Just starting production on a short film I wrote, and am directing, called 'December'. The story is about a guy named Matt in his early 30's who is a little down and out on life. Caught in the ebb and flow of his existence he spends his days hanging out with his best friend Ryan. As a snow storm rolls into town they drive around in Ryan's beat up car and trade stories and one liners that might just be masked metaphors for life.
The first scene we shot was a scene in a diner with Matt and his girlfriend Rebecca. This breakfast date is a reassuring scene in the film, occurring about 2/3rds of the way through the piece, where she reminds him that she loves him, even when he's feeling like he's really got nothing to offer their relationship right now.
Yours truly on the left with DP Brook Aitken.
Actress Libby Arnold
Actor Jeremy Make + Audio Steve Schwedt
Production Stills All photographs by Kelly Magelky, AD + Producer Extraordinaire
Technical Specs: HPX170 - no adapters 2.39:1 Aspect Ratio - cropping in post 24fps
Decided to shoot with the HPX170 for several reasons, namely that I own a full package with all accessories, secondly because we plan on shooting some 60fps snow/winter landscapes, and finally because we needed to be able to cram the camera + DP, sound, and me into the backseat of a car for several scenes. Decided against any sort of adapter in an effort to keep it simple.
The light for this scene was a 1K with a Chimera and a 650 with a Chimera, bounce card when we got in close. There was a large window with daylight coming in from the left hand side of the wide photographs and while we were shooting from 2-4:30PM, the light worked perfectly as the scene was a breakfast scene.
First of all, if you read this blog you should be reading David's blog too.
He wrote an e-mail last night with this story:
'I had a union construction worker tell me a joke while waiting for the freight elevator in Midtown today. He tried to pass off a Family Guy joke as his own. For a few seconds, I thought of confronting him, but that glitter in his eye said, "This shit was so funny while I watched Family Guy reruns on TBS that maybe, just maybe, if I tell it as my own, people will think I'm funny as shit.....please think I'm funny as shit....please."
So I laughed...Merry Christmas you unoriginal bastard.'
It was too good to let it sit in my in-box all alone.
1. Hotel Sahara - The temporary residents of Nouadhibou, Mauritania, have come from all over Africa to wait for transport to Europe, and the chance at a better life. Bettina Haasens intimate camera ushers us through the provisional world of these migrant workers as they pick up odd jobs and sleep in sparse rooms, all under the constant threat of deportation. Sandwiched between the Sahara Desert and the Atlantic Ocean, they try to stoke their individual dreams in a place where the only thing not fleeting is their desire to reach their destination.
2. Passenger Side - Michael Brown's (ADAM SCOTT) birthday begins with a telephone call from his estranged, drug addicted brother Tobey (JOEL BISSONNETTE). Tobey is totally unaware that it is his older brother's birthday, but he is very aware that his car is broken, and he begs Michael to drive him on various apparently legitimate, vital errands. As Bruce Springsteen has astutely noted, "a man who turns his back on his family just ain't no good", and so Michael puts off his seemingly romantic birthday plans, and with his brother embarks on a sketchy, meandering day long odyssey though the mysteries of Los Angeles County. As the day wears on, it becomes clear that this drive will lead them to some very unexpected destinations.
3. St. Nick - St. Nick is the story of a brother and sister on the run. Hes eleven, shes nine. They've left their home for some unknown reason, and are living in the woods, hiding in barns and sheds, doing what they can to survive. As the bitter Texas winter sets in, they strike up residence in an abandoned house and, for a brief, bittersweet period, manage to escape the harsh realities of their circumstances.
Opening weekend of the film festival. Best three films seen. And I've only seen 4. That makes me 3 for 4. The 'opening night' film 'Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire' was awful. Don't waste your money. Lee Daniels has no discernible directing style.
But these on other hand are awesome.
1. October Country - Every family has its ghosts. Set in the Mohawk Valley of Central New York, this film chronicles a year of life seen through the eyes of the Mosher family. Relationships gone sour, poor economy, a troubled foster kid, young mothers, and a belief in the paranormal make this film a beautiful portrait of a family.
2. Con Artist - Mark Kostabi is a fraud and a scam artist. He knows it. And he's spent years perpetuating his 'art' and will do just about anything to keep himself in the spotlight.
3. Leaves of Grass - Tim Blake Nelson directed narrative about twin brothers and weed in Oklahoma. That's all I need to say.
Flew back to upstate NY this past weekend to surprise my sister. Her field hockey team played a sectionals game on Saturday against their perennial rival Warrensburgh. She didn't know we were coming and so when we showed up in her bedroom at 9:15 on Friday night she went crazy.
The Johnsburg Jaguars (my alma mater) ended up winning the game 2-0, the first time in years that they'd beaten Warrensburg 3 times in one season. My sister scored a goal and assisted on the other. She's a fantastic player and well of course, she's my little sister so I'm proud.
My sister is on the right in white.
Scoring a goal.
Winning moment.
Sequential winning moment.
Team.
The Jaguars play tomorrow, Wednesday November 4th, for the chance to advance further to the NY State Championship. Wish I could be there to cheer her on....
Saw online today that there is a trailer of sorts for the Music Nomad which is set to air soon on National Geographic. I was the Director of Photography on the show.
Joe Berlinger's new documentary CRUDE opens nationwide today, October 16. Joe and I both went to Colgate University, albeit years apart, he graduated in 1983. I've had the pleasure of getting to know him over the past few years and this film is a fantastic expose.
Three years in the making, this cinéma-vérité feature from acclaimed filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Brother’s Keeper, Paradise Lost, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster) is the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial environmental lawsuits on the planet. The inside story of the infamous “Amazon Chernobyl” case, Crude is a real-life high stakes legal drama, set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film subverts the conventions of advocacy filmmaking, exploring a complicated situation from all angles while bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus.
The landmark case takes place in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador, pitting 30,000 indigenous and colonial rainforest dwellers against the U.S. oil giant Chevron. The plaintiffs claim that Texaco – which merged with Chevron in 2001 – spent three decades systematically contaminating one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, poisoning the water, air and land. The plaintiffs allege that the pollution has created a “death zone” in an area the size of the Rhode Island, resulting in increased rates of cancer, leukemia, birth defects, and a multiplicity of other health ailments. They further allege that the oil operations in the region contributed to the destruction of indigenous peoples and irrevocably impacted their traditional way of life. Chevron vociferously fights the claims, charging that the case is a complete fabrication, perpetrated by “environmental con men” who are seeking to line their pockets with the company’s billions.
The case takes place not just in a courtroom, but in a series of field inspections at the alleged contamination sites, with the judge and attorneys for both sides trudging through the jungle to litigate. And the battleground has expanded far beyond the legal process. The cameras rolled as the conflict raged in and out of court, and the case drew attention from an array of celebrities, politicians and journalists, and landed on the cover of Vanity Fair. Some of the film’s subjects sparked further controversy as they won a CNN “Hero” award and the Goldman Award, the environmental equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
Shooting in dozens of locations on three continents and in multiple languages, Berlinger and his crew gained extraordinary access to players on all sides of the legal fight and beyond, capturing the drama as it unfolded while the case grew from a little-known legal story to an international cause célèbre. Crude is a ground-level view of one of the most extraordinary legal dramas of our time, one that has the potential of forever changing the way international business is conducted. While the environmental impact of the consumption of fossil fuels has been increasingly documented in recent years, Crude focuses on the human cost of our addiction to oil and the increasingly difficult task of holding a major corporation accountable for its past deeds.
