sound professor/friend/sound consultant, Greg Smith is selling his extra-long boom pole (usually sells for about $600) to us for $100!

Puzzles are in

2009-04-07T22:20:00.002-05:00

The puzzles are in! Here is a scan of one of the puzzles.

Film Pitch Video

2009-04-07T17:09:00.005-05:00

Even though this is humiliating, it may be of interest in documenting the film. This is a final project presentation for business class. To make it fit with the class, I adapted this film to be pitched as part of a long-term, 5-film partnership with Lionsgate Entertainment. I wanted to take it seriously to prepare for possible studio pitches in the future.

Third Draft and More

2009-04-02T15:14:00.001-05:00

The third draft is finished! You can read it online at www.kentonbartlett.com/script. Two new songs for this draft are que 10 and que 17. E-mail me for the track-changes version.

Casting is moving along. Several friends have signed up to take charge of contacting institutions within a single state. We used a Facebook group to get people involved with it. We have had about 30 responses from interested actors/actresses. So far it’s been mainly friends, but several professional thespians have inquired.

We sent off the first 25 puzzles for production, and they will arrive in approximately two weeks. Will is finalizing the packaging designs so we can send them out. Christie submitted a draft of the letter to celebrities, and she is sending two more drafts tonight. By next week, we should have a finalized version and direction for how to go about sending these letters.

We posted an ad for used equipment on the Red Camera user forum. We have gotten several responses and advice on how to go about procuring equipment for production.

Abbott had her first chance to shine on the legal front this week. She drafted a professional, thorough, 4-page contract to be used in signing on our sound designer. We will slightly modify the contract for other crew members, but it was important to make the contract for the new person because we are essentially strangers and have not worked together in the past.

I spoke to Southwest Airlines brand manager. She said they would consider helping on the project if we included a scene involving airlines. I added the scene, sent the third draft over, and we should hear back from them soon with their decision. Hopefully we can get some free flights!

John and I have been doing a lot of heavy research to really figure out what we do and do not need so we can have our final purchase decision in the next couple weeks.

Fundable Collection Over

2009-04-02T15:12:00.002-05:00

Our Fundable collection ended. We only raised $390 out of the $10,000 goal.

Kogod Success Story (article)

2009-03-30T16:53:00.003-05:00

Kogod Success Story (just the article, video coming soon) - click on the image to read, or visit http://www.american.edu/kogod/success/ksb_student_kenton_bartlett.cfm

Kogod Success Story (just the article, video coming soon)

March 2009 A Picture

2009-03-26T19:21:00.001-05:00

A picture

Raising the bar

2009-03-25T13:19:00.003-05:00

Today John is riding around in a car with the cinematographer from Donnie Darko! It’s quite surreal, but the professional cinematographer, Steven Poster, called John to see if he wanted to help with the location scouting for Steven’s new documentary. John and Steven met on the film shoot of a movie called The Box starring Cameron Diaz.

Last week, the bar on this movie was raised quite a bit. The flood of responses from sound designers and composers is still going! We received over 120 responses from people such as an Academy Award winner for sound who worked on The Dark Night and every Harry Potter, someone who worked on post production sound for Atonement and The Duchess, a composer who was featured in Rolling Stone in November 2008 as an artist to watch, a composer who contributed to the World Trade Center score, etc.

It’s phenomenal and unexpected to have selection of who to work with!

About 5 or 6 composers are sending originally produced music our way. They are using the materials on the site and the pre-selected songs for the script as a reference for the music style. Some composers sent original compositions with their initial inquiry!

People from all over the world are interested in helping on this project for free. Website traffic has skyrocketed – beating the old traffic by 6 times! Over 1,200 people have visited the site since last week.

A couple industry investors contacted me this week too. We aren’t able to work together on it for various reasons, but the word is getting around to the right people.

We have a very strong candidate for the sound position. He has an altercation on April 13th that will determine his availability for the shoot, so keep your fingers crossed! I will give more information when things are confirmed. Already, he has done (and continues to do) extensive, quality research, and we e-mail back and forth daily as if this was his only full-time job.

We have a new crew member! Christie Paquay is a friend from high school. She is a talented writer, an English fan, and an obsessive movie fan. She has already taken the dive into the project to play catch-up, and she will start writing letters to celebrities very soon.

Casting’s underway. Fenix and Hannah are taking the campaign one state at a time. Fenix has contacted every school in Maine thus far (and we have already received responses). Tricialee unfortunately had to discontinue her work on the movie. We sent out notices to a few Birmingham high schools to ask for help from students in casting.

We sent out postings for a Public Relations position, and we received our first response this morning.

This weekend I went on a shoot with a couple professors from school (who work in the professional film circuit). They are shooting a short film for the festival approach, and one of my professors promised to show me the ropes of how he does professional sound if I came out. He has worked on Star Wars and many other top-notch productions. The shoot was a long one, but totally worth it. He gave us a comprehensive sound equipment list that fits in our budget and a few contacts who sell audio equipment and would be willing to give us a discount.

John and I are buckling down to start finalizing equipment decisions to make the purchases in a few weeks. We have made a few final lens selections and are working on finding the right filters for the project.

Yesterday I was phone interviewed by a journalist responsible for covering our story for Kogod’s new website.

The final casting flyer

Sound Search and Other Stuff

2009-03-18T22:43:00.000-05:00

Back to school again.

For the sound designer search, I’ve started collecting contacts for broadcast schools in the south and sending out notices on every sound design group on Facebook. Even though Facebook keeps fussing at me and threatening to disable my account, I keep trying to spread the word, AND IT PAID OFF!

I e-mailed one very connected fellow in Nashville, he sent out the notice all over the place, and within the hour, we already received well over 20 responses. Now it’s just going through and sorting them all out. This is great!

Fenix and I met on Monday. We set some deadlines to make sure the casting moves along smoothly. He and Tricialee will be responsible for contacting 30 institutions every week. Their first deadline is the 24th of this month. So we should start to receive some applications in the next couple weeks. To get some more help with casting, I got in touch with a high school drama teacher that my little brother (Harrison) knew, and I will start approaching literary circles to recruit letter-writing help for Amanda.

I sent the script out for several friends and my professors to read, so we should be hearing some feedback soon.

John and I are filming the Kogod Success Story video tomorrow. Hopefully it’ll come out well and get a lot of publicity for the film when American University releases the brand new website redesign with the video on the front page.

John and I have also been looking for lenses, filters, and other equipment to purchase soon.

The website has also been tweaked a little. Check out the picture below.

Webiste tweaks

2009-03-18T22:41:00.000-05:00

A few changes to the website

Second Draft, $10,000, Casting Assistants, Research, etc.

2009-03-14T22:08:00.000-05:00

Apologies for the late post, but the second draft is done! It also has a soundtrack. 21 songs corresponding to the musical ques in the script are online at www.kentonbartlett.com/script. Check out the music even if you don’t feel like reading through the whole script.

We are raising $10,000 in 25 days! We set up a collection at a fund-raising website called www.fundable.com. The link for our collection is as follows: https://www.fundable.com/groupactions/groupaction.2009-03-06.7153748780. Send this link out to everybody you know :)

We have two new people on board! Tricialee Friedman and Hannah Ngae are working on the casting for the film. They will help with spreading the word on the project around the nation. Tricialee has been in several of my classes at school and has a huge interest in filmmaking. Hannah and I worked together at the movie theater several years ago. She aspires to be an actress and wants to do as much as she can in the film industry. They are both enthusiastic and we are very fortunate to have their help on this!

The celebrity casting campaign is moving forward steadily. Will has created several awesome designs for the puzzle for the actors (pics below). We are going to use the dark paint brush one. He also created the package design that we will send the puzzles in. Amanda and I met to ocme up with how we are going to convince celebrities to come on board. We also came up with a list of whom to contact first. The list is below (at the risk of breaking industry standards in posting this list, I have always been curious of which actors each movie considers – so apologies in advance for any actor reading this!!).

This week Abbott and I met for the first time. We had corresponded only through e-mail, so it was nice to actually sit down together.

I met with DJ this week too. He has been really stacked with work, school, and family responsibilities, and he won’t have time to practice the audio equipment extensively enough to become proficient with it for shooting. He is still committed to helping full time on the project, but we will need to recruit a proficient/motivated sound man for at least the first month of shooting (and DJ could work both months of the shoot – the first he would learn, the second he would know the ins and outs of it).

John and I are still on the research train. He went to a film shoot for some hands on experience and face-to-face question asking. I went around Home Depot to look into lighting and camera movement gear. I also went to several camera stores to ask a lot of in-depth questions about lenses and filters.

Pictures - Second Draft,

2009-03-14T21:35:00.011-05:00

www.kentonbartlett.com/script - you can read the script and listen to the music that goes along with it

Will's final puzzle design

Another of Will's puzzle designs - close to the final.

Another of Will's puzzle designs. The arrows would point to physically missing puzzle pieces.

One of Will's puzzle designs.

Will's package design. We will print this out on a standard sheet of paper (heavy card stock), cut the corners out and fold it to look like this.

Puzzle packaging reference.

The initial list of actors to contact (apologies if this is against industry etiquette, but it's something I always wanted to see for other movies.

Amanda and I meet to come up with a clear direction for letter-writing to attract actors.

Slide show, Casting soon!, Second draft underway

2009-03-04T03:45:00.004-06:00

The slide show’s up! Will finished the pictures, and they’re all together in one spot. Also, the corresponding script excerpts from each scene can be found here: http://www.kentonbartlett.com/filmpics.htm.

Fenix unveiled his casting plan with loads of tangibles tonight. He made several template e-mails to use for the different phases of the process. He also created a flyer to be posted around the country to attract talent. Everything looks great, and all the materials are in place. We are on the brink of kicking things off and spreading the word!

The celebrity spreadsheet is complete. It lists approximately 170 actors and ranks them by a number of different variables: how hard is it going to be to attract them, have they done independent films in the past, etc. It also includes actor-specific reasons for why this film would be right for their career. Organizing it this way will help prioritize who we contact and get Amanda on the same page about each actor in the letter writing.

The site each celebrity actor will visit is now up and running. Following the example from the previous post… go to www.missingpiecescasting.com/johnnydepp. Right now, most of the content is only placeholders, but it will give an idea of what we’re going for.

We have a new potential crew member! Colleen Sturdevant is an experienced filmmaker living in New York who has worked on feature films such as Magnolia. She is very interested in helping with casting and is reviewing all the materials on the project to gauge her possible time commitment on the project. She is very qualified and would be an invaluable team member!

The script outline for the second draft is complete. Now it’s just going back through and adjusting the script to reflect all the changes. It’s a lot of re-thinking, re-ordering, and creating completely new scenes going in new directions.

John has gone to and is going on more film shoots to get extra experience to prepare for this film. He is applying what he learns to his research for this film. DJ is struggling to keep up with school and work, but he’s proactively trying to obtain equipment and secure some free time to start practicing.

Casting Flyer Draft and Slide Show Still

2009-03-04T03:17:00.006-06:00

The slide show is up! Will finished the sketches, and they're all together in a slide show with script excerpts from each scene. Check it out at http://www.kentonbartlett.com/filmpics.htm.

The first draft of the casting flyer to be posted ANYWHERE! Fenix designed and printed it up. He's going to post it around himself and request schools to post it around to spread the word.

Casting, imdb, Kogod, and Re-writes

2009-02-25T15:22:00.002-06:00

This week, imdb.com e-mailed to invite ‘Student Short Film’ to be added to their website! This is usually a very selective process, and films have to go through a series of approvals before any item is posted, but imdb.com reached out to ask if they could add it to the site. We never contacted them!

A new sound company is in negotiations to arrange a huge discount on the project. They’re e-mail address is www.pro-sound.com.

The business school here at American University reached out to include this project on a “Kogod Success Stories” video series to help launch their newly-designed website. John is actually responsible for filming it! We will post the video here as soon as it’s finished (in April).

VenusPuzzle.com is donating 100 puzzles for the casting process! We also have three other companies interested in donating, and one confirmed company (Up in Pieces) who is willing to offer custom puzzles ‘at cost’ (we would only have to pay for the materials).

To keep the casting process moving while Amanda catches up on reading the screenplay and Fenix recovers from a serious car crash last week (he is in a neck brace but is getting better), I bought a new website: www.missingpiecescasting.com (not launched yet), made a draft design for the casting puzzle (see below), started web designs for the new site, and started gathering information on the 150 or so celebrities we are considering attracting to the project. We are also looking for a talented writer to assist Amanda in writing letters to celebrities as the task is simply overwhelming.

Website reconstruction is still underway, and Will is almost finished with the sketches. Hopefully we’ll have those up by next week.

As always, John and I are still meeting weekly to research in the library, we added a picture of it below.

Re-writing is underway too. Lately, most of the concentration has been on re-working and re-outlining all four stories. There were several problems in the first draft that are all being addressed. It’s incredibly time-consuming, but having a quality script is the key to attracting talent to the project.

As a follow up from last week, working with the entertainment lawyer won’t be a possibility as there isn’t enough time to contribute to his needs on his project. I am still trying to get in touch with the Alabama film office to arrange for some help on the project. Also, new sponsors are being contacted all the time to help out with the film.

Pictures

2009-02-25T15:09:00.005-06:00

This is how the site looks today. It'll change around a lot during the process, but some puzzle buttons were added this week, so take a look!

This is the homepage for the casting site. Each celebrity will have a customized page similar to this containing a personalized letter, a copy of the script, and other information.

This is the first draft of the puzzle that each celebrity will receive with a link to their customized page.

A normal library day with John

A picture from February 2009

An Eventful Week

2009-02-17T20:17:00.001-06:00

We have a new crew member! Amanda Tuzzolino will be the casting associate. She is solely responsible for creatively contacting celebrities and attracting them to the project. She came up with a great idea pertaining to the working title; “Missing Pieces.” She though it would be cool to send each actor a customized jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle will contain a website: i.e. www.workingtitlemissingpieces.com/johnnydepp. Then Johnny Depp (or whichever actor) would visit the site, and it would contain a personalized letter to Mr. Depp (written by Amanda) and other personalized information.

I reached out to many custom puzzle companies to see if we could arrange a deal for free customized puzzles to execute the idea. A few companies have been keen on the idea, and we are working together to arrange something.

We also started a list of potential actors who might be interested in working on the project.

Fenix and I have been working on coming up with auditioning materials. I made a website with extensive information about production and about casting, and he’s working on creating flyers, casting announcements, and getting in touch with schools nationwide.

We have a new sponsor! Kino Flo lights has agreed to help on the production. They won’t be able to know how much they can help until closer to filming, but they have granted free rentals in the past, so keep your fingers crossed!

Several airlines and other companies were contacted this week as well, so we should be hearing back soon.

This week, I met with a professor and have been talking to a good friend about the script. There are many changes to be made, so the re-thinking and script-breakdown processes are both underway.

A few days ago, I spoke on the phone with a notable film lawyer. He’s working on a project and needs help doing research. Hopefully there will be enough time this semester to help him on the research.

DJ has been busy reading books on sound design and trying to get his hands on some local equipment so he can get hands on experience immediately. John and I have been giving notes to one another and continue meeting every Tuesdays to read American Cinematographer in the library.

Last week I reached out to the Alabama film department, and the Birmingham film commissioner called and said he’s happy to help on the project in whatever way he can. We’re going to talk on the phone again this week to discuss the project further.

In class this week, we had to do presentations on a business proposal of our choice. To get practice pitching a project to a studio, I pitched a mock film partnership and included this film as part of the proposal – trying to be as realistic as possible to prepare for such a pitch in the future. It went pretty well.

Website re-construction and Will’s sketch work are still underway.

Everyone's working

2009-02-11T23:53:00.003-06:00

DJ is committed! Our crew is solid. Everyone is working very hard and researching pro-actively.

This week, I’ve been doing a lot of work to get DJ headed in the right direction by meeting with a couple sound professionals and doing some research to pass along.

Communicating to get everyone on the same page is a lot of work, but it’s certainly worth it. Everyone working together is pretty amazing!

The website went under a few renovations this week. Continuing with the ‘visualize’ intent, the crew member’s pictures and biographies are now posted online.

Fenix and I have been working on getting the casting process underway. He came up with a really great strategy – a rabbit hole approach. The process will be broken into stages. The stages begin very simply (to allow for a large pool of actors) and progress in difficulty (screening out bad-fits). I wrote a detailed/wordy casting informational sheet that we put online for proactive actors who want to know all the details about the film from the get-go.

As far as the sponsorships go, I submitted formal proposals to Chevron and to a Netflix filmmaking competition. A few other companies were contacted this week as well (including airline companies). A film industry company called SetWear signed on as a sponsor this week too (this brings our sponsor number up to three).

Will and I have been working back and forth on the sketches. He’s doing extremely detailed work and is really going above and beyond. He’s slightly molding the images to more closely fit with the visuals of the film. The sketches are really going to let everyone in on the movie that we’re making.

The Crew

2009-02-04T14:23:00.004-06:00

John, the cinematographer is committed! He’s still going around to get things in writing regarding his scholarship situation. Taking a semester off is tricky, but he’s getting it worked out. He is incredibly committed, and we are doing a lot of back and forth with notes and references.

Worried about finding a casting director, I started organizing a national campaign to spread the word. Mid-organization, a newfound friend from school, Fenix Libertine contacted me with a sincere interest in working on the film.

After talking with him and getting on the same page about the extensive demands about the position, he turned out being absolutely perfect for the casting director job. He’s enthusiastic, organized, efficient, devoted, and we like a lot of the same movies and music. As we were going over notes about the film, I told him to watch the film, Magnolia, for inspiration of ambition in a movie and flawless casting. It’s not almost 10 years old, and it’s not very popular, but he had the DVD in his backpack!... we’re going to work very well together. I sent him a lot of notes about casting, and set up his e-mail: casting@kentonbartlett.com. Right now he’s working hard on playing catch up and taking a crash course in understanding casting... We have a casting director!

DJ, the sound operator, is still thinking about working on the film. He will commit or defer by Friday, the 6th.

American Cinematographer

2009-02-04T14:23:00.003-06:00

The library at American University has every issue of film industry magazine, American Cinematographer. It’s a fantastic resource, and to get a good working knowledge of professional cinematography, equipment used on films, and lighting setups in popular movies, I thought it would be a good idea to read every issue. John and I are working our way through them. I’ve gone through all of 2008 and 2007, and John just started looking through this week. We’re going to meet every week to sit down, research, and talk about the movie to move forward in a consistent direction on the film.

Sponsors and Grants

2009-02-04T14:22:00.001-06:00

We have our first two sponsors! Sennheiser, a microphone company, has offered product discounts for the audio equipment on the production, and Samsung is donating a 1.5 terabyte hard drive to the film (worth approximately $350).

Netflix is holding a competition to give $150,000 to a first-time filmmaker producing a movie this year. It’s perfect for this project, and I submitted all the materials this week. Keep your fingers crossed. We won’t know anything until May, so it’s best to forget about the competition and proceed with fundraising.

The e-mails have continued to all sorts of companies trying to get product donations, loans, and price reductions. With Samsung and Sennheiser’s involvement, hopefully that will be an incentive for other companies to jump on board. Right now, I’m working on an extensive application with Chevron to get some free gas for the road trip.

Visualize

2009-02-04T14:21:00.002-06:00

Last Tuesday, I met with my independent study professor for this course – to make a long story short, the school is opening the course to give credit for revising the script and working on pre-production assignments. She said that people want to SEE the movie that they are investing in. So, she suggested to re-do the website with a concentration of getting people on the same page about the story and basically exciting people about it. This was a great point, and coincidentally, I had been working on a new trailer to advertise the movie.

The next couple days were spent all day in the computer lab taking clips from some of the best movies around and combining them into a cohesive 1-minute advertisement to show what we are aiming for with this movie.

To further ‘show’ people the movie, my friend and talented artist, Will Braden, offered his skills to the project. He is drawing pictures of seven of the most picturesque scenes in the film to excite people about it. I am gathering pictures of expansive locations. We’ll combine the drawings and pictures into a slideshow so people can start to visualize the project.

The website now includes photos and biographies of the crew so people can see that this is really happening and to put faces with the names.

Product placement, crew changes, and in-kind donations/loans

2009-01-25T21:15:00.001-06:00

The past week has included relentless e-mailing. Lots of back and forth with the product placement agencies. There are a few leads. Several agencies requested the script. Some have requested that we contact them approximately four weeks from production to see what they can do at that time, once the cast is confirmed.

Most product placement companies only want to deal with movies that have guaranteed distribution and/or have a celebrity attached to the project. Also, the agencies’ agenda does not generally include monetary outlay. They focus on supplying products to movies to defer costs (i.e. free food lowers the budget).

A lot of crew changes happened as well. Leeanna unfortunately had to drop out of the casting director position due to her spring academic program. Ahreum Kim also had to defer the cinematography position due to personal reasons.

I contacted a friend’s sister who was interested in casting, but she was also unable to commit. Not knowing anyone else, national postings for the casting director position came into play. Through trying posting/e-mailing the blurb all over the internet, a few promising responses have started to trickle in, so hopefully we will have the right person on the project by the end of the week.

Also, my talented friend, John Arturo is interested in writing and directing as a career, and he is thinking about collaborating on the project as a cinematographer/camera operator. He has a great personality, an incredible work ethic, and we have a lot of the same sensibilities. The only drawback to his taking the position would be taking a semester off of school, so he has to work out the logistics to see if that would be possible.

A few more professors were kind enough to meet and discuss the movie. Each had a lot of advice on financing that I am pursuing. One suggested avenue was to contact equipment companies to see if they would donate/lend/reduce the price of equipment in return for brand placement in the credits, advertising their arts support in the movie on their company’s website, and possibly pitching their products to the school.

Sennheiser, an audio equipment company has been responsive, so we will see how things turn out. Over the weekend a lot of e-mails went out, so maybe this week some other arrangements will materialize.

Finally, there was a job posting to draft a business plan for a Jewish arts/film project. If it fits into my schedule, it might be a good networking opportunity. I e-mailed requesting more information about it tonight.

January 2008 - a picture

2009-01-17T16:09:00.001-06:00

January 2008 - a picture - new year reminder - every month will feature a picture of me. Not for vanity, but as an experiment to document the change of a person over the years of making a movie.

January 2008 - All caught up

2009-01-17T11:46:00.001-06:00

We’re up to date! Hopefully there will be at least one post a week, but we’ll see. Posting during production might be difficult, but from here on out, check back from time to time to see how things are going, or “follow” this blog (use the link on the right). Thanks for reading!

January 2008 - Product Placement

2009-01-17T11:40:00.002-06:00

Back to school again.

Still trying to raise money, the turn to product placement has to happen. Online there is a list of every product placement agency in Hollywood. After creating a product placement proposal explaining the project and including location-specific and product-specific opportunities, I sent it to all the agencies.

Responses started trickling in. Some with no interest, but several leads came about as well. It’s a lot of back and forth coming up with arrangements that would benefit the production and reduce the budget (i.e. a company provides food, so we put them in the movie). Each arrangement has to be worth it to the company to sacrifice a little of the film’s integrity by including products, but brands are a part of the world we live in, so it’s not as big of a deal as I once thought, and it could really help with the film’s budget.

Next week, I will generate client-specific proposals for individual agencies and expect to hear back from some agencies to whom the script has been sent.

January 2008 - David Gordon Green

2009-01-17T11:35:00.000-06:00

David Gordon Green has become one of my heroes over the past year. He is a filmmaker who has created some of the best films around. If you’ve never heard of him, you should watch all of his films. Every one is a gem. His most recognizable film is Pineapple Express, which is a departure from his more intimate preceding films. His films and philosophies on life and movies are a huge inspiration, and I had tried to get in touch with him for the past couple months.

After contacting everyone around him, his fantastic composer, David Wingo got back and said he would be happy to forward a message to David Green. I just wanted to tell him how his movies had inspired me. Note: in the script there are characters David Lindale, Daylen Gordon, and Delia Greenly. Can you find “David Gordon Green”?

Hopefully the message will go through to him. I would love to get his verbal support in the movie.

January 2008 - The Crew

2009-01-17T04:03:00.003-06:00

During the contacting process, a lot of my closest friends were generous enough to offer their help on the project. One friend, Travis, is a fashion designer and offered the use of his dresses in the project. And many others offered rain checks on the project. It’s going to take a lot of people to pull this thing off.

Enlisting the long-term, stable crew was also a priority. My long-time friend, Riley spoke to me about his sister’s trying to start in entertainment law in LA, and he talked me up to her and told me to contact her. Her name is Abbott, and she was very enthusiastic about the project. Currently she has to check with the Judge whom she’s working for to see if legal consulting on this project is possible, but it’s looking very likely that she will be able to help on it, and I’m very excited about it.

Following up with her interest in casting, I talked again to Leeanna to see if she was still interested. I had been vague on the casting process because I didn’t know how far in advance to start the process. After finishing the script and understanding the time/financial commitments of actors, it might be best to start the casting sooner rather than later. She is in a demanding program this spring and is currently not sure whether or not she will have time to do it, but we’ll see how things turn go.

The third potential associate contacted was Ahreum Kim. She was my T.A. in our Film and Video I class. She was always enthusiastic, kind, knowledgeable, good with equipment, incredibly motivated, and always gave good feedback. One of her life goals is to be a member of the highly-competitive American Society of Cinematographers. Since our film class, she had been in my mind as someone who’s going places, and I thought we would work well together well and that she might like to be a cinematographer on a feature film. She was very enthusiastic about it, but naturally had a few private reservations about the time commitment and other matters.

The fourth contact is my long-term friend, DJ. We were both workaholics at the local movie theater, and I asked if he would like to be the sound man on the film. He has outstanding work ethic, he’s a quick learner, he’s been looking for an opportunity to shine, and we are really good friends and trust each other. He is also looking in to personal matters to get the logistics together for taking said amount of time off.

If all goes through, the main people to contact now will be casting, explosives technicians, and getting together all the logistics involved (locations, casting, costumes, food, and props). And of course, continuing to find financing.

December 2008 - PR, Logistic, and the Radio

2009-01-17T03:59:00.001-06:00

Exhausted from writing and not-yet-recovered from the semester, I had to put the engine into idle. I took a semi-break from the movie-watching drought, and started multitasking. DVD commentaries are kind of like listening to the radio, which works well for monotonous tasks …like e-mailing hundreds of producers. So, several days were spent getting on Facebook and going further down lists of people to contact. By the way, DVD commentaries are excellent for anyone interested in filmmaking.

With the limited success of the “spreading the word” campaign, the inevitable turn to product placement seemed necessary. Also, with the logistical details needing organization, I broke down every scene in the script by scene title, scene description, scene purpose, characters, costumes, location, location pre-planning required, props, set details, people to help, product placement opportunities, time of day, time to film, time to set up equipment, time to rehearse, and time on screen. This was a way to really get organized and go through and assimilate which companies to pursue for product placement. The list took close to a week to put together.

December 2008 - Writing

2009-01-17T03:57:00.003-06:00

Writing…The other half. My personal deadline for finishing the screenplay was Christmas. I was deadly behind. Going into break, only ¼ of the story was complete. The main problem is writer’s procrastination and never having enough time to buckle down and get to it. Also, American University is not an inspiring place to write.

SO! The only way to do it was through strict discipline. I would write for an un-interrupted four hours a day. To make sure there were four solid hours, I got a stopwatch and made sure there would be no distractions for that amount of time. It didn’t matter if I was staring at the ceiling thinking about the story, there would be no multi-tasking. So, after getting organized and sifting through 17,689 words of notes (statistics and numbers give life meaning maybe?), the outline was complete in 9 days. Taking notes and thinking is key to writing. I had all the moments and ideas down, but they weren’t organized in any coherent fashion. As was mentioned before, the notes and thinking had been going on for 9 months, so it wasn’t just coming up with an outline out of nowhere. But the sitting down and putting it all down on paper is hard.

From the outline, writing the script is just filling in the missing holes. From the end of the outline to a finished first draft only took 12 days. After reading over the draft several times and making sure it was as polished as I could make it, I sent it to about 30 friends who had mentioned they were interested in reading it. I AM INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL FOR EVERYONE WHO TOOK THE TIME TO READ IT!!!!!!!! To make sure everyone was as critical as possible, the script was sent with a feedback questionnaire guiding critical responses.

Even though the script was 6 days late, things could have been worse.

Pictures of writing in the basement. Moving to every location in the house was a good way to not get bored in any one place. This it the script laid out.

A close up of the cards - lots of writing on each.

December 2008 - Facebook

2009-01-17T03:55:00.002-06:00

Facebook…That halfway defines this month. The only way to spread the word about the project was to reluctantly start a Facebook account…but it’s for the movie…so it’s not like REALLY having a Facebook…right? Anyway, I set up an account and sent personalized messages to every single person I know to try to catch up for all those lost years, to inform them about the project, and to get them to watch the video.

The original idea was that everyone I knew would donate a little bit and it would be the piecemeal film of the century…No. There was limited success, but at least I got to catch up with a lot of people I’ve missed. After the “everyone I know” Facebook approach, I figured that on every movie has a few hundred people working on it, so who better to tell about the movie than those people? So I contacted several hundred people that way, again with limited success. The next and more intelligent approach was contacting the producers on my favorite films. Thus far, a few producers have replied, but, realistically, nobody’s going to put their neck out for someone they don’t know. Also, Facebook is not the most professional of mediums, but the plan was all about quantity over quality. Maybe it was the wrong way to go about it, but the idea was that the website was effective and the message wouldn’t matter as much, so getting the word out to as many people as possible was the way to go about it.

December 2008 - a picture

2009-01-17T03:54:00.000-06:00

December 2008 - a picture

November 2008 - PR

2009-01-17T03:50:00.000-06:00

School was very time-consuming and draining at this point, so I wasn’t in a place to work any more on the other 3 stories, and at the same time the clock was ticking on getting the money for the film.

My original goal for having finances was November because the back-order on the Red camera was six months (no longer backordered). As being behind schedule is no good, the money problem became priority number one (if there’s no money, there’s no movie, and if there’s no movie then what’s the point of the story?).

I started dotting my i’s and crossting my t’s. The website needed a lot of work. If someone wants to give money, how are they going to do it? If it’s not easy, it won’t happen. So I added Pay Pal links through the website to accept donations, loans, and investments. I made up flyers that my friend, Blake, put up in a few local Starbucks, flyered 600 cars, and wrote several drafts of a general letter for anyone to read and be interested in the project.

My mom suggested making a video to tell people about the project in a few minutes without having to read. After a few days of thinking, she was right. So, I buckled down and made a four-minute explanatory, promotional video explaining the project. Ideally, it could have been a higher quality video, but the end of the semester time crunch didn’t leave any more time than being able to animate some photoshop stuff together and adding computerized voices together. It’s not a video to be particularly proud of, but it does its job in explaining the project.

Several professors gave feedback on the video and the drafted letter. They gave me the “looks good,” so I took posted the video and took letters around to a couple hundred houses around the D.C. area. Before returning for Christmas break, my friend, Kelley, and I flyered a handful of cars, and I contacted every television and radio station in my hometown to see if they would be interested in running a story on the project.

November 2008 - a picture

2009-01-17T03:21:00.002-06:00

November 2008 - a picture

October 2008 - Non-profit status, a business plan, taxes, and the story

2009-01-17T03:14:00.001-06:00

After finding a few grants that are designed to collect tax-deductible donations on the behalf of the film, I filled out the paper work and submitted to a few.

I met with a dean of the business school who suggested to make a business plan and talk to a tax-specialist professor. This was good advice, so I made a 22-page business plan covering all aspects of why this project is possible and how it’s going to happen and be a real movie that everyone’s going to want to watch.

The tax professor was very nice and basically told me that if I can’t get the non-profit grant to forget the non-profit status because the IRS stipulations get too complicated.

This month, I wrote David’s treatment and script. A treatment is basically the script with limited dialogue and in a less-formal, more-readable, story-esque format. If the treatment is well written, the script simply falls into place. The feedback from my writing class teacher was very helpful throughout the entire process, and her suggestions were helpful in making the story understandable to wider audiences.

October 2008 - two pictures (bonus!)

2009-01-17T02:57:00.004-06:00

October 2008 - two pictures

The close up.

PJs, headphones, and a laptop. A large portion of life.

September 2008 - Work Work Work

2009-01-17T02:48:00.002-06:00

Serious work on the outline began this month. Because four stories take place simultaneously, the outline can get quite overwhelming, and it is very time consuming.

To make sure the psychological analysis of the main character was correct (as the whole story contends on his motivations), I spoke with a psychology professor on campus to get his feedback. He helped hammer out a feasible reason that the main character does what he does. He also pointed me in the right direction to finding solutions to other story devices involving drugs (to knock out characters).

Additionally, I spoke with my finance professor to see if he had ideas on how to raise money. He told me to get non-profit status to entice investors. Immediately I began searching for how to make that happen.

At this point, realizing that getting money was harder than originally thought, I took the bare-bones approach to budgeting and whittled it down to $80,000.

As far as the story goes, at this point the characters were pretty much developed. Extensive text-book character studies were made for the main characters. The film takes place as four stories: the main kidnapping scenarios, the kidnapper’s’ backstory (David Lindale), and the two victims’ backstories (Maggie Anderson and Daylen Gordon).

For a class in school, one of our major projects was developing a 30-minute script. For that 30 minute script, completing David's story (1/4 of the 120 page script) seemed like a logical choice since his motivations are key to the film’s believability. This month, I made the outline for his story.

September 2008 - a picture

2009-01-17T02:46:00.000-06:00

September 2008 - a picture

Late August 2008 - Research, Grants, and the Budget

2009-01-17T02:35:00.004-06:00

This month, I started looking into film grants as well as continuing research on the film, production, and the budget.

Several friends were very helpful in throwing around ideas for the premise and character motivations. They were invaluable in filtering and suggesting new ideas. I worked more on fine-tuning the premise and character motivations. I wrote a letter to ask for financing from a select few people, and contacted two qualified people to be the producer on the film. A few leads were generated, but they all fizzled out.

In passing, I mentioned the film to one of my friends, Leeanna, who is an extremely devoted thespian. She expressed her interest in casting which I thought was great, but didn’t know when that process would start...

Back to school.