Dark Design Pictures

Last week I had to cancel the first shooting day for 1-800-Tech-Support. The wife had some family in town and she really wanted me to be there. So I decided to put off shooting till the middle of next month when I get back from Hawaii. There is still tons of stuff to do for Cup of Joe and then there is the 48HR Film Project the weekend of the 8th. So the delay is kind of welcome for several reasons. I want to finish script 2, I want to finish pay Greenberg for his track dolly and I really want to have everything planned out (storyboards, shot logs, etc). I was wanting to start releasing the episodes by September but I think I’m going to hold off until January of next year. I really want to promote the hell out of the show. So hopefully by then I will have the first 6 episodes completed.

Tonight I met up with Christian at Jasso’s place for a read through of Episode 1. I am very pleased with the performance and it’s going to be killer funny! After the 3rd read through and give the guys some direction, both Matthew and Christine were really beginning to get into there roles. The part of Joel will be a little different than the original Night Shift, but it is more of what I had in mind for the character when I created him.

Joel is a sarcastic ass. He has no ambition, no drive and not future. Joel is not apathetic he just doesn’t care. He does tech support because it is easy and it allows him to be a slacker. It was hard to get that though in the Night Shift, but comes out a bit when Joel is dealing with the vampire hunters. Christine got the point and took it to hear and started to really get into the character. I didn’t need to give Matthew as much direction. We’ve talked about the character of Tom quite a bit before the read through.

Tom simply is a geek. He has poor social skills, is smart and apathetic. He could do better in life but chooses not to. The reality is he doesn’t have to work hard because he comes from a well off family. We start filming next Wednesday and I’m pretty excited.

Okay it have been forever and a day since the last post. Yes I am a lousy blogger, but I haven’t had much to write about lately. After being harassed by veriest people. I’ve finally posted all the videos back in the Filmography. I know, about damn time! So it’s done. I’ve also added to the default page my links to MySpace and YouTube and to top it all off I’ve added a link to my personal MySpace.

Oh yeah, San Antonio 48 Hour Film Project 2008, that is the title of this post after all. Well it’s getting to be that time of year again. Yes, once again I’m signing up and shelling out the $135.00 for the privilege of making a short film. lol And like last year, I’ll be teaming up with Matthew Jasso. Who does what remains to be seen, so we shall see how it goes. Tonight was the first meet up at Ruta Maya. It was very nice. Turn out was a little low, but fun. For the next few weeks every Tuesday the group will be meeting until the the night of the big event. The meet up was good and I had fun. Great networking opportunity. I met some new people and ran into some other team leaders from last year. Once again Erik Bosse is spearheading this event.

I’ll go into more details later. My brain has officially turned into mush and I need to get some sleep.

The script for Episode 1 is finally finished and is at 24 pages. The running time should be around 22 to 30 minutes. Filming should begin around the 2nd week of July barring any postponements from from Cup of Joe. I started on the script for Episode 2 and so far things are coming along nicely. Episode 2 will focus on some of Erica’s background.

Okay, it has been a while since I last wrote about anything film related. Yes I am still making films other than just helping out Ferro Studios. I am very pleased to announce my new project 1-800-Tech-Support. 1-800-Tech-Support is a remix of the original Night Shift short film I did last year for the National Film Challenge. I have managed to con the Matthew Jasso and Christian Martinez back into their roles as Tom and Joel. This time no vampire. The series continues the misadventures of Tom and Joel and introduces the new character of Erica. A perky goth girl who is so sweet she will rot your teeth out. Filming of Episode 1 will being in mid-July.

Okay so the site has been down for several days know. The domain expired managed to expire with me catching wind of it. On top of that another one of my domains expired which was the name server. POW! Double what the fuck? Well everything is back online and in it’s proper place.

This weekend was a total wash. I did obsoletely nothing. It was kind of refreshing. All I did catch up on sleep, hang out with the wife and squeezed in some editing on The Keith script. On Friday, I came up with an idea for a new story. It’s about a top secret government organization that hunts down monsters. I didn’t get very far with it. All I manged to do was stare at the blinking cursor. So I went back to the Keith script. Now that I have a bit more free time I want to get the Keith script solidified by the end of the month. I would like to get the movie cased and so I can start filming in the fall. By this time I should all my equipment gathered up. I’m in the process of buying Scott Greenberg’s track dolly as well as an extra mic and a jib arm from Kevin Sloan. I’m hoping to have a second camera by then as well. I really want to start shooting with 2 cameras. I think this will make for better takes, better consistency and less time to shoot. If not I’m going to see if I can borrow Sloan’s camera.

Again, it has been a while since my last post. To much shit has been going on. With the Crosshairs screening over and my project at work coming to a close things are beginning to calm down. You may have noticed that the Crosshairs trailer has been yanked. Well that is kind of a long story and I’m not going to get into it. But for the most part, it’s really fucking stupid. The premiere went well but there was a lot of technical issues with the movie. I ran out of time and didn’t get a chance to screen it before hand to catch them. Despite the film still being very rough everyone had a good time. That’s what counts in my book. Matthew knows how to put on a good show. When I finally have a movie premiere I want that man running it.

Matthew has pulled me off Cup of Joe so I can complete the Crosshairs edit. A very wise thing to do. When you spread yourself thing everything begins to suffer. So I will be hitting the editing hard over the next few months. When I’m done the edit should be very rock solid.

I decided to enroll myself in a 2 day course at SAC to become a certified Production Assistant. Two days $60 bucks not bad for getting a cert. Plus my name will be registered Texas Production Directory. So maybe I can get some real paying gigs even if it is as a lowly PA. Some real training couldn’t hurt. Like how not to make an ass out of yourself on set. A skill everyone needs.

Here is the official trailer Matthew has put out for Crosshairs.

The past few days I’ve been hanging out at Matthew’s apartment working on the edit. I took my computer over to his place on Monday so he can do some of the nitpicky shit while I was at work. We got the first half of the movie finished and ready to be scored. Tonight I need to lug the damn thing home again. So far we have roughly hit 70 minutes. We need 80 for it to be a full feature. So it looks like there will be some added scenes after the premier on April 27th. All I have to say is Ugh….

Because of work I’ve had to drop out of Cup of Joe for the rest of April. The project I’m working on at work is mucho importante so I’ve had to drop almost everything so I can get it done by the end of the month. Luckily I have been moving at full blast and I’m about to complete phase 1 and 2. Most of Phase 3 will be owned by another group and I can hopefully finish off Phase 4 by the end of the month. Mean while in my free time working on the compositing for Crosshairs. After the week of the 27th it should be my problem anymore. I’m FREE!!! Well maybe. Okay maybe not….

Next month will be back to CoJ and then a break from film making. The wife wants to take a vacation in the summer and so do I.