Painting with Moving Pictures

Hello readers!

Latest Updates:

My producer Virginia, my DP Jon, and I met last week to discuss the script which is in it's 4 draft. To be exact the latest draft is 4.2 (as Virginia pointed out, my draft system is very Mac-ish). We talked about some story issues it has, the loss of the Colosseum, and shortening it. Virginia made a very strong point that the current script is much too long. Therefore, as I begin writing draft 5.0 I will be eliminating scenes which are truly unnecessary and reducing dialogue wherever I can. Which will be difficult as I finally felt the script was at a place where it made sense plot-wise as well as character arch-wise.

We also decided to start meeting once a week as often as possible until the production begins to thoroughly prepare for the shoot in June.

Earlier that same day Jon and finally color corrected my latest short movie "Marta's Last Exit." What color correction is, is a what filmmakers do once the final cut has been done to perfect each and every shot of the film to look its utmost best. It's kind of like fixing your photos with photoshop or iPhoto, we either bring the highlights down or up, raise the contrast, sometimes we add or subtract a specific color all in the name of beautifying the shots to their best and making them match better as well.

I must say, while I was completely satisfied with the videography for "Marta's..." as it was straight from the camera, the color correction Jon and I did completely blew me away. I didn't think we could improve upon it, but now each shot looks so rich and clear I'm anxious to share it with an audience.

What's the next step for "Marta's...." well I'm glad you asked. I'm finishing up dialogue sound editing and then finally I'll be passing the project over to a sound designer. What the sound designer does is build the soundtrack with background effects, sweetens the original sound with added depth, and basically helps create the auditory environment we hear on and off screen.

And I'm happy to say my close and long time friend Peter Kerns, also a CHS grad, will be working on this for "Marta's...." Peter has been anxiously awaiting me to finish the cut of the film as he offered his services many months ago. So I'm happy to say I'm very close to passing the film to him and once the sound is done the only thing to remain will be mastering the film to an HD format and exhibiting it to a hopefully crowded audience.

Light and Motion:

Since, I mentioned earlier how I color corrected my latest short I thought I write about the "look" of the feature film. What's meant by that term is how the photography gives off a certain feeling that helps exploit the mood and emotional response the director wants out of its audience. Take a popular movie like Schindler's List for instance. They shot that in black and white in an era where 99% of Hollywood films were made in color. Why did they do that? To set the appropriate tone and mood to a very serious and dramatic movie.

Thus, this is an important consideration to be made about a movie before a single frame is shot. Being my movie is a dramedy it's tough to put a finger on how to best set the visual tone of humor mixed with tones of drama. But as it stands now I'm using movies like American Beauty and 500 Days of Summer as a basis of influence. Both are great examples of cinematography and both are dramedies, and both set a very high bar for Jon and I to achieve.

So if you want to get a some what of a sneak peek at what we aim to make my feature look like, watch those movies. Again, we won't have the budget to achieve some of the amazing feats of lighting and cinematography they did, but if all goes well our film's photography will have the same visual impact and emotional response on the viewer as theirs.

That's all for this week gang! Until next week.....

Forward!

-Gustavo