Been a while

Wow! It really HAS been a while since I've posted anything here. For shame! Chalk it up to "life" and not prioritizing posting as much as I should. This will NOT be a post where I catch everyone up with everything that's happened in the past few months. I have created a few new images, one of which I'll share now. It was taken with my kit lens 18-55mm but it was reversed with the help of a very inexpensive adapter. What this does, when you turn your lens 180 degrees, is it makes the lens behave as a macro lens. So, I grabbed my lens and camera and asked my daughter to sit by the couch and stare out the window. This is was I was able to create. I hope you like it.

Amanecer (Dawn)

DARKNESS

Sometimes you gotta face your fears, no matter how terrible.

FLIGHT

Sometimes if you wish hard enough...

My first pinup

My first crack at it.

Thanks to iDiivil for the killer pose!

Different worlds, same crap

This could be anywhere in the world... you'd find it's got stories you're already familiar with.

Tonight I was talking with my Thai masseuse. Normally I don't like to speak while I'm getting a massage; I don't seem to be able to relax if I have to listen to what someone is saying. But for some reason, I didn't mind talking tonight. It turns out, I'm familiar with a lot of her story.
She told me her Thai name is Na (this is how I'M going to spell it). I asked, but she didn't tell me if it meant anything. She's almost 39 (or like she said, almost 40). She's a mother of two; a 14 year old girl and a 6 year old boy. They live in Thailand still. Na's parents are taking care of them. Na's been here for at least a year and a half.
As a parent myself, I can now understand what it means to leave your children behind. Or at least, I can imagine. I can imagine how hard and heart wrenching it must be and it's something I don't wish to experience first hand. Ever.
My mother is, however, familiar with this story. Due to a number of circumstances, she had to make that choice many years ago when I was still a kid. I was eight.
My father had travelled to the US back in 1979. Pursuing the promise of a better a life, not just for himself, but for the rest of us, he set out to try his luck. Lady luck proved to be hard to attain.
In 1984, my mother made the same journey, but try as she might, she was only able to get a travel visa for herself. As gut wrenching as the choice was, she had to endure it in order to survive.
I recall the day she left, not with fondness, of course; it still makes my hear sink. Literally.
As a man, I wager that women are, in fact, stronger than men. I say this because I can't imagine doing what my mother and Na did. The thought of leaving my two kids behind while I travel to a far off land for an uncertain amount of time kills me inside. It really does. I couldn't do it. I simply could not do it.
As Na was telling me her story tonight, I shared with her that my mother had had to make the same sacrifice years before. I  knew that what my mother had had to do was nothing unique to her. It's something that happens everyday around the world. Unfortunately.
It's just one more proof that try as we might, we're all more similar than we are different and we often share similar fates and experiences.
I told Na not to give up. She's working to help her family back in Thailand and save a bit to start her own little business here in the US. She has a good attitude. She said she talks with her kids over the phone and through Skype sometimes, but it saddens her. I can only imagine.
It sucks that we live in a world where sometimes, being far away from your flesh and blood is often the best solution to help provide for them. Just think of all that both parties are missing! A mom missing all the little milestones in a child's everyday life and a child living without his/her mom nearby.
May God watch over both mothers and their children all over the world. May He grant them the strength not to give up and not let this world get the better of them.

2014 500px Photo Walk in Culver City

If you've never visited 500px.com then do yourself a favor; stop reading here and go there now.
There... feel better now? 500px is a cool site. It gives photographers a sort of social outlet for their photographs. You post your pictures, they pop up in public and the public gets to "vote" on your images. The more likes or votes your image gets, the more exposure it gets. It's a cool way to gauge whether your image strikes a chord with the masses.
500px holds annual "photo walks" (well, two so far.) Yesterday was the latest. I suggested one for Culver City but was not able to lead it. Someone else stepped up and came up with a path through downtown Culver City. It was cool. Though I only made it through the first half of the walk, I was able to come up with some cool images. If you want to see the images, which were shot in cities around the world, search 500px for #WeAre500px and/or #500pxCulverCity.
Shot with my 5D mkIII and a Canon 50mm 1.8.

40

Today I turned 40.
Man, what a trip. I don't know exactly what to think of this, except that I'm fortunate I've made it this far. I hope I'm at no more, at least, than halfway through my journey. I'm blessed to have such a beautiful wife and kids and the rest of my family. I'm thankful for the life I have and hope I don't screw it up. I'm far from perfect and I hope to take the necessary steps to become the man I want to be. I pray I can make my life count.
Here's to another 40.

Group Shoot

A couple of weeks ago I trekked out to Upland, California. Mind you, I've lived in Southern California most of my life, but I had never had a reason to travel to this area. It's far! (About 50 miles!) Not terribly, but enough for me NOT to want to go there again. The reason I drove out there was Maidens in Paradise. This was a photographic group shoot of various Model Mayhem models hired to pose for some 30 photographers. The venue was someone's home; a nice, spacious house someone was kind enough to volunteer for events like this to take place. There were various "settings" available: a bedroom for "boudoir" style photographs, a bathroom with a large shower for, er, bathroom photos(?), a pool, a hot-tub, and various spots around a lovely yard. The models were all female, fitting, since most photographers were male; only one was female. Most of the models were, of course, young and very attractive. I must admit it was bit weird. When I drove up to the house and entered, I encountered a large group of mostly retirement-age men. Two of which were the organizers of the event, the rest "regulars" to these sort of events. There was a lot of photographic equipment. Cameras, lights and strobes of all shapes and sizes. After payment (about $80) we proceeded towards the back yard. Soon, a couple of girls in swimwear and/or lingerie started to mingle with some of the photographers and soon situated themselves in some part of the house. Shutters quickly began to be clicked and the models shuffled through poses after volleys of shutters died down and started up again. As the models began to run out of poses, they began to disrobe and cycle through the set of poses again. As weird as this sounds, it actually felt like a typical life drawing class… if you've never attended one, well, I suggest you do. It's a little weird the first time, but then you get over it. The models were actually very cool. Very friendly and seeking your approval and guidance. I noticed this when I began praising them for nice pose or smile. Any way, I walked away with two thoughts… one, I enjoyed taking pictures. I enjoyed having subjects to take pictures of. And I've enjoyed going through the many pictures I took and finding "treasures" I was not aware of. Here are some that I liked:

Alexis

Marley

Rebel

I approached my pictures initially as a study in portraits. After all, the girls very pretty, I thought they'd make great portraits. I hoped that some of the pictures I could "conceptualize" in some manner. Here's one that I thought would look cool with "wings."

Dark Angel

I hope to able to do some fun, creative things with at least a few more of other pictures.

The second thought I came away with was what to do with all the nude pictures I took. It wasn't like I asked the models at some point to get nude… they just… did. And, since I was there to take pictures, I did. When I got home I found myself dumfounded. It looked as if I had gone to a Playboy shoot. I was a bit shocked, felt a bit pervy, but not ashamed since it was through no fault of my own (rather inexperience with these events) that I ended up with these images. I made these as tasteful as I could of course.

What do I do with this?

This previous images is a case in point. I got a relatively well lit shot, basic composition, beautiful model, interesting setting, and a nice set of… "cans." I mean, if I was in the nudie magazine business I'd probably know what to do, but seeing as I'm not, I'm at a loss. Could I take a few of these and call them "Fine Art" perhaps? Maybe if I turned them black and white with a little vignetting?

Fine Art… right?

There. Is that better now? Less "real life," more "artsy?" I don't know.

For my next outing, I hope perhaps, with a little better planning, there'll be an actual concept or theme. Perhaps some costuming or props or interesting setting. Like I said, I really had fun running around taking pictures and I'm really glad some actually turned out ok. And as much as I like a nude pretty girl, I realize some pictures there's not too much I can do with.

Free Comic Book Day

​

So, every year, on the first Saturday of May (May 3rd for 2014) there's a thing called "Free Comic Book Day." It's a day when comic book publishers allow certain issues to be given out "free" to whoever attends participating comic book stores. It is done in an effort to get newbies started reading comics and allows them to experience different types of comics (superhero, zombie, emo, kids, manga, etc) and encourages reading in general. This year, my family and I went to our local comic book store, Dreamworld Comics and got a chance to pick 8 comics per person (out of 62 that were available). The image you see above are the ones I picked out for myself. So far, I've only read "Guardians of the Galaxy" and I must say, it's piqued my interest. I really don't read comics; I've always wanted to, just wasn't motivated enough. Because of the upcoming film, I decided to try the comic and maybe learn a bit about these characters. It was perfect. The writers I think had the same idea in mind and this issue is sort of an introduction for those unfamiliar with the mythos. The artwork is great, the characters entertaining and I'm curious to see where this story goes. If you missed this year's Free Comic Book Day, mark down in your calendar for next year. You got nothing to lose!

Thanks to Comicbookgirl19 for the heads up on this!

Q

CONFESS - Production breakdown

The PREVIOUS POST was my latest short film called "CONFESS." This film project was as much a film-making exercise as it was a developmental step in my film-making career. There were quite a few "firsts" for me on this one and this will be an attempt to record my workflow, experiences and lessons learned.

 THE TASK

As you may or may not know, I participate in a community of up-and-coming film-makers called Frame Society. One of the things we do in an effort to remain "productive" is give ourselves small projects or "assignments." This short film is my attempt at fulfilling the latest assignment, which was themed "secrets."

Challenge #1 - THE SCRIPT

In the past, I have attempted to write short scripts but was never successful in actually "finishing" them. They've always been "false starts." The challenge this time was to write a short script from start to finish. The only limitations I gave myself was to write a 2 or 3 minute piece that was "within my means," meaning, make the settings/props/situations, etc., things that wouldn't require too much time or effort to attain. With this in mind, I set out to write my script. However, within this first challenge lay a very difficult second challenge.

Challenge #2 - ACTORS

Also in the past, I've limited my film-making to having just "me" acting in them. Why? Because I was always available when there was time. I knew what I wanted to do and it was just a matter of getting myself in front of the camera. Also, I felt that since I was learning, a lot of my projects would be "throwaways" and I felt like I didn't want to waste anyone's time with them. As fine an idea as this was, my projects never really shined. This is why I needed to branch out and hire actual actors to direct in my film.
I wanted this piece to be primarily a "dialogue" piece. I wanted to see if I could conceive and direct a couple of people in some sort of coherent idea or dialogue. And thus, I limited my script to two characters. Two characters having some sort of conversation.

Initially, I came up with an idea that would have my actors, or rather, actresses (mother and daughter) play out the scenes in an interior setting. However, my house being the only venue where this could happen and me having two small children who virtually run the place, I thought it best NOT to have interior scenes. So the situation moved outside. At the same time, I changed my idea around to a man and woman sort of situation. Man comes to house, woman meets him outside house, dialogue ensues, and then some sort of resolution ensues. And so, after much mulling of ideas and a couple of rough drafts, "Confess" (previously known as SECRETS) was conceived and an idea was born!

Confess script (previously known as "secrets")

So now I had the story, but I still needed my actors. I didn't personally know any actors so I decided to use a website called LACasting. My buddy Mike Tavarez had previously mentioned this site at a Frame Society meeting and raved about how easy it was to just post a "job" with a simple description, sides, a day rate and your requirements. I did just that and received an overwhelming response. Los Angeles truly is a mecca for directors looking for actors!

As far as auditions, I really didn't have much time left before the weekend I wanted to shoot, so when I posted my project, I asked for folks to be open to Skype auditions. I got a chance to talk to a few, including my two actors. It was tough, because one, I don't really know much about auditioning, and two, video conferencing auditions is sort of "new" to me. Ultimately, I settled on the folks that I felt I built the best rapport with. My actress would be Kara and my actor would be Josiah.

Challenge #3 - AUDIO

The final BIG challenge was going to be capturing audio. Again, this would be a dialogue heavy piece so I needed to make sure I captured the best audio possible. Not too long ago, Evan Parsons shared with us at a Frame Society meeting that he had successfully used the Sennheiser MKE 600 shotgun microphone in a production he had just screened for us. The audio was impressive and I decided to take him up on his advice and obtained one of these mics for myself.

Also, I knew that shooting outside would be challenging, so I made sure that I also got a deadcat to deafen as much wind noise as I could. To record the sound I was going to rely on my little Zoom H1 that I got not too long ago as well. I know it's not the best field recorder out there, but I'm on a shoestring budget and that's what us shoestringers do, right?

As to what I would shoot with? Well, I got my hands on a Canon 5D Mk III and a trusty Canon 50mm 1.8. I made sure that I recorded reference audio in-camera as well as on the Zoom H1 to cover my bases. Also, I initially had this lofty idea of using a few different lenses, but when it became painfully apparent that I'd be shooting this thing "solo" I decided to stick to just the one lens, the 50mm. It made things quite a bit simpler. 

Well, there you have it, the "technical" side of the production, or pre-production rather. I'll be updating this post with more information as time allows. 

PRODUCTION

Before the shoot, I wanted to make sure I had all my T's crossed and my I's dotted. I made a spreadsheet with a list of all the things I could think of. Mainly, these consisted of:

• Batteries
• Lens
• Mic
• Memory Cards
• Zoom H1
• 5D
• Headphones
• tripod

These were all the major things. There are always tons of other little things. For example, aside from the hardware side of things, I needed to make sure I printed out a few copies of the script to have on hand. Also, just to have things covered, I printed out a basic "Acting Waiver form" and later had my actors sign them. Furthermore, I needed to make sure food was lined up to have for my talent (gotta keep 'em happy!). This consisted of veggie snacks and sandwiches my wife was gracious enough to prep for me. I made sure to have cash to pay for my actors, so I made a trip to the bank. Oh, and I prayed that good weather would hold up enough for me to get the shots I needed.

Finally, and something I aim to spend more time on in the future, I decided to make a shot list. 

SHOT LIST (<-- click here)

In my mind, I had an idea of how the film would look and flow. So I just wrote down the shots that I thought I would need. An establishing shot, mediums, close ups, OTS (over the shoulder), etc. However, in the future, I hope I'm smart and diligent enough to make a more comprehensive list and/or create storyboards and animatics as well. One thing that became abundantly clear was that it is VERY easy to burn through the day and, knowing EXACTLY what you're going to do, will help you get the most out of the precious day.

THE SHOOT

The plan for the shoot was simple. Rehearse the scenes a couple of times and shoot 4 or 5 different takes of the same scene to have enough material to pick from during edit. And that's what I ended up doing.
Since this was the first time the three of us would actually meet in person and work, it took a little bit of banter before we got comfortable with each other. Once we were there, I was able to get "serious" and begin the actual task of directing.
My actors were very patient with me. I explained to them that this WAS my first time working with actors, first time capturing sound, and didn't know if this would turn out any good. They were very reassuring and gave me the time and energy that I needed to get this film out. For that, I'm very grateful.
Lastly, my only real technique was to try and achieve something in the style of what I recently saw in the award winning film "CRASH"directed by Paul Haggis. It's nothing special, but this film is so intimate, I wanted to mimic some of the framing he did during his dialogue scenes.

I may have lost some of that close intimate framing during the shoot, but that was only because I had so many other things going on at the same time. This taught me that on the next project it would be very beneficial to have others helping me out. I realize how important it is to have crew now. 

One big lesson I learned was that when shooting OTS (Over The Shoulder), it's really important to pick a spot behind your actor/actress, and NOT move. (Have the actors not move either!) Why is this important? During the edit, cutting together the back and forth of the actors, I realized that at one point I started to "drift" away from my actor Josiah (playing Steven). This was possibly due to the fact that I was standing on the edge of a little ledge protruding off a wall and I was possibly losing my balance. I had gone up there because Josiah is taller than me and I needed the height to frame that shot. When you cut back to one of the characters and the framing suddenly isn't the same, it's jarring. It feels as if the scene was filmed at a different time, or from a different place, or something. If you were immersed in the scene, as an audience, this would take you right out. Lesson learned!

ISSUES

The biggest issue I had was that I was shooting right out in front of my house and it so happened that THAT particular day my next door neighbor was having a tree cut down. So in the middle of my second take, the faint noise of a chainsaw made it's way up my headphones mid-sentence. Ugh. Fortunately, it let up within a half hour and didn't entirely ruin my day. Another big AUDIO issue is the fact that I'm only four blocks away from the freeway and I happened to have my mic pointed in THAT direction. I was so nervous and preoccupied, I suppose I just didn't realize it. Oh well.

The last big issue I had was that there are cars in the back of my actors and the one closest to us, in my OTHER next door neighbor's house, is moved mid shoot. So, if you're following "continuity" you'll detect that in some scenes there's a large SUV behind my actress and in some there is not. Again, something I didn't really think about until I had to but there was nothing I could do to prevent it. Thus, I now wholeheartedly understand the need of a CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT.

POST PRODUCTION

The last phase of the project was to simply put all these separate elements together. I'd say I worked on the edit for a good week, week and a half maybe, during the evenings.
I used Adobe Premiere CS6 as my editing package. Photoshop CS6 to prep the bus element and create the basic title card and finally, I used Audition CS6 to help me with all my audio issues.

If you watched the film, you'll see that it's a total 4:50 mins in duration. I had meant it to be no longer than three minutes, but alas, it's something else I'll have to learn how to control. Overall I'm pretty happy with how it ended up. I was satisfied with how I directed my actors, how they performed. I knew the film wouldn't be PERFECT. It has a lot of issues. It moves a bit slow. I tried to trim as much "fat" as I could. But again, this was just something I know would serve me more as a learning experience than anything else. I hope you get a chance to see it and hope you don't think it's horrible.

LAST THOUGHTS

If anything, this experience has left me very excited and motivated to create at least one more short film. I want take the lessons I've learned here and apply them and try not to make the same mistakes I made again. I want to push myself and create something a bit more ambitious with the ultimate goal of at least making it "entertaining." THAT is the ULTIMATE challenge after all, isn't it? Thanks for reading.