Film, Gadgets, and Geekdom

First, I’ve decided to re-institute the daily Twitter digest.  So, every day, you can have my 140 character little thoughts as they flow from me five or six at a time.  If you don’t like it… too bad.

Second, yesterday, I helped Jerry shoot Dustin’s short that will be shown at the KIFF in September.  It was another one of those shoots where I didn’t feel very useful, but in actuality, I know that I was.  I mean, boom mics can’t hold themselves up and dip into frame.

I think I am a lot like Jerry, I really need to be in control of everything to really feel like I accomplished something.  Regardless, the shoot went off the whole day without any major hitches in its getalong.  We got all the major elements of the story even while making some slight changes here and there.  Our two main actresses were absosmurfly phenomenal.  They knocked their roles right out of the park and were extremely patient when many others were getting impatient after multiple takes, or if they were getting frustrated with us, it didn’t show.  Some things in the script were just not quite possible with the resources and time we had.  This time we had an actual DP where I was, once again, the 1st AD, a role, at which, I need to improve.  One thing I know I need to do is actually learn the names of those I’m working with.  Of course, there was a time very close to the shoot that I almost wasn’t able to make it, but I suppose that’s not really an excuse.

I don’t care what anyone says, Wikipedia is an awesome resource for a lot of things.

Hopefully the final project will be put up on Vimeo rather than YouTube.  I really like how well Vimeo treats the source material, like a peg that fits snugly into place.  Whereas YouTube smashes the video with a steel mallet until it comes out as a twisted, terrible facsimile of its former self.  Nope, not biased.

On a semi-related note, Kelsey, my sister-in-law, may very well have a future as a makeup artist for our future projects if we can get her.  What she did with some acryllic paint was awesome, I just wish it wasn’t water-soluble.  The cut mark she painted looked very real from where I was standing on Dustin’s sink.  You read that right.  It did wash/wipe off halfway through the first take, but that’s the paint’s, the water’s, and the towel’s fault, not her’s.

Btw, if you want a red color in a bath to stay, try not to have the drain open.

Well, I need to get to bed.  You have a good night and a good day.