Generation Why: A Damn Good Night

I recently shot some footage at a party and then slapped a trailer together using a new feature in iMovie that requires little effort and guarantees the cliche-est trailer possible. Some of the best stuff I couldn't fit in because the segments were longer than would make sense in a trailer. Maybe I'll find a use for them someday.

Either I don't know what I'm doing or Blogspot has an inability to embed videos without cutting off the ends, so here's a link: Generation Why: A Damn Good Night

Production Shoot and Upcoming Projects

Last weekend I ventured out to Hartland, MI and worked as a production assistant on a Belle Tire commercial for Rare Medium Well Done, a production company based in Troy, MI. Despite having graduated over three years ago, it was the first time I was actually paid to work on a set.

There was not one time during the day when the back of the dolly didn't have snacks on it, including at one point a giant sausage the crew purchased themselves because they didn't think craft services had enough meat.

My duties on set included: holding a cable so the dolly didn't run it over, standing between the director and someone else and then repeating the director's commands more loudly so the someone else could hear them, putting tape over the make and model names on cars, strategically placing plants to cover up a sign, and taking dinner orders from the talent and crew. Overall, it was good experience, easy money, and I ate free food all day long. Also, this guy was there not doing anything other than enjoying the craft services.

He's that dude that talks to the tire. 

Otherwise, I've started a few projects, including a new script, a bookend, a top secret project, and probably something else I don't even remember starting right now.

In search of supplies for some of these projects I visited Arts and Scraps here in Detroit. Here's my favorite box from there:

Unfortunately, the contents were less exciting. It didn't even have mustaches inside.

What was exciting was the car that crashed through the building while I was there. It backed up through the building, shattering the window, knocking shelves and buckets of crafts all over the floor, and literally shifting the wall of the building. The driver came in after being told he had caused serious structural damage, looked at the obviously crooked wall, and said "I'm not an engineer or anything, but that looks pretty straight to me." They had to show him the door no longer could shut in the doorway to prove it to him. He then said, "Well, accidents do happen" and left. I didn't get any pictures as to not be a d-bag who takes pictures of an accident and then posts it on his blog, so I helped an old lady clean up crafts from the floor instead, thus degrading the quality of my blog, but making me less of a terrible human-being.

Anyways, got a little off track, but it was a great store with lots of cool stuff for super cheap. Go there and support them so they have money to fix their newly concaved wall.

Fairfield Script

I've been primarily using this blog for visual projects, but since writing Fairfield has been a major project of mine since the end of 2006/beginning of 2007, and has again become my main focus approaching 2010, it seems wrong not to mention it on a blog about projects I'm working on.

I began the planning stages of Fairfield around the end of 2006 and wrote the original script for a class in my final semester at SFSU in 2007. I always wrote it with the intention to film it, which is a privilege not many writers get, and one that helps me greatly through the writing process since I can visualize who's going to be playing who, and can really hear a specific character's voice while I write. My previous film, Phat Tony, really lacked in the performance of the actors, and I don't feel that it was as much of a fault with the people in it, as it was a fault of poor casting on my end. In Phat Tony, I only thought visually of who would be good for the role, instead of thinking about actual personalities. I think the casting was greatly improved between the two films, and being able to have a casted film while writing it really helps with writing dialogue, especially for the more colorful characters like L Teezy Mac and Bruce in Fairfield.

DVD Authoring Cont...

I decided to play around with Photoshop some more and see if I couldn't improve on the old main menu I hastily threw together for Fairfield (see last post for old menu image). I mostly like the way it turned out and have definitely learned a few more tools in Photoshop in the process.



Next I'm going to export this into AfterEffects and see if I can make an animated menu. I may or may not end up using the animated version, but it should be a fun experiment at least.

DVD Authoring of Fairfield

I made my "big movie," Fairfield, two years ago now and am finally just now really finishing it. I burned copies for friends/people who worked on it with end credits of a friend drunkenly singing a song, but it wasn't exactly the version I wanted to submit to any film festivals. I was finally to a point where I had the motivation/equipment necessary to make the version I've wanted.



The other good part about finally doing this is that it's forced me to learn more software. I used Adobe Encore for the first time and made all the menus myself in Photoshop. The picture above is the main menu I made displayed in the Encore project. It's obviously really simple, but I like it better than using the cookie-cutter iDVD menus I've used in the past.

untitled imaginary friend project

i'm in the process of completing the script for a new short currently being referred to as imaginary friend project.

synopsis:
adam, being unable to make any friends, has created his own friend, winston. winston is rude and never hesitates to speak his mind; something adam is incapable of doing. adam, despite having winston, still desperately wants to hang out with nate and colin; two arrogant hipsters who have no interest in spending time with sweatpants-wearing adam. when winston constantly voices his negative opinions about nate and colin, and adam insists on defending them, even adam's own imaginary friend leaves him. adam, now without winston, has to figure out for himself which friends are genuine and which aren't.

cast:
adam... travis bye
winston... loren tyra
nate... dan c. smith
colin... kevin fulton

written and directed by trevor walters
story by trevor walters and dan a. smith