A Day Late and a Dollar Short

So that goal to blog a monthly update on the 1st is going well. I also haven’t gotten the pages set up for my older pieces I had digitized, but they’re coming!

June 2009 started off with a bang, aka a full-day casting session for “Earth Force 5,” a new comedy web series (written by Matt Vancil and produced by Cindi Rice and John Frank Rosenblum of Epic Level Entertainment, Ltd.) that I directed 3 spec episodes of on June 20th & 21st. Casting was super fun; it’s always one of my favorite parts of directing. Ultimately, we put together a most awesome cast who I fell madly in love with and totally posted on my fridge. Early on in the month we also had a location scout, also fun, and meetings meetings meetings.

Then I got laid off from my day job on Thursday June 11th. Major life wrinkle. I had to go right from packing up my desk to a table read and rehearsal. *That* was a challenge. I waited until the cast left to let my producers know I’d been laid off. And then I had a rough weekend. There was a lot of “now you’ll have time to work on the production” sentiment to be had, but it doesn’t really work that way. Instead, I immediately had to be updating my resume, applying for unemployment, applying for jobs, and dealing with major life upset. It shot my entire schedule and mindset to hell for a few days there, but I pulled it together as fast as I could.

Shot design on the weekend previous, and then we were off! 16 pages in a day and a half.

Two key things for getting shiny-as-possible coverage with that sort of a schedule: We had a full blocking rehearsal in the second half of the first day while art department worked around us finishing the sets for the next day. So on day 2, our full day, everything was already blocked and rehearsed. And we shot with two cameras – A first for me and I am in love! Digital Filmmaking, I Love You.

What we lost: Ability to really tweak the shots in terms of lighting and framing. And I learned an important lesson about trying to split the line with five characters and no time for that sort of coverage. Good times, good times.

Another lesson learned, multiple cameras increased the need for video village. That was the one thing I think we didn’t quite realize what we were giving up by skipping to save money.

All in all, it was a great day! I was so incredibly grateful for the opportunity, and I really felt like we rocked it. The crew was wonderful. It is always a challenge to come together for such a short gig, but everyone worked really hard and (I hope) had a great time together. I’ve come to think of these sorts of shoots where everyone is volunteering and at different experience levels as similar to a one-room schoolhouse. We all play and learn together, and it’s pretty damn cool.

The webisodes should be completed by the end of July. They will be going out to peeps for a potential series pick up, so cross your fingers they sell, and I get to direct some more! Here’s some cast pics:

The Earth Force 5 team is (from left to right) Brett Jacobsen, Phoebe Parker, André Meadows, Claudia Perea, and Henry Watkins:

The irrepressible Jason Marsden under attack:

Nathan Rice looking Nefarious:

And my favorite scene featured Jeremy Spray and Phoebe Parker:

Here’s Phoebe a little later in the show:

And just a little later…

Good times, good times. The movie blood totally washed out of my pants.

In other projects… I’m so behind right now! I had a meeting early in the month on one totally awesome project I’m really looking forward to diving back into, and I’ve got about a million things to read right now. We had a meeting at the end of June about marketing for “Juanita Saves the World,” the project I’m doing with GRIT. Hopefully those will start to air on the Internet by the end of the summer. We are deep in post at the moment and working on getting a site up with a shiny trailer – Which I will be *so* happy to have a link for you OMG!!!

Finally, GRIT had a roundtable with director Vanessa Parise, who was kind enough to come and talk to us about her path and experiences, and I went to an interesting panel at the Writer’s Boot Camp with Jimmy Hutcheson, President and Founder of Ego TV. I also attended two truly excellent advanced screenings: District 9 and Julie & Julia and a great play at the Chandler Studio Theater, Breaking the Code. And all of that peppered with resumes, resumes, resumes. If you know someone in the L.A. entertainment industry who needs an executive assistant, please do give me a shout.