“Bridezillas” – day 2

That’s a wrap. Hurry up and wait has never been truer than on this project. And my opinion of reality TV hasn’t changed. What’s interesting is that shooting reality TV is very much like shooting a documentary. You log tons and tons of footage that will eventually be broken down into a short amount of time. I don’t envy documentary editors. I don’t envy reality TV editors. What I find interesting in both is with the footage you end up with, you can cut together a million different shows to tell whatever story you choose. You can make the good guy look like a bad guy, you can make the bad guy look like the good guy. You hold the marionette strings and you pick shots to tell whatever story you choose. No social commentary or judgment on my part, just an interesting observation. Being of a narrative mind though, I like to have my story first, then go out and make the actors perform it.

I was thinking that if a camera followed me everywhere for a day, someone could edit the footage down to make me look any way they want. I could look cool, giving, selfish, clumsy, mean, helpful, smooth, frustrated, etc. The emotions a person shows on a daily basis runs the gamut, we just have the luxury of not showing all of our sides to everyone all of the time. And that’s a good thing. At least from my perspective. There are plenty of people out there that think I’m the sweetest guy. And there are plenty that know otherwise.

The moral of the story – if someone is filming your life, the one person you need to be nice to is your editor.

“Bridezillas” – day 1

That’s right, for two days this week I’m actually working in reality TV. I never thought I’d see the day. Day one was pretty eventful. Of course, that’s the point, to capture the “events” that happen. It’s certainly an interesting process seeing the best ways to capture (and sometimes push along) the drama as it unfolds in a very chaotic time for someone who’s about to be married. I’m not really sure how much I’m allowed to write so I’ll just leave it at that. Day two is tomorrow. Wish us luck.

Moby – Free Music For Independent Filmmakers

I heard about this a while back so I thought I’d pass it along to the rest of my independent film friends.

Check out www.moby.com and click the “moby gratis” link and you’ll see the following statement from Moby:

* * *
hi,
i'll keep this brief.
this portion of moby.com, 'film music', is for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short.
to use the site you log in(or on?) and are then given a password.
you can then listen to the available music and download whatever you want to use in your film or video or short.
the music is free as long as it's being used in a non-commercial or non-profit film, video, or short.
if you want to use it in a commercial film or short then you can apply for an easy license, with any money that's generated being given to the humane society.
i hope that you find what you're looking for,
moby

* * *
Pretty cool, huh? I’ve created my account and have listened to some of the tracks. I’m always looking for music for my projects, so this seems like the perfect opportunity to get some great music at a fair price (free). Much of this is perfect for short film scores and incidental music for just about any other video project.

Good luck and enjoy. If you sign up and use some of his music, let me know.

“Lovely, Still” - day 25

I’ve been so busy with festival stuff lately that I haven’t had a chance to visit the set of the latest feature film that’s being shot here in Omaha until Tuesday night. “Lovely, Still” is the first feature film by writer/director Nik Fackler, a local filmmaker who’s been writing and shooting short films and music videos over the last several years and with the help of producer Dana Altman of North Sea Films, they’ve finally put all of the pieces together to get the film produced locally.

I arrived on set down at the Gene Lahey mall at 5:00pm and was greeted by an army of large production vehicles, so you could immediately tell this was a larger budget film than most of the locally produced independent films. After most of the crew arrived and started work for the day, it was great to see that I recognized (and have worked with) most of them. After a couple of hours of setup, it was finally time to start shooting for the day.

Mr. Martin Landau and Ms. Ellen Burstyn are the two leads for the film and they were treated to an evening of outdoor scenes in beautiful (and ridiculously cold) downtown Omaha. It was a real treat for me watching them work and you could certainly tell that they had countless years of experience behind what they were doing. It was also cool seeing two Oscar winners being directed by our own Nik. From what I saw, it’s going to be a great film and the scene that they shot while I was visiting will be sure to cause goose bumps and tears in the theater. That’s all I can say about that.

And I left the set after 1:30am. And had to be at work by 7:00am. And it’s now after midnight. I plan on getting some sleep sometime very soon. At least that’s the plan.

Congrats Nik and Dana. Principal photography wraps this week and it’s on to post production. Anyone that knows me and my projects knows how much I LOVE post productions. Ugh.

OFF'08 - Coming to a theater near you

In the last week, we've spent over 20 hours with our judges in meetings trimming nearly 400 entries down to a handful of features, documentaries and short films. To all the filmmakers out there, expect an e-mail from Jeremy in the next couple of weeks.

I've personally watched well over 200 independent films in the last six months. I just watched the first studio film I've seen in months. It felt good. Thank you Wong Kar Wai.

Lots of festival news in the next couple of months. Stay tuned.