Tuesday, December 11, 2007
The Release Date of Joe Britz
That is a new dramatic trailer for "The Death of Joe Britz" contained inside of it is the release date and location.
For those not wanting to watch the video but get straight to that stuff:
Release Date: 2- 17 - 08
Location: The Davis Varsity
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Beowulf: The Mere
Ray made a kick ass movie with some of his friends for an English project.
This is seriously super kick ass.
Rob has nothing to do involved with this.
This is seriously super kick ass.
Rob has nothing to do involved with this.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
The Deleted Scene of Joe Britz
This is the one deleted scene of "The Death of Joe Britz"
It was one of 2 scenes with visual effects. The cut was made BEFORE special effects were added, so it is still a green background:
It was one of 2 scenes with visual effects. The cut was made BEFORE special effects were added, so it is still a green background:
Monday, November 5, 2007
Killing Joe Britz
This is VERY long, but gives you a good look into everything about when I WROTE the show. This will be MY last blog about "The Death of Joe Britz" for a while. The next one will be the announcment about the screening.
Everything is motivated by love. No matter it being the love of money, another person, an activity or any substance, if you love it you will do anything to have it. My life long love affair has been with celluloid. If you are thinking that means I’m a butt man, you are incorrect, well, half incorrect. It simply means that I love movies.
As far back as I can remember I have loved film. Some of my earliest memories are viewings of films I saw as a child. My parents have informed me that I was great to take to a movie because I never made noise, nor did I squirm. Why was it that I wasn’t like those little brats that kick and scream while you are trying to watch any movie? Well, that I have simply loved film since I was one and my parents took me to see Beauty and the Beast. Since then, I’ve never been off film. In fact, in my baby book it states that two of my first words were “Phone home.” I was a geek even before I knew what a geek was.
Now, with any small boy, I loved superheroes. At that point in my life, I didn’t know how to read, so I wasn’t into the comics but I was into the cartoons and movies. I didn’t realize but I wasn’t into the fact that they were comic book characters, but the fact that I was seeing these things that could never happen in real life being brought to the screen. In all my confusion, I thought that if I wanted to work with superheroes I had to make comics; I decided I was going to be an artist. Never mind the fact that out of my friends I was the worst at drawing cartoons. Who needs to be able to draw when you have great ideas that are based on the clothing in my closet?!
That is right, my first superhero was based on a t-shirt I had that had a basketball with the number “33” on it. The hero’s name you ask? Super 33 of course. I drew several comics, but I knew he couldn’t exist only there. So I broke out my father’s video camera, but in a yet-to-be-used VHS and began filming the epic Super 33. For the next three years I made everything from Super 33 V to a cooking show featuring Super 33.
Then one night in 1998 happened that I will remember for the rest of my life. It was the beginning of October and my mom and sister were out for the night. My dad and I got Chinese food and started surfing the channels. We got to AMC and it was the first week of their month long monster movie marathon. On the screen was just about to begin a movie that my dad had made references to when he was joking about how people looked: The Creature from the Black Lagoon. I didn’t just want to watch this: I NEEDED to watch it. It was one in the morning when the third in the trilogy, The Creature Walks Among Us, was finished and my life was changed. For the rest of the month, I watched the cheesy horror movies and discovered they were on every Friday for the rest of the year. It became a ritual that continued until AMC stopped it.
Later that year, my best friend and I auditioned for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the Woodland Opera House. One of us didn’t get in: me. The summer before, he had done Show Biz Kidz at the Opera House. For some reason, I got the idea in my head that if I did Show Biz Kidz I could get into more shows at the Opera House. My mother signed me up and I was in. On the first day, I walked in and sitting there was another boy that my friend knew from the last two shows he had done. This boy’s name was Ray. Instantly, Ray and I hit it off. We had a very similar sense of humor and even more strangely, we were both into cheesy horror films. We started to hang out and we began making films together and to this day that collaboration exists.
In 2001, Ray had his birthday. It was to be the beginning of us filming a feature length version of a short film series we made called Curley Beth where Ray played a killer little girl trying to get me. For the night, he had rented three horror films: Poltergeist, House on Haunted Hill and Night of the Living Dead. After making it through the wonderful Poltergeist, we put in Night of the Living Dead.
Never in my life had I watched a film like Night of the Living Dead. It was gorey, it was terrorfying, and it was a revalation in my life. These gorey horror films my dad said he hated could be good? Well, I decided to research this. I quickly discovered that in the world of horror that you needed to know your directors and actors and stories. From then on, I did all my research on a film and I realized how influential a director is. Before that, I didn’t realize that a director was pretty much the person who made the movie. He had the ultimate call on what goes in the movie and what doesn’t and is the one that creates all the visuals I loved. Why had I wanted to be an actor? After all that research, I decided that I wanted to be a director and have never looked back.
Flash forward to 2006. I had more short films that I had made than I could count. Three full length movies that I had written and tried to get made fell apart before my eyes as I was not interested enough in the project. Thanks to two performances the prior year, I had two Elly award nominations. Earlier that year I had become a big fan of the films of Kevin Smith. The type of comedy in them made me laugh hysterically, but at the same time they had a heart to them. These were films that were more than just pop culture banter, they were about real life and all the problems that arise out of everyday experiences. Even if the problems were not humanly possible, they were grounded in reality and every character still acted like a real person. This was what I wanted to write. This was what was calling to me.
As the school year began that year, Ms. Sakona told the Play Productions class about an acting festival called Laenea. It was for high school students and you can do anything from monologues to a one act show. My friend, Jorren Thornton, and I were doing a scene from The Odd Couple. One day, we had a subsitute teacher and Jorren and I started to go off on tangents and not working on our scene at all. We looked over and the substitute was watching intently. The next things out of his lips were:
“Are you guys acting? Cause this is entertaining as hell.”
Jorren and I then decided that we were not going to do someone else’s scene. We were going to do our own. Not only were we going to write a scene, but an entire one act play. Everybody expected only a comedy from us, but we were not about to do that. We were going to write a dramedy about two brothers who are re-united after several years at the funeral of their mother.
We sat down one day at my home and wrote the entire first act, 10 pages. Since we told the festival that the play would be 20 minutes we knew that the first and second acts needed to be 10 pages each. The first ten pages were 100% comical. We pulled our mutual love of film, obscure references to weird bands, 80’s cartoons and much more to form dialogue that flowed just as if somebody was talking.
Jorren wrote the second act, raw emotions spewed from his fingertips as he unveiled more and more about their pasts. Their relations with their parents. The naivety of the younger brother and the burden of secrets on the older brother’s.
We performed it and when we got into the judging room the first words we heard was, “Wow… We wish more people had seen this. This is what Leanea is about.”
It was the best day of my life.
And it was over several hours later.
At this point, not unveiled to anyone. I had been sort of having a self crisis. I really was giving less and less of a shit about acting. At the time of writing of “Forgive, Not Forget,” I was prepping for my audition for “The Music Man” which is one of my favorite shows of all time. Even though I loved the show, I was expecting to play Marcellus and not being the role that I always wanted to: Harold Hill. Basically, I was going to be re-doing my role as Moonface from a year earlier. This is something that didn’t appeal to me at all. As an actor I’ve never played similar characters, and I didn’t really want to begin. I was also having a large just self-doubt. Nobody seemed to want me to go into film but my friends at the time. I hadn’t made a short film for a very long time. Pretty much, I had nothing driving me. Leanea pulled me out of this and breathed new creative breath into me.
In fact, right after I decided I was going to make a solo play effort.
I wanted to do something different though.
Something that I had not seen on stage before.
I wanted TARANTINO on stage basically.
Hitmen with witty dialogue and time jumps. I came up with the plot of two guys who killed a man being interrogated. They each tell separate stories that makes the other one look much worse. The stories would be interlocked creating a very strange/funny story. I tried to figure it out. Much outlining was done to make it all make sense, but I couldn’t do it. I’m simply not that good yet.
The title for this script? “The Death of Joe Britz.” It was called this because the person who was murdered was named Joe Britz.
Then it came to me as I was walking to class with Luke. Out of nowhere the following line popped into my head:
“Hi, my name is Joe Britz and by the end of the day I’m going to be dead.”
I turned to Luke and said it. He looked at me like I was crazy. Then I began explaining it to him.
Throughout Spanish 3, I could not pay attention to Perea’s rambling. A new story started to unfold in my brain. A story about a guy, much like myself, who was visited by Death and told he has a day to live. Yea, sure, the idea had been done before, but it was an idea that I wanted to play with.
People who have asked me any advice on writing a script (I don’t know why they would), know that I always tell people to go into it with an outline. I did the single weakest outline of my life. There were no detailed scenes. No character outlines. Nothing. 5 words: the steps to accepting ones death. Those were all my notes and I began writing.
Even at that point, I knew I would not be doing theater much longer and decided that one of my last shows should be one I would love to play. At the same time, I knew I wanted to direct it. So I decided to write myself… well the same comical supporting role. This character was Death.
It began as a quirky little comedy. That was all it would be to me. Then I got to a certain point in the script. I’m pretty brushed up on my religious ideals and I’m fairly religious contrary to popular belief. Not religious as I enjoy going to Church and take the Bible word for word, but the type of religious where I believe in God and all that jazz. I don’t nessecarrily believe in all the views of one sect of a religion though, I pick and chose. At the same time, I love ancient culture mythology. This point of the script was the line “I am Death not Loki…” this left me with an opening to slyly add my own views on religion into the play.
From that moment on this play changed from the simple quirky comedy to a play with themes and ideals and so much more. It became a dramedy and I loved every moment of it.
Half way through writing it the band trip occurred and I was going to be away from my project for a full five days. I decided this was not going to happen. The first half was pretty much finished, I printed it out and bought myself a new notebook to right it on.
On the following 9 hour bus ride, I became totally anti-social. People would sit to me and I would put in my ear phones, listen to The Who or Elton John and write. Write. Write. Write. I would occasionally take a break to ask somebody for last names for certain characters (Kristina Garske came up with the last name for Russel).
About half-way through the trip we went to “Wicked” and after that, as life long friend Sarah Landsburgh fell asleep on me: I finished causing a big yell of joy which awoke her from her almost slumber.
The day after we returned, I talked to Parker about doing the show I wrote. Without even reading the script she went, “Okay, as long as you direct.” So there it was. I gave her the script though, just so she can double-check it all. The only comment I got from her back was, “There aren’t any girls.”
This was a lie because the scenes with Gwen were always in the show. It is true though that it was a show with five guy roles and one girl role. There was always an idea about a date scene that I had thought of. Truly, I liked the idea of Joe being so pathetic that he would not go on a date and I decided that the show was good enough without the scene.
It was early May at this point. I had no plans for the summer, my job search was not turning out too well. I was going to let Joe sit all summer and bring it to my attention again in September. Then, my plans to make the film version of “Forgive, Not Forget” fell through. Nothing. No film. I was not that worried about that though because I was still unsure about a visual style at this point.
Then Ray and I made impact. That was the visual style I wanted and frankly, I knew I was ready.
In my mind I started to form “The Death of Joe Britz” as a movie. The casting seemed simple at first: Kayla Sheehan as Gwen, as I wrote the role for her, Ray Tarara as Russel, since I sort of wrote the role loosely based on him. Then came my question: Do I want to act in it? For a while I decided not because I knew I was playing Death later that year, so it was no big deal to me. I decided to cast somebody who I had enjoyed his work my entire life, Kyle Hadley. Recently, Kyle and I had become very good friends after being casual acquaintances. We had both been heavily involved with theater in Woodland and it was strange we had never worked together. Still, I knew he would be 100% perfect for the role.
My problem was that I was left without a Joe. It was not that I didn’t know people who could take it. At this point, I had fallen in love with the character of Joe and I was too paranoid to trust the role to anybody.
We did the read through in early June. Every time I tried to do some filming for about a month nobody could do it. Then, one day everything clicked and we filmed. About two months later, we were 100% done filming (chronicled in earlier blogs). There was much laughing and some tears shed. We got it done.
I finished editing about a week after the movie was done and now we are working on the play.
That is it. Joe is slowly dying, one project after another and will be finally dead for me for a long time after January.
Everything is motivated by love. No matter it being the love of money, another person, an activity or any substance, if you love it you will do anything to have it. My life long love affair has been with celluloid. If you are thinking that means I’m a butt man, you are incorrect, well, half incorrect. It simply means that I love movies.
As far back as I can remember I have loved film. Some of my earliest memories are viewings of films I saw as a child. My parents have informed me that I was great to take to a movie because I never made noise, nor did I squirm. Why was it that I wasn’t like those little brats that kick and scream while you are trying to watch any movie? Well, that I have simply loved film since I was one and my parents took me to see Beauty and the Beast. Since then, I’ve never been off film. In fact, in my baby book it states that two of my first words were “Phone home.” I was a geek even before I knew what a geek was.
Now, with any small boy, I loved superheroes. At that point in my life, I didn’t know how to read, so I wasn’t into the comics but I was into the cartoons and movies. I didn’t realize but I wasn’t into the fact that they were comic book characters, but the fact that I was seeing these things that could never happen in real life being brought to the screen. In all my confusion, I thought that if I wanted to work with superheroes I had to make comics; I decided I was going to be an artist. Never mind the fact that out of my friends I was the worst at drawing cartoons. Who needs to be able to draw when you have great ideas that are based on the clothing in my closet?!
That is right, my first superhero was based on a t-shirt I had that had a basketball with the number “33” on it. The hero’s name you ask? Super 33 of course. I drew several comics, but I knew he couldn’t exist only there. So I broke out my father’s video camera, but in a yet-to-be-used VHS and began filming the epic Super 33. For the next three years I made everything from Super 33 V to a cooking show featuring Super 33.
Then one night in 1998 happened that I will remember for the rest of my life. It was the beginning of October and my mom and sister were out for the night. My dad and I got Chinese food and started surfing the channels. We got to AMC and it was the first week of their month long monster movie marathon. On the screen was just about to begin a movie that my dad had made references to when he was joking about how people looked: The Creature from the Black Lagoon. I didn’t just want to watch this: I NEEDED to watch it. It was one in the morning when the third in the trilogy, The Creature Walks Among Us, was finished and my life was changed. For the rest of the month, I watched the cheesy horror movies and discovered they were on every Friday for the rest of the year. It became a ritual that continued until AMC stopped it.
Later that year, my best friend and I auditioned for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the Woodland Opera House. One of us didn’t get in: me. The summer before, he had done Show Biz Kidz at the Opera House. For some reason, I got the idea in my head that if I did Show Biz Kidz I could get into more shows at the Opera House. My mother signed me up and I was in. On the first day, I walked in and sitting there was another boy that my friend knew from the last two shows he had done. This boy’s name was Ray. Instantly, Ray and I hit it off. We had a very similar sense of humor and even more strangely, we were both into cheesy horror films. We started to hang out and we began making films together and to this day that collaboration exists.
In 2001, Ray had his birthday. It was to be the beginning of us filming a feature length version of a short film series we made called Curley Beth where Ray played a killer little girl trying to get me. For the night, he had rented three horror films: Poltergeist, House on Haunted Hill and Night of the Living Dead. After making it through the wonderful Poltergeist, we put in Night of the Living Dead.
Never in my life had I watched a film like Night of the Living Dead. It was gorey, it was terrorfying, and it was a revalation in my life. These gorey horror films my dad said he hated could be good? Well, I decided to research this. I quickly discovered that in the world of horror that you needed to know your directors and actors and stories. From then on, I did all my research on a film and I realized how influential a director is. Before that, I didn’t realize that a director was pretty much the person who made the movie. He had the ultimate call on what goes in the movie and what doesn’t and is the one that creates all the visuals I loved. Why had I wanted to be an actor? After all that research, I decided that I wanted to be a director and have never looked back.
Flash forward to 2006. I had more short films that I had made than I could count. Three full length movies that I had written and tried to get made fell apart before my eyes as I was not interested enough in the project. Thanks to two performances the prior year, I had two Elly award nominations. Earlier that year I had become a big fan of the films of Kevin Smith. The type of comedy in them made me laugh hysterically, but at the same time they had a heart to them. These were films that were more than just pop culture banter, they were about real life and all the problems that arise out of everyday experiences. Even if the problems were not humanly possible, they were grounded in reality and every character still acted like a real person. This was what I wanted to write. This was what was calling to me.
As the school year began that year, Ms. Sakona told the Play Productions class about an acting festival called Laenea. It was for high school students and you can do anything from monologues to a one act show. My friend, Jorren Thornton, and I were doing a scene from The Odd Couple. One day, we had a subsitute teacher and Jorren and I started to go off on tangents and not working on our scene at all. We looked over and the substitute was watching intently. The next things out of his lips were:
“Are you guys acting? Cause this is entertaining as hell.”
Jorren and I then decided that we were not going to do someone else’s scene. We were going to do our own. Not only were we going to write a scene, but an entire one act play. Everybody expected only a comedy from us, but we were not about to do that. We were going to write a dramedy about two brothers who are re-united after several years at the funeral of their mother.
We sat down one day at my home and wrote the entire first act, 10 pages. Since we told the festival that the play would be 20 minutes we knew that the first and second acts needed to be 10 pages each. The first ten pages were 100% comical. We pulled our mutual love of film, obscure references to weird bands, 80’s cartoons and much more to form dialogue that flowed just as if somebody was talking.
Jorren wrote the second act, raw emotions spewed from his fingertips as he unveiled more and more about their pasts. Their relations with their parents. The naivety of the younger brother and the burden of secrets on the older brother’s.
We performed it and when we got into the judging room the first words we heard was, “Wow… We wish more people had seen this. This is what Leanea is about.”
It was the best day of my life.
And it was over several hours later.
At this point, not unveiled to anyone. I had been sort of having a self crisis. I really was giving less and less of a shit about acting. At the time of writing of “Forgive, Not Forget,” I was prepping for my audition for “The Music Man” which is one of my favorite shows of all time. Even though I loved the show, I was expecting to play Marcellus and not being the role that I always wanted to: Harold Hill. Basically, I was going to be re-doing my role as Moonface from a year earlier. This is something that didn’t appeal to me at all. As an actor I’ve never played similar characters, and I didn’t really want to begin. I was also having a large just self-doubt. Nobody seemed to want me to go into film but my friends at the time. I hadn’t made a short film for a very long time. Pretty much, I had nothing driving me. Leanea pulled me out of this and breathed new creative breath into me.
In fact, right after I decided I was going to make a solo play effort.
I wanted to do something different though.
Something that I had not seen on stage before.
I wanted TARANTINO on stage basically.
Hitmen with witty dialogue and time jumps. I came up with the plot of two guys who killed a man being interrogated. They each tell separate stories that makes the other one look much worse. The stories would be interlocked creating a very strange/funny story. I tried to figure it out. Much outlining was done to make it all make sense, but I couldn’t do it. I’m simply not that good yet.
The title for this script? “The Death of Joe Britz.” It was called this because the person who was murdered was named Joe Britz.
Then it came to me as I was walking to class with Luke. Out of nowhere the following line popped into my head:
“Hi, my name is Joe Britz and by the end of the day I’m going to be dead.”
I turned to Luke and said it. He looked at me like I was crazy. Then I began explaining it to him.
Throughout Spanish 3, I could not pay attention to Perea’s rambling. A new story started to unfold in my brain. A story about a guy, much like myself, who was visited by Death and told he has a day to live. Yea, sure, the idea had been done before, but it was an idea that I wanted to play with.
People who have asked me any advice on writing a script (I don’t know why they would), know that I always tell people to go into it with an outline. I did the single weakest outline of my life. There were no detailed scenes. No character outlines. Nothing. 5 words: the steps to accepting ones death. Those were all my notes and I began writing.
Even at that point, I knew I would not be doing theater much longer and decided that one of my last shows should be one I would love to play. At the same time, I knew I wanted to direct it. So I decided to write myself… well the same comical supporting role. This character was Death.
It began as a quirky little comedy. That was all it would be to me. Then I got to a certain point in the script. I’m pretty brushed up on my religious ideals and I’m fairly religious contrary to popular belief. Not religious as I enjoy going to Church and take the Bible word for word, but the type of religious where I believe in God and all that jazz. I don’t nessecarrily believe in all the views of one sect of a religion though, I pick and chose. At the same time, I love ancient culture mythology. This point of the script was the line “I am Death not Loki…” this left me with an opening to slyly add my own views on religion into the play.
From that moment on this play changed from the simple quirky comedy to a play with themes and ideals and so much more. It became a dramedy and I loved every moment of it.
Half way through writing it the band trip occurred and I was going to be away from my project for a full five days. I decided this was not going to happen. The first half was pretty much finished, I printed it out and bought myself a new notebook to right it on.
On the following 9 hour bus ride, I became totally anti-social. People would sit to me and I would put in my ear phones, listen to The Who or Elton John and write. Write. Write. Write. I would occasionally take a break to ask somebody for last names for certain characters (Kristina Garske came up with the last name for Russel).
About half-way through the trip we went to “Wicked” and after that, as life long friend Sarah Landsburgh fell asleep on me: I finished causing a big yell of joy which awoke her from her almost slumber.
The day after we returned, I talked to Parker about doing the show I wrote. Without even reading the script she went, “Okay, as long as you direct.” So there it was. I gave her the script though, just so she can double-check it all. The only comment I got from her back was, “There aren’t any girls.”
This was a lie because the scenes with Gwen were always in the show. It is true though that it was a show with five guy roles and one girl role. There was always an idea about a date scene that I had thought of. Truly, I liked the idea of Joe being so pathetic that he would not go on a date and I decided that the show was good enough without the scene.
It was early May at this point. I had no plans for the summer, my job search was not turning out too well. I was going to let Joe sit all summer and bring it to my attention again in September. Then, my plans to make the film version of “Forgive, Not Forget” fell through. Nothing. No film. I was not that worried about that though because I was still unsure about a visual style at this point.
Then Ray and I made impact. That was the visual style I wanted and frankly, I knew I was ready.
In my mind I started to form “The Death of Joe Britz” as a movie. The casting seemed simple at first: Kayla Sheehan as Gwen, as I wrote the role for her, Ray Tarara as Russel, since I sort of wrote the role loosely based on him. Then came my question: Do I want to act in it? For a while I decided not because I knew I was playing Death later that year, so it was no big deal to me. I decided to cast somebody who I had enjoyed his work my entire life, Kyle Hadley. Recently, Kyle and I had become very good friends after being casual acquaintances. We had both been heavily involved with theater in Woodland and it was strange we had never worked together. Still, I knew he would be 100% perfect for the role.
My problem was that I was left without a Joe. It was not that I didn’t know people who could take it. At this point, I had fallen in love with the character of Joe and I was too paranoid to trust the role to anybody.
We did the read through in early June. Every time I tried to do some filming for about a month nobody could do it. Then, one day everything clicked and we filmed. About two months later, we were 100% done filming (chronicled in earlier blogs). There was much laughing and some tears shed. We got it done.
I finished editing about a week after the movie was done and now we are working on the play.
That is it. Joe is slowly dying, one project after another and will be finally dead for me for a long time after January.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Kyle's Hadley Experience as Death
Kyle plays Death. Kyle freaking kicks ass as Death as he does in life. Kyle wrote this:
Most people who know Robbie and I know how similar we are. In fact, an on going joke is how he is my clone. We are both giant movie buffs and we are both awesome so it stand to reason that we would be friends. Robbie had sent me a few scripts one night, including the stage play The Death of Joe Britz and I thought it was well done. When he had told me he wanted to shoot it as a movie and that he wanted me for the part of Death, I was pretty excited. My current hiatus from theater had left a void in the part of me who loves performing and this was a chance to not only perform, but play something no one else had. It was also a chance to help out a friend who I think is very talented. Of course, Robbie had written the role for himself, so I wasn’t sure how open he would be at first.
The first read through took place like 3 months before anything got shot and I have to admit I was worried the thing would never actually get shot. Having spent high school and my first year in college around artists and film makers, I know how difficult it is to actually bring to life the things you want to make happen, especially something as long as The Death of Joe Britz. Even when I got the call that we were shooting one weekend I was still unsure that the whole thing would ever come together. But, I wanted to support Robbie and I was playing Death, so how could I not want to do this?!?
The first day of shooting this thing was really my first time shooting for a movie. Sure, my family had done a bunch of videos and stuff to get our extended family excited about family reunions (picture my family rapping over “you can’t touch this” talking about Lake Shasta) but I had never done any real acting on camera before. And right off the bat I was worried this film was doomed because the director was late. If you know me, you know I hate late people and this did not seem like a good start. After everyone was finally on set things went pretty well, except it seemed like important things were missing, like camera battery chargers. So we actually had to take some time to have someone go get one. Again, this was yet another worry for me because it seemed like things were not as in place as one would hope for something like this. Nonetheless, the first day of shooting turned out to be a success and it was a lot of fun. We got a lot of stuff filmed and we seemed to have a great time doing it. Robbie never turned into this stone cold serious hard ass and allowed us to have some fun during some of the messed up takes.
However, I did not get to film my big moment that day because of the sheer length of the section. So, it meant I would have to shoot for one more day, which was totally cool by me, except the next time we set to film, no one showed up. We didn’t have camera people, or cast members, so instead we sat and watched The Last Samurai and the beginning of The One. Movies are always cool with me, but it was a bit annoying because I could have been at home watching the 49er game. But, it is a great example of difficult it is to get things done when you are relying on your high school friends. It is a testament to Robbie that he even got the thing finished at all. When the actual final day of shooting came, there was an excitement in the house as we all knew it was almost done. I had to shoot what became known as “The Jesus Rant” and it took us over an hour to get the 5 page awesomefest completed. I was happy to get the chance to play with the monologues and get the chance to have it shot a few different times, so I could find a good mixture of loud, brash funny and the calm caring moments. I also got to eat some bomb ass cold pizza, which was good because when a shoot starts at 8:30 I don’t get to eat breakfast before hand.
In the end I am glad I got to take part of the movie and can’t wait to see what the final product will look like. I think with his next feature length film, Robbie will be a lot more prepared and some of the little things like missing camera batteries will not happen. Some of the time it felt like things we were being made up on the spot, but in the end it worked out pretty well, so I guess it is kind of hard to argue against it. I definitely hope to be involved in more movies in this area now because playing Death really filled the void but as the void starts to grow again, I will need something with which to fill it.
Most people who know Robbie and I know how similar we are. In fact, an on going joke is how he is my clone. We are both giant movie buffs and we are both awesome so it stand to reason that we would be friends. Robbie had sent me a few scripts one night, including the stage play The Death of Joe Britz and I thought it was well done. When he had told me he wanted to shoot it as a movie and that he wanted me for the part of Death, I was pretty excited. My current hiatus from theater had left a void in the part of me who loves performing and this was a chance to not only perform, but play something no one else had. It was also a chance to help out a friend who I think is very talented. Of course, Robbie had written the role for himself, so I wasn’t sure how open he would be at first.
The first read through took place like 3 months before anything got shot and I have to admit I was worried the thing would never actually get shot. Having spent high school and my first year in college around artists and film makers, I know how difficult it is to actually bring to life the things you want to make happen, especially something as long as The Death of Joe Britz. Even when I got the call that we were shooting one weekend I was still unsure that the whole thing would ever come together. But, I wanted to support Robbie and I was playing Death, so how could I not want to do this?!?
The first day of shooting this thing was really my first time shooting for a movie. Sure, my family had done a bunch of videos and stuff to get our extended family excited about family reunions (picture my family rapping over “you can’t touch this” talking about Lake Shasta) but I had never done any real acting on camera before. And right off the bat I was worried this film was doomed because the director was late. If you know me, you know I hate late people and this did not seem like a good start. After everyone was finally on set things went pretty well, except it seemed like important things were missing, like camera battery chargers. So we actually had to take some time to have someone go get one. Again, this was yet another worry for me because it seemed like things were not as in place as one would hope for something like this. Nonetheless, the first day of shooting turned out to be a success and it was a lot of fun. We got a lot of stuff filmed and we seemed to have a great time doing it. Robbie never turned into this stone cold serious hard ass and allowed us to have some fun during some of the messed up takes.
However, I did not get to film my big moment that day because of the sheer length of the section. So, it meant I would have to shoot for one more day, which was totally cool by me, except the next time we set to film, no one showed up. We didn’t have camera people, or cast members, so instead we sat and watched The Last Samurai and the beginning of The One. Movies are always cool with me, but it was a bit annoying because I could have been at home watching the 49er game. But, it is a great example of difficult it is to get things done when you are relying on your high school friends. It is a testament to Robbie that he even got the thing finished at all. When the actual final day of shooting came, there was an excitement in the house as we all knew it was almost done. I had to shoot what became known as “The Jesus Rant” and it took us over an hour to get the 5 page awesomefest completed. I was happy to get the chance to play with the monologues and get the chance to have it shot a few different times, so I could find a good mixture of loud, brash funny and the calm caring moments. I also got to eat some bomb ass cold pizza, which was good because when a shoot starts at 8:30 I don’t get to eat breakfast before hand.
In the end I am glad I got to take part of the movie and can’t wait to see what the final product will look like. I think with his next feature length film, Robbie will be a lot more prepared and some of the little things like missing camera batteries will not happen. Some of the time it felt like things we were being made up on the spot, but in the end it worked out pretty well, so I guess it is kind of hard to argue against it. I definitely hope to be involved in more movies in this area now because playing Death really filled the void but as the void starts to grow again, I will need something with which to fill it.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
The Bloopers of Joe Britz - Day 3 and 4
The final days of filming for "The Death of Joe Britz" bloopers. Enjoy.
Monday, October 15, 2007
Joe Britz Update
IT'S A WRAP!
After two days of shooting, we have finished enough to make the first rough cut of the movie.
I will be sending this to a program down in Florida where I would go there for a week and study film.
It is muy exciting.
So I will detail the two days for you:
SATURDAY
7:00 AM - Wake up. Shower. Fun.
8:00 AM - I showed up to John's house and awaiting outside was Miss Emylee Covell.
For those of you NOT aware of the casting change, Emylee is now playing Gwen because of scheduling conflicts with Kayla.
So, we arrive there and Luke shows up minutes later. I got all my stuff out of my car and moved them to John's room. Apparantly, John hadn't informed his mom that we would be showing up at 8, which is fine, I just love them all for letting us use their home for the setting of the movie. It has been an incredible help.
9:00 AM - We begin filming. This was to be the most intimate of all the filming, which was appropriate for the scenes in the movie. For those of you who haven't read the script, Gwen is Joe's finacee who died two years before the day he learns he is going to die (Don't worry, you are informed of this in the first five minutes so nothing is spoiled). Basically Gwen is the entire motivation behind the movie and the subplots and themes I worked into the script. In fact, I re-wrote a scene after I realized that Gwen was the center for this entire movie. So it was VERY important that these scene's be correct and be intimate. In fact, we only had three people on the set this day: Emylee, Luke and I.
We got some really awesome footage and Emylee captured Gwen perfectly. I'm not going to think I'm extremely good, so I will say this: dialouge in those scenes could come off very cheesy, but Emylee and I's interaction took out much of the cheesiness. In fact, only one line now, in my opinion, comes off as cheesy. One, which bothered me that I wrote forever and was thinking about cutting, was made into a sarcastic line and makes the scene come off very well. I don't know why this is, it could be that Emylee and I have always had the same sort of fast talking and bouncing off eachother in real life also. It is also interesting to note, that even though Emylee and I have done several shows together, this is the first time we have interacted acting wise as friends for more than one scene. It truly seems that anytime before this, if we had a fair amount of lines with eachother she was trying to expose me for not being a woman. I don't know, interesting thing I noticed (sort of like how Kyle and I have known eachother almost all my life and we have both been actively involved in the Woodland theater community for a very long time and this is the first time we have acted together).
So, we finished all of Gwen and Joe's stuff together in only an HOUR AND A HALF! Yup, by 10:30 we were done. It was a great experience and really, truly rocked. I've finally perfected this style of directing I've been using on this movie that is very much along the directing feeling of a Judd Apatow film (now, this movie is no where near as good as his films, but it looks sort of like one). We have it down to a science and it adds much more to the script than was there before. It creates a very colloquial feeling to the entire movie and not just "look at us, we are just saying our lines really well." There are pauses and there are stumbles, but everybody does that in real life and it works very well in bringing the script to life and I will definately try to adapt it somehow with the play of "The Death of Joe Britz."
SUNDAY:
7:00 AM - I woke up after being out until about 11 the night before and hunting for the gun that is featured in the film. I looked through my entire closet and took almost everything out of it. So, on the off chance that I put it in my desk, I check it... and it was there. I quickly shoved everything into my closet and got out of the house (I took a shower and that stuff also).
8:00 AM - Luke and I get there right on time and John's family is just leaving. That day, John did join us. This was the day that we had a lot of different things to pick up.
Kyle was the first person to show up at about 8:30 AM. I'm surprised he even made it to the house without getting into a crash, because the moment he stepped in the house he fell asleep on the sofa. I quickly woke him up with gun shots from John's airsoft gun.
So we filmed it, the infamous Jesus Rant. We finally got it on tape. It took maybe and hour and a half. Now, the scene is not that long, it is only 5 pages, but it is a difficult 5 pages for Death. Mainly because the scene goes as follows:
ONE PAGE = Death Speaking.
ONE LINE = Joe sets up Death's next part.
Not only that, but Death has to go from being very funny to very serious in this 5 page segment. It really has to show that Death does care about Joe, for some strange reason (once the movie is shown I will unviel why unless I already have).
Half way through this scene we did have an accident. I'm not going to lie either and say it was minor, because I almost killed Luke for it: Luke dropped my nice camera. Now, I've dropped cameras before and usually they get some chips in them, but nothing serious. So after the initial shock of "HOLY SHIT THERE GOES MY CAMERA!" I wasn't worried.
Until Luke tried to turn it on and said, "Um... Robbie... the screen isn't working." Neither the LCD screen or the Viewfinder was working which was NO GOOD. It ends up that it is only a minor problem though, thankfully.
Truthfully, this has been the scene I've been waiting to shoot since I said we would make this a movie. I know Kyle's acting is awesome and hilarious and I knew that he would rock it. And he did. In fact, he added one of my favorite parts to it now which I will blatantly steal for the play version when I play Death.
After that scene was done we went on to the scene with Michael and Padrutt which is the scene that I knew would have to be the most visually engaging and create tension. Luke (first time actor in a movie for us that hasn't been for school) and Sam did very good jobs as Michael and Padrutt and there are parts of their performance that is very eerie, just the way I wanted it. I tried to shoot it to create tension which I hope it does. This will be about the only scene with a lot of talking that isn't a monolouge that has music underneath it and it should be really good.
Ray showed up, we did his reshoots and BAM! I got to say the three words: "That's a wrap." It is the first time I've ever been able to say that with a feature film (I looked up the time and over an hour is a feature). Now, it isn't technically 100% complete, but for the florida project it is. We only have one more scene to shoot for the regular version and that is the date scene.
I'm also hoping to do a showing somewhere for the movie and while the cast memebers know where I hope I can have it, I won't unviel it until it is 100% certain.
Thanks,
Rob
After two days of shooting, we have finished enough to make the first rough cut of the movie.
I will be sending this to a program down in Florida where I would go there for a week and study film.
It is muy exciting.
So I will detail the two days for you:
SATURDAY
7:00 AM - Wake up. Shower. Fun.
8:00 AM - I showed up to John's house and awaiting outside was Miss Emylee Covell.
For those of you NOT aware of the casting change, Emylee is now playing Gwen because of scheduling conflicts with Kayla.
So, we arrive there and Luke shows up minutes later. I got all my stuff out of my car and moved them to John's room. Apparantly, John hadn't informed his mom that we would be showing up at 8, which is fine, I just love them all for letting us use their home for the setting of the movie. It has been an incredible help.
9:00 AM - We begin filming. This was to be the most intimate of all the filming, which was appropriate for the scenes in the movie. For those of you who haven't read the script, Gwen is Joe's finacee who died two years before the day he learns he is going to die (Don't worry, you are informed of this in the first five minutes so nothing is spoiled). Basically Gwen is the entire motivation behind the movie and the subplots and themes I worked into the script. In fact, I re-wrote a scene after I realized that Gwen was the center for this entire movie. So it was VERY important that these scene's be correct and be intimate. In fact, we only had three people on the set this day: Emylee, Luke and I.
We got some really awesome footage and Emylee captured Gwen perfectly. I'm not going to think I'm extremely good, so I will say this: dialouge in those scenes could come off very cheesy, but Emylee and I's interaction took out much of the cheesiness. In fact, only one line now, in my opinion, comes off as cheesy. One, which bothered me that I wrote forever and was thinking about cutting, was made into a sarcastic line and makes the scene come off very well. I don't know why this is, it could be that Emylee and I have always had the same sort of fast talking and bouncing off eachother in real life also. It is also interesting to note, that even though Emylee and I have done several shows together, this is the first time we have interacted acting wise as friends for more than one scene. It truly seems that anytime before this, if we had a fair amount of lines with eachother she was trying to expose me for not being a woman. I don't know, interesting thing I noticed (sort of like how Kyle and I have known eachother almost all my life and we have both been actively involved in the Woodland theater community for a very long time and this is the first time we have acted together).
So, we finished all of Gwen and Joe's stuff together in only an HOUR AND A HALF! Yup, by 10:30 we were done. It was a great experience and really, truly rocked. I've finally perfected this style of directing I've been using on this movie that is very much along the directing feeling of a Judd Apatow film (now, this movie is no where near as good as his films, but it looks sort of like one). We have it down to a science and it adds much more to the script than was there before. It creates a very colloquial feeling to the entire movie and not just "look at us, we are just saying our lines really well." There are pauses and there are stumbles, but everybody does that in real life and it works very well in bringing the script to life and I will definately try to adapt it somehow with the play of "The Death of Joe Britz."
SUNDAY:
7:00 AM - I woke up after being out until about 11 the night before and hunting for the gun that is featured in the film. I looked through my entire closet and took almost everything out of it. So, on the off chance that I put it in my desk, I check it... and it was there. I quickly shoved everything into my closet and got out of the house (I took a shower and that stuff also).
8:00 AM - Luke and I get there right on time and John's family is just leaving. That day, John did join us. This was the day that we had a lot of different things to pick up.
Kyle was the first person to show up at about 8:30 AM. I'm surprised he even made it to the house without getting into a crash, because the moment he stepped in the house he fell asleep on the sofa. I quickly woke him up with gun shots from John's airsoft gun.
So we filmed it, the infamous Jesus Rant. We finally got it on tape. It took maybe and hour and a half. Now, the scene is not that long, it is only 5 pages, but it is a difficult 5 pages for Death. Mainly because the scene goes as follows:
ONE PAGE = Death Speaking.
ONE LINE = Joe sets up Death's next part.
Not only that, but Death has to go from being very funny to very serious in this 5 page segment. It really has to show that Death does care about Joe, for some strange reason (once the movie is shown I will unviel why unless I already have).
Half way through this scene we did have an accident. I'm not going to lie either and say it was minor, because I almost killed Luke for it: Luke dropped my nice camera. Now, I've dropped cameras before and usually they get some chips in them, but nothing serious. So after the initial shock of "HOLY SHIT THERE GOES MY CAMERA!" I wasn't worried.
Until Luke tried to turn it on and said, "Um... Robbie... the screen isn't working." Neither the LCD screen or the Viewfinder was working which was NO GOOD. It ends up that it is only a minor problem though, thankfully.
Truthfully, this has been the scene I've been waiting to shoot since I said we would make this a movie. I know Kyle's acting is awesome and hilarious and I knew that he would rock it. And he did. In fact, he added one of my favorite parts to it now which I will blatantly steal for the play version when I play Death.
After that scene was done we went on to the scene with Michael and Padrutt which is the scene that I knew would have to be the most visually engaging and create tension. Luke (first time actor in a movie for us that hasn't been for school) and Sam did very good jobs as Michael and Padrutt and there are parts of their performance that is very eerie, just the way I wanted it. I tried to shoot it to create tension which I hope it does. This will be about the only scene with a lot of talking that isn't a monolouge that has music underneath it and it should be really good.
Ray showed up, we did his reshoots and BAM! I got to say the three words: "That's a wrap." It is the first time I've ever been able to say that with a feature film (I looked up the time and over an hour is a feature). Now, it isn't technically 100% complete, but for the florida project it is. We only have one more scene to shoot for the regular version and that is the date scene.
I'm also hoping to do a showing somewhere for the movie and while the cast memebers know where I hope I can have it, I won't unviel it until it is 100% certain.
Thanks,
Rob
Monday, September 10, 2007
Woes of a Student Filmmaker
Rob Blake here once more:
Last week I was posting ECSTATIC comments about "The Death of Joe Britz." Pretty much orgasming over how this thing that started shaping in my head last December was coming true. All the acting is incredible, we are moving along right on schedule everything is going just the same... except for the editing.
The editing, which was going spectacularly next week hit a snag on Thursday. I ran out of memory on my lap top to keep editing. Of course, I did not have any more memory available. Thus, I decided to go to my capture scratch and delete clips I had already finished. If any of you are familiar with a Mac, you know you have to drag most things to the trash to delete them. So I did, and played the clips without any trouble, thus I emptied my trash. I had only done this with a few clips, in case problems would arrise.... and boy did they.
I went right away to opening up Final Cut Pro again and BAM! "11 Clips Are Now Offline." FUCK!!! What have I done?! I can't recover that! (If I can, please somebody tell me).
Truthfully, we only lost about a minute of stuff, not that bad. I mean, it could be a LOT worse. Most of it is Ray's stuff (sorry Ray), but I still haven't checked if I have it on any tapes, but I believe I taped over the first days stuff.
So after this disaster, I decided to go get an external harddrive. There goes 100 bucks down the drains. Last of my birthday money, and delving into some of my "Once on this Island" money. So I have it, and now I'm transferring all the files over.
Seriously, I used to wonder things like "Why did it take Sam Raimi 4 years to make The Evil Dead?" Now I know why. Re-shoots and re-editing and re-a bunch of other random shit.
I mean, it is hard enough being a student filmmaker. You can't pay for locations to shoot, so you are left trying to scour the city and friend's homes for the perfect locations (which we found in John's house). You can't pay actors so you better hope you know people in community theater willing to help out, which luckily I do (thank you Kyle), or your friends better be willing and wanting to be in a film. You can't pay for equipment, so you have to use handheld video cameras and tripods you bought from Target and to top it all off: Nobody gives a rats ass about what you do unless it is under 10 minutes. Seriously, there is no student film festival that have over 10 minute limit. Especially Joe Britz will be stuck at a very awkward running time of about an hour and 5 minutes (65 pages in the script = 65 pages of screen time). It isn't long enough to be a feature, but not short enough to be a short. So where does it fall? Well, from research, it is technically a feature, but seriously, how many hour long movies are out there? Not many.
I'm still in love with this project, and am working on it everynight, but god damn. It gets frustrating.
Last week I was posting ECSTATIC comments about "The Death of Joe Britz." Pretty much orgasming over how this thing that started shaping in my head last December was coming true. All the acting is incredible, we are moving along right on schedule everything is going just the same... except for the editing.
The editing, which was going spectacularly next week hit a snag on Thursday. I ran out of memory on my lap top to keep editing. Of course, I did not have any more memory available. Thus, I decided to go to my capture scratch and delete clips I had already finished. If any of you are familiar with a Mac, you know you have to drag most things to the trash to delete them. So I did, and played the clips without any trouble, thus I emptied my trash. I had only done this with a few clips, in case problems would arrise.... and boy did they.
I went right away to opening up Final Cut Pro again and BAM! "11 Clips Are Now Offline." FUCK!!! What have I done?! I can't recover that! (If I can, please somebody tell me).
Truthfully, we only lost about a minute of stuff, not that bad. I mean, it could be a LOT worse. Most of it is Ray's stuff (sorry Ray), but I still haven't checked if I have it on any tapes, but I believe I taped over the first days stuff.
So after this disaster, I decided to go get an external harddrive. There goes 100 bucks down the drains. Last of my birthday money, and delving into some of my "Once on this Island" money. So I have it, and now I'm transferring all the files over.
Seriously, I used to wonder things like "Why did it take Sam Raimi 4 years to make The Evil Dead?" Now I know why. Re-shoots and re-editing and re-a bunch of other random shit.
I mean, it is hard enough being a student filmmaker. You can't pay for locations to shoot, so you are left trying to scour the city and friend's homes for the perfect locations (which we found in John's house). You can't pay actors so you better hope you know people in community theater willing to help out, which luckily I do (thank you Kyle), or your friends better be willing and wanting to be in a film. You can't pay for equipment, so you have to use handheld video cameras and tripods you bought from Target and to top it all off: Nobody gives a rats ass about what you do unless it is under 10 minutes. Seriously, there is no student film festival that have over 10 minute limit. Especially Joe Britz will be stuck at a very awkward running time of about an hour and 5 minutes (65 pages in the script = 65 pages of screen time). It isn't long enough to be a feature, but not short enough to be a short. So where does it fall? Well, from research, it is technically a feature, but seriously, how many hour long movies are out there? Not many.
I'm still in love with this project, and am working on it everynight, but god damn. It gets frustrating.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
The Bloopers of Joe Britz - Day 2
Enjoy. Plus, there is some stuff that is going to be used hidden in it.
Monday, September 3, 2007
UPDATE: The Death of Joe Britz
Rob here.
Today we, once again, filmed some of Joe Britz and today, we got a LOT done. Not just short comical scenes either. We got some great, hilarious, story pushing and dramatic scenes done today and I loved every minute of it.
The day began, for me, picking up Kyle. I knocked on his door, rang his door bell, and knocked on his door again. No answer, I ended up having to call Kayla (sorry Kayla) and get his number. I finally called, and got him. From there we made our way over to Johnny Boy's house.
Luke was waiting outside for us when we arrived. He looked distraught and angry... as Luke always does when he is just standing there starring into space. We made our way in and set up the house as we needed it.
Daniel Brian showed up at 1 and we began filming. We started with Death's first scene which was very funny. Took us about an hour to film. Boy was it worth it. A lot of very funny stuff and well...
As I have stated before, I wrote the role of Death for myself but decided to forfeit the role for the movie because I felt Kyle would be perfect. At the read through he proved it to me 100% that he would be able to do an incredibly good job at it, but after filming Kyle has proved something else to me: He is the only person who can play the role to its true level of what it can be. The looks he gives, the way he uses his hands and body. It is all perfect and he adds things that, well, I would never think of doing. Kyle has elevated Death from simply a comical role to a real person. Kyle has always been a big inspiration for me. We have a very similar build, and when I was younger I admired him in all the shows he used to do. I can remember him vividly in "Kiss Me Kate", "Joesph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", and "Grease" (he stole the show in each.)
We also filmed the final scene in the movie between Death and Joe and it was a very sweet scene. Touching and the fitting end to the movie. Simple, nice, and with a level of understanding between Death and Joe that I was hoping for.
Speaking of touching, Ray had to deliver the most touching monolouge in the movie today. When you see it, you will know what I'm talking about. It is my 2nd favorite bit of the show (the 1st being, what is now being called, "the Jesus Section" which we have yet to film) He did a great job of it. He really worked hard on memorizing it. He really does deliver it with a lot of power and anger at his friend who is seemingly ruining his life over a girl.
Also, Ray and I filmed a scene between Joe and Russel after Joe has spoken with Death. It is very funny, especially Ray's dance of victory. A lot of Ray pelvis, right in my face. I know what you are thinking: "Damn, that's hot" and, oh boy, it is. It was hilarious to see Ray do that. Seriously, I think Ray just likes to try and make me break character. Luke looked like he was almost in tears behind the camera during that dance.
We have finished all of Ray's stuff at the house. We have almost finished all of Kyle's stuff. All we have to do to film at the house now is Gwen's stuff. A big scene between Death and Joe, well, most of it and one scene with 2 smaller characers. Then we just have 1 day of location shooting.
I love this. Unlike my last 2 films I tried to get going [Passing Period(Finding Emo) and Night of the Teenage Zombies), we are so going to finish this.
On time even!
Today we, once again, filmed some of Joe Britz and today, we got a LOT done. Not just short comical scenes either. We got some great, hilarious, story pushing and dramatic scenes done today and I loved every minute of it.
The day began, for me, picking up Kyle. I knocked on his door, rang his door bell, and knocked on his door again. No answer, I ended up having to call Kayla (sorry Kayla) and get his number. I finally called, and got him. From there we made our way over to Johnny Boy's house.
Luke was waiting outside for us when we arrived. He looked distraught and angry... as Luke always does when he is just standing there starring into space. We made our way in and set up the house as we needed it.
Daniel Brian showed up at 1 and we began filming. We started with Death's first scene which was very funny. Took us about an hour to film. Boy was it worth it. A lot of very funny stuff and well...
As I have stated before, I wrote the role of Death for myself but decided to forfeit the role for the movie because I felt Kyle would be perfect. At the read through he proved it to me 100% that he would be able to do an incredibly good job at it, but after filming Kyle has proved something else to me: He is the only person who can play the role to its true level of what it can be. The looks he gives, the way he uses his hands and body. It is all perfect and he adds things that, well, I would never think of doing. Kyle has elevated Death from simply a comical role to a real person. Kyle has always been a big inspiration for me. We have a very similar build, and when I was younger I admired him in all the shows he used to do. I can remember him vividly in "Kiss Me Kate", "Joesph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", and "Grease" (he stole the show in each.)
We also filmed the final scene in the movie between Death and Joe and it was a very sweet scene. Touching and the fitting end to the movie. Simple, nice, and with a level of understanding between Death and Joe that I was hoping for.
Speaking of touching, Ray had to deliver the most touching monolouge in the movie today. When you see it, you will know what I'm talking about. It is my 2nd favorite bit of the show (the 1st being, what is now being called, "the Jesus Section" which we have yet to film) He did a great job of it. He really worked hard on memorizing it. He really does deliver it with a lot of power and anger at his friend who is seemingly ruining his life over a girl.
Also, Ray and I filmed a scene between Joe and Russel after Joe has spoken with Death. It is very funny, especially Ray's dance of victory. A lot of Ray pelvis, right in my face. I know what you are thinking: "Damn, that's hot" and, oh boy, it is. It was hilarious to see Ray do that. Seriously, I think Ray just likes to try and make me break character. Luke looked like he was almost in tears behind the camera during that dance.
We have finished all of Ray's stuff at the house. We have almost finished all of Kyle's stuff. All we have to do to film at the house now is Gwen's stuff. A big scene between Death and Joe, well, most of it and one scene with 2 smaller characers. Then we just have 1 day of location shooting.
I love this. Unlike my last 2 films I tried to get going [Passing Period(Finding Emo) and Night of the Teenage Zombies), we are so going to finish this.
On time even!
Monday, August 6, 2007
UPDATE: The Death of Joe Britz
Hey everybody,
Rob here again with more news on The Death of Joe Britz. Today I have spent mostly editing this movie version of it, and I must say I'm loving everything about it.
The film is turning out better than I thought it would. I mean, I really like the script and think it is very good (DUH! I wrote it), but I was worried about my skills as a director with a script that is mostly just dialouge. How was I going to keep it visually interesting? Well, not to toot my own horn, but I think I've done it, for at least the scenes we have filmed. It is largely thanks to John Lee. My DP (director of photography, not double penetration) for that day. I love his floating camera. It moves to exactly where I need it to with ease and grace while creating a very smooth and strangely elegant feel to the film. John also supplied his house which is perfect for what we needed. Also to largely thank are Butch Morales and Luke Koushmaro who were the camera people that day.
I must say that I'm overjoyed with the way it looks, feels, moves. It isn't just all about the dialouge either, there are some subliminal visual things throughout that help put you in the right mindset. It is partly on purpose, and partly on accident.
We still have a lot to film, and a lot to edit, but man do I love it.
I will update when we get the pictures from the day.
Rob here again with more news on The Death of Joe Britz. Today I have spent mostly editing this movie version of it, and I must say I'm loving everything about it.
The film is turning out better than I thought it would. I mean, I really like the script and think it is very good (DUH! I wrote it), but I was worried about my skills as a director with a script that is mostly just dialouge. How was I going to keep it visually interesting? Well, not to toot my own horn, but I think I've done it, for at least the scenes we have filmed. It is largely thanks to John Lee. My DP (director of photography, not double penetration) for that day. I love his floating camera. It moves to exactly where I need it to with ease and grace while creating a very smooth and strangely elegant feel to the film. John also supplied his house which is perfect for what we needed. Also to largely thank are Butch Morales and Luke Koushmaro who were the camera people that day.
I must say that I'm overjoyed with the way it looks, feels, moves. It isn't just all about the dialouge either, there are some subliminal visual things throughout that help put you in the right mindset. It is partly on purpose, and partly on accident.
We still have a lot to film, and a lot to edit, but man do I love it.
I will update when we get the pictures from the day.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Joe Britz and J-Lo Update
Hey people,
Rob here. Last week we began filming "The Death of Joe Britz." For those of you who don't know what that is yet, it is a movie version of a play that I wrote.
Filming began at 12 o'clock at John Lee's residence. But the adventure began right as I picked up Ray. We had some classic conversations and Ray hit me with the question to end all questions:
Would you rather fuck Michael (the State Theater guy) if he had a penis or if he had a vagina?
What you really have to ask yourself is this: which image is worse, Michael with his legs spread apart waiting for you or Michael jackhammering away inside you?
Now that I have put the worst imagry EVER into your mind. We got to John's house at 12, when we intended to get there at 11. (That is what I get for saying I will give everybody a fucking ride). Ray and I then hit Eric and Butch with the question on the way to filming. To which Eric has now become permanately scarred. In my opinion: mission accomplished already.
Filming was a very good day and we got a lot done. Mainly just comical scenes with Russel and Joe. We did tap into ONE emotional scene, which was infact simply a scene with Ray by himself. Nothing to heavy for the first day, but we did get a lot done.
I have given myself over a week before going back to the footage, and there is a lot of good stuff there. Some things are going to be difficult to lose. I will put up a blooper reel for each day of filming on youtube, I believe. Gives people some fun things to look at before they see any ACTUAL footage, which we will not be releasing until completed with filming the movie.
Just wanted to let people know how that is going.
J-Lo, our next short, will begin shooting as soon as possible. The script is hilarious, as I have said, and I can't wait to shoot it. We have run into a problem though: The building where we were going to film the climax, has burned down. So we are now on a hunt for another abandoned house, and one that doesn't have hobos living in it.
Thanks for your time,
Rob
Rob here. Last week we began filming "The Death of Joe Britz." For those of you who don't know what that is yet, it is a movie version of a play that I wrote.
Filming began at 12 o'clock at John Lee's residence. But the adventure began right as I picked up Ray. We had some classic conversations and Ray hit me with the question to end all questions:
Would you rather fuck Michael (the State Theater guy) if he had a penis or if he had a vagina?
What you really have to ask yourself is this: which image is worse, Michael with his legs spread apart waiting for you or Michael jackhammering away inside you?
Now that I have put the worst imagry EVER into your mind. We got to John's house at 12, when we intended to get there at 11. (That is what I get for saying I will give everybody a fucking ride). Ray and I then hit Eric and Butch with the question on the way to filming. To which Eric has now become permanately scarred. In my opinion: mission accomplished already.
Filming was a very good day and we got a lot done. Mainly just comical scenes with Russel and Joe. We did tap into ONE emotional scene, which was infact simply a scene with Ray by himself. Nothing to heavy for the first day, but we did get a lot done.
I have given myself over a week before going back to the footage, and there is a lot of good stuff there. Some things are going to be difficult to lose. I will put up a blooper reel for each day of filming on youtube, I believe. Gives people some fun things to look at before they see any ACTUAL footage, which we will not be releasing until completed with filming the movie.
Just wanted to let people know how that is going.
J-Lo, our next short, will begin shooting as soon as possible. The script is hilarious, as I have said, and I can't wait to shoot it. We have run into a problem though: The building where we were going to film the climax, has burned down. So we are now on a hunt for another abandoned house, and one that doesn't have hobos living in it.
Thanks for your time,
Rob
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Monster Hunters 4: El Pancho
The 4th installment of The Monster Hunters series.
Pancho(played by Fonso) has news from Sacramento: a new monster that is killing people off. Unfortunately for him, Ray and Robbie have disbanded but dire times call for dire measures. So Ray and Robbie re-unite to destroy the monster with their new found friend...
Fun Fact: First time in a Monster Hunters movie that there is somebody else other than Ray or Rob in the cast. Fonso plays Pancho.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Pancho(played by Fonso) has news from Sacramento: a new monster that is killing people off. Unfortunately for him, Ray and Robbie have disbanded but dire times call for dire measures. So Ray and Robbie re-unite to destroy the monster with their new found friend...
Fun Fact: First time in a Monster Hunters movie that there is somebody else other than Ray or Rob in the cast. Fonso plays Pancho.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Monster Hunters 3: Return to Woodland
Ray and Robbie have been out of business for the last 6 months, when the Monster in Woodland resurfaces.
Interesting Fact:
First time in a Monster Hunters movie that another character other than Ray or Robbie appear. They character is the Border Patrol (played by Rob)
This is probably the most flat out funny of the bunch.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Interesting Fact:
First time in a Monster Hunters movie that another character other than Ray or Robbie appear. They character is the Border Patrol (played by Rob)
This is probably the most flat out funny of the bunch.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Monster Hunters 2: The Search For Robbie
This movie picks up right where number 1 left off.
Robbie is kidnapped and tortured by the monster taking Ray's form after he molested Ray. Ray must come to his rescue and defeat the Monster.
This is a GIANT improvement on number 1. It has a plot and it follows it. It doesn't just seem like we just turned on the camera and had no idea what we were doing, as opposed to the last one. It is also twice as long.
Interesting Fact: Ray and Rob made this exactly the week after Monster Hunters: Unleashed and Uncut.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Robbie is kidnapped and tortured by the monster taking Ray's form after he molested Ray. Ray must come to his rescue and defeat the Monster.
This is a GIANT improvement on number 1. It has a plot and it follows it. It doesn't just seem like we just turned on the camera and had no idea what we were doing, as opposed to the last one. It is also twice as long.
Interesting Fact: Ray and Rob made this exactly the week after Monster Hunters: Unleashed and Uncut.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
MONSTER HUNTERS: Unleased and Uncut
We're posting this for 2 reasons:
1) It is the first movie made under the "Biohazard Pictures" title. Before it we used several different names, but this was technically the birth of Biohazard Pictures.
2) It is the first in the only series we have. It is definately the worst, and truthfully, it is one of the worst things we have done. If you watch this and don't enjoy it. We don't blame you, but watch the others. In fact, some things in this one are explained in number 2. (Which we would recommend just skipping to because there is a recap of this one at the beginning of it.)
Intesting Fact: This movie was technically in production for 2 years. Ray and Rob had made the original Monster Hunters 2 years early. They were never happy with the movie, except for the middle section and decided to re-shoot it. Rob, though, had lost weight and they both had matured greatly so that is why it appears in the movie the way it does.
Ray and Robbie are Monster Hunters and today they are investigating a barn on the outskirts of a small town called Woodland.
1) It is the first movie made under the "Biohazard Pictures" title. Before it we used several different names, but this was technically the birth of Biohazard Pictures.
2) It is the first in the only series we have. It is definately the worst, and truthfully, it is one of the worst things we have done. If you watch this and don't enjoy it. We don't blame you, but watch the others. In fact, some things in this one are explained in number 2. (Which we would recommend just skipping to because there is a recap of this one at the beginning of it.)
Intesting Fact: This movie was technically in production for 2 years. Ray and Rob had made the original Monster Hunters 2 years early. They were never happy with the movie, except for the middle section and decided to re-shoot it. Rob, though, had lost weight and they both had matured greatly so that is why it appears in the movie the way it does.
Ray and Robbie are Monster Hunters and today they are investigating a barn on the outskirts of a small town called Woodland.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
News From Biohazard Pictures
Okey dokey. So, we haven't made a new movie since IMPACT. Which was about 2 months ago. You people are probably going: WTF? is up this these guys (actually you aren't, since we have no readers yet... but yea).
Well, we've been busy with school and such and we have developed some ideas which are about to go into production. In fact, we were intended to shoot another movie the week after IMPACT and we were hoping to give you a new movie each week, but because of the threat to have the cops called on us by a hick who lives behind the State Theater we couldn't film the short and since then we have not made another film. We have at least 2 more shorts written which will be filmed soon. So do not worry.
We are also currently working on getting together a movie production of The Death of Joe Britz which is a play Rob wrote. We have casted and have gone through a read through of the script and will begin filming shortly. This will be about an hour long, because the script is about 64 pages. It is the story of Joe Britz (played by Rob Blake) who is unexpectedly visited by Death (played by Kyle Hadley) and is told he has a day left to live. Others in the cast include Ray Tarara, Kayla Sheehan, Sam Starr, Eric Alley, Amy Vyvlecka and Shannon Bass.
There is another project we are writing that we have tried to get off the ground several times under different scripts. Not really wanting to spill the beans yet to those who don't know, but fans of our stuff will hopefully be excited and really like it.
UPCOMING PROJECTS:
J-Lo (written by Ray Tarara)[Short]
Impact Sequel... sort of... (written by Daniel Cordova)[Short]
The Death of Joe Britz (written by Rob Blake)[Feature]
Secret Ray/Rob Project (written by Ray Tarara and Rob Blake)[Feature]
Thanks for your time,
Rob and Ray
Well, we've been busy with school and such and we have developed some ideas which are about to go into production. In fact, we were intended to shoot another movie the week after IMPACT and we were hoping to give you a new movie each week, but because of the threat to have the cops called on us by a hick who lives behind the State Theater we couldn't film the short and since then we have not made another film. We have at least 2 more shorts written which will be filmed soon. So do not worry.
We are also currently working on getting together a movie production of The Death of Joe Britz which is a play Rob wrote. We have casted and have gone through a read through of the script and will begin filming shortly. This will be about an hour long, because the script is about 64 pages. It is the story of Joe Britz (played by Rob Blake) who is unexpectedly visited by Death (played by Kyle Hadley) and is told he has a day left to live. Others in the cast include Ray Tarara, Kayla Sheehan, Sam Starr, Eric Alley, Amy Vyvlecka and Shannon Bass.
There is another project we are writing that we have tried to get off the ground several times under different scripts. Not really wanting to spill the beans yet to those who don't know, but fans of our stuff will hopefully be excited and really like it.
UPCOMING PROJECTS:
J-Lo (written by Ray Tarara)[Short]
Impact Sequel... sort of... (written by Daniel Cordova)[Short]
The Death of Joe Britz (written by Rob Blake)[Feature]
Secret Ray/Rob Project (written by Ray Tarara and Rob Blake)[Feature]
Thanks for your time,
Rob and Ray
Movies For The Mutated Of Mind
Hello,
This is the blog for Ray Tarara's and Rob Blake's production company: BIOHAZARD PICTURES.
Biohazard Pictures was first formed in 2004 for the short film Monster Hunters: Unleashed and Uncut but before that Ray and Rob had been long time colaborators on short films.
They first met when they were 9, in the summer of 1999, during a theater summer camp. Shortly afterwards they became friends because they shared a love of cheesy horror films. Shortly there after they made a short film called Curly Beth. Since then, they have been collaborating on short films.
Here we (Ray and Rob) will share our future projects and our short films on here.
Thanks For Your Time,
Ray and Rob
This is the blog for Ray Tarara's and Rob Blake's production company: BIOHAZARD PICTURES.
Biohazard Pictures was first formed in 2004 for the short film Monster Hunters: Unleashed and Uncut but before that Ray and Rob had been long time colaborators on short films.
They first met when they were 9, in the summer of 1999, during a theater summer camp. Shortly afterwards they became friends because they shared a love of cheesy horror films. Shortly there after they made a short film called Curly Beth. Since then, they have been collaborating on short films.
Here we (Ray and Rob) will share our future projects and our short films on here.
Thanks For Your Time,
Ray and Rob
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
