Musician's Friend

Hello Readers!

Lots to update so lets jump right in!

Updates:

Soda is my enemy! Grrrr! But hey my production budget is $30 richer!

Picked up a hi-hat while in LA this weekend. This a favorite tool I like to use in my filmmaking as it allows for ultra low, yet finely framed shot angles. You can also use them for in car camera angles or on the table shots, etc. It's basically a super low to the ground tripod. But they're battleship grade and almost as expensive. So that's one less item I'll have to worry about acquiring before June 13th.

Had a very good meeting with Chris Carter, Interim Director of Alumni Relations at St. Mary's College. He pointed out some really great resources for helping me connect to potential alumni interested in working on or assisting the movie production. For instance, SMC In Circle, which is a great online social networking site. So for all you former students and fellow SMC almuni highly recommend you check it out and create an account. Here's the link:

https://smc.affinitycircles.com/smc/auth/login

Latest crew member added.

So technically this crew member should've been profiled last week but in my excitement to try out the first "mail bag" article I completely forgot to do it. So everyone welcome Virginia McCarthy to the crew. Virginia was one of my favorite professor's at St. Mary's College where she teaches a travel course to the Sundance Film Festival. I learned a great deal about working on an independent film from her course as she's worked on many of them as a script supervisor. She's worked on In the Bedroom, The Zodiac, Little Children, La Mission and more.

We sort of lost contact after that course as I went to film school and worked in Hollywood right after. But once I got my position at SMC we quickly reconnected, as she still teaches the awesome course that I took way back in 2001 (great Sundance year btw). So Virginia's involvement with my feature begins with her willing to read the early draft of the script. She gave me some great notes on it and most of all a reassuring confidence boost when she told me she genuinely liked the story even in its rough stage.

We've been meeting often at cafes to not only discuss my feature but her cinematic endeavors as well and I'm happy to say she's agreed to join the team as a Producer. Her invaluable experience as a long time script supervisor will undoubtedly help make my production a success. Plus, it'll also be great to have yet another friend by my side as I make my first movie.

Musicians Wanted:

This week I want to talk about the soundtrack for the feature. While I'd love to use recognizable pop music, there's a problem with that and its called copyright fees. As many of you know, popular music costs thousands if not millions of dollars to purchase the copyright which allows one to use an artists music in a movie, TV show, or commercial. Therefore, since my mirco budget feature can't afford to pay the potentially astronomical amount for pop music rights I'd like to feature new and up and coming artists. Preferably, I'd like to use music from artist in Concord or at least the Bay Area.

So here's how you can help. If you know musicians, bands, solo artists who'd like to potentially have their music placed in my feature film please send them my way. They can be any type of following genres: Hip Hop, Rap, Rock, Alternative, Indie Rock, etc. (no Country!) As always have them email me at gguardado@gmail.com and hopefully I can talk to them more about what kind of sound I'm looking for. Also, for allowing me to use their music I am willing to offer some sort of video service, such as shooting a live gig or perhaps helping to make a music video. I'm all for one artist helping another, so please help me spread the word.

The good news is my brother is a musician so I know I can hit him up for at least one song. So if you're reading this Mike, I'm calling in a favor! He's also in a band called Scrambled Wavelengths. They rocked a show I recently shot at a bar in San Francisco. So hopefully the band will be willing to lend a song to the feature as well (wink, wink). You can find them on www.myspace.com/scrambledwavelengths

Well that's it for this week! One last reminder that the first fundraiser/ birthday party is this Saturday the 29th. If you'd like to come and didn't get an evite, email me at gguardado@gmail.com.

Next week I plan to post a slideshow of the fundraiser pics we're going to take and share how it all went down. Until then....

Forward!

-Gustavo