March 2008

The Archives

• 03.30.08
  Skip to the bottom if you want something interesting
  2008, General (5)

  Un-interesting:
  Last week, I ended up shooting Ms. Perkins which did, in fact, end up winning the Upstart Script Contest.

  Shooting 8 pages of dialogue is difficult enough, trying to do it in three hours could be a nightmare. But…since the script is essentially a monologue, I assumed the shoot would be relatively easy going for everyone involved. Passed the one hour mark though, the energy in the room totally faded out.

  The only thing that seems to keep energy up is if everyone has a job that seems important. The problem with this script is that there’s only one real “actor” so even though there are a dozen extras, all they can do is sit there and watch.

  I felt the room turning on me at the end of hour three, so I decided to pack it up earlier than I wanted to so we wouldn’t end any later than I scheduled. It wasn’t all bad though. It wasn’t really bad at all actually.

  Interesting:
  In the part of the script when the class has to turn in the papers for Mr. Falcone to throw away, I gave all the extras the direction to actually try to do the assignment like they they thought high school freshmen might.

  Click “more” below to check out the mostly R-rated results if you’re not easily offended.

  (more…)

  
  
• 03.24.08
  Meet Osman Smith-Demisovski
  2008, Video (2)

  (7.81mb)

  Since there’s not too much time left before the April 12th premiere of Oro Platiado at Cinerama, here’s the third of several trailers to anticipate (as well as fill in the abundance of plot holes) in Oro Platiado.

  What?
  Mr. Smith-Demisovski is Rodrigo Magallenes’s personal legal counsel and his main liaison to what goes on on the American side of his business operations.

  As backstory that I just came up with now, he added “Smith” to his traditional Albanian family name to gain an edge in being partnered by a private law firm. He’s now a partner is at the firm Smith, Dennis, and Coles.

  Who?
  Written By: Rafael Gaitan and Danny Djeljosevic
  Director: Shaun Spalding
  Actor: Danny Djeljosevic
  Crew: Ben Klein, Andrew Tan, Rafael Gaitan

  
  
• 03.23.08
  Does it have to be a Cake? Can it be cup cakes instead?
  2008, Video (1)

  (8.14mb)

  About a month ago, Student Upstart Films got approached by another UF club, SIFE, to do a PSA for the MPAA to warn about the “dangers of downloading movies”. Between Ryan Moulton, myself, Biana [last name omitted] and Natalie Andres, we came up with bunch of ideas were mostly questionable. Finally, we decided on this idea that involved a cake idea survived relatively in tact.

  After writing the original draft of the script, everyone had at it for about an hour and a half questioning everything from what the cake should be made out of, to how big the cake should be, to whether or not it should even be a cake at all. Meetings like those are the reasons why a room of 10+ people shouldn’t be allowed to make a decision about anything.

  Biana and Natalie took up “production” responsibilities. I was supposed to direct. Kyle Reid and Ryan took control of creating “Cake” swag.

  What I thought would happen?
  I had no idea. When I told Biana it would take about 3 hours to shoot the 1 minute video, she seemed incredulous. I got worried.

  we had to do the whole thing in one take (because we only had one cake). I got really worried.

  What actually happened?
  People showed up way earlier than I thought (I assumed I was the only one who was going to be setting up lights), but Dan and Kyle almost showed up before I did. The cake and table showed up late which freaked me out a bit. When you’re not doing everything yourself, it’s hard to trust people, especially people you don’t know, to come through. But when they did finally show, the table was the perfect height, the tablecloth was large enough and the cake looked delicious.

  I think I got genuinely overwhelmed trying to choreograph that many actors while talking to everybody doing stuff on the crew. I forgot to put the “Cake VIP pass” lanyard on Mike. I forgot to shoot coverage of the cake “spotlight” I made for the tablecloth.

  It was pretty nice working with Kyle on lighting stuff. He directed a lot of the lighting setup, so I could concentrate on other things. The compositions of all the shots were a lot better looking because of his input.

  I had to stop shooting coverage because the cake was starting to collapse on itself, and I rushed to shoot the master take where we destroyed the cake. I think I disappointed everyone quite a bit when I wasn’t as excited as they were when they finished the take. Looking at how well the footage take came out, I think I was being too much of a buzzkill. Everyone looked so proud of themselves and I kicked them in the chest unintentionally.

  After shooting and editing, Biana came up with a tagline for the end that at first, I was totally against. After revising it though, brought it together in a way that made what we were going for more obvious.

  I’m a little sad that there aren’t any pictures from the shoot. The whole thing was pretty wacky looking. Everyone seemed to have a pretty good time, so overall no complaints.

  WHO?
  Produced by: Biana, SIFE, Student Upstart Films, Natalie Andres
  Starring: Mike Ostrov
  Written/Directed: Shaun Spalding
  Assistant Director: Kyle Reid
  Crew: Dan Homrich, Ryan Moulton, Liz Perlman, Danny Djeljosevic, Brandon Neslund, Natalie Andres, Andrew Tan
  Extras: …[don’t know everyone’s name]