A Night To Remember

Dreams do come true, and you want to know something? Sometimes they are just as wonderful as you thought that they would be. 

Last night was one of those nights. After a lifetime of watching, examining, enjoying and flat out being obsessed with movies the day finally came that I saw my big fat head on the big screen.  "The Death of Joe Britz" premiere was last night and I couldn't have imagined a more perfect evening. Well, I could but it is far away and begins with the phrase "And the Oscar for Best Picture goes to..." 

Last night though, that was something magical for me. It is strange when something like this happens, you plan and you plan and you plan for it. You spend money on advertising, you talk it up but you don't realize what is happening until you are there.

Before hand, I went to Woodstock's with much of the cast and several friends. My mom had gone before hand and step up the upstairs very nicely. All the conversations, everything. It didn't hit me that I was actually going to be seeing my film after it. Woodstock's is almost a garuntee if I see a film in Davis and it didn't feel like anything special except I was with some of my best friends and family having a great time. 

We took a quick stroll from there to the theater which is when it became rather real very quickly. I bought my ticket and walked in. It still didn't hit me while I was in the lobby, but then I took my first step into the theater.

It is strange when things creep up on you because it is the smallest thing that makes you realize what is actually going on. For me it was where to sit. A question that is often one of those things were people don't care about except that they are in the middle. This decision though... it hit me that this seat will be the one that I will view my film. That is when it hit me. 

The next 30 minutes as we waited for it to reach 7:30 was the most emotional 30 minutes I've had in my life. I went from happy to nervous to ecstatic to scared shitless almost every other minute. Then the lights dimmed. As I walked up to give the small "welcome" speech that I didn't have prepared at all it all hit me at once and I almost began to cry. It was wonderful seeing the hundred people who all decided to show up just to see my film. Scanning the crowd and seeing my closest friends and family. I can hardly remember the words of what I said except for this phrase "wow... this is real." 

The title popped up and for the next hour I heard the audience laugh and go "aw..." at all the right places. The fear I had was gone and it was filled with joy.

After it ended I had the cast join me on stage in this order:

Luke and Sam

Emylee

Kyle 

Ray

Now, I did have a method to my madness. It was mainly the size of the characters, but Ray had to be last with me. He and I have been waiting for this day forever and now that it finally came, while the majority of it was my doing, without Ray I would never have been in that position.

In short, this was an incredible evening and one I will remember to the day I day. The feeling, the people, the ups and downs of this entire process of getting this film made has been the best experience in my life thus far.

Thanks to everyone,

Rob Blake

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

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!