More work!

I just got a call back to grip on another local feature. It's short notice, starting this Monday, and I am on injured reserve with a broken or sprained toe. But damn the torpedoes, I'm doing it! The shoot is scheduled for a month of 10-hour days. But since I am interning, I will have to work at the pub for cash money. Fortunately the President gave me $300 of national debt [plus postage] to play with! It was going to go to Incorporation and search fees, but that will come around. I can't pass up an opportunity to work, even if it's for free!

I have been devouring Micheal Uva's Grip Book, and will have at least a working vocabulary to start the day. I wouldn't want to rig something a person had to hang off of, but I am fairly confident I can put lights up. Uva was thoughtful enough to include a section of on-set etiquette, which I should have read before I went out the first time.

So the chance of getting help on any of my projects just grew from a little seed into a seedling. Friday I went to a gallery opening for Oni Sakti. He does some lovely, obsessive work in a blend of traditional Japanese, Manga and Art Nouveau. Think Mucha watching Ninja Scroll while illuminating monastic manuscripts with Hans Arp. Dawn Wagner was there, radiant as ever, and I got her brand new CD! Yess...



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BIG habeas corpus UPDATE!

So the third revision of the script is finished, and it's on to number four! Now I am going through and stripping out camera direction and excess character notes. I hope to lose about 100 pages. Even as I rewrite for direction, I find places to tighten up grammar, correct spelling and fix continuity problems.

The most important revision was the addition of a MacGuffin for the main character, Todd. Sadly enough, this is mostly to support ONE visual gag at the end of the movie! But I can justify it as vital to the climax, and I hope it will be scary as hell!

In the next revision, I have decided to develop the relationship between the main character and his girlfriend. I had a hard time feeling sympathy for him. After all, he is kind of a prick, but his G/F loves him in spite of himself, and will try to find him when he gets in trouble.

Tomorrow night is the sneak preview of the Hagstone Demon starring Mark Borchardt of American Movie. It was written by Harrison Matthews, a regular at the bar I work at. I am excited to see more local film; The arts community in Minneapolis is just explosive right now!

I saw Nick Wanserski this week, and he has agreed to do our key poster art! I am stoked. Nick is a very talented illustrator and I have some solid ideas. We should have T-Shirts and stickers by this summer.

I got the opportunity to grip on a local film last month. I spent 12 hours on the set of Nocturne, produced by Crist Ballas and directed by Paul von Stoetzel with Geoff George as director of photography. Everybody was very patient with my total ineptitude onset. I never knew how much I didn't know about shooting film until that day. Tried to not make a fool of myself, and be as helpful as possible, but about the best I did was score some folding tables for Craft Services from my parents' house three blocks away. Thanks to everybody involved for the crash course. when I got home, I immediately bought Michael Uva's Grip Book and started learning what everybody was asking me for all day.

I registered habeascorpusmovie.com and orthiconpictures.com but they both currently redirect to my MySpace space. I am shopping around for hosting to have streaming video on there.

I have also contacted Scott Taylor to do some voiceover work on a demo reel of location scouting, wardrobe tests and storyboards. His rates for non-broadcast are too good to pass up!

http://www.taylormadeproductions.com/demos.html

I figure if Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright could sell Shaun Of the Dead with a narrated pad of stick figure drawings, I should have a fighting chance.

Subscribe to my My mySpace http://myspace.com/habeascorpusmovie for updates, location shots and preproduction art, posted as we make it. Make us your friend!