Firestorm 2007 - All Projects Delayed (0)

Posted on 24 October, 2007 in News Blurbs

Well, another fire is sweeping across Southern California and coming dangerously close to my family and friends. I was hellbent on trying to start auditions for my new projects in a week, but it looks like Hell surfaced to alter my plans a little. One of our filming locations has been directly affected by the fire and the fire came dangerously close to our house today. The fire came so close we packed up the essentials and left for the night.

It’s kind of funny because the essentials are several hard drives of data, our pro camera and a change of underwear. We are keeping in touch with people by email and phone.

Once these fires are over and life returns to its new normal, we’ll take a look at scheduling projects again.

Redress - Casting Begins (0)

Posted on 6 October, 2007 in Redress

I posted a casting call on the site for Redress and copied it to MySpace, Craigslist and the usual places.

The thing I hate about posting anything online is that there is huge amount of spam that always follows. I get DPs and Composers emailing, sending DVDs and calling all hours of the day. I realize they are just trying to drum up business, but I can’t stand it sometimes. When I need crew members, I will post ads for them.

The worst thing about casting a posting call is when your email address gets listed on a page - because then the spambots grab it. Now, in addition to resumes and headshots you have to contend with ads for viagra and mysterious letters from rich-ass Ethiopian prince. In order to avoid most of this hassle, I posted “casting at steelwebstudios.com” assuming that most people know to type that into their email program with @ in place of the “at”. I see it on websites all the time. Do you know how many people send me messages saying that they can’t send email to “casting at steelwebstudios.com”? Sometimes I just want to give up…

Tags: Casting, Pre-production

Redress - 1st Draft Completed (0)

Posted on 4 October, 2007 in Redress

I have finally found time to sit down and finish the first draft of the script for Redress. The problem with being an indie filmmaker is that your job and other responsibilities always take priority over your filmmaker duties. I’ve been talking with producers and musicians on numerous projects. We’re also getting ready for a huge vacation in one week so there has been a ton of planning for that. Now that I have some time to myself I was able to sit down again and write.

The funny thing about this story was that I knew where it would start and I knew where it would end, but I did not know exactly how it would end. After hammering out the last few pages I sat back and thought, “Wow, how the hell am I going to pull this off?” While some people just let their imaginations run all over the place while they are writing, I always try to remain grounded and think about how I would have to pull off an effect or camera angle with every scene that I write. Sometimes this limits me because I’ll have a great idea and then realize there is no way in hell, unless I my numbers come up in Super Lotto, that I could never pull off the shot. At the same time, I need to constantly push myself as a filmmaker. There will be a lot of filming at night with this one and we’ll be doing some crazy lighting effects both in photography and in post to create some of the ghost effects. Hopefully, in the end, the film will pay off. I think it will.

I will be posting the casting call for this one very soon.

Tags: Pre-production, Screenplay