More Pieces to the Puzzle

Hello readers!

Sorry for missing a week, but as wise person once said "my dog ate my homework."

Updates:

Let there be tungsten balanced LIGHT!

My quick trip to LA was a success. For starters I bought a used 2K Mole Richardson studio light. This sucker puts out a lot of light and uses a lot of voltage. But it'll definitely come in handy when shooting Love, Concord. It was quite a deal too. This sucker costs about $1400 brand new and I got mine for $200 with a spare bulb! And if we had rented one for the entire duration of the shoot it would probably cost more than $200 so buying it used made the most sense. Especially knowing that these lights are battleship grade. They're built to last and I know it'll be reliable on my set.

The 1st Audition is away.

Aside from buying gear I mainly went to LA to audition an actor for the lead role of the movie. I managed to get my lead actress to meet us there to help run a few scenes with the actor auditioning. Now as a rule of thumb I rarely if ever bring in 2nd actor into an audition so early in the casting. I usually hold off until I've seen lots of actors and have weeded it down to three choices. But for this actor I felt he was worthy of us jumping right in. And he proved me right. He was really good a grasping the character and taking my direction. That and he had a working chemistry with Angelina which makes a huge difference. Now, that being said since I haven't seen anyone else yet I can't say he's right or wrong for the part as I have no comparison. But I will say that he certainly left a memorable impression on me and if I had to make the movie tomorrow for some crazy reason I think he'd do just fine.

Strong Praise from Experienced Producer

Last time I mentioned Debbie Brubaker, a talented and accomplished producer, had read my script and was going to have a conference call meeting with me and Virginia. I went into the call a little nervous that she was going to point out a laundry list of flaws with my script, but instead she gave me a very positive review. This is HUGE! For a producer as experienced as she to not only say there were only three minor flaws, but also she believes it can be sold for a profit truly raised my spirits. Virginia herself admitted this reaction from Debbie further raised her excitement to be working on the project.

Now what happens is I've gone and fixed the issues Debbie suggested I amend and I'll be giving her the finished 6th draft soon. She's then going to write a budget based on the script as well as a tentative schedule for shooting it. All this will be crucial in figuring out exactly what we'll need to accomplish the production. Having her expertise on these crucial pre-production aspects will be worth every penny we're paying her for. Again, I can't express enough how great of news and morale booster this is for me and the project!

SF Opificer's of Film Festival

The deadline to submit your short film to the first ever SF Opificer's of Film Festival is quickly approaching. So if you haven't given it to either me or Jon Bowerbank, emailed it to us, or put it in the mail you may be left out. Drop either of us a line if you still plan to submit.

Speaking of the festival I'd like to announce yet another official entry. "....a Thousand Words" is the latest short film by Jon Bertain. Jon lives and works as a professional editor in the Los Angeles area and shot this latest movie on the RED ONE digital HD camera. We're real excited to be able to premiere his film and we're sure the festival audience will also appreciate the hard work he put into this gripping movie. Bertain is yet another former student of mine from my teaching days at Saint Mary's College and I'm proud to see just how much his talent has grown since he graduated from SMC.

Again, the event is January 9th at the 9th Street Independent Film Center in San Francisco (it's the 9th at the 9th, pretty easy to remember huh). Tickets are $12. Doors open at 7:15pm and the event starts promptly at 7:30. There will be a one hour mixer/social in the theater lobby immediately following the screening. Thanks and hope to see many of you there.

Well That does it for this week gang. Have a great new year everyone!

Forward!

-Gustavo

Wheels Keep Rolling

Hello Readers!

Sorry for the delay in posting. I'm in the middle of moving to a new apartment and I'm living out of boxes.

Updates:

Potential New Producer!

I got some great news to share! My producer Virginia has passed along the latest draft of Love, Concord to a very important person: Debbie Brubaker. For those of you unfamiliar with her work, she has produced many feature films such as: La Mission, Dopamine, Bartleby, and many more. Not to mention some of her films were accepted at the Sundance Film Festival which is not easy to do (look her up on www.imdb.com she's done a lot of work).

So with Virginia passing along my script to her, Debbie will be reading it and compiling a profession budget for the project. This is a huge step in getting the project some serious weight behind it as we'll be getting expert advice on what to prepare for from someone as seasoned and accomplished at producing feature films as anyone could ask for. Hopefully, she'll have the same interest and reaction to the script as Virginia and Jon and will perhaps come on board to also help produce the project. Either way, just having her perspective on what we should prepare for will be a huge advantage for me as a first time feature film director. So again, I'm very excited about this development! :)

Off to LA.....again.

As mentioned earlier I'm off to LA to audition my first candidate for the lead role of Gerry. Angelina my actress for the lead role of Melinda, will be meeting me in LA to help with the audition. We also plan to discuss some of the logistical aspects about her role such as wardrobe, make up, etc.

So since I'll be down there during my usual posting day of Tuesday, next weeks blog may come a little later than usual. But I'll let everyone know via Face Book when it's up.

First Accepted Film

I'd like to announce the first film to be accepted to Jon and I's SF Opificer's of Film Festival. The short is entitled : "Time Capsule" and is directed by Jimmy Freeman. For those of you who don't remember Jimmy is a former student of mine who is also collaborating with me on my feature. But he is a talented artist in his own right. He also endeavors to direct films and is currently writing not only one, but many short screenplays. So come see yet another young budding Bay Area talent showcase his latest and greatest.

The festival is Saturday January 9th at the 9th Street Independent Film Center in San Francisco. The address is 145 9th Street. Doors open at 7:15 and the screening begins promptly at 7:30. Tickets to the event are $12 and all proceeds go to the production budget for my feature film Love, Concord. Hope to see you all there.

Well that does it for this week folks. Have a great week and until next time....

Forward!

-Gustavo

Is it really Snowing?

Hello Readers!

Wow! Snow in Concord and parts of Contra Costa County, haven't seen that in a while. Lets hope it continues.

Updates:

Weekly Meetings Resume:

Last week my producer, Virginia, and I resumed our practice of meeting weekly to discuss the feature film project. Jon, my DP, joined us last week as well. The three of us discussed logistics of the shoot. In particular we began to focus on locations and how many actual place we'll need to shoot the movie. The trick is to try to squeeze as much use out of one place as possible. For instance, if we shoot interiors at a house we're trying to select a house that can be the setting for more than one scene. In fact, a house may be used in the film that ends up being three "different" places in the story. That's useful! Because all movies suffer from a lack of time in their budget, so the less moving around the better!

Massive Light Please!

Jon and I also began talking shop about what lighting equipment we'll need to do the various scenes we're shooting. As the script is set in everything from day, night, interior, exterior, etc. lighting is, as always, be a challenge. However, since Jon has a respectable lighting package in his arsenal we should manage fine without having to pick up too much costly lights. One item we are planning to buy is a used 2K Tungston balanced Fresnel light. For those of you unfamiliar with movie lights, this sucker is pretty big and puts out quite a lot of light. Jon plans to use it to help light some of the night time exteriors. We'll let you know if we get it.

Draft 5.1

I recently went through and corrected the many typos of the 5th draft and even managed to chop almost a full page off. But as I received some excellent feedback from Jon, I'm probably going to end up adding that page back for a key scene at the end of the 2nd act. So I expect draft 5.2 very soon.

SF Opificer's of Film Festival

It's official people! The mini film festival will be Saturday January 9th, 2010. We're still accepting submissions for the festival in any genre and at any experience level, so if you know someone with a short movie encourage them to enter it. The deadline for submission is December 31st 2009. The submission fee is $10 and if your movie is accepted there's a $20 screening fee. All this goes toward the cost of renting the theater and the proceeds, again, go toward the Love, Concord production budget. Tickets for the event are $12 and it should be a fun night! Contact me at gguardado@gmail.com for more info or find me on FaceBook.

Well that's all for this week. I know I haven't written an article in a while but at this stage I'm finding I have less and less time to do it. Don't worry the time is being well spent planning and prepping for the production. So it might just be updates for a while, but I'll return to full articles soon.

Stay warm everyone!

Forward!

-Gustavo

Short Week

Hello readers!

Hope everyone had a relaxing Turkey day. Mine was surprisingly traffic free as I drove back to LA to spend the holiday with my In-Laws. Mmmm I had home made tamales a month early! Yum!

Updates:

1st Casting Audition

Angelina, my lead actress, and I are currently aligning our schedules to do an audition of an actor to possibly play "Gerry" the lead character of the feature. Since she lives down south and works full time it's a bit of a tricky task but hopefully within a few weeks I might be writing about finally casting the lead character.

Location Hunt:

Yesterday I had lunch with Jimmy my former student and friend at our usual Concord diner. A while back he suggested I approach the restaurant owner to see if we could use their place as the much needed diner in the screenplay. So yesterday I finally spoke to the manager and she seemed interested. She mentioned, the decision obviously hinged on the owner but nonetheless she seemed enthusiastic about it and that's good enough for me right now.

SF Opificer's of Film Festival:

We are still accepting submissions for the short film festival Jon and I are coordinating. The submission fee is $10 and if your film is selected there's a $20 acceptance fee. But it's a small price to pay to be able to see your film in a professional quality screening room with a live audience to offer feedback and comments. The event will be Saturday January 9th, 2009 (We had to change the date of the event due to a booking mishap). Doors open at 7pm the event will be roughly 90mins. After the event there will be a one hour mixer social in the screening room lobby. Tickets will be $12 and all proceeds will go toward the Love, Concord production budget.

Buy my DVDs!!

As those of you who came to my fundraisers know, I'm selling off my DVD collection to also help pad the production budget. I still have a good 50+ DVDs left from my original amount of 200. I'd still rather sell them directly to you versus pawning them so email if you'd like a list of the movies I have left. No movie is more the $9 bucks and some titles are as cheap as $3! Plus if you buy two $5 DVDs I'll knock off $1! So email me at gguardado@gmail.com if you're interested.

Well folks that does it for this week. Sorry for the short posting, but as it was a short week can ya blame me ;)

Forward!

-Gustavo