I had a day off in Australia, so I went surfing with my friends from the agency in world famous Bondi Beach.
We went on a tech scout of all our locations yesterday, so I got to get a better view of the Opera house. It's one of those buildings that hard to photograph poorly.
In second picture are Eric, Mat and Jason from the agency - clearly they're having a good time.
So I'm Sydney this week. Yes, that would be Sydney, Australia - I'll explain later.
In te meantime, here are some pictures...
It's warm and wet, and I'm a lttle buzzed...
I know it's been far too long since I've updated any of this stuff (I think I do this every 3 months), but as you will soon see things have been pretty busy. I'm really going to try to keep the world more up to date...
Synecdoche, New York opened last weekend in New York and Los Angeles. I'll be linking to some of the reviews here. For the most people critics are really loving the film. There are a few who don;t seem to get into it, bt that was expected as it's a cerebral workout. If you haven't downloaded the trailer yet, you must:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/synecdochenewyork/
On another note, there is an incredible film that you should see - Let the Right One In. It's a swedish vampire story that is just amazing!!!
http://www.apple.com/trailers/magnolia/lettherightonein/
Hope you enjoy. I'll post more soon. Send me a note and let me know that soomeone is actually reading this stuff - it may help.
Also, be sure to check out Beth's blog - she's much better at this than I am:
http://cookiepiebklyn.blogspot.com/
Followig is a link to Filmmaker magazine. I have been honored as one of the 25 new faces of independent cinema:
http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/summer2008/25faces_4.php
It is sort of a shock to find myself smack dab in the middle of the independent film world when my roots are from deep within the Studio system. When I left Los Angeles nearly 4 years ago, I really wanted to spend more time working on risky character driven films. The only problem was that my experience was in visual effects, which one doesn't often find in the indie world. Obviously, the money that independent filmmakers have to spend on visual effects is usually laughable, but I've found that there are always ways to make things work without spending tons of money.
All this being said, the one thing that the profile fails to mention, that I would like to air here is that my goal is to be directing these films, and to that end, I have become a screenwriter. My writing partner Doug and I have recently finished our first script. It's a dark romantic comedy about the first few months of marriage between a 30 something chef and his vampire wife. If you happen to be a studio head - I'll gladly send you the script.
Thanks for reading.
Well, let's just say its warm. Why am I awake? You may be wondering. I have no clue. Couldn't sleep. I'm not overly stressed or wound up, just couldn't seem to get comfortable.
So I thought I'd take the time and update the blog. I've been doing some fun stuff lately:
I've been scouting with the crew of an upcoming ABC television pilot in order to recreate New Year's eve in Times Square, so I got to shoot some pretty cool photos in a place that I would never normally have access to.
Also, got to shoot yet another Verizon Wireless commercial this time in a muddy New York city construction site while it rained. That part wasn't really exciting, but I can check that one off the list of things I've never had any intention or desire to do. "Es la Compania." The DP was Fred Elmes whom I got to know quite well working on Synecdoche, NY, so it was like a little reunion for me.
The film Sleep Dealer that I worked on for the last 3 years has been hitting the festival circuit:
After taking the Sloan prize at Sundance in January...
It won the prize at The Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival. Go here if you speak French: http://www.nifff.ch/index.php?section=2.
It was at the Nantucket Film Festival last month: http://www.nantucketfilmfestival.org/index.php.
It's off to the Jerusalem Film Festival this weekend: http://www.jff.org.il/?CategoryID=549&ArticleID=380, so if you happen to be in Jerusalem, be sure to check it out.
I'm going to try to go back to sleep now.
I had a bachelor party in Vegas for my friend Pete over the weekend. It was a good Vegas trip! But I'm not going to talk too much about that - sorry. No pictures either.
I'm in Los Angeles for a few days with the hope of motivating some professional changes. I have a script that I recently finished with my writing partner Doug, and I'm hoping to drum up some interest in that. It was a good exercise for me to do because I've always claimed that "I'm not a writer!" which was really just a way to avoid attempting it. It turns out, I kind of enjoyed it.
Also, I'm exploring the world of commercial directing and I'm hoping to get some balls rolling on that front. 
I got a call this morning asking if I was available for a commercial shoot in Johannesberg. I've been there once for another job, and I had an incredible experience. I'll put some photos of that up later. The catch with this one was that they needed me to leave tonight! But alas, I didn't bring my passport with me. The irony there is that when I was I leaving NY on Friday, I said to my wife, I don;t think I'll be needing my passport on this trip, and I made a conscious choice to eave it behind - I don't think I'll be making that mistake again. If you want to see some pictures from that trip, click here
The good news is that we have a wedding to go to in Rhinebeck, NY this weekend. I love the Hudson Valley.
That's all for now.
I find myself wrapping out of the latest project (Synecdoche, NY) and with a little spare time on my hands. Which is good - It's suddenly springtime in NY and I'm off. WOW! That feels good. I still have a few things to do, like pack out of my office and some final paperwork, but the stressful part of my job is finished. Now I need to figure out what's next.
I spent the morning at the Supreme Court building - It's true I was summoned for Jury Duty. I think I got lucky scheduling my Jury Duty during Passover in NY. After about 4 hours of sitting around waiting to be called, we were all summarily dismissed for the next 8 years! Part of me is sad, but the other part is so relieved. Last year, Beth was selected for a murder trial and she served for two full weeks before they declared a mistrial. I really want to do my part as long as it doesn't take more than a few days - is that wrong?
All in it's been a pretty great day. I hope keep the blog active until things get busy again, and maybe even after that. I've been exploring some pretty interesting projects, including a script that I've co-written and hope to be releasing into the world in the next month. There well no doubt be much to write about that process.
Also, I've been looking to step up the financial caliber of my projects a bit. Working on NY independent films has been great, but I'd like to do something with some more financial resources so that I can don things the way I know they should be done and not feel like I'm constantly cutting corners to save a buck. More on this soon.
Until next time -
I seem to be spending a great deal of time in Toronto lately. But here's the irony, I leave New York on Saturday morning and return to NY on Sunday night. Not only have I been commuting to Toronto, but I'm doing it on the weekends, which means I get the pleasure of working all week, then leaving the country and working all weekend, too. I really shouldn't complain...
I have to apologize to anyone who's actually reading this thing, that it's been a really really long time since I've updated anything. It's hard to justify writing things down if you don't think anyone is reading them. I'm going to make another attempt to keep you informed as to what's happening in my life. Sorry.
As you can tell from the header, I've been in Toronto a few times in the last few weeks. This is my 3rd trip since February, and I'll be coming back in two weeks. We have been slowly completing the Digital Intermediate for Synecdoche, New York. What, you may ask, is a digital intermediate or DI? DI - This is a relatively new process where a film's negative is scanned into digital files, then those files are color balanced and corrected to look how the cinematographer and director want them to. Then the film is recorded out to a new negative, and that negative is used to make the prints for distribution. The process became popular after the Coen Brother's O Brother Where Art Thou, and it's become pretty standard.
Normally this process would be done over a two week period at the end of the schedule, but due to availabilities of certain key people we have had to tart early and spread the process out over a number of weekends. This complicates my world a bit because I'm having to deliver temp versions of shots so that we can adjust the color and then redeliver the finished shots and apply the look to the new material.
I hope some of this makes sense. The bottom line is that I'll be back in Toronto for the last time on this project in a little over a week.
I like it here. It's flat and cold, but nice. I am staying at the Four Seasons, which isn't awful. They also do something really great at the airport here that I think every airport in the universe should implement. When you hire a car service upon arriving in Toronto, you walk out of the terminal and you go to a kiosk and tell them that you've arrived. They pick up the phone and in less than a minute, your car pulls. There's no choas, no lines, no standing on the curb waiting for 20 minutes while your driver circles the airport six times. It really makes for a very relaxed process. I can't tell you how nice that is.
I am looking forward to a nice meal tonight, then it's back home to my lovely wife in tomorrow.
I'll try to get some more pictures up from the last 6 months in a few days. Until then, let me know if you're out there.
Beth is out of town for a week, which makes me very sad and lonely. She's off doing something extremely noble. She's volunteered with the Culinary Corps to go to New Orleans and cook for victims of the Katrina disaster and aid workers. She'll be gone for a week, so I decided this would be a great opportunity to bury myself in my car. If you want the troubled history, follow this link http://www.mydadscorvette.com.
Because Corvette Repair has been doing such a stellar job of the chassis work, I need to gain some ground on the body in order for them to re-mount it on top of the chassis. Before this can be done, I need to clean and paint the engine compartment. Why, you may ask? Well, I've been doing this whole thing backwards - Because I originally took the body off the car in Arizona and took the chassis apart there, I had to rebuild the chassis first. The preferable way would have been to complete the body restoration work (all but the paint) BEFORE lifting it off the chassis, but no-one told me that. Oh, well.
So now that the chassis is nearly finished. The engine and transmission are mounted, the suspension and wheels are rebuilt, the fuel lines and brake lines are in place, the chassis is ready for its body. As you can see by the pictures the body has a long way to go before its ready.
The shop has been doing the bulk of the mechanical work, while I really haven't been doing much of anything but paying the bills an shlepping parts to Long Island every other week.
I put on my grubbiest clothes and headed over to the garage that I'm renting on Sackett Street in Brooklyn. It's about 6 blocks from our apartment which is pretty great in that I can walk there without any problem.
Removed the electrical wiring - who knew that there was so much?
Removed the headlight assemblies - The 1963-67 corvettes have these really great headlights, that I guess most later corvettes had, where the lights are hidden while off, and then they rotate around 180º when you turn them on to reveal the lamps. I'm sure it's been a problem for many owners of this car, in that when they break in the off position, you're kind of screwed. But I like them just the same.
Removed the heater blower motor box - sounds fancy, but it's really just a piece of plastic that contains the heater blower, which takes heat from the engine and pumps it into the cabin.
I decided I would tackle the interior tomorrow. Most of the remaining pieces in the engine compartment link directly into the interior of the car. Things like the steering column which connects to the steering wheel, the windshield washer motor and the rest of the heater assembly would have to wait.
For those of you that know me, it's been a really long time coming, but I'm actually starting to see some miraculous progress on my car. I don't have the best photographic evidence as yet, but I'll show you what I have.
As you may or may not recall, I brought my dad's corvette out to Brooklyn from Scottsdale, where it had been sitting abandoned by me 5 years ago. I finally got it here in April, and I vowed to get the thing back on the road. I was originally hoping to do a good part of the restoration work myself, but that turned out to be a stupid idea. First, I work too much. Second, I work too much. My dad and I found a shop in Valley Stream, NY called Corvette Repair, Inc. which is about 45 minutes from my apartment.
These guy are meticulous and they do amazing work (for a cost). I've been bringing them parts in tubs and boxes for the better part of the summer.
I've been seeing moderate progress for the past few weeks, but not the parts are all starting to come together and it's pretty GREAT! They tell me that they're a few days away from finishing the chassis.
Now all that's left is the rest of the car. My mission for today, is to clean it up and remove everything that's not made of glass - fiber or the other kind. More on that later....
We just got back from visiting our friends Mike and Rael in Montana!
What an amazing trip! We hiked a ton and kayaked. It's incredible what a week outdoors can do for the soul.
Click on the picture to see the rest of the pictures from the trip.
I've been dreading getting back to work in NY because things are just starting to get crazy. The SLEEP DEALER that I started working on over a year and half ago is threatening to finish in the next few months. This means that the bulk of my work is going to kick in really soon. I've been waiting for almost a year for the director to get the film to a place where I can finish my job. It's been an order to say the least. And with SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK just getting rolling into post, it's shaping up to be a very busy few months for me.In case you were curious... here's a link to the old blog which I was unable to migrate over simply.
I know it's been a really long time since I've posted anything, but I've been really busy. I'l put some things up now, and hopefully catch up a little more over the next few days/weeks.
Im in Rio de Janeiro with a moment of down time.
I'm shooting a Pepsi commercial. It's been crazy! We started in NY on August 11th. From NY, we travelled to London on the 14th to shoot in Regents park and to shoot a street for a second spot. We went to the White Cliffs of dover on the 16th and shot there.
Then we packed up the camera and travelled to Marrakech, Morocco. To shoot a crowd of 1000 peeps in the dry desert sun.
I'll have some more pictures up soon. As soon as I have time to go through them.
We've made it through the first week - barely.
Tonight we're on a hill right next to the Tijuana San Ysidro border. It's a pretty weird thing to see. There's a 10ft iron wall that stretches as far as you can see. Someone on set was telling me that the wall is made of materials left over from the 1st Iraqi war. Can this be true?
As you can see here, I've been here all night. Now that it's 6AM, I'm pretty tired. I've got a flight to NY in about 6 hours. Should I sleep? Nope.
Here are some images from the day... This is the exterior of a factory in Tijuana. The industrial district here is pretty incredible. The factories are surrounded by these resendential areas that are as poor as you can imagine. Most of the houses/shacks are built from old shipping palettes and bilboard scraps. It's pretty surreal.
We were shooting a few shots in this neighborhood, before moving to another location for the night. We're on "splits" which means we start during the day and finish sometime in the night. The week will usaully start at a normal hour, and each day the call time gets later. It's Thursday, and the call was 2:30PM which means that we'll be shooting until at least 4AM. Then there's Friday...
Here are a couple of abreiviated updates. I'll catch up soon and update the galleries. I haven't had as much access to the internet as I would like.
This is from day 3 of the shoot. We are at the Tijuana River which, like the LA river, is kind of a joke (except when it rains). It did make for some industrial beauty though.
The shoot has been interesting. It seems that we never have nearly enough time to get everything that we need, which is pretty normal. Although here it seems to be more pronounced than normal.
It finally happened. We had our first day of shooting.
Outside, on the beach.
It was a pretty good day. We shot nearly everythin that we needed to. Now we've only got 43 more to go. Yikes! And only 3 visual effects shots so far... whew!
For those of you who don't really understand what it is that I do, let me splain:
My job, as visual effects supervisor, is to creatively oversee the visual effects of the project. In the case of The Sleep Dealer that means that I start with the script and, with the director and producer, decide how to create the visual effects in each particular scene.
The visual effects in this film range from replacing skies in order to look more dramatic to creating flying unmanned fighter drones destroying a dam and flood a resevoir.
As a supervisor, my job is to guide the process from pre-production through the shoot all the way to final delivery. Sometimes I do the work myself, but most often I will hire companies or individual artists to complete each shot.
I'll get into it a little more as this thing goes on, if anyone is still interested or awake. So let me know.
Until then enjoy the photos.
I went to Arizona to visit family for my grandmothers 90th birthday. It was GREAT!
Click the image to see the rest of the photos.
From Scottsdale, Beth went back to NY on the red eye (ouch) and I went directly to Mexico City for the film I'm working on called The Sleep Dealer. I'll be in Mexico City all week. Then I'm off to Tijuana on Saturday.
It was a great trip - It was really good to see everyone.
I've made back to Mexico City for what promises to be a very interesting shoot.
What's this? I got to Mexico City only to learn that we may be pushing the shooting schedule back a few weeks. Arghh. It seems that we still need to find some talent to fill the lead role. Is it really necessary to hold up the entire production for one role?
(Deep breath)
If you want to see the pictures of the apartment I'm staying in click here
Thanks for tuning in. I promise it will get more interesting...
