VI

Okay.. what a night. We decided to shoot the car scene with Boots and Mangini, after they flee the shootout. It went really well and the two of them improved like old pros. Sean had to leave, so we broke for a while and ate and stuff.

Then, it all went to crap.

Doug doesn't necessarily like shooting movies. I don't blame him, it's not the funnest thing to do. But tonight it got a little out of hand. Justin was directing, and apparently Doug didn't like what he was saying. Justin wasn't being an ass or confrontational or anything, and then out of the blue, Doug decided that he was done for the night. We were all set up to do a blood shot, the green screening was all set up.. He just didn't want to do it anymore, because Justin wasn't "listening" to him. I was rather annoyed, but I let the two of them reason with each other. I mean, I understand getting annoyed because Justin wasn't understanding what the problem was. But when he asked to have it explained, Doug just told him he wasn't listening and he wouldn't tell him again, because he already explained it.

I dunno, the whole thing was a little childish and selfish. Josh came out late at night willing to do a blood shot, and I set up the green screening and had all of the logistics ironed out insted of taking lunch like everyone else did. I just hope that this was a once and done deal, and the production doesn't continue on like this.

V

It’s been a while, huh? A reason you ask? Well, we haven’t been doing much, haha. Scheduling and the like has must been rough. We’ve got 6 or so scenes done. Today, we had to finish out everything with my car because i’m getting rid of it tomorrow. I’m gonna miss that ride. So many memories... the first Recoil... It barely surviving Brothers Keeper... And now she get’s a proper send off in the new Recoil. Justin was magic today, since this was the first day that Murph was officially commited to footage. We got all of the intro stuff and the stuff in the car chase that involves our car. Murph was ON, and we got a couple of shots that we’ve had in our heads for a while.

I’m just excited that the shoot went awesome. I wasn’t able to make it to the last 2 shoots, which sucked, but this one was awesome. I can’t wait to see this intro put together. Seriously.

IV

Well, Never did find that 70’s Feature Presentation footage. Oh well, I’ll come across it sometime.

So, we finally settled down on an intro sequence. We’ve got something, like, fucking awesome, for lack of a better term. Just you wait and see.

I just returned from testing out the finally finished car mount. In typical Kenn fashion, It deviated a bit from the directions.. but it seems to work out fine! We’ve got to tether it down with some bungie cords for actual XL-1 shooting, but suffice to say, I’m pleased. We’re testing out the microtrack II sync audio as well, but I’ve gotta wait for my capture/test camera to finish charging before I can do that.

Tomorrow we’re gonna have our first scene in the can. I can’t fucking wait! We’re getting all of our car mounted shots (shh!) and doing all of the Murph/Peterson green screen work. We also found a creative way to get around my window not working. Tits.

As long as tomorrow goes alright, I’ll be a super happy camper. There’s this awesome wheel-following shot that is totally gonna make this car chase. Just wait.

III

Worked on the font for the new Recoil logo today. I’ve got a few choices, I just need Justin to “Red Pen” one of them, so I can start making it pretty. I really dig my new role in this production. Actor and computer guy. I can dig that.

I also started working on getting Area 69 functional. I’ve got some major cleaning out to do, and I want to set my futon bed back up in here if I can. We’re gonna have two computers going at the same time for the summer. Hopefully, we can manage a productive workflow. Hopefully, I say, because Bruce and I are both rather messy.

After Max’s grad party last night, Bruce and I came back here, poured some beer, and had a production meeting. We want to go into this with a totally different mindset than we had before, but it’s almost like Bruce is fading back into old movie making mode. Another duty of mine is now “Director-Director”, meaning, I direct him.

Okay! Now, i’m on to finding a good rip of that classic 70’s Feature presentation thingy.

II

It’s been about a week since the last update. Things have actually been going very well! Yet again, without provocation, a lot of the problems that we have been facing have gone away. Max has been given full control of the image, so we have someone behind the camera that knows it’s ins and outs. Sound gear? not a problem any more. Justin’s friend, who I’ll call “CFNY (Chick From New York)” is sending us her microtrack recorder to use. Thank you a million CFNY!!

Ahhh... the digital effects. They are all FUCKING FANTASTIC! We did a very quick setup/test of the greenscreening rig, just to give me something to work with to find right from wrong. That tiny bit of setup time turned into a very fast and painless green screening job with little problems. I thought I’d have to slave over it for a while, but nope! I’ve yet to practice the bullet time effect we plan on using, but it should come out great. Everything else has.

We also had a table read of the script on tuesday. It was a grand slam in my eyes. Everyone there had trouble not cracking up, even Sean, who was probably nervous as all get out. It was his first time meeting us face-to-face, but luckily he had some bit of history with Amanda, who was at HACC with him last year (I guess). Doug as the Russian drug runner “Boots” Randolph is fucking killer. He is gonna steal the show in this one. Mark my words.

Car mount still isn’t finished. I’ll keep you posted!

Off to Max’s grad party. Later!

Recoil: Returns

After a long, hard road, Recoil: Returns has begun filming.

There's a lot on the plate for this one, and I hope that it all comes out okay. Almost all of the righ elements are in place: We have the correct actors, we have the correct conditions, a better camera, and crew. The question now is simple: Can we pull it off?

I'm confident in our editing abilities.

I'm confident in the script, and the actors.

It's just the technical stuff that has me worried. We've got a whole lot of new stuff we're working with, little of which we've tested at any length. A master-jedi level camera, sound gear, and lots of digital effects.

Our first day of shooting seemed to go okay, and we all worked really well together. We did some car chase stuff, with me driving the "Villains" car and Josh driving the "Heroes" car. The first 3 shots we got, i'm not happy with. The idea was the put the camera on auto focus/ light balance. It didn't come out too well. The image was blown out and washy, as if slightly out of focus. It isn't awful, but it's not something i'm totally happy with. We're going to have to take some time to learn how to correctly use all of the camera's functions.

June 15th is going to be the do-or-die day. That is gonna be our first day of dialog shooting. Lord, be with us. It seems like we're okay, but I have a bad feeling that we're not, haha.

Today we're going to be testing out green screening techniques. I bought a dickload of green felt yesterday, prompting the lady behind the counter to say, "What, are you making a couple of pool tables?" I found that hilarious.

We're also going to be building a car mount for the camera. That is gonna be pretty sweet.

See yah later!