Hey,

Things are rolling at Johnny Tao Productions, LLC!

We opened our production offices four weeks ago at the Television Center in Hollywood.  Special thanks to Ana the manager of the building and  Betsy and Ron Isroelit of RBI Communications for graciously providing us with the means to move in.  Sadly, Ron Isroelit passed away just a few days ago after two years of living with cancer.

 I will miss the sublime poetry of his words and the comfort of his love.  This filmmaker’s journal is dedicated to him.

March 25, 2005

Good Friday. 

The script itself is attracting a lot of attention from actors, agents, and crew.  We get a lot of positive feedback on its structure, humor, and message.  Our previously shot fight scene in the desert gets a lot of people excited about the project. 

Casting Director Jeff Hardwick has been selecting actors and helping us assemble our cast.  We took a group of them down to Stunt Coordinator Marcus Young’s training facility and watched them choreograph fights with professional stuntmen.  Some are better than others.  The stunt guys are awesome and will do anything for Marcus.

We’ve also got some recognizable actors coming on board.  Kelly Perine from “The Drew Carey Show” and “One on One” currently in it’s fourth season on UPN will play  “Lenny” the town deputy.  James Hong from “Big Trouble in Little China” and “Blade Runner”  will play the kung-fu teacher.  Michael Gregory from “Eraser,” “Total Recall,” and “Robocop”  is “Vito” the owner of the pizza place and right now, we’re about to offer the part of Johnny’s father, “Jimmy,” to Jason London, a popular young actor who starred in “Dazed and Confused” and who’s starring in a film for Miramax later this year.  Check him out on imdb.com.

For shooting locations, we’re scouting gas stations and warehouses, biker bars and donut shops almost every other day.  We’ve got Production Designer Jim Thompson designing sets and props, and Producers Don Poquette and Artie Glackin are reviewing the script, crunching numbers, making the shoot schedule, hiring crew members, filing permits, and making deals.

We’ve been meeting with Computer Generated Imaging companies (CGI houses).  These are the guys that will do the computer special effects. They read the script and give budgets.  This stuff is really expensive.  These guys always love the fight scene.

All the details that need to are coming together.  It seems like we’ve got a really great project developing!

We’ll make final casting decisions next week and start rehearsals and fight choreography practice.  We’ll also begin to lock locations and assemble costumes.  More to come.

Onward and upward,

Kenn

March 27, 2005

Easter Sunday.  Auditioned the final “Johnny’s.”   A few guys with different qualities.  Some better actors, some better martial artists, some better looking.  I think I’ve got the three leads in my mind, Mika, Eddie, and Johnny.  We will make final casting decisions by late Monday and hopefully have deals by the end of the day Tuesday.

JJ Perry, a top Hollywood stuntman, has signed on as Marcus Young’s Assistant Action Coordinator and will also play the role of “Lido,” the town bully.  I’ve know JJ for a few years, ever since we met at a martial arts demonstration.

Production Designer Jim Thompson has hired Prop Master Don Varley and an Art Director. We’re securing industrial workspace for the art department to build sets and props..

Matt and I are storyboarding the film.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

We’ve got our lead actors!  Two guys who are multi-talented.

Matthew Twining (“The Frightening,” “One Life To Live” ) is going to play Johnny.  He’s an actor, a gymnast who can move like a monkey, and he sings in a band.

Matt Mullins is going to play Eddie.  In addition to being a good actor, this guy is a world class martial artist. 

There’s going to be at least three guys on set named Matt. 

Jason London has agreed to play Johnny’s father, Jimmy.

The weapons are being built.  The Dragon Spear.  The swords.  Mika’s Bracelet. 

Today Jim and I went to look at a 1966 Airstream Silver Streak trailer to be Johnny and Eddie’s home.  It’s awesome.

Don and I tackled a lot of Screen Actors Guild paperwork in the last two days.  Thank goodness that’s just about over.

J.J. Perry is going to start training the actors for the action scenes on Saturday.

Onward and Upward.

April 1, 2005

We signed Chris Yen to play “Mika.”  She’s an American actress and fantastic martial artist who’s been in two Hong Kong action films.  

Tomorrow I bring the three actors together for the first time at 10:00 a.m. at the stunt team’s training center.  I’ll introduce them, we’ll do some acting exercises and then they’ll train with J.J. and Ryan, Matt, Danny, Ming, and other good stunt performers that I can’t think of right now.  They’ll stretch and kick and begin learning choreography.

Artie told Don he was quitting.  April Fools!  He got Don.

On Tuesday we’re going to have callbacks for “Jenny” the other lead female in the film.

I need to work out.

April 4, 2005

Art is in the details. A never ending stream of creative and executive decisions requires thorough preparation in a myriad of areas. Managing the creative details and ensuring their appearance during production requires both a mindful, overall artistic vision of the film and the ability to herd cats.

Our crew is growing, as is the speed and intensity of the work. This last two and a half week period before shooting is going to see a lot of elements coming together very quickly: actors, costumes, locations, make-up, etc.

I'm very excited to participate in the process. Sometimes, I have to remind myself to breathe.

Tuesday, April 5, 2005

We had final callbacks for “Jenny.”  Matthew Twining (MT) came in and read with them as “Johnny.”  I’m very excited about the choices.  It was great to see the scenes come to life.   Tomorrow we’ll watch the video and make our final decisions on “Jenny,” “Angela,” she’s the deputy that rides with “Lenny,”  and “Mama Ling.”  Kudos to Jeff Hardwick for putting together a great cast.

We had a meeting with a CGI company to create all the visual special FX.  Those are pretty cool meetings.  We talk and act out moments in the movie that require demon clouds of energy to be created, wires to be removed from our stunt team, or shooting stars to crash in the desert.

We also met with a post-production finishing house.  These are the guys that perform all the high-level technical processes for creating professional deliverables; final full-resolution edits, color correction, quality control, etc.

The art department has started working in the warehouse downtown that will play as Mama Ling’s Fortune Cookie Factory.  First they will use it to build sets for Lenny’s police station, Johnny’s bedroom, a concert stage, and Mika’s lair.

Jim and Mark, our production assistant (PA), put red and white contacts in their eyes to see what the demons should look like.  The red ones look cool.

Did some acting exercises with the cast.  We’ve got a table read on Friday with most of the cast.  Awesome!

Saturday, April 9, 2005

Our Art Director quit two weeks before shooting.  This person was offered another job on another film for more money and decided to leave.  Welcome to Hollywood.  Production Designer Jim Thompson is boldly taking on the challenge to replace this person and has the department completely under control.  The sets are looking great and the props and set dressing are growing in volume everyday.

The actors are doing great with the fight choreography.  Now we have to start shaping and editing the fights to fit the locations and the desired amount of screen time.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Matt and I met with Dragon, the sculpter of the Dragon-Spear.  His name is “Dragon”  and he is a teacher of Kendo and Ken-jitsu.  He also makes swords and armor for a living.  Sometimes he uses the swords and armor to fight.  We had a great time walking around his shop looking at all the suits and weapons he has forged over the years.  The central workplace in his shop is a circle of oak tree stumps with deep etchings for hammering metal into shapes.  He and his step-son make their own hammers with intricate heads and handles carved in ornate patterns.

The really cool thing is that Michael Gregory, the actor set to play “Vito” the owner of the pizza shop in our film, introduced us.  They have known each other for several years.  And then, it turns out that one of Dragon’s best friends is also an acquaintance of mine who I met with one of my very good friends.  I was even aware of a film Dragon helped produce, a short I really liked called, “Batman: Dead End.”

Laura Brody, our Costume Designer is gathering all the clothes needed for kung-fu demons to get messy at the donut shop.  I’ve been collecting the appropriate remnants of old jeans, leather jackets, and shirts over the last few years.  People I know have donated garbage bags of the same, especially a guy named Kevin Sherry.  We can mess these clothes up and no one cares. 

Ron Perret recently retired as a Deputy Chief with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.  He is a great guy with a great family.  I met Ron because he organized a charity event currently in its 9^th year called “Desert Thunder.”  Harley-Davidson riders (and non-Harley riders) from across southern California and Nevada converge at the state border and raise money for a collective of charities benefiting children and their families.  The Sheriff’s department was fortunate to have Ron in every position he served.  We’re fortunate because Ron has helped our filmmaking efforts in the past.  It’s no different now and Ron is graciously supplying us with the uniforms for our deputies, “Lenny,” and “Angela.”  Thank you for everything, Ron.

We’re trying to amass resources for motorcycles, calling people we know.  We have to find a make-up artist who can manage wigs well.  Two of our lead actors will be doubled by stunt performers that require wigs. 

This two weeks (especially next week) is going to be an anxious and intensive manifestation of all the planning.  Shopping, renting, buying, locating, casting, stroyboarding, accounting, rehearsing, all down to final execution.  Every detail must be accounted for.  The eve of action is upon us.

Oh YEAHHHHHHHH!

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 

What a day today.

At nine, Don, Matt and I went location scouting with our Location Scout, Dana, in the city of Piru, thirty miles north of Los Angeles.  It’s a tiny town, kind of like Mayberry.  That’s where we’d like to shoot the exterior of the donut shop.  It would make “Dry Springs” more real in the film.  On the way back, Don and I had a very intensive discussion about production.

Upon returning, after Elissa, the office coordinator and I dealt with some paperwork and script copies, I learned that we got sponsorship (“product placement”) from Coca-Cola.  One of their movie liason companies, made a deal with us to put Barq’s root beer in the film.  That means we get free soda and water for the duration of the production. We’re also in line to get use of a Harley Davidson motorcycle. 

Today we got three guitars delivered from Gibson Guitars. They’ve sponsored us with six Wildkats  for use in the film.  We also filled out paperwork to get product placement for a whole lot of other props and costumes.  We also got some checks from investors in the mail.  That’s always a great day.

My friend Tina, as busy as she is running Tibetan Tea, Inc, has been awesome in helping us out.  She’s gathered labor and resources for our company through an impressive and efficient use of modern communications technology (e-mails and Internet postings get things done quickly!).  In the last twenty-four hours, she had a lot of people knocking on our door looking for jobs and contacts who wanted to give us free stuff to use in our film.  She also supplies us with all the Tibetan Tea we can drink and lots of snacks.  That tea is a damn fine beverage.  I wish I had one right now.

Laura, the costume designer brought in her two assistants, Tania and Jade and started dressing the actors.  She’s finding  some great wardrobe at great prices. 

At four, Lindsay Parker, playing “Jenny,” came to the office to discuss her character and the script.  We met for about an hour.  She’s a very good actor.

At six, all the lead actors came to do a table read of the script.  My friends Kevin and Jonisha read all the supporting characters along with our narrator, Michael Gregory (insert thunder crash here!)   It was a lot of fun to see the actors take the film from top to bottom.  It was easy to see what traps the actors might fall in as individuals.  It was a good learning experience for everybody.

Then from 8:30 to 10:30, production designer Jim Thompson and I discussed the project list for his art department.  I had a fish sandwich (grilled).

There’s more, but I’ve gotta e-mail my mom.  Goodnight.

Thursday April 14, 2005

Thank goodness I’ve already done my taxes.  There’s no time for anything else.

Today we saw the actors go through their fights.  Marcus and his stunt team have done an amazing job of prepping them.  They were all awesome.  The two Matts and Chris are all dedicating themselves to fully realizing their characters, both physically and dramatically.  Other stunt guys are hanging around now and impressed with what these guys are doing.

I also visited with Dragon and his wife Wanda and we set up the manufacturing of the dragon-guitars.  The sculpture is amazing.  Inspirational.

Don and Artie have been doing a great job assembling the crew.  We just signed our Assistant Director.  His name is Eduardo and he’s the guy that will be running the set, keeping everything moving.  He’s going to be my right-hand man throughout the shoot.

Don is dealing with our location manager, Dana, and setting up the best deals.  We’re trying to decide which locations offer the greatest ease in setting up our shooting schedule and our budget.  One guy might want three thousand dollars to use his donut shop and another guy might only want one thousand.  It’s like bargain shopping and Don is a great deal maker.

I’m now finally doing my laundry for the first time in two and a half weeks and waiting for my neighbors to complain that I’m using the machines too late at night.  Better to deal with that then smell like an old sweatsock.

With all the time involved, production is having to by new underwear so you don’t have to wear keep wearing the same ones anymore.  Thank goodness for the Hanes 3-pack.

Onward Ho!

Monday, April 18, 2005

The last week of prep.  I mean, c’mon.  How exciting is that?  My mom will be coming this week to visit before we start shooting.  This is great.

Last night, Milton Caylor, one of the best singers I know and the lead singer for a great band called “Four Shadows Fall,” recorded the vocals for “Wanderin’ Love.”  This is the song that Johnny’s father, Jimmy, records before disappearing in a plane crash.  Jason London is playing Jimmy and will lip sync the song on stage before a crowd of fans for the flashback scene when Johnny tells the story of his father.   Matt Sohn and I wrote the words and music, Doug Johnson, bass player for the band “Birthday Suit” recorded the bass line, and Bill Otis, drummer from “Birthday Suit,” is laying down the backbeat.  It rocks!

We’re doing our final location scout today and hoping to make the best deal for our gas station set.  Yesterday we found some great places for our exterior desert locations and even the interior and exterior of our “biker bar.”  Dana Graham, our location manager is doing a great job of finding locations.

We should be collecting all the custom made weapons today; some swords, a couple of knives, and the jade-dragon bracelet that Mika wears and gives to Johnny when he becomes the new hero.

I’m so excited but also riddled with anxiety about making sure we have all the details covered.  Art is in the details.  The more we pay attention to every little thing, the more real the world of our movie will seem.  I can see why movies have so many people working on every aspect, every little thing has to be accounted for, from duct tape and potato chips, to film and handi wipes.

Oh yeah, the Annabelle Candy Company is sponsoring our show with a months supply of Uno Bars, Big Hunks, and Abba Zabba candy bars.  These will be the candy bars that Johnny and his friends eat and trade each other for old car parts. 

There’s more, but I’m sitting here in a towel and I have to get ready for Don, Matt, and Dana so we can go scout.

HERE WE GO!!

Friday, April 22, 2005

Crazy, crazy, crazy.  A tech scout of locations from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.  Then a page by page breakdown of the script with all department heads from 8 to 12:30 a.m.  That was a seriously long day and everybody was wiped out by the end.

Everything is falling right into place in the last 4 days before filming.  D.P. Matt Sohn has picked up our Panasonic Varicam High-Definition video cameras and tomorrow he picks up the truck filled with lights and grip equipment.

Tomorrow we will do the photo shoot of Jimmy Dow, played by Jason London for the old-time publicity photos that hang in the museum Johnny has built in homage to his father.

Costumes are being fitted and Laura Brody has made a kick-butt hero jacket for Johnny to wear in the final fight. 

Marcus and the stunt guys have perfected all the fights with the actors and they look great. 

Harley Davidson is giving us a motorcycle to use.  Smith and Wesson is giving us guns.

The dragon spear looks awesome and Jim Thompson’s art department has built beautiful sets.

We had a pre-filming cast and crew party that was a lot of fun.  A chance for everybody to get to know one another before filming begins on Sunday.  We keep marching forward and it’s getting more exciting every day.

Rock-n-roll!

Saturday, April 23, 2005

Okay, it’s 4:30 in the morning and sleep doesn’t seem to be part of the overall plan.  Went out to dinner with a few friends and my mom last night.  She and her friend Pat are in town and decided to extend their trip an extra day so they could be here for the first day of filming.  Sangria is good.

No matter how much money you spend and how hard you work to put good stuff in front of the camera, it doesn’t really matter if someone forgets to pick up the little glass filter you have to slide into the camera lens in order to get the movie to look right.  Last night, our production office was in overdrive looking for this little two inch piece of glass, calling every camera place in town at 7:30 p.m. on a Friday night so we could start shooting on Sunday.  Would you be in your office Friday at 7:30?  Yeah, neither were they.  Hopefully it was solved after I left at 8, but if it wasn’t, a friend of ours over at Panavision said he would help later today.  I tried to call Matt the D.P. several times, but I think his phone went dead trying to solve the problem as well.

Sunday we shoot our first scenes with Kelly Perine playing “Lenny” and some cool candlelit stuff with Chris Yen as “Mika” and the legendary James Hong as “Sifu.”  I’m really excited about working with all the actors, but I feel especially lucky to open the film with James. 

Matt and I are excited because our producer Artie was able to contact Chapman Inc. and work out a sweet deal on a dolly for our camera.  This is going to give us the chance to do some nice camera moves and really up the production value of the movie.

In terms of value, our friend Dragon has really gotten into the project.  He’s using his amazing talents to create the final guitars, both the “hero” for close-ups and the stunt guitar for fighting.  The “hero” guitar will be made out of molded resin and the stunt guitar will have a rubber dragon’s head.  Dragon is also helping us by outfitting our bad guy’s leather coat with armor plating (how cool does that sound?).  He’s making rubber swords, retractable blades and he’s even gong to play one of our kung-fu demons.

I just ran out of things to say.

See ya later.

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Okay, it’s 3:14 a.m. before we start shooting.  I just finished putting together all the materials I need for the day.  Call time is at 8:30 but Matt and I are going to carpool down at 7:15 and enjoy the breakfast burritos at our catering truck.  That rocks!

Yesterday I said I was thrilled to open the film with James Hong.  I am and I met him today for the first time.  He actually called me on my cel phone later and offered character and costume suggestions.  He immediately recognized the Arthurian origins of the script and likened his character to Merlin.  Sweet.

Anyway, we’ll be shooting him later in the day, but the very first scene we film will be Kelly Perine as “Lenny” the deputy.   It’s going to be great to start with Kelly because he is so good at what he does.  In the table read, Kelly, who used to be on “The Drew Carey” show and now stars in “One on One,” showed impeccable comedic timing.  He will set a standard of excellence for everybody and people will see the potential of the whole project.  Kelly and I have known each other for many years and used to perform in a band together called, “Birthday Suit.”.

Today during a photo shoot downtown, somebody backed into Jason London’s car and took off.  Jerks.  His daughter Cooper came down to visit the set, she’s a powerful nine-year old martial artist.

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Well, it’s already the fourth day of shooting and this is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and write.  So much is happening.

The first day we spent shooting in a warehouse we rented downtown.  Jim and the art department built interior sets of a concert stage, Lenny’s police office, little Johnny’s bedroom, and most importantly, the interior of the Jimmy Dow Museum (located in the back of Johnny’s gas station).  The sets look incredibly real on camera and Matt’s lighting, along with his team of grip and electrics (these are the guys that do the lighting and moving of all the heavy film equipment) are doing a great job creating a mood with light and shadow.  Our opening shot was Kelly Perine calling for help on the phone in the police station, and once again he proved why he’s the star of a sit-com.  He’s one funny cat.

Then we shot Matt Twining (Johnny) entering the museum and playing his father’s guitar.  Finally, we shot James Hong, the legendary actor from “Big Trouble in Little China,” as he and Chris Yen (Mika) reveal the destiny of their family to find the dragon spear and defeat the evil Tai-Lo.  It started with Mika doing a kung-fu form in a room lit with about two hundred candles, it looked great.  She looked great.

The second day was kick-butt.  Jason London came in and played the concert scene.  With dragon-guitar in hand, my buddy Bill on drums, and our A.D. Ed on bass, these guys lip-synced to “Wanderin’ Love,” the original song we wrote for the movie.  The whole crew was dancing or tapping their feet.  It was gone, man, real gone!

Finally, the third day, yesterday, was spent shooting one six-page scene outside the donut shop.  This was a real challenge because, not only are six pages a lot, but we had to release one of our actors by three o’clock in the afternoon.  And this scene took place between seven actors.  That’s a lot of dialogue and a lot of blocking, plus there was a brief fight in the middle of it.  Well, we did it and actually finished the day early.  That’s a testament to the speed and efficiency of our crew.  I’ve met several people on this film that I certainly hope to continue working with over the next few years.  When somebody is professional, on time, and provides answers and solutions rather than complaints and excuses, man, that makes all the difference in the world to how your film ends up looking.  Like our Production Coordinator said the other day, it’s all about getting things done.  And that’s the truth.  But, that wasn’t our only scene that day, we had to film our horde of demon bikers riding up to the donut shop and assaulting its walls.  We had about eight thunderous motorcycles ridden by stunt men and women, including Bridgett Riley, the women’s boxing world champion, and Dragon, our armorer and special effects master, ride up to the shop and park in an impressive state of disarray. Then they jumped off like crazy possessed demons and headed for the delicious taste of “Donut Hop” donuts.  It looked really cool.  Already I can start to see the trailer for this movie coming together.

And thank goodness for High-definition video.  Not only are we getting a great, professional look, but we have the ability to do multiple takes and not worry about the cost of developing film.  It’s really the way to go for an independent filmmaker.  Even Robert Rodriguez and George Lucas use high-definition.  “Sin City,” Spy Kids,” and all the latest “Star Wars” movies were shot on HD.  God bless technology and the Internet.  Now, you can make your dreams come true a lot faster.

My mom came out for the first few days of pre-production and decided to extend her ticket to include the first day of filming.  She and her friend Pat came in and they really didn’t want to leave.  They saw what I see when I say a film set is my favorite place to be.  Creative people working hard and bringing fantastical visions to life.  It’s hard work, but it’ like being a dream weaver.

Today my dad and his wife, Judi, are arriving and in a few days my brother gets here. 

I have to go now because my friend from the San Bernardino Sheriff’s office just called, and I have to go pick up a deputy’s uniform.  Ahh, the work is never done.

We are rocking and rolling!

Saturday, April 30, 2005

Early in the mornin’.  I said it’s early in the mornin’.

Well, here we are on Saturday at 5:33 a.m..  We actually had two days off on Thursday and Friday.  Friday is our normal day off, but Thursday there was 30-50 mile an hour winds out in the desert and we weren’t able to put our “condor” up.  A condor is one of those mobile cranes with a boom that extends up to 60 or 70 feet in the air, we put lights on top of it or we use it to hook up the stunt performers’ cables so they can fly through the air with the greatest of ease.  We were supposed to shoot the demons taking over Mama’s Pizza and then a chase between Michael Gregory as “Vito” and Kelly Perine as “Lenny” accompanied by “Angela the Deputy” played by Gillian Shure.  Instead, everybody got two days off and we got a chance to catch up on some extra work behind the scenes.

Today we go into “Mama Ling’s” fortune cookie warehouse and we learn where Johnny gets his love of kung-fu.  We’re also going to see the demons break down the door and bring “Eddie’s” body there to recover from a near deadly fight with “Mika.”

On Wednesday we were shooting about 50 miles away in Palmdale (out in the desert), my friend Ron Martinez brought a group of his Harley riding friends out and they all rode behind the “Demon Van” in order to make it look like we had a growing demon army taking over the town.  It was great and really increased our production value.  They were only supposed to hang out for a couple of hours, but they were having so much fun, they stayed until midnight and put in the red contact lenses in order to play a demon horde that comes out of the darkness and envelopes a car occupied by a young couple making out.  The couple was played extraordinarily by my friends Jonisha and Andy.  Jonisha was our first horror movie screamer and she was awesome.

Gotta go,, time to shower and head to the cookie factory.

Keep kickin’!

Sunday, May 1, 2005

I’ve lost track of days.  What day is it?  No, really.

This is one wild, educational ride.  You can learn all bout people if you’re willing to listen.  Everybody deals in a different coin of the realm.  It seems that a rich man has some of each in his pocketbook.  I’m still picking up all the loose coins I can find.

We just had our first day of kung-fu fighting.  We’re in the fortune cookie warehouse right after the demons invade and tear the place apart, eating everything in sight.  The boxes with the stencils of the cookie company’s logo are awesome but now they’re all shredded and destroyed from the carnage. The art department even made themselves t-shirts with the red dragon logo and everybody wanted one…including me.

My dad Marty and his wife Judi visited the set and played demons in the film.  They run into the warehouse and lay the demon lord’s body on the table to heal.  Then they all tear into the cookie boxes and fight over the cookies.  You’d never know, fortune cookies can be hard and sharp.  My dad and a couple of other people ended up with bloody lips from mashing the cookies into their faces.  But the stuff looked great.  I was a little afraid that our common “townspeople demons” might play cheesy in the movie, but they’re actually looking and playing awesome.  The scenes look better than I hoped.  The great part is, we’re actually bringing to life some of the very images that have always been in the movie in my head and they look great (to me at least). 

We have to have demon school with our extras before we shoot.  I always tell them that a demon acts like a ravenous, rabid bobcat

I can’t express the utter joy I feel when I see the images we’re capturing.  The actors look fantastic and Matt’s grip and electric department is lighting the heck out of these things.  The wardrobe, set design and props are complemented by a camera department that knows how to shoot Hi-Definition video as an art.  If I try to explain it any further, I think I’ll cry.  

I like Joseph Campbell.

And now, a note from my brother Dr. Steve Troum, who is visiting for the week from Dallas, Texas.  My family rocks.

HELLO FANS, this is Steve, Kenn’s brother.  I just got in town and spent the first day on this set.  All I can say is “AWESOME”. The whole project is smooth and looks great. I was very impressed and my expectations were surpassed.  You know, you always hope that your brothers or sisters do well and can develop a great talent, but we all know that doesn’t always happen.  Well, I knew that Kenn was good at his craft, but I didn’t realize how good until today. He was all over it!  A true artist and master of his domain. I almost forgot that he was my brother. It was obvious that the entire crew also knew that he knew what he was doing. I see great things in the future for this movie and for the careers of many that are working on it. I can’t wait for tomorrow.

Monday, May 2, 2005

Okay, today was a day that challenged us.  I don’t mean things went wrong, but we set out to accomplish a tremendous amount of work, our full final battle between “Johnny” and “Eddie.

Every department needed to rise to the occasion in this second of three total days allotted to it.

The actors, Matt and Matt were tireless in their fighting and they did it with style.  Except for a few angles, you pretty much just have to turn the camera on and Marcus’ choreography will make your movie.  These guys have practiced so much, they are often too fast for the camera and we have to cheat them back. 
We’re lucky to now have Mike Gunther on our set.  Mike is one of the top Hollywood stunt coordinators and just returned from working on “Underworld 2.”  He and Marcus are a team.  He’s also a fun guy.

I hope to get some photos sent to me of the wardrobe and set to post on the website.  One shot that Matt Sohn’s wife Melissa took of Matt Mullins as “Evil Eddie” standing in front of the remains of the fortune cookie warehouse looks like a poster.  It’s like some kind of comic book come-to-life.

The grip and electric department worked with Matt Sohn to set-up and light more than 50 different camera positions (set-ups).  On a film set, people might ask, “How many set-ups did you get today?”  We got a lot.  Some bigger budgeted movies might only get a couple of set-ups a day, but that’s why they take five months or a year to shoot.

There’s still so much to do.  We have to shoot the other half of the fight next week.  It’s good, it gives our actors a chance rest before continuing the action.  Tomorrow we go to the interior of the donut shop and play out much of the dialogue scenes.  The day after that, the biker demons attack the donut shop and tear it to smithereens.

Alright, sometimes I start these journals late at night and there’s so much to say, but eventually I just have to give up my train of thought and go to bed.  My brother is asleep on the couch right now.  This was his first full day on a movie set and the extremely early call time and hurrying up to wait can be a little overwhelming if you’re not used to it.

Everybody did great today!  Thanks to everybody involved.  Our ship is sailing with steam.

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

Yesterday was my birthday.  Being on the set directing my first feature ranks it up in the top three birthdays of my life.

We were up at the donut shop yesterday.  That’s about forty five minutes away.  We shot all interior dialogue scenes with the main actors.  It was a great day to follow right behind our big fight the day before.  It was a calm, quiet location with op quality actors like Marianne Muellerleile playing “Kate” and Lindsay Parker playing “Jenny.”  Matt Twining and Kelly Perine always deliver top quality performances, but it was also a real treat to see two women bring such high levels of professionalism to our “action” movie. 

My brother played “Clyde,” a guy in a gorilla suit.  Man, he was funny as hell.  More on that later.  I gotta wake him up and go pick up Matt.

Wednesday, May 4, 2005  (at night)

Back at the donut shop for the fight between “Johnny,” dressed in a gorilla suit, and a horde of demon bikers.  Ryan Watson, a fantastic stunt man with fifteen years in the business doubled Johnny in a hot-as-crap black furry costume.  The same one my brother wore yesterday.  That thing was soaked in sweat.  But, Ryan never complained once.  The sweat was actually dripping out of his gorilla pants and covering the floor, having to be dried with a towel every few minutes.  Once again, kudos to Marcus Young and his most excellent action team.  And a special note to stuntman Danny Hernandez for his full-tilt “barrel roll”  today. 

My brother, Dr. Stephen J. Troum, has played “Clyde” in a gorilla suit, “Cowboy Hat,” Bandana Head,”  “The Sprinkle Eating demon,”  “Clapping Man,” and he is working as Set Medic. 

I have to go now.

Friday, May 6, 2005

It’s Friday and we have today and tomorrow off.  Finally, a chance to do laundry and clean my house.  A little bit of grocery shopping, as well.

Later today, Matt and I are going to a post-house to look at some of the footage we shot last week.  I hope it looks good.  Yesterday, we did “Mika’s” fight scene with Chris Yen at the donut shop.  She kicked biker-butt.  This girl is about 5’2” and a super martial artist.  She was going toe-to-toe with big strong stunt folk, including Bridgett Riley, the women’s boxing world champion.  She even got to beat on Dragon who came out to play a demon and had a ball doing it.

I’m continually amazed by the level of expertise and foresight shown by some of my crew members.  Often times I will ask for something or look for someone and the thing or the person is already on the way in.  When that happens, I love it, these are the people I hope to continue to work with as a director.  Great things are happening on this show.

Now, on this day of rest, I am going to sleep.  Goodnight.  

Monday, May 9, 2005

Wow.  Yesterday was a fourteen hour day with a couple of hours of wrap time (that’s cleaning up, putting everything away and driving all the equipment home).  But we got our climactic fight and it looks great.  We got a chance to see some of the footage we shot at a post-production house and it looks fabulous.

Today we shot the interior of the biker bar.  This is where Eddie comes in, meets the local motorcycle gang, beats them up and turns them into his kung-fu demons.  The stunt team once again proved their mettle and came through like champs. 

The days start off nice and easy paced and before you know it, it’s lunch time.  Then we have six more hours to get everything and we start moving like speed-demons.  Today, we spent a good amount of time shooting story points and then the second half of the day was dedicated to the fight scene.  Fortunately, our stunt team and our actors know their routines like old friends.  Matt Mullins, playing “Eddie,” has just been a fantastic asset to our film.  His dedication to his martial arts and acting work has really paid off in a great dramatic performance and stunts that actually have people asking if he’s being pulled up on a wire (he’s not).  To see him and Matt Twining go at it was a real treat at the cookie factory.  

I can’t say enough positive things about the crew we’ve got.  Each department has really taken great care to make the most of this film. 

It’s one thirty in the morning and I have to pick Matt up at ten tomorrow to go to Mama’s Pizza out in Little Rock, California.  I can’t wait.  Tomorrow I get to work with my long time friend Michael Gregory.  Michael has been in over three hundred movies and television shows including, “Robocop,” “Total Recall,” “Eraser,” and “Beverly Hills Cop.”  He rocks.

Goodnight!

Thursday, May 12, 2005

What a week.  We started with our fourteen hour day in the cookie factory, made it to the biker bar, finished up at Mama’s Pizza, and now for the last couple of days, we’ve been up at the Blue Cloud Movie Ranch shooting at Johnny’s gas station “Dry Springs Petrol.”

Basically, “Johnny” and “Eddie” live in an old Silver Streak Trailer behind the station.  Johnny practices kung-fu in the back and tries to entice passing motorists to pay a dollar to look at his “famous” father’s guitar in the “Jimmy Dow Museum” set up in the storeroom.  The location is great because we’re outside breathing fresh air and getting sunshine, but boy, it’s hot in the desert during the day and cold as a mother at night.

Yesterday, we shot a scene where Johnny is walking through the gas station and gets jumped by “Tiny,” Eddie’s friend now possessed.  Tiny is trying to steal the donuts Johnny was carrying to bring them to feed Eddie.  You should have seen the fight that these guys did.  Short, powerful, and sweet!  Matt Rugetti, a young stunt performer who will do just about anything, plays Tiny.  Both Matt Twining and stuntman Ryan Watson fought as Johnny.  Well, one time, I shouted action and these guys went at it.  Ryan pretended to throw a punch and all of a sudden, Matt Rugetti (Tiny), hurls himself into the air and lands flat on his back on the pavement.  Now, I’m not talking like he just fell down, I mean he threw his feet straight up into the air, got about five feet of height and crashed directly onto his back on the blacktop.  I was sitting at my video monitor watching the take and had no idea he was going to do it.  “Holy Cow” I screamed out loud.  I think I messed up the sound take.  Luckily, Matt Sohn, our D.P., who was also ignorant of the action before it happened, but has a great background in “reality” based camera work allowed his quick eye and hand to follow the movement all the way into the air and all the way down to the ground.  It was totally cool!  Then they did it again. 

Another kind of funny thing (it’s funny because nobody got hurt) was that during the fight, Matt Rugetti (Tiny) jumps in the air and kicks “Johnny” in the chest.  Well, during the take, Marcus Young (Action Producer) and I were watching on the video monitor. Matt Rugetti jumps up and kicks Matt Twining (I told you we had a lot of Matt’s on set) in the chest.  Now, there’s a thing that you notice when you’ve done stuntwork or practiced martial arts of any kind, and that’s when somebody gets hit pretty good.  Well, Matt R. jumps up, snaps his leg forward, and plants his foot right on Matt T.’s chest…and Matt T. get’s ROCKED back out of frame.  “Oh my god,” I shout out loud (I have a very visceral reaction to certain types of action or physical comedy.  A lot of people share my secret love for “America’s Funniest Home Videos”)   Well, Marcus Young also jumps up to move towards the actors and make sure he’s okay.  But, Matt Twining never missed a beat, he kept the fight going and I say to Marcus, “No it’s okay, he’s still going, he’s still going.”  Fortunately, he wasn’t hurt at all, but just took a good reaction to a really good kick.  In the end, it was the kind of thing that Matt, myself, Marcus, and the stunt guys all think is really friggin’ funny.  That reaction will definitely be in the film.

There’s a lot more to tell, but I have to do my laundry.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot.  I was driving home with Matt Sohn the other night (we carpool to set everyday, get there early and figure out our shot list for the day) and I mentioned this to him.  I used to think acting was the best job in the world.  You get paid really well to perform very little and all your needs on set are tended to by other people: wardrobe, make-up, food, transportation, etc.  Well, I think for me, I was wrong.  Directing is the greatest job in the world.  I am loving every single minute of every day, even the challenges and obstacles.  It’s a hell of a lot of work, and a hell of a lot of responsibility, but if you can manage it, oh brother, it’s the real deal.

Monday, May 16, 2005

Here we are in the home stretch.  We’ve basically got one more week of filming.  It’s an exhausting process, but I really don’t want it to end.  However, the next step, editing, is going to be great.  This is where I sit in front of a computer and put all the pieces together.  It’s when you really get to see the story and vision come together.  It’s debatable between filmmakers which of these processes is the “best” part of filmmaking. 

The last couple of weeks have been a ball.  My childhood friends, Jim Turley and Craig Thompson came out from North Carolina and Georgia to visit the set for a day.  It was their first time on a movie set and I think they had a great time.  They came on the day when we did a lot of wirework and kung-fu fighting in the cookie warehouse.  My buddy Angel, who actually is the webmaster for this site came up from Mexico and worked on the set for a couple of days.  He’s a great guy with a new baby on the way and he does an awesome job keeping Johnny Tao.com running.

I also had one of my mentors, Eric Karson visit the set.  Eric has been in the movie business a long time.  He directed the martial arts classic “The Octagon” starring Chuck Norris and produced and directed several movies with Jean-Claude Van Damme.  It was a real honor to have him on the set.

This week, my friend Mike Schultz is coming from San Diego to stay and work for a few days.  We’ve known each other since were fifteen.  He’s in for an experience, this week we move into night shoots.  We go to work at sundown and work until sun up.  It’s really my favorite time to be on a movie set.  The rest of the country is sleeping and we’re working.  When we go home in the morning after a long day, everyone else is just getting up and going to work.  It’s a great feeling to be on your way home after a full day of work, going against the traffic, while everyone else is just getting up for their day.  There’s something about working all night that is very peaceful and satisfying because you realize, you’re not missing anything going on since all other businesses are closed and everyone’s asleep.

Anyway, there’s always so much to say, but so little time.  More to come…

Rock On!

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

First night shoot last night.  5:00 p.m. to 6:30 a.m.  Man, are we exhausted.  I’ll be okay because I’m riding high on the energy of the project, but I’ve got to keep an eye on the crew to try and make sure they get their rest and food.  These are the times that burn through labor.  Luckily, a lot f crew members are getting their own hotel rooms to stay out near the next location for two days.  Our furthest (farthest?) location is about an hour away out in the middle of the desert. 

Last night we finished at the gas station.  Due to budgetary constraints, we had to shoot six days worth of material in five days.  Fortunately we got it all.  It’s just a question of compromising some shots and not getting all the takes of a scene that you would like. 

Oh well, we’re still making a kick ass movie.  Once again, the action team took some serious wrecks during the fights and pumped up the level of the film.  Matt Twining has been exceptional in his performance with both acting and martial arts. 

I can’t wait to see this movie.

Keep kickin’.

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Just got back form 4 days in the desert.  Long nights.  Lots happened.  Stories to come.  Stay tuned for…

The Adventures of Dr. Robert Myles

The Long Ride Home

Attack of the Vehicle Batteries

Kenn and Matt Go to the Desert

And much, much more!

This is the last weekend of shooting.  Cool, rockin’ fight scene!

Later.

Monday, May 23, 2005

So, principal photography on “Adventures of Johnny Tao” is now over.  It’s kind of bitter-sweet.  The process can be grueling and I’m sure some people are glad to be done, but I will certainly miss the energy of a moving, evolving set.  So many people contributing their efforts into a single focus is a pretty powerful experience. 

We shot 23 days and we pushed the envelope in a lot of directions: lots of locations, lots of action, lots of actors and extras, but we did it.

Last night was one of my favorite scenes in the movie.  It was the first time we meet “Mika” played by Chris Yen.  She meets a couple of gangsters in a dark alley and battles them over possession of a briefcase full of money.  Not only were our gangsters impressive as played by Ilrom (I don’t now his last name), Mike Lee, and Ron Yuan, but Chris Yen certainly proved herself as a powerful screen presence.  Not only is she a beautiful girl and looks great on camera, but her ability to perform the fights (she’s been studying martial arts under her mother’s tutelage since the age of four) was second to none.  Her moves are clean, graceful and strong.  After watching her performance last night, it only supports the feeling I have that this film has the potential to make great things happen for a lot of different people.  I can’t say enough about the dedication of our actors to making the most of their performance.  Now I only hope that we did what was necessary to capture their essence and power on film.

Not once did I ever question the casting of this film.  Kelly was funny, Lindsay always delivered, my supporting players all had their moments, and my three action leads, Matt, Matt, and Chris brought their roles to life.  I thank them for being dedicated to their art, diligent in their practice, and trusting enough to follow my direction.

As far as last night’s fight scene, the gangsters were all dressed in crazy, colorful “zoot” suits (not really “zoot” but something like that), and bounced off the walls of the alley like grasshoppers.  Marcus Young really went out of his way to bring the vision of this scene to life.  We had about ten extra stunt guys on set last night in order to build the rigging system and pull the wires.  In one shot, we had two stunt guys hooked up to two wires each, one to pull them up and one to bounce them back and forth between the walls.  It was incredible to see the guys hopping from wall to wall all “pimped” out.

Speaking of fight scenes, a couple of days ago (I’ve lost track of time), one of our original executive producers, Dr. Robert Myles came to visit the set from Texas.  Robert is a highly-skilled spine surgeon, but he’s also a fifth degree black belt Shotokan karate instructor.  He and his lovely wife Patricia came to the set and got to participate in the demon invasion of Johnny’s gas station.  The first scene we shot was a horde of thirty demons running up the street following a trail of donuts.  It was pretty insane looking.  But then, we got to the big gas station fight.  Matt Twining (“Johnny”) did an incredible job doing his own fight.  They hooked him up to a crane, yanked him up in the air and he did his own 360 degree kicks and jumps, it was great.  My only concern is that while we’re trying to do fight scenes in a single day that other movies might take a whole week or two to film, we’re not able to get all the coverage we want.  I wish I could take more time to highlight each of the actor’s talents, but hey, that’s the next film.

Anyway, back to Robert Myles…he worked with our stunt coordinator Marcus and got to do some featured action in the fight.  He had a fight sequence of his own laid out with “Lenny” as played by Kelly Perine who was also doubled by a great stunt guy named Larnell (who I actually thought was Kelly Perine when I first walked in the room).  It was a lot of fun to see Robert put the red contact lenses in his eyes to play a demon and then to see him transition his martial arts skills into movie fighting skills.  There’s little techniques of movement and choreography that you learn in order to make the fights seem more energetic and less “staged” and Robert got a crash course in those.  He did great.  I can’t wait to see the footage during editing.

Also, the last week saw us out in the desert to film the penultimate fight between “Eddie,” played by the incredibly multi-talented Matt Mullins, and “Mika” played by Chris.  It was out on a lonely desert highway in front of an abandoned fruit stand.  The demon horde pulls up in all the vehicles they’ve stolen from the townspeople and on all their motorcycles.  They get off, surround Mika, and then separate for Eddie and Mika to fight.  I could go on and on, but I’ll say that both Matt Mullins, who only required a stunt double for one single shot in the whole film (and that was just because we didn’t want him to get hurt crashing through the wooden fruit stand) and Chris Yen, who actually did pretty much all her own stunts, (here I also want to give credit to the incredible talents of J.J. “Loco” Perry who crashed through the stand, and Ming Qiu, who helped Chris throughout her fights) blew me away.  All in all, this film has basically been one big love fest up to this point.

Okay, I ‘m going to sign off now, but eventually, I want to talk about one of the best shots in the film, Jason London as “Jimmy” discovering the meteor crater where he finds the dragon spear.  Boy, did the art department really come through on that one, kudos to you guys and thanks for your time making it all happen.

Lot’s more to come, especially now that I’ll have more time to write.

Thursday, May 26, 2005

Well, the movie is coming full circle.  It was February 2003 when Marcus, Matt and I took a small crew of people out into the desert in Victorville, CA to film the opening scene of the film.  We shot an action-packed wire-work fight between two ancient Chinese warriors (one of them played by the talented Johnny Ngyuen) battling over the dragon-spear.  We shot it on 16mm film and used the edited fight scene to raise the rest of our financing.  Well, we’ve wrapped photography on everything else for our movie this past Monday, but now we have to go out and shoot the opening scene again on High-Definition Video so the format matches the rest of the movie.  Not to mention, the dragon-spear is a whole new prop now and doesn’t look anything like the old one.  Well, we’re going to do it the same way.  Matt, Marcus and I are taking a crew of about five people to the exact same spot near Victorville.  We’ll stay at a low-budget motel for a couple of nights, rent a crane for the wirework from a local construction company and shoot the opening scene, again with the very talented Johnny Ngyuen as the good warrior.  This is true guerrilla filmmaking.  A couple of the crew members will come out to help us, but most of them have moved on to other work already.  Fortunately, our optical lens-technician Danielle will be coming with us.  She rocks!

Matt and I just got back from scouting the location.  Upon our return, my car had a flat tire, blown air conditioning, and a loose power steering fluid reservoir.  Man, has this production put the “love truck” through some paces.  Fortunately, Matt was able to drop me off at my mechanic’s in his new Prius.  It’s one of those hybrid cars that’s as quiet as a ninja.  It looks like a little electric sneaker, so I call it “the Shoe.”  It’s pretty cool.

Speaking of vehicles, the vehicle gods played havoc with this production.  Not only did somebody hit Jason London’s car on one of the first days of shooting, but somebody backed one of our picture vehicles (cars that are used on camera) into another crew member’s car.  Then, when we were filming the fruit-stand fight between “Eddie” and “Mika,” the demons all pull up in their stolen cars.  Well, for two nights, the headlights of these cars had to illuminate the fight.  Needless to say, batteries were going dead left and right.  Fortunately, our gaffer, Nate Starck, (called a gaffer because in days of yore, men used to walk the streets at night and light the streetlamps with a long pole or “Gaff), figured out with Matt a way to set up lights in front of the vehicles to act as “headlights,”.  It looked great and I can’t wait to see the footage.  Then, one of our Production Assistants fell asleep at the wheel and hit a curb damaging his tire and rim.  Then, one of our production trucks blew a piston and all it’s valves.  That’s going to cost a pretty penny, hopefully insurance will help.  Finally, one good vehicle note, besides the fact that nobody got hurt in any vehicle related accidents, is the story of our hero car.  And it goes a little something like this…

From the very get-go, I pictured Johnny Tao driving off into the sunset in a badass 1957 Chevy Bel Air with flames on the hood.  Well, we picked one out and ordered it from the picture vehicle company.  A couple of days later they said it wasn’t available and our only option was a red ’57 Bel Air.  Now, the red is a beautiful car by itself, but when you’re talking about a super-hero’s ultimate mode of transportation, man, you’ve got to have something with extra “uummph!”  And that was the black Bel Air with orange flames.  That’s the kind of car you want to buy with an action figure.  Unfortunately, I had to take whatever I could get, but I wasn’t happy about it.  The vehicle company delivered the red car to set so we could shoot the end of the movie.  Well, when we finally got around to starting the engine so we could shoot it, the car started smoking.  “Shut it off!  Shut it off!” the producer cried.  Well, we shut it down and it turns out it was missing some kind of fluid cap, but we were so far away, the company wouldn’t be able to fix it in time.  They came back, towed the car away, refunded our money and a week later delivered the black Bel Air with flames.  When this thing showed up on the flatbed, everybody knew we now had the right car.  It’s the same car that Shania Twain hitch hike’s in for her video ”That Don’t Impress Me.”  Wait’ll you see it!

That’s all for now.  Gotta eat and start setting up the edit system so we can cut this puppy together.

Sunday, May 28, 2005

We have to prepare for our shoot in the desert on Tuesday and Wednesday.  I’ve got a car full of director’s chairs and a gas leaf-blower to produce the windstorm effect.  Only problem is the gas can that accompanies the leaf blower makes my whole car smell like gas.  That’s gonna be one crappy ride up to the desert (2 hours).

We’ve had a lot of rain this past Spring, so the desert doesn’t  exactly look like the Sahara.  It’s actually covered in scrub brush and brown grass.  We’ll try to solve that problem by shooting from low-angles.  This will also make our warriors look larger than life.  One cool thing that’s happening, we might have a cameo appearance by Gerald Okimura  in this opening scene.  Gerald is a familiar face to martial arts movie fans having appeared in “Big Trouble in Little China” and is an accomplished martial arts instructor as well.  He’s also good friends with Marcus Young.

Our friend Dragon now has hold of all the costumes of our main characters.  He’s setting up a display to be exhibited at his workspace along with all his magnificent suits of armor and aliens and weapons, etc.  When the time is right, we plan on taking the display on the road to comic conventions and movie memorabilia shows.

We’re already starting to get great publicity thanks to the efforts of many of the actors.  Check out Impact magazine this coming week.  If you can find it, Impact is a colorful magazine out of England dedicated to the action film industry.  Chris Yen has already gotten coverage with regards to her participation in Johnny Tao.  I used to read Impact and wonder what I would have to do to get in there.  Now I know, you have to direct a super-badass action kung-fu movie.  And you have to know Chris Yen.

Matt Mullins has a lot of interest from Inside Kung-Fu magazine and Black Belt, and Matt Twining actually received a call from Soap Opera Digest about covering his new film..  This stuff rocks!!!

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Okay, just got back from two days in the California desert.  We re-shot the opening scene of the movie because the original version was done on 16mm film and was incompatible with our High-Definition version.

Get this…after four weeks with a crew of thirty-five people to shoot the rest of the movie, we went to the desert with a crew of four people.   Besides me directing, it was: Matt the D.P. who handled all the camera responsibilities by himself; Danielle, our most excellent make-up artist, and Tonia overseeing all our wardrobe.  Now, in addition to their regular duties, these lovely ladies of Johnny Tao served as general production assistants in every way and chipped in doing everything that needed to be done.  We really had an “A” team going to work.  Of course, we had two excellent performers in Marcus Young as “Tai-Lo” and Johnny Ngyuen as “Black Warrior” the original ancestor of “Mika.”  An interesting note, Johnny just got back from Thailand where he played the villain in the new “Ong Bak II,” the biggest movie ever to come out of the Thai film industry.  He plays opposite Jet Li and all the big stars of martial arts cinema all the time.  We were lucky to have him come do his thing.  We also got help from J.J. Perry and Mike Gunther, the best comedic stunt-rigging team around.  They came out for a day and pulled Marcus and Johnny around on the wires.  It was a real treat to have them come help.

We also lucked out by getting Rich Robago to come out and play the teacher for “Mika’s” ancestor.  He was in “Big Trouble in Little China,” a favorite among many martial arts movie fans.

Anyway, there’re a lot of details, but basically, we are now finished shooting the movie.  HOORAY!

On Friday, I meet with Don Poquette and Artie Glackin, the producers, to map out our post-production schedule.  The first thing we do is purchase our editing equipment and build an edit suite right in my home.  It’s going to be awesome.  I get to sit and assemble all the pieces into a coherent story.  It’s funny to see people’s reactions when they see pictures of guys in gorilla suits fighting and fortune cookie snowstorms, or giant meteor craters in the desert and motorcycle thugs in helmets with horns.  People get really curious about how all the elements will come together.  I’m kind of curious too, but I think we’re going to have one very entertaining movie on our hands.

More to come…

Friday, June 3, 2005

Right now there’s a brief lull while we wait to purchase and set up the edit equipment.  I hope we have it up and running by the end of next week, I’m very excited to begin assembling the film.    The brief respite is giving me a chance to focus on closing out the production business arrangements and also pay attention to publicity.  Right now we’re in contact with Mike Leeder over at Impact Magazine.  He’s expressed an interest in publishing various pieces in regards to the film, even excerpts from this journal.  We’re also doing pieces with kungfucinema.com and received requests for articles from Inside Kung-fu Magazine, one of the most widely read martial arts publications in the U.S. 

Dragon and I are talking about making an appearance at Comic-Con this year.  Hopefully we’ll have some footage and possibly appearances by our actors to generate some buzz.  Dragon is now the official curator/archivist of the Johnny Tao movie props and costumes.  In addition to setting up a display in his company headquarters, he wants to take part in offering the exhibit for use at comic conventions, sci-fi/fantasy conventions, and martial arts competitions.  If only we had more resources in terms of labor, we could really take advantage of all the opportunities that lie before us. There’s only so much time in the day.  But I think this production will continue to unfold as it has from the beginning.  People feel a certain energy around this project and get motivated with each step along the path to completion.  It just keeps rolling along.

I’m really excited about heading over to Gentle Giant Studios next week with Chris Yen.  This is a Burbank, California company that makes action figures and busts of movie characters. They have already scanned Chris’ body measurements into their database.  Hopefully, they’ll be interested in doing a mock-up action figure of Chris as “Mika.”  What a great tool that would be in demonstrating the franchise and ancillary market potential to distributors.  One thing I have definitely learned in this business, it’s always better to show someone exactly what you’re talking about, rather than have them imagine it.  Make it real and they’ll see the magic right away, ask them to see it in their mind’s eye and the tangibility factor goes way down.  It can be the difference between making it happen or not.

Tomorrow I have to return the last of the production elements to their respective rental houses and go say thanks to the ladies at the Television Center where we had our offices, as well as giving props to the guys in the maintenance department.  I’ve worked in various capacities in that building for ten years and have come to know the entire physical plant staff from administration to maintenance and security.  As a matter of fact, the head security guard, Stone, even recorded a voice over for me in one of my early short films.  It was truly awesome to have our production offices in a historical Hollywood building.  It used to be the headquarters of Technicolor.  I think it was built in 1936, I’ll have to look on the plaque out front to make sure.

Saturday, June 4, 2005

Trying to take a small vacation is nearly impossible.  I’m constantly thinking about all the things that need to get done.  It’s an obsession really. I find it hard to walk away from the computer.

This weekend, I’m working with Angel to try and update/redesign some of the website.  I also have to write a press release and gather digital photos to release to all the magazines.

On Monday, Don and I are having lunch with Terry Chaffe.  Terry is an editing guru and is helping us determine the correct gear we need to purchase to edit the movie.  We’ll compare notes with Artie’s guru and make our purchases on Tuesday.

Right now we’re finalizing how much money we spent in production and we’ll move forward into making our deals with CGI (Computer Effects) houses and sound designers.

If you haven’t found the guestbook on this website, click on the picture of the desert warriors at the top of the home page.  Then sign up.  It’s fun to see who’s out there.

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

Today is a very exciting day.  I’ve had my new office space set up for about a week now, but no equipment to put in it.  Well, Don is on his way over to pick me up and we’re heading out to the store to pick up a whole new Mac-based edit system.  This is like an editor’s dream; going out and buying the state-of-the-art equipment to start a new project.  I can’t wait to start cutting the movie together.  It’s probably going to take about a week to set up the computers, configure the system, orient the utilities, etc.  Then I have to go through thirty hours of footage and pick out the takes and shots that I want to use.  That’s a lot of footage to go through.  Digitizing the scenes into the computer is the most laborious part of the process, it’s sort of like grocery shopping is to a chef.  That is, sure it’s part of the process, but it’s what you do with the ingredients when you get home that is your true art and passion.

Other than that, it’s been about trying to take some time off from working (several hours here, a night there, sleeping in a little) and publicity.  I just wrote an intro piece for Impact Magazine that I hope to post on the website soon.  I’m not good at manipulating photos on a computer, so trying pick and assemble photos for the various magazines is not my favorite thing to do.  It’s easy to pick out photos for the site (we’re hoping to have the captions back soon) because that’s anything that’s fun, but picking photos for the magazines, you wanna find just the right ones.

Okay Don’s here, gotta go!

Tuesday, June 8, 2005

O.K.  so people move to Hollywood everyday.  Everybody wants to be a star.  You find a place to live.  You figure out where you’re gonna eat.  You try and go to the coolest nightspots.  “Hi, my name is_______and I’m an actor.”  You go to the newstand and buy Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and Backstage West (known as “the trades,” three weekly newspapers that list film and television productions in Los Angeles).  You try to figure out how to be a part of one of those projects.  All those little paragraphs listed in the trades; the famous actors, directors, producers.  Each little description represents a hope and dream for an actor or filmmaker.  Well, get a load of this…

The Hollywood Reporter, Production Listings…

 Click on newspaper clipping to see full size image

 or CLICK HERE

By the way, check out kungfucinema.com.  They just published an article on the film.  (Matt Mullins, I’m dong everything I can to get them to fix your name at the beginning of the article).  Special thanks to Chris Yen for putting it together with Jean Lukitsh.

Thursday, June 9, 2005

Well, all of our edit equipment is being set-up today.  I can’t wait to start cutting.  It’ll probably take me a couple of days just to get used to the new system.  I’m used to editing on a Media 100 system (sort of like the professional Avid edit systems used on most television shows and movies).  But now, Final Cut Pro is an affordable technology that allows almost anyone to acquire the technical skills needed to edit professional quality video.

I’ve been playing the movie over and over again in my mind thinking about the shots we got.  And in some cases, the shots we didn’t get.  Editing is an evolutionary process for the film because as you move through it, you find that you have to change things around to solve problems or use tricks to cut away from dialogue or action, many things that actually change the film a little bit, hopefully for the better.

The past few days have been good.  It’s given me a chance to get back in the gym.  When I saw all those production photos with fit, fresh faced martial artists and then I’m standing there next to them looking like I just got back from the Mr. Taco Bell competition, I knew I had to take action.  I bought a bunch of healthy food, started hitting the gym in the morning and feeling the need for change.  It’s exciting.  And it feels great.

Remember kids, don’t smoke.

Friday, June 10, 2005

The new computer is set-up but the monitor was no good.  Have to exchange it and hope it’s not the computer itself.

We shot our movie on the Panasonic Varicam High-Definition video camera.  Unlike other hi-def video cameras, this one allowed us to shoot in slow or fast motion, a very important factor when making an action film.  Many other hi-def cameras only shoot one speed and have to be slowed down or sped up in the post-production process.  This kind of speed manipulation, as technology stands right now, tends to look kind of shaky or strobe-like.  Recording the action in “real-time” whether slow or fast, produces a much more true or pure image.  Plus, the camera was lighter and more portable than other hi-def cams and this allowed Matt to really get in on the action and move with the fighters. 

Anyway, that particular camera records the information on high-definition tapes, little cassettes about the size of those now outdated audio cassette tapes we all used to use.

Well, you don’t want to use your master hi-def tapes to import scenes into the computer.  The risk of breaking or stretching a tape as you shuttle back and forth looking for just the right take or line is too great.  Each one of those little tapes is worth the tens of thousands of dollars it cost to assemble all those people and equipment it took to film those scenes. 

So, what you do is make down-conversions.  The post-production house will take our tapes and for a fee they will play each tape once from start to finish and record it onto a DVcam tape (Dvcam is another one of the overwhelmingly many video tape formats that exist, forget about it).  This gives us work tapes to use while they store the masters for safe keeping. 

When I enter those work tapes into the system, the computer reads Time Code off the tapes and marks the beginning and end of each shot and what tape it’s on.  When it’s time to assemble the movie in full-resolution high-definition video for distribution, we simply take the edit list to the post-house and do what’s called an “On-Line.”  This means the post-house takes the master tapes and puts the edit list into their computer,  assembling the movie shot by shot, balancing the colors according to the needs of the movie, and doing a quality control check of the entire piece.  Then they kick out the magical D-5 master.  This is an internationally recognized hi-def video format that can produce DVDs or be used to make 35 mm film prints for theatrical distribution.  It basically allows your film the ability to penetrate any distribution outlet and maximize the potential for return on investment.

Well, we had a lot of tapes to convert.  About twenty-eight to thirty hours worth.  And the ones that were shot at slow or fast motion, they have to be dubbed through a special “frame-rate converter,”  another machine we have to rent.  That’s a good example of why it takes some money to make a quality movie.  Little pieces like that add up, but it sure looks a lot better than crappy slow-motion.   Definitely worth it.

I’m supposed to pick up some of the tapes today. 

This is a good transition into this process.

Saturday, June 11, 2005

Okay, the edit system is up and running and we’re supposed to pick up all our down-converted tapes on Monday.  Everyone is pretty excited about seeing the footage cut together.

All of a sudden, our article goes up on kungfucinema.com and then the story gets picked up by MTV in Poland.  How crazy is that?  Poland.  Thanks to Jean Lutkish for writing such an internationally enticing article.  I hope we can do many more together.

As you can see, we’re trying a lot of new things to update our website and keep it evolving.  We implement new areas and then we refine them little by little.  Angel is doing a great job as the webmaster.

More to come.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Today is my brother’s birthday.  Happy Birthday Dr. Stephen J. Troum, otherwise know as Sprinkles the Demon.

And now…

It’s all like that now.  Edit is up in yo face.  Press release just got to get out.  Computer wanna be all like, I don’t know about that.  But you can’t stop.  You can’t sit down and say, “Oh yeah, that’s gonna happen by itself.”  You got ta get up and read that manual, ‘cause you got to know how it works.  And you got to go get the thing from the store and bring it all back and be like, this is going to storage, this stays, I need that, don’t need that.  Oh, yeah, you gotta file taxes with the governement.  Don’t forget to send that letter out, who needs a press photo, what do you mean you didn’t get paid?  How long is this meeting going to last?  Two hours picking up tapes, invoice from the contact lens.  Call technical support, what abut this warranty card?  Is this thing on?

I love it.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Well, we’re pretty much navigating the waters of post –production.  I guess a more apt metaphor is that we’re outfitting our ship to navigate the waters.  We want to sail as smoothly as possible, so it’s important to make sure that the ship is constructed with the best possible materials.  This means making sure that every stage of this constantly evolving High-Definition technology is accounted for and addressed correctly.  Because the technology is changing so rapidly, many “experts” in the industry have differing methods of achieving the same end, some cheaper and more efficient than others. 

Digital technology is completely revolutionizing the industry.  Eventually, all projects, except for “nostalgic art” will be shot on digital video (eventually tape will be eliminated and it will be direct recording to hard drives.  Once this happens, there will be no more film or tape industry to speak of, just think if you worked for Kodak.  What would your business plan look like?) 

Delivery to television and theaters will become completely digital.  Theaters will download their latest films to high-density servers and show them with digital projectors.  Most major theaters in America already have digital projection and more are getting it every month.

When I was a kid, I used to go to my father’s corporate office in Greensboro, NC.  A real treat was to go into the basement of the large office building and watch the enormous computer reel-to-reel tape decks spin intermittently.  My dad would set me up at a workstation and let me punch my little fingers out on the old punch-card typing machines.  Remember, this is back in the day when computers read cardboard sheets for input.  In my mind, that computer lab went on forever.  It seemed so big, I don’t even remember it having walls.

My father held up a key chain the other day.  The size of my little finger.  “This has ten-thousand times the space of that basement,” he said. I mean Holy Cow!  What huge steps forward society is taking and has the potential to take through this technology.  Communication, information.  Information empowers…like one of my heroes used to say, “Knowing is half the battle.”

Monday, June 20, 2005

Alright, alright.  The post-production process is rolling along.  These advances in technology move so quickly, you really have to be ready for change at any time.  What’s funny is everyone has their own opinion on how things should be done and many of the options are feasible.  You just have to pick one and go. 

Right, now, it’s a debate between using Final Cut (a desktop video editing program that has the capability of producing professional grade video output) and some of the other, more traditional methods of finishing film.  Editing is only one aspect and that I’ll be doing on a Final Cut system, but  it’s also about color-correction, quality control, titles and graphics, sound mixing, image resolution, etc.  The outcome is all the same, but the cost, time involved, and the vernacular are all different.  I imagine it’s like being an ambassador and being told you are moving from Sweden to China.  In a very short amount of time, you have to learn the customs and language of a whole other society of people in order to do you r job well  Sure, they’re all still people, but they don’t use chopsticks in Sweden.

Right now, I’m editing some of the scenes together.  I started with a simple dialogue scene between two actors in order to get familiarize myself with the “workflow.”  

(By the way, “workflow” is the present buzzword for the post-production industry.  A relatively new term, it refers to the pipeline of computer and software applications you will use to completely finish the film and deliver it for distribution.  “Off –line” editing applications and media need to interface with sound mixing programs, music recording studios, and special effects computer houses in a specific timeline.  Digital technology.

Nobody delivers film cans on a bicycle anymore.  Delivery companies are being replaced by attachments in e-mails and portable hard-drives.)

Anyway, then I moved on to editing a fight.  Johnny meets a demon in a dark alley and employs a shopping cart as his measure of defense.  Stuntman Danny Hernandez, in the words of Action Designer Mike Gunther, “put on a clinic on how to be a demon.”   He and Matt Twining, along with stuntman Ryan Watson, fought with beautiful savagery.

The fights are fast paced.  I edited together Mika’s fight n the alley against three thugs.  This was one of the scenes I most looked forward to shooting.  And man oh man, did eveybody come through.  Mike Lee, Ilram Choi, Ron Yuan ,all performed like gangbusters on camera.  The wardrobe rocked and Marcus Young and his daring band of high-flyers had our cool-suited thugs practicing “Grasshoppah Style” all over the alley.  Chris Yen was totally kicking ass as Mika and the crew made it all happen in one night.  The original point being, the fight is about 45 seconds long.  Right around where we thought it would be.  It’s like a testoserone dose of Gene Kelly. 

Okay, I’m now digitiziing the footage of our two warriors fighting in the desert.  Johnny Nguyen, (Oong Bak II) was great, but another special kudo to Marcus Young for lying on the sand while Matt points the camera and I turn a gas powered leaf blower on him and cover him in dust.   Looks great, I gotta go edit.

Friday, June 24, 2005

Well, all that’s really been going on the last few days is the round-up of all the bill paying and production accounting.

We’ve sort of been on hold with the editing because we needed to solve our “workflow” issues.  Yesterday I spent about three hours down at a post-house trying to help them figure out what computers needed to be set on what settings in order to digitize the Hi-Def tapes into the system.  It turns out that we are so far on the cutting edge of filmmaking technology as independent filmmakers that the well respected and  established company we are dealing with for post has never even performed the operation we need done.  I was in a room with three or four of their engineers as we discussed how to go about it.  As a matter of fact, they have to purchase software products in order to catch up to speed with the software “Johnny Tao” is using.  In some ways it’s kind of a neat feeling to be the van guard, but in other ways, I just want the work done so I can get to the creative part of editing. 

Outside of that, we’re still talking to a couple of magazines and I’ve begun working with veteran screenwriter Neal Tabachnick on a follow-up film project.

Today I will return to the post-house to double check the work that’s going on.  We had to hire an editing assistant.  It’s his job to sit in front of the computer until midnight and oversee the digitizing process for the tapes.  We should have everything done by Monday so that we can begin the actual editing of the film.  Then it’s gonna move quickly…I hope.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Extra!  Extra!  Read all about it!  Impact Magazine out of England has begun continuing coverage of “Adventures of Johnny Tao.”  Impact is a magazine that caters to the action film industry, both east and west.  They cover action cinema from around the world, focusing on Asia and America.  Fortunately, they love Chris Yen (who doesn’t?).  She introduced us to the publishers who were more than happy to announce the upcoming film and proceed with various articles over the next several months.  I think the next thing they’re going to publish is a two-part article that actually features this continuing journal.  I guess they’ll leave this entry out because that would be like the lizard eating its own tail.

Anyway, I couldn’t be more excited.  I’ve read this magazine for years and always felt a certain jealousy at reading articles about all the other action’ers.  Well, now it’s time for “Adventures of Johnny Tao.”   (Special thanks to the Yen’ster, Mike Leeder, Neal, and the rest of the gang at Impact.)

Matt Mullins and Chris will also be appearing at Black Belt Magazine’s hall of fame awards later in July.  Both actors will be featured for their contributions to the martial arts world.  Chris will also be attending in her mother’s place, a revered martial arts instructor who has taught Chris and her brother since childhood.  Matt Mullins is also going gangbusters with his martial arts demo team Sideswipe.  They’re about to put together a full-length live theatrical presentation of martial arts prowess.  Good luck guys!

More to come…

July 4th 2005

It’s July 4^th weekend and everybody’s doin’ the barbecue thing.  Independence day.  I like to think of it as Independents’ day (as in independent film).

Truth be told, I’m still waiting for our hi-definition master video tapes to be digitized onto computer hard drives for the editing process.  All the work should be completed by Tuesday and we can dive right into the full editing of the movie.  It’s a very exciting process, but this whole waiting game of passing time until the post-production house gets the computer files in order is killing me.  I don’t know what to do with myself…for almost three weeks now.  I’m trying to keep busy by keeping the publicity and distribution pipelines flowing.  In addition to Impact magazine, Dave Cater, the editor of Inside Kung-Fu Magazine is publishing something on “Johnny Tao” next month and both magazines have offered to do continuing coverage.  We’ll get something out to MovieMaker Magazine next week.  They once gave us a feature article on our short film, “Better Never Than Late.”

I’m also reading a lot of Dashell Hammet and Raymond Chandler books, watching some old film noir movies and breaking down the mystery genre on paper and in my mind.  In addition to being prepared to make “Johnny Tao II: Revenge of the Demon Quellor,”  I want to make sure I have another couple of projects lined up and ready to go.  I read an interview with an independent filmmaker once who said, “Be ready to go with your next script, because if your first film is successful at all, everybody’s going to want to know what you have that’s ready to go, and if you’re not prepared, they’ll move on to the next filmmaker.”  Well, I’m certainly hoping “Adventures of Johnny Tao” will be all that it can be and then, whether JT II gets made or not, I’m eventually hoping to make an action-packed detective thriller.

I started collaborating with Neal Tabchnick, an excellent and successful screenwriter who has sold scripts to Sylvester Stallone, Columbia Pictures, and Producer Dean Devlin (“Independence Day” ).  Neal and I have been friends for a while.  He was the saxophone player in my former band, “Birthday Suit.”

Other than that, I’m going to the gym everyday because I saw all the production photos and realized how easy it is to get out of shape when you’re behind the camera.   And I’m watching a lot of Dodger baseball games.  GO BIG BLUE!!

Happy fourth everyone!

Monday, July 11, 2005

I got so excited about editing, I have completely forgotten about writing my journal. 

Finally, after four weeks of waiting for technical glitches to be fixed, I got the hard drives with all the footage on them and I have begun assembling the film.  Hooray!  Now’s the chance, after being overwhelmed on the set with hundreds of details and questions, to be able to look at the image on the screen and really study the execution of every aspect of the film and learn what we did right and what we could have done better.

When you’re on set directing, there’s so many things you have to pay attention to in order to keep the whole production moving forward, that inevitably, little details or points of interest may escape your notice, both good and bad things.  Now, as I sit and watch every actor, every costume, every piece of set design, and every camera angle and lighting over and over again, I can really drink in fine details that I didn’t get a chance to notice or knew that I could “not worry about” on set.  Often times, I’m impressed by the subtle performance of the actors.  So many times did our cast really find the nuance of character that makes a situation or role seem so real, that’s a real pleasure to see.  Other times, I’m disappointed in the shot or two that I may have missed, maybe an establishing shot of a building or a close-up of an actor at a key moment.  Nobody else will notice, but when you know what you could have gotten, it can be a little frustrating.  But not so frustrating that I don’t think this is awesome.  The movie has a great look to it.  Vibrant colors and interesting costuming give it a real comic-book feel.  I’m extremely pleased with our decision to shoot the movie on hi-def video.  It looks great, it allowed us to shoot multiple takes where film would have been too cost prohibitive, and it allows for a great degree of technical manipulation in the post-production process.

To edit, the first thing you do is open your hard drive and see seventy quicktime movie files that correspond to each of the tape reels that were shot.  Each reel has various shots that make up a particular scene or scenes shot in that particular location.  Some tapes are all about actors acting and some tapes are shot at fast or slow motion for the action scenes so you may have to use four or five different tapes to cut together one scene.  After you locate these files, you have to go through each one and watch the various takes, figure out what each one is, separate it, label it, and put it in a folder or “bin” with all the various shots that make up that particular scene.  This is a very tedious process, but it’s also a  lot of fun to see the various outtakes and moments from production.  What’s kind of cool is that just before and after each take, you can hear various crew members, mostly Matt the D.P. and myself, talking about what’s going on, giving direction to the actors, and responding to what just happened in each take.  Sometimes the comments are pretty funny.

Anyway, after you separate and sort all the takes, you can begin to assemble them into contiguous scenes.  This is the best part of editing and with computer or “non-linear” editing, it’s so fast.  You really get to see the story start to come together.  All the little pieces start to fill in the puzzle and it is extremely exctiing.

So far, I’ve been editing the movie in sequential order.  It gives me a point of reference from which to work.  I can watch actors’ character arcs and keep track of continuity issues at the same time.  Plus, it’s all about storytelling, and each time I have to go back and watch what I’ve done, seeing it as a sequential story helps me understand pacing and timing within the film.

Staying up late.  Editing until 3:00 a.m. and loving every minute of it.

Friday July 15, 2005

Okay, now’s a real cool rush of water.

Editing is going great.  I’ve got about 25 minutes of the film edited together.  I started with scene one and am going chronologically right through the script, this gives me the chance to get a feel for continuity, pacing, character development, etc.  Current technology allows for such a great organic process to take place in producing a commercially deliverable film.  All the ingredients can be so readily manipulated.

When you produce a film, the industry recognizes that one page in a script is equal to about one minute on the screen.  Therefore, you write a story about a boat that sinks underneath the Artic ice shelf and Johnny Depp discovers the lost people of Atlantis, if it’s 120 pages, a producer immediately assumes that, as long as you’ve formatted your screenplay correctly, this will be a two-hour movie.  Of course, editing takes place, entire scenes are cut and the actual running time of the final movie may be quite different.  Johnny Tao is a 91 page screenplay.  Really the minimum a movie has to be (this is not by law) is about 88 minutes long.  Anything less than that and you’re getting a little too short for industry comfort.  Now, a lot of shorter films use such devices as long credit sequences at the end or longer title sequences to stretch the movie out a few minutes here or there.

When I wrote Johnny Tao, I set out to make a ninety-minute film.  This seems to be the ideal length for many reasons.  Besides budget constraints and various marketability factors, I just like shorter movies.  In many of today’s Hollywood releases, I often enjoy the high polish of the product, but many times I find myself having a wandering thought of how much longer the movie is going to last, maybe glancing at my watch, and at that moment, the movir has lost my “willing suspension of disbelief.”  I like great movies and many of them are long, those don’t bother me, I get enthralled in the development of the story, but every cop movie and action film doesn’t have to be some epic two and a half hour blockbuster.  Give me some action, some thrills, make me laugh, I’ll have some popcorn, drink a coke, enjoy my self, I go home and I still have the rest of the day to do what I want.  And I still have a desire to see more movies because I didn’t burn a half a day on a piece of crap.  Today going to the movies can be a big investment.  I guess people want longer movies because they are paying more.  Well, here’s a little secret…

THEATER OWNERS HATE LONG MOVIES!!

Sure, if it’s a blockbuster that people are coming from all over to see, they don’t care how long the movie is, but because there are only so many hours in a day, a theater owner can only show a movie so many times in a day.   Let’s say your Johnny Depp movie is two hours and forty minutes.  The theater doesn’t open until eleven or noon, they only get to show your move three or four times and potentially sell a total of three or four hundred seats.  If a new comedy film starring Kelly Perine called, “Big ‘Taters” was only ninety-two minutes long, they can sell that same 100 seat theater six times over in the same day.

Okay, I have to get back to editing, but the rest of this entry was supposed to talk about the International Comic-con this coming weekend.  This is gonna be awesome!  And I do mean awesome.  Matt Twinning (“Johnny Tao”), Matt Mullins (“Eddie”), Chris Yen (“Mika”), and myself are all heading down to the San Diego convention center for the world’s largest annual gathering of comic book, sci-fi, movie, and fantasy, fans and industry.  This is a long established event and a click over to the website is worth it just to check out the scope.  It actually started today and runs through Sunday.  We’re going down just to check it out, make a few appearances, and watch our friend Dragon and his wife Wanda judge the costume contest.  And this is probably one of the best contests in the world.

Peace. Please.

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Things are moving.  I’ve been sitting in front of the computer for the majority of every day piecing the film together.  I started at the very beginning and now have about forty minutes of the film all cut together.  It’s coming together really well.  It’s exciting to see the story unfold and see the characters take on life.

The overall process of creating a film consists of going out into the field and shooting all the different pieces of the script, then going into the edit suite and attempting to put together the puzzle with all the pieces we’ve made.  The challenge is to make sure you shoot all the shots you think you need and, if you don’t, to find creative ways to edit and bring the story together.  For instance, as I’ve edited, I’ve compiled a list of about seven shots that I think I need in order to make the movie work.  We’re talking single shots here, for instance, a close-up of an actor, or an establishing shot of a building, etc.  Little pieces that help make the movie seem more contiguous.  Well, as I became a little dismayed at the growing number of shots on my list, I began to investigate alternatives in editing. 

During one of our days off, Matt and I had driven out to the desert with the camera and shot a bunch of material by ourselves; shots of the desert landscape, storefronts in desert towns, cacti, desert flowers, lizards, ant hills, etc.  We didn’t know what exactly we would use them for, but we figured it couldn’t hurt to have them.  Well, after incorporating some of these shots into the film and creatively editing some other parts, I was able to eliminate my entire list of needed shots.  The scenes of the desert flora and fauna really “open up” the film and give it a bigger feel.

Even a scene or two that I didn’t think was going to work, actually turned out to work very well.

Now, I’ve got to figure out how to burn DVD’s off of our system.  It’s time to start presenting the movie to sound FX houses, computer fx houses, and distribution companies and they don’t always have the time to come to our edit suite to see the film.  Yesterday was spent trying to figure out how to correctly export an anamorphic (widescreen) Quicktime movie.  I’m still working on that, have to have it figured out by 4:00 p.m.  today.

Other than that, this past weekend was the Comic-Con in San Diego.  M