Life Lately

I've been pretty busy lately so unfortunately I haven't been able to update as much. However, I've been storing up some fun pictures for you guys so I figured what better time to put them up than now (i.e. one of the few moments of free time I've had during the evening lately where I haven't been exhausted).

Two weeks ago, I spent a solid week gaffing. The gaffer is the production crew member that is in charge of hanging up and handling all the lights on the production. I decided to take this position because I didn't feel very comfortable working with the lights yet.

Things were pretty stressful at first because I had to do things like hang a big Joker Bug light over a fake set wall from a go-go arm the grip team constructed. I'm bad with heights and balance so this was kind of a test for me. Luckily, the grip team was there to spot me and the exercise was not as bad as it looked.

Kristen and Rachael (the two camera operators for this week) were able to get a few shots of me in gaffing action as I helped set up for the shoot.

For this particular week, we shot a short called "The Interrogation?" Christoph Tallerico was director, Kim Travis was director of photography, Katy Lowe was producer / first AD, I was gaffer, Adam Tuckey was best boy, Alex Gangi was key grip, Abosedé Copeland was grip, Justin Andrews was sound mixer / boom operator, Rachael Abrams and Kristen Hall were camera operators, Gerald Turner was script supervisor, and Kurt Shrader and Jamey Smith were actors.

This was a difficult project. This first day we attempted it we took too long to set it up and we made a hell of a lot of mistakes. Bear, our professor, was understandably angry and had us tear the set down after our first take went poorly. The second day things went much smoother and we got some pretty decent footage. My T2i was one of the cameras being used to shoot. I've selected a few stills from the shoot below.

Last weekend, I got to make my first trip home since moving to Savannah. It was a nice breath of fresh air. I got to see my family and friends again and, after a few tougher weeks at film school, I needed it.

While home, I threw my annual Halloween party extravaganza. This year's party was called "The Return of the Crypt of Terror," making it a semi-sequel to last year's "Secrets of the Crypt of Terror" Halloween concert. I actually dressed up as "Victous Bolderdash," a distant cousin to Jay Mullins' Osiris Bolderdash, who hosted the Crypt of Terror concert last year.

The party was a lot of fun. My mom decorcated the house as per usual, we ate a lot of candy and watched some fun stuff. This year's double feature was Hocus Pocus and The Exorcist. Unfortunately, a lot of lame-os left before The Exorcist. Still, it was a fun night.

One of the more interesting events of the night featured a bobbing for apples contest. Rob Taggart and Zach Osborn duked it out. Rob won. Still, it was awkward to watch.

I'm glad that I got to come home and have this annual party. It was looking like I wasn't going to be able to pull it off. And I'm glad that I still have good friends that haven't forgotten about me.

Here you can see everyone that came to the party. They are (from left to right, front to back) Zach Osborn, Jordan Young, Reagan Jackson, Carly Stegall, Ann Howard, Claire Cochran, Rebecca Goysich, Kelly Brister, Caleb Graham, Daniel Jones, Rob Taggart, Amy Bergeron, me, Guy Stricklin, Audie Aderhold and Bernadette DeRussey.

Something that finally happened this week was that my film festival bumper was finally completed. Over the past few weeks, I've been working with Adam Tuckey, Justin Andrews and Gerald Butler to produce a 45-second bumper for the Savannah Film Festival contest. If our bumper gets selected, it will screen at the festival and we will receive gold passes.

Justin came up with the concept of "Cinevannah." It centers around two big shot pitchmen who come to Savannah in order to convince the mayor to change the name from Savannah to Cinevannah in order to attract more Hollywood productions. It's a ridiculous pitch and their reasons why are part of what makes it funny.

We first shot Cinevannah two weeks ago. The lighting turned out bad and, overall, the final product was stale. So, we studied our footage and tried to learn from our mistakes. Earlier this week, we re-shot the whole thing. This time around, things went smoother, the lighting was stellar and it just turned out fun. I'm glad we gave it another shot. It was nice to see what Justin pitched to me so many weeks ago finally show up on the screen the way I first imagined it.

Below are some pictures from the first shoot and re-shoot.

Here is our director Adam Tuckey trying to figure out the lighting with me (I was part director of photography with him and all camera operator) on our first and unsuccessful shoot.

Here's a little demonstration of what a good re-shoot can do for you.

Bad first attempt.

Good second attempt.

And here's a shot of Justin acting it up in our second attempt. I like this picture because it shows some of the great detail we pulled off with our second lighting set up.

You can watch our cut of the Cinevannah bumper below.

So that's it for now. I'm about to start production on three separate movies. So things are only going to get crazier / busier. However, updates will be a lot more interesting. So stay tuned for that.