The days leading up to Friday, April 7 were a whirlwind of activity as we all rushed to finish up last minute details before heading to Tucson.   We were disappointed to learn that some of the folks we had lined up to assist with camera operation and lighting/grip had to drop out at the last minute.   Because it was so close to the weekend, we didn’t have much luck cold-calling folks from the Arizona film production directory.   Luckily, we were able to leverage some of Dick’s contacts to find a couple folks who were more than up for the task, and did a remarkable job on the set.    Those new folks included Andre Cox who admirably handled the grip work, and Paul Stapleton Smith who kicked butt as our lead gaffer.   We were so happy to find guys with as much experience as they were able to bring to the project at the last minute.    Felipe Raposo, a budding film student in Tucson, stepped in to provide assistance with a lot of the miscellaneous tasks we needed to complete.

I went down to Tucson early Friday after picking up some props and a dolly.   Once there, I worked with Andre and Dick on technical details relating to the camera, ensuring we could get successful transfers of the P2 memory card used by our Panasonic HVX-200 HD camera to the laptop I had brought.  That turned out to be a pretty painful experience, as we were forced to run over the public library next door multiple times in order to utilize their free Wi-fi to download latest drivers from Avid and Panasonic.     

Tony and Dave arrived with the grip truck later that day, and we were joined by Paul shortly thereafter.   We decided to unload as much of the grip equipment that night so that we could hit the ground running on Saturday morning.   Paul did an outstanding job in coordinating that activity, and role-modeled safety to the entire team in the process.   After we got the grip truck unloaded around 8 or so, we let everyone go home for the evening, while Dave, Tony, and myself hit ‘Claim Jumper’ for a much-needed petrol recharge.   Definitely hit the spot!   After picking up a few last minute props at Target and checking into the hotel, we returned to the building to complete some set work, finally deciding to call it a day around 12:30.  

Our lead actor, Kwane Vedrene, got into Tucson around 11:00 and had some difficulties checking into the hotel even though we left a key specifically for him and his room at the desk.   Apparently, the front desk clerk thought he gave his name and last initial as ‘Kwane L’, instead of ‘Kwane V’ so told him there wasn’t a key waiting for him (even though the envelope sitting at the front desk specifically said ‘for Kwane V’).    Guess she wasn’t too bright since how many ‘Kwane’s’ are gonna be staying there on a given night?   Luckily, we got that resolved for him, and he was able to get checked in after a bit of a delay.

After we wrapped up our set construction activities after midnight, I realized I had made the mistake of leaving Tony’s truck in the garage of the library which unbeknownst to me closed at 6 pm, so we had to wait till the next day to retrieve it.  Consequently, I crammed into the grip truck with Dave and Tony to head back to the hotel (about an 18 minute drive).  It must have been a loooooong day for me ’cause once we got to the hotel, I realized I had left my suitcase back at the set location, so Tony had to drive me back there to pick it up.   Finally, we got back to the hotel around 1:30 am, tired as hell, and knowing there was but a few hours of sleep to catch before the official start of shooting.

We awoke around 6:30, grabbed breakfast with Kwane at the hotel, and then proceeded to the building ready for a full day of film shooting.   The call time wasn’t until 9:30 since we anticipated a couple people coming down from Phoenix that morning, so we used that time between 8-9:30 to work on rehearsal activity with Kwane, as well as last minute touch-ups to the set.  Dick, Paul, and Andre arrived at 9:00 and made preparations for setting up the initial scenes in the office, getting the lighting prepped and all the fun stuff associated with that.   Brian arrived shortly thereafter to get the audio stuff ready.

While Dave finalized aspects of the shot list and prepared for his forthcoming assistant director role, I worked with Dick and Kwane on blocking for the initial scenes.   Several of the early scenes involved having the camera on a dolly track, so there was additional setup time involved with that.   Tony meanwhile worked behind the scenes to coordinate aspects for some set changes needed in the adjoining room, and made sure to capture several of those great photographs you can catch on the other pages of the web site.

There was some concern as the morning progressed that we were starting to fall behind schedule since we hadn’t shot the first scene yet and it was moving closer to the noon-time hour.   Once we got into a rhythm though, the whole team started to gel, and we started knocking out shots in excellent time.   We broke around 1:30-2:00 to scarf down some Subway sandwiches, but quickly returned to the filming routines.    We did make adjustments to the schedule as we moved on, primarily because we had a couple set location changes scheduled for the first day, and it became clear that it would be much easier to try to finish up the main office scenes that day, and move to the adjoining office and hallway scenes the following day.   

Throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday, we were blessed with additional assistance provided by some of Dick’s friends who visited the set.   Santiago visited us for a little while on Saturday, providing some input on the best way to align props for some of the complicated scenes.  Additionally, Rogelio, proved to be a godsend with all the assistance he provided to our lighting crew, as well as supplementing Tony with the still camera shots.

As Saturday wore on, I felt more and more like this was going to be an amazing film.   The shots Dick was able to choreograph were remarkable, and the lighting set up such the perfect mood for the dramatic scenes.   Kwane continued to amaze all of us with his tremendous ability to bring the character of ‘Roger’ to life, even though it was such a physically and emotionally draining part.   I can’t wait till folks see how great the ‘door’ scenes with the accompanying shadows turn out.   Better than even I visualized when originally penning the first draft of the script.   The camera seemed to do an admirable job in capturing the essence of the story cinematically.   Even with the downtime required to offload the solid state memory card from the HD camera, we were able to schedule it in such a way that minimal impact was felt to the production.   The 4 Gig card we had could hold 10 minutes of HD footage before requiring a purge to the laptop (a process which took between 4-7 minutes to complete).

The afternoon progressed smoothly as we continued to crank through all of the main office scenes.   A few of us during the breaks, ventured downstairs to the basement of the building to see the creepy vault originally discovered by Tony, Dave, and myself during a visit to the building a few weeks prior.   It was definitely a very odd setting, with no lights seemingly available, and only a flashlight to guide us.  Seeing as there used to be a bank in the building many years before, it was natural to find one of those big steel door vaults securing the bank’s valuables.   However, what was strange was within the vault, we found children’s toys, a plate on the floor with a half eaten roll, a velvet painting on the floor, and a few other strange incidentals.   Was as if someone had been locked in there some period ago.   Definitely gave everyone the heeby-jeebies!  At least it provided a brief reprieve from the grueling set activites for some of us.

  
 We broke for dinner (Papa John’s pizza) around 8:30-9:00, before moving the set-up downstairs to film the elevator scenes.   By that time, everyone was getting a bit tired and cranky, so we tried to move through those scenes as expediently as possible.   If I recall correctly, we called it a day around 10:00-10:30 and made some plans for the next day’s shoot.   The Tucson film office had informed us that the annual city ‘pub crawl’ was happening that evening just a few blocks away from where the shoot was being done (on Congress).   At the beginning of the day, I had hopes that we’d all get to go over there to relax and enjoy a few beers along with the music.   Alas, not a one of us had the energy to make it over to the ‘pub crawl’.   Oh, well, maybe next year!

For that night, some of us moved over to the Hilton where we had additional hotel rooms waiting.  I had a feeling none of us would have trouble sleeping that night after an exhausting (but rewarding) day of shooting.

We made it back to the set at 8 in the morning, prepared for another full day of filmmaking.  One of our actors, Wayne, reminded me that although I had remembered the donuts and pastries, I had made the monumental mistake of not bringing coffee to the set that morning…..aaaaaaghhh!  How could I make such a transgression?     Luckily Tony saved the day by grabbing coffee for everyone at a nearby diner.   Disaster barely averted!  

The previous day’s experience had definitely allowed us to get into a groove much earlier on in the day.   We immediately began working on the shots for the adjoining office (after the guys got the door swapped from the original office into the adjoining office since we had to re-use that particular prop).    Again, Dick and our lighting crew did an amazing job in getting a perfect (gloomy, dark, and smoky) atmosphere created in that office.   And the shots of Kwane moving through the office and the accompanying shadows are delicious to say the least (Good job, Dick!).

It was beginning to move into the lunch hour, so we wrapped up everything on the 4th floor, and moved our operations to the 2nd floor in preparation for the long hallway shots.   We brought in lunch from a local diner, and again ate it hastily so we could progress to the next phase.  

Andre had the great idea of using green-screens at the end of both hallways to allow us to provide an infinite hallway scene.   Unfortunately, after the extensive set-up was completed for that, to our disappointment, we discovered we had too much green spill reflected in the painted bricks all down the hallway.  Would have been a nightmare to remove in post.   So the guys worked to replace the green-screen with black material which would still give an impression at some level of an infinitely long and dark space.  

It was approaching 2:00 pm, and we knew we had a number of hallway shots still left, and not a whole lot of time.   At this point, I definitely started worrying that we might not finish shooting that day.   But in times of pressure, I can proudly say this bunch of professionals (meaning everyone associated) executed flawlessly.    While several folks worked upstairs to break down the office sets, the other half started cranking through hallway shots, one after the other, while never sacrificing quality.    The film we were getting looked amazing.   And the scenes with the camera on the dolly in the hallway turned out better than anyone expected.   Dick came up with a lighting twist for one of the scenes of Kwane standing in the hallway which should look spectacular.

We wrapped up all the photography around 7:15, and while weary, we all felt a huge sense of accomplishment.   We knew there was still several hours of packing the grip truck still left, but the adrenaline from such a successful weekend gave us the energy to get it done. 

And with that, the filming piece of the project came to an end.   We still have voice-over and editing, but we reached a major milestone on that warm April evening in Tucson.   We actually made a movie!      Thanks to everyone who gave up so much of their time and energy to making this weekend a reality.   It is appreciated more than you will know!

And now, the editing adventure begins!

Cheers for now,
Peter

We all knew there was oodles of film pre-production stuff that we had to complete once we returned from the Lone Star state, so we put the nose to the grindstone and executed to the plan.   Some unfinished business from my last posting was announcing the actor we had chosen for the role.   His name is Kwane Vedrene, and he blew us all away during the audition process.   He has a very powerful presence which will translate well into the role of our mysterious protagonist within the film.

So as I alluded to in last posting, our Panasonic HVX-200 HD camera did indeed arrive, and so far everyone has been impressed with just how well it performs.    I think it will be the perfect complement to a great script and great cast, allowing an amazing blow-up to theatre sized film prints.    Our DP, Dick Fisher, is currently running the camera through its paces, making sure we comprehend all the camera’s bells and whistles ahead of the shoot.

As of today, we’re also happy to announce a new sound engineer brought on board the project, Brian Ashcraft.   Brian will handle monitoring sound and running the mixing board (consisting of a Presonus Firebox linked via Firewire with a laptop running Cubase software as the mixer).   We know Brian will do a fantastic job in his role!

Back to previous posting reference, I mentioned we had brought a set designer in to help give us the 1950’s style office mood and look.   His name is Xuzheng He, and just this past weekend, Tony, Dave, and myself worked all weekend long with Xuzheng to get our sets built down in Tucson.   It was an exhausting weekend for us, but we were pleased with the look we were able to achieve with all that work.   Because we needed doors with opaque glass running down the length of the hallway, we improvised some clever solutions, combining several doors we handcrafted with glass and trim, with a few ‘faux glass’ windowed doors, whereby we applied paint to a rectangular area on the door, and then placed opaque plastic ceiling panels we found laying around the building over those section of the door.   It’s amazing how real those faux glass doors look, and the camera will never tell the difference .  
As far as the actual office, we outfitted one of the rooms in the building, giving it a dark, lonely appearance which will look great on film.   We’ve still got a little bit of work to decorate it, but will plan to wrap that up in the next week.

Here’s some pics of the set building process from last weekend:
(editorial note:  Wordpress is giving me problems for some reason in uploading photos to the blog, so till I resolve that, try this link):  http://www.crossmediaproductions.com/BureauPics.html

Cheers for now!
Peter

How about with our casting of the lead character?   We held the auditions in early February, and after whittling through more than 65+ qualified candidates, we decided to bring in 9 for a rigorous audition.   Dave worked nearly 24 x 7 for those 2 weeks leading up to the auditions, but his work paid off nicely, as all 9 of the candidates proved to be highly skilled.   In fact, it took us twice as long as we had estimated to narrow it down to the finalist, since we ‘hemmed and hawed’ repeatedly over who was the perfect actor for this role.   Dave, Tony, and myself all had our lists ranking each actor, and after a couple weeks of reconciling those lists, we finally identified that perfect actor.    And without further ado, the actor we chose was………   actually, I’ll announce that in follow up post      We’re still working on getting the contract signed and sealed, and the second that happens, I’ll update this blog (promise)!

We also finalized the location for the shoot.   For the longest time, we were sure it would be filmed at the historical Phoenix agricultural building in downtown.  It had the old, spooky feel we were looking for, and they were very willing to work with us for filming in our desired timeframe.    However, on the suggestion of our cinematographer (Dick), we decided to give Tucson a quick peek, and boy, did that turn out to be a good move.   The city owned an older style 4 story building downtown which had been deserted for a number of years.   They also provided us incentives which were too amazing to pass up.   So we decided to go with that building for the shoot.   It provides us a clean slate, whereby we can go in over a weekend with power tools and props, and create a perfect setting for ‘The Bureau’.

 Good news on that laggard camera delay I referenced previously.   I was getting nervous because the company I ordered it from still had no ETA as of a week ago.   Consequently, I decided to pre-order it from 2 other places which had a shorter wait-list.   One of those bets paid off this past week, as VMI (in San Jose area) called me and indicated they could ship one to me that same day.   So the biggest question mark we had ahead of our planned shoot timeframe, has been resolved.  The camera will be ready, and so will we

We’ve also been working with a set designer in Tucson to create the perfect environment for the film.   He’s very experienced, and I’ll provide more details on his role in upcoming blog (after additional contract details have been finalized).

One final detail that still remains open is the casting for the janitor role.  We will evaluate some potential candidates in the Tucson area over the next couple weeks for this minor story role.   Don’t anticipate it should be too difficult to fill this well ahead of the shoot date.

Speaking of shoot date, everything looks to be aligned for an April 1/2 shoot  (I know, I know… how could we choose April Fool’s Day?)     Sometimes you just can’t avoid those things.   I imagine it will make for lighter-hearted set anyways.

Ok, gotta go… the Oscars are about to start.   Hopefully, next year work from Cross-Media Productions will have a part in that Hollywood gala

Take Care!
peter

 One of the highlights for us over the last month was bringing a cinematographer on board, Dick Fisher, who we are confident will translate the dark vision of the short story into a memorable big screen experience.    Dick brings nearly 30 years of film and video experience onto the project.   He has produced and directed several features over the years.   One of his best known films is the 1995 Sundance favorite, ‘The Brothers McMullen’, which turned out to be the most profitable film of that year, and the 2nd highest grossing independent movie of 1995.  Dick served as producer, cinematographer, and editor on that great movie.   You can read more about Dick’s films at the website, www.dickfisher.net .

Originally, we were hoping to film the short over a weekend in late February, however, a couple of factors are combining to force us to delay the shoot approximately a month to the latter part of March.   The biggest problem has been procuring the HD camera we had ordered back in December.  Apparently, Panasonic has run into some manufacturing issues which has caused them to ship far fewer HVX-200’s than they originally planned.   While we still don’t have an estimated arrival date for the camera, many knowledgable sources are speculating it will be early March before ours is shipped.  Every obstacle has a silver lining though, and in this case the camera delay will certainly allow us additional time to ensure we find the perfect location and actor for the film.

Related to the search for an actor, we’re planning to hold auditions for 8-10 local (to PHX) actors on Feb. 04.   We’re still crossing our fingers that we’ll find that one perfect actor locally before we look at bringing in any of a number of actors from CA and NV who have expressed interest in playing the lead based on our posting at nowcasting.com and imdbpro.com.   Dave has been working tirelessly over the last several weeks in screening and scheduling auditions, and I know he’ll be glad once we get past this phase of pre-production

As far as location, we had narrowed it down to two choices in downtown PHX (Luir Towers and the AZ Dept. of Agriculture building), but closer inspection of those locations revealed some inadequacies.  Consequently,  we will take the additional time afforded by the shoot reschedule to screen a few other potential locations before making a final decision in the next couple weeks.

We’re nearly complete in rounding out the remaining crew positions for the film, so I’ll plan on posting all those folks’ names in forthcoming blog updates.

Hope everyone’s new year is off to a good start!   Expect more updates in the next couple weeks!

Cheerio!

 To recap, we negotiated film rights for the short story with Steve back in October.  We all appreciate Steve allowing us to weave his awesome short story into a full screen masterpiece (we hope )!

We finished adapting the story into script form back in early December (only took about 8 revs), registering our last rev with the Writer’s Guild.  We’re pretty happy how it looks in script form, and hope it translates well to the screen.

Location scouting has extended longer than we had hoped.  We’ve looked at a number of potential shoot locations over the last 2 months, but have yet to settle on a perfect locale.  One potential office location in downtown Phoenix would make a wonderful site, however, we haven’t been able to negotiate acceptable terms for it on both sides.  We also considered some of the older buildings on Arizona State campus for the shoot, but it appears the red-tape for filming on campus may be too daunting for us to move ahead with that site.  The good things about the holiday season is it does give us a break from our ‘other’ jobs to evaluate more sites.   We’ll be spending time during this last week of December doing further scouting in downtown Phoenix.  Wish us luck in securing that perfect location!

As far as filming formats, we finally decided to go HD.  Originally, we planned to shoot with the Panasonic DVX100A, which is a great camera that a number of independent films have leveraged (including this year’s documentary favorite ‘Murderball’).   However, we want to provide film festivals the maximum resolution, so instead CMP is investing in the brand new HD camera from Panasonic (HDX200).  This camera provides 24p capabilities (equivalent to film look), plus the added advantage of recording in DVCPro-HD format, which provides a much improved resolution over the very compressed DV format of the other cameras we considered (DVX, Canon XL-2, Sony FX, etc).    I think this camera will give ‘Bureau’ a phenomenal look on the big screen.

There are currently multiple national casting calls out right now for our main ‘Bureau’ protagonist (who we lovingly refer to in pre-production as ‘Roger’).  We were hoping to find the perfect actor for the role in Phoenix area, but so far our best candidates are from LA area (surprise, surprise).  The plan is to close on the actors for the short film no later than Jan. 20.

Lastly, we’re still determining whether to bring in an outside cinematographer given relative unfamiliarity with this new HD camera.   We’ll make that call here in the next couple weeks.  We’ll need someone with good ‘lighting’ expertise as well since we hear those HD cameras can be kind of sensitive, and require just the right lighting ‘touch’ to give the perfect cinematic experience.

Our goal right now is to shoot the short in the mid-February timeframe.   We’re anticipating it should be about a 2 day shoot.  That will give us a chance to start the editing process, and at least have some shareable clips from ‘Bureau’ available for our trip to ‘South By Southwest’ film festival in Austin (3/10-3/15).   Never too early to generate buzz for this project ahead of other forthcoming film festivals .

Well, that’s where we’ve been with this project, and where we’re headed.   The next couple months should be a whirlwind of activity for everyone at CMP.

Anyways, hope everyone has a wonderful New Year, and I’ll try to keep this updated as much as possible in 2006!

Cheerio!