Ok, admittedly not my most professional title yet, but hear me out before the torches and pitchforks come out…
Hello one and all. Well, after two months of delays, filming has finally commenced on “Unwinnable Hand: A Thriller in Two Movements,” the original short film I wrote the 1st draft of back in September 2005. A long time to be working on a short film, I know, but we have our reasons, and they have nothing to do with Kubrickian perfection (though if I had the time to do 95 takes of Ron and Dave walking down a hall, believe me, I’d be taking advantage of that…).
Originally, our first official day of shooting on “Movement II” was going to be the last day of filming @ Ron’s parent’s house on Sunday, after being rescheduled many times before. Well, life made it necessary to reschedule again (though we did get to see Satoshi Kon’s “Paprika” instead- really good anime, folks), but we were able to keep a date to film up at Mike’s house Tuesday night- nice place, by the way, Mike- to shoot a couple of brief scenes between he and I, one of which is actually the first scene in “Movement II,” so, cool.
The only difficulties- besides the always-crippling lack of pre-rehearsal time- were a) this being my first time at Mike’s new place (though the ideal location to shoot presented itself immediately), and b) we only had until 9pm to shoot after not getting there until 6:30-7 (coming from work’s a bitch, folks). But we did manage to get everything we needed (though pickups may be necessary later) shot through productive rehearsals and reading each other’s performances well. Have I mentioned how much fun this film should be to watch?
The benefits of having multiple cameras were immediate. The Yahoos (aka Cinema Nouveau Productions) were able to shoot with their own MINI-DV camera for the first time (not including 1 Midwives concert and 2 Tortuga Twins shows at Ren Faire), with Ron operating, while Chris operated his own camera. Multiple cameras meant multiple angles on the same take, which sometimes took longer to setup, but allows me infinitely more options than before. It’ll be great to go into editing all of this when it gets time to.
There’s not too much else to go into now. I’m happy with what we got accomplished in so short of a time, and as with before, the more we work with our resources, the easier everything will get. At some point, I’m looking to do a full cast read-through of the script, and if all works our with scheduling for filming and financially, we should be able to get this thing done by the end of 2007, with frequent updates/new material available online at the Cinema Nouveau MySpace page (see below), where a trailer and video diary by me are available for your viewing pleasure. But that’s an idea for a different blog. Thanks (as always) to Mike, Ron, Chris, and Dave (who kept Mike’s daughter and dog at bay during the shoot with a lil’ bit of “Toy Story”) for their work last night, and thanks to everyone else for reading.
Thanks for listening,
Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
www.myspace.com/cinemanouveau
www.myspace.com/brianskutle.com
Click here to download or watch Brian’s first video diary after the first day of shooting.
Click here to read my seventh “Unwinnable Hand†Production Diary.
Click here to read my sixth “Unwinnable Hand†Production Diary.
Click here to read my fifth “Unwinnable Hand†Production Diary.
Click here to read my fourth “Unwinnable Hand†Production Diary.
Click here to read my third “Unwinnable Hand†Production Diary.
Click here to read my second “Unwinnable Hand†Production Diary.
Click here to read my first “Unwinnable Hand†Production Diary.
Click here to read “Red Cup Mafia,” another short script I wrote in November 2006- inspired by some recent happenings at work- that I hope to film in the future through Cinema Nouveau Productions.
