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.
Monday, October 29, 2007
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
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