Posts Tagged ‘film’
Oversold on Tour
The Oversold Tour has officially started. We did our first date this past Thursday night at Pepperdine University. The event was hosted by the Intercultural Affairs Office, and they really treated us like rockstars. It was incredible.
The event started at 7pm. From my experience in the past, it is always nerve wracking waiting to see if anyone was going to show up… I mean after all who the heck am I that they would come to see my film. (which has been the case at most of the festivals I have had films showing at… in a theater to an audience of 12. lol) Well, this one is a bit different. We slammed the pornography world with the church world and needless to say, people came (obviously Crissy was a HUGE draw 
). This is the 2nd public screening of the film. The first, in Phoenix, AZ – we had a packed house of a little over 200 and then at Pepperdine, the theater sat 399 and there were over 450 people! The line was literally wrapped around the building, they ran out of seats and people were sitting on the floor in the aisles!
They played the film followed by a Q&A with Dave Cowan and myself followed by an intimate interview with Crissy. The evening was lead by Author, Radio and TV host Reba Toney. After the program they opened the floor up for questions from the students, followed by an hour and a half of chatting with kids after it was all over. We wrapped up around 10:30pm!
Thanks to Kortland, Don and Claire for putting this together, as well as the handful of friends that made it out to support us! We had a blast, and can’t wait to do it again!
Enjoy the pix from the evening. Photography by Kevin Trang.
Infomercial Fun
The infomercial shoot was a blast. hectic no doubt… but this mini flash light that i was hocking yesterday turned out to be pretty dang bright. We were prepared to have to “gag” it to get the light to show up on camera… but the thing was surprisingly bright and played really well thru the lens. Cast was incredible, crew worked their arses off and hopefully we got it all! Will be cutting it this week, then on to the feature!
If you read my previous blogs… you know that I am really wanting to stop trying to “do it all”.. I definitely learned my lesson last night. We had a revised script thrown at us a 1/2 hour after we starting shooting… and I was directing and breaking down the new script as we shot… hence things being hectic. So stoked I will have a dedicated AD for the next project…. This makes me happy!
rock it. paul
Casting a lo-budget horror
I am absolutely amazed at how many actors there are here in LA, that are willing to audition for a lo-budget horror film that will require 15 days of shooting for LITTLE TO NO PAY! We had almost 1500 actor submissions!
We have narrowed it down to about 100 and we will be seeing them all at least once some twice over the next 4 days. Super stoked! This is gonna rock.
still need a warehouse location, if anyone has access… preferably something gritty that we won’t have to dress… like a machine shop or abandoned car shop/large garage.
Pre-producing the control freak inside.
So anyone that has actually worked with me in production, you know that I am big on pre-production. There isn’t much that makes me more upset than walking onto a set not knowing what is going on. For years I have worked with one of my best friends Zan Passante co-directing projects. This relationship typically works really well. He handles most of the “producing roles” and I typically handle most of the AD roles (which is prepping for the technical sides of directing… scheduling, shot lists, etc.) Aside from the unfortunately common mis-communication spat, we work really well together. And there is no disputing, some of my best work has been with him by my side. More recently, Zan and I have been doing solo projects (as if we are rock stars!) I have been trying to handle all AD roles as well as directing: 1. because this is what I have always done and 2. to save money.
Well. That is stopping. It is too much to handle doing it all, and unfortunately when I am doing it all, the pre-production suffers, which slows the shoot down, which creates more work in post, which makes me even more mad at myself for trying to save a few hundred bucks not hiring help!
I am currently in pre-production on 3 projects all of which are shooting over the next 3 months, and I am sitting in LA traffic yesterday and this is all I can think about. Then it hit me. If any of you know me personally, you know that I am right the opposite with nearly everything else in my life. I don’t prep for anything. I am totally a fly by the seat of my pants kind of guy. So I started thinking why in world would I only apply this practice to my work and where in the world did this “planning” attitude even come from. The only thing I can really figure is that it is because I place soooo much value on my career. Am I a control freak? I guess so, at least in that particular area.
Which brought me to another thought. Control Freaks. I think I hate that more than the lack of pre-production. While being prepared can take you as close to perfection in executing a project, not letting go of control can demolish a project regardless of the amount of prep.
I think this attitude can really be applied to all aspects of our lives. Perhaps, I should take the rest of life more seriously. Prep more. Whether it be my kids, relationships, religion, whatever, be more cautious, careful. Perhaps this will save me years of heartache… who knows… Then I thought. aghhh…. I like being spontaneous. If we prep too much sometimes we would never make a decision to move forward, at some point you have to start the project. So I guess there needs to be balance. Too much of anything is bad. I see this more now than ever.
Take it or leave it. This is what’s in my head today!
