Got the music...almost done!

Chris Cosby layed down a great score for The Big Idea today, creating and recording the whole soundtrack in only one day! Now all that's left to do is make a few more small editing tweaks, add the end credits, and it's done. I've seen the movie so many times during the editing process that I've lost any sense of objectivity on the movie, but Fornataro just saw the almost finished version and says it's fantastic. Tomorrow I'll finish everything and show the cast and crew the final cut.

Making progress...

After a couple of intense days of editing, I'm almost done with The Big Idea. All that's left is balancing the audio and color correcting, so I'll probably finish tonight. The movie is 15 minutes long, and we started filming Monday... so we shot and edited a 15 minute long movie in only six days. That's gotta be a record for us. The movie will definitely be our most professional production, and I'm glad to know that we'll be able to achieve the same quality for Bad is Bad.

Once I finish my final edit tonight, the movie's success will be in the nimble hands of the musical genius Chris Cosby, who will hopefully deliver another great movie score...

The editing begins...

Forgot to post yesterday but we wrapped up shooting without a hitch. We got some more great footage which I have spent all day today editing. I've been so busy with filming and editing that I almost forgot today was X-mas eve. I should be done editing in less than a week, but until then, happy holidays.

Day 2 summary

Cast and Crew
Left to Right: Chris, Alexis, Kevin, Kent, Ellis

This is the only photo I snagged today, but I'll take some more tomorrow and maybe post up some stills from the actual footage.

This morning me and Chris were scrambling around Lowe's and my house trying to put our ghetto camera dolly together, which set us back an hour. Luckily, it works beautifully now, and we got a lot of smooth tracking shots in the can. Alexis wrapped for her character at noon, and the remaining three of us spent the rest of the day filming dialogue between Chris and Kevin in Chris's kitchen. Today was longer and more tedious than yesterday because we got lots of coverage (different camera angles) for the scenes we shot, but it will give me lots of options in the editing room and should build a memorable scene. Today was mainly for Kevin's scenes, and he delivered a great performance.

Unfortunately, after a late start and a no-show by a crew member, we couldn't finish all of the filming today. But we only have 3 more shots to film tomorrow and then we're done with filming! The scenes from today will take some careful editing, but hopefully I can edit this movie and have it done in a week's time.

A few pictures and words from the first day of shooting...

What a day! We finished all of the shots we hoped to get done today, and are now at least halfway done filming. The performances were great, and the picture and audio are top notch. It looks like The Big Idea is going to turn out quite well. If all goes well we could finish all of filming tomorrow.

Here are some other random pictures I was able to take between shots:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Kent.OGP/TheBigIdea#

Two days until the cameras roll!

It's been a while since the last update, but we've sure been busy. I flew back into Richmond a week ago, Chris arrived a few days later. Since then I've been doing a lot of technical work with the camera and other equipment getting ready for The Big Idea. Almost all of our equipment is new for this movie, so I've had to spend a lot of time tinkering with the camera and audio equipment to familiarize myself with it so everything can go smoothly when we start filming this Monday.

We took the camera to Chris's house, where the entire movie will be shot, and figured out the camera settings and light set-ups we will be using. Hopefully these precautions will speed up the filming process, because we only have 3 planned days to shoot this 10 minute long movie.

I also have been struggling to get a dolly for the camera, because this movie is going to use a lot of smooth camera movements. We were going to build the whole dolly ourselves, but in the end, Chris and I decided it would be best to buy some of the parts. Unfortunately the parts won't arrive until Monday, the first day of shooting, so we'll have to schedule the shoot around it. Monday we'll be shooting as many tripod shots as we can, and we'll save the dolly shots for Tuesday and Wednesday.

We had a day of rehearsals on Thursday which was very productive, and got me even more excited about this movie. There will definitely be some good performances coming from Chris, Kevin, and Alexis, mark my words!

Tomorrow I'll be giving Zach a tutorial on how to use the fancy new audio equipment we have, including the $2000 professional microphone we rented for the week. He'll be the dedicated sound guy for the movie. Ellis is going to be the key grip, helping to set up and work with the lights, dolly, and other equipment. It's going to be nice having all the key people from A-Wake back to work on The Big Idea.

It has been snowing all day, and I can hear it haling outside my window now. We must have about 10" already, which I hope will not cause any problems for our movie. It's already prevented us from driving to Carytown for some props and Lowe's for some lumbar for the dolly. But most importantly, now we can't go see Avatar in Imax tomorrow morning!

Oh well, more time to work. I have to get the rest of this movie storyboarded according to the blocking we figured out in rehearsals. Pictures from the set will be uploaded as they come!

A-Wake is officially online

In the wake of our Sundance rejection which was made official today, I'm going to go ahead and finally put A-Wake online for everyone to see. This is the result of many months of planning and a frantic week of filming last summer. It was a huge learning experience for all of us, hope you enjoy! Link is in the movies section on the right.

BUSY

I've been totally swamped with about 17 pages worth of papers to write this week, but I have been able to complete about half of the things on the to-do list I posted last week, mostly just acquiring the equipment that we need.

I bought a camera case, extra batteries for the camera, and a sound recorder to hook the microphone we're renting up to. I also bought a prop we're using in the movie (but I won't tell what), and I'm in the process of renting a professional quality microphone for the shoot.




I took a little break from writing papers to organize the camera case yesterday, and sadly it was the most fun I've had all week.


We're all very excited for The Big Idea though, I think it will be a great short film, and a great indicator of how Bad is Bad will wind up. Only 19 days till the camera starts rolling!