New Zealand Short Documentary

In January I was lucky to get the opportunity to go on a documentary film travel course to the South Island of New Zealand. Our instructors were Professor Jeff Swimmer and wildlife cinematographer Bob Poole; they both were great mentors and gave a lot of valuable advice, plus they were fun to hang out with. The course was 12 days long and I stayed an extra several travelling around the North Island with my parents, who met me over there. The first four days were spent hiking and backpacking, which is what is covered in my short documentary I made. New Zealand is a beautiful and extremely interesting area ecologically and geographically, and I really enjoyed my whole experience there.

Here is a link to my short. I would suggest turning it on HD, I apologize that the quality isn't the best, I've been wrestling with the editing software, but haven't found the best compression format yet. (The title is an obscure reference to an Of Montreal I doubt anyone will get...)

A Backpacking Tour Diary: Finding my footing in New Zealand

The Peel Forest Eco-lodge, where we stayed 2 nights.

Hiking to the top of Little Peel. Not so little.

The Rex Simpson Hut, where we backpacked to and stayed 2 nights.

At the summit (well, the false summit) of one of our day hikes.

Inside the hut, we had some very competitive Boggle games going (using a German set in the hut).

Mt. Cook in the back!

On the way to Milford Sound (really a fjord).

I was highly entertained (because it was pretty brutal) and also mortified at how invasive species were dealt with in New Zealand.

At a seriously insane thermal area.

Cathedral Cove

My parents and I at the thermal area (I know, I look extremely dorky).

The Apartment - Short Film

I've finally put up my Intermediate Production 3-2-1 project on the web, this is a film I wrote and directed last year. I have to say, it's sort of a quiet little film, well, I guess so is Pit Stopping in some ways. If you haven't noticed, I tend to take events and experiences from my life and turn them into written stories which I then use for my film projects, I guess it's partly the way I make sense of things that happen to me. I have to start working on writing my senior thesis this semester and though I have an idea slowly working itself out in my head, I don't think it would be such a good idea to put it out there yet. I hope you enjoy "The Apartment" if you get a chance to watch. Maybe turn off the HD, it seems to play better and just as clear without it.

The Apartment:

http://vimeo.com/36590375

3 Day Shoot for "Pit Stopping" AP

Here is a very delayed post I wrote right after the Pit Stopping shoot in October:

After a couple months of planning and about six months after the concept and first draft of the script came together I finally got to shoot my Advanced Production project, "Pit Stopping." Though there is still a considerable amount of post work to be done including editing, sound designing, and most likely a couple of other things I'm forgetting about because I'm too tired at the moment, we have finished the three day shooting cycle! It was exciting and nerve-wracking working with Super 16 because this was my first and most likely one of my very few chances to work with film instead of digital, and we had five rolls of 400ft film, which averages to about fifty-five minutes of film total. We were down to the last few feet of film by the end of day three, talk about cutting it close.

I had a great team working with me, I am very fortunate that everyone has been so dedicated and focused on the project. When people started asking at the beginning of the semester if they could work on set for my AP I realized that I've been a little narrow-minded in believing that I hadn't met all that many people while I've been at Chapman and I was definitely happy to work with a lot of friends for this shoot. The crew turned out to be a sizeable one, we had about twenty people on set. I think it's interesting to note that five us working on the film transferred to Chapman just last year: me, the producer, the 1st assistant director, the 1st assistant camera, and the gaffer. We've definitely come a long way from transferring in last fall.

Some of the pictures taken at the shoot.

AP Update, Filming in less than two weeks

I'm a little under two weeks away from filming "Pit Stopping," and thanks to everyone's support we've managed to fundraise enough money to shoot on Super 16, which I'm excited about seeing as this may be my one opportunity to shoot on film. I made my final decisions on our cast this past Friday.

My friend Alex who has offered to be our stand-in production designer and I have figured out a great solution to Harvey's bench, and the past two days we have started working on getting all of our materials together. Hopefully we'll get it constructed soon! I'm very happy with what we've come up with so far. Here are a couple of pictures of our progress and considering how we were completely bench-less at the start of the weekend, this is quite an improvement.

Not quite the same as Harvey's bench in Alaska, but I have to say, I think this is a fun substitute.

This past weekend the production team and I went to all of our locations and took a look around to see about how best to deal with the logistics of filming in these locations as well as start constructing an idea of how we want to film at these spots. It was admittedly a pretty long day and one of the locations at El Modena Open Space is definitely more of a hike than we were expecting. There's a chance we'll have to find a different location that will be more accessible, but based on the view, it might be worth hauling all of our gear up to there. The director of photography, Owen, took pictures of our location scouting, so here's two of his pictures.

Steve (1st Assistant Director), Steph (Producer), and I at our road side location. We're sitting on an imaginary bench. Can you tell?

El Modena Open Space, great view, but it's going to be rough getting everything up there. I guess it'll be quite an adventure if we end up using this spot.

IndieGoGo Site Up For AP Project

Hey everyone!

I wanted to post a quick update that I started a page on IndieGoGo in order to fundraise for "Pit Stopping," and would like to thank everyone for the support and interest in the project! If I can, I'm hoping to fundraise enough so that I can shoot the project in 16mm, because I think this may be one of the few opportunities I'll have to shoot film. Here is the IndieGoGo site in case anyone would like to take a look:

IndieGoGo: Pit Stopping

I'm excited to say that I have gotten to start talking with my producer and 1st assistant director on the project, and we're going to hold casting auditions next week. The latest draft of the script is in good shape, which I'm very happy about. I went location scouting last weekend with my parents and boyfriend and am looking into getting permits for a couple of the places we found. The location that I'm having the most trouble finding is for the last scene of the film, I'm looking for a scenic point (like a lake, reservoir, hiking trail, or the like) but haven't found one yet. Here are a couple of pictures from our location scouting adventure.

This is out along the side of the road in east Orange County.

This is the road side I was thinking of using for the second scene.

Side Project for the AP & 35mm Alaska Stills

I finally have the opportunity to sit down and write another post, I created the blog while I was in Portland helping my brother move to college, and since that point I've basically been on the go and am now moved back into my apartment near Chapman University.

I've been working on a project while I've been in transit and hopefully I'll be able to incorporate it into the AP. Basically, I've decided that I want to photograph places that my characters would have passed by or stopped at while they were on their road trip, and my hope is that these photos will be interspersed between each scene of "Pit Stopping." Initially I had wanted to film something like establishing shots of different places, my boyfriend came up with the idea, but it seems a little too difficult to fit into a three-day shooting schedule, so instead, I'm taking photos that will serve the same purpose. So far, I've taken photos while in Alaska (maybe I can get away with using a couple), on the road to Portland (I'm not quite sure if any came out well enough, my brother refused to stop, which was understandable considering it was a 12 hour trip), and on the road to Orange (I made a 6.5 hour drive into an 8.5 hour ordeal, luckily my friend riding with me didn't mind). I still have to get them developed, which will hopefully happen in the next two weeks.

Speaking of getting film developed, I wanted to post some of the photos from Alaska that I took with my mom's 35mm Canon. It was a lot of fun getting the chance to experiment, I don't have all that much experience yet with film, but I did get a lot of shots I was happy with!

The wildflowers in Alaska are beautiful, I couldn't believe how many different varieties there were.

Matthew out along the Bartlett River Trail.

The photos out on the water were from the Glacier Bay Boat Tour we went on while staying in Gustavus.

Marbled Island is home to a bunch of bachelor sea lions and a large variety of sea birds, we even got to see a puffin, can't say the island smelled all that great, but it was definitely worth it.

Lamplugh Glacier

Johns Hopkins Glacier

I heard from the ranger that this hollowed out side of the mountain is literally a text book example of how the glaciers shape the landscape when they recede.

Along the path leading to Glacier Bay Country Inn.

My family and I passed this while we were biking around Gustavus. If possible, I'd like to use this shot in the AP, but I doubt it will fit in with the other photos, I guess we'll see...

Alaska and Advanced Production Prep

From July 31st to August 7th my family and I were in Alaska for a weeklong vacation, we got to Juneau and less than 18 hours later we were on a ferry to Gustavus. We did a lot of hiking, kayaking, and biking, met interesting people, and saw a lot of different wild life and landscapes along the way. Not only was it a great experience in itself, but it helped me to regain the enthusiasm I'd been lacking when it came to working on my Advanced Production project (otherwise known as an AP).

The AP I've been working on came partially from the fact that at Chapman University we aren't allowed to use car mounts in order to film actors driving in cars, and at first this seemed like a big obstacle to me because I wanted to do a road trip film. Other than that, the limitations on the AP are few, but the script cannot be more than six pages in length once it is locked and ready to be filmed, and you must be able to shoot it in 3 days. After some thinking, I realized that I could make a road trip film without ever showing the characters "on the road," but mostly at pit stops. And so was the start of my AP idea. It's still got a long way to go, school hasn't even started yet, however, I'm trying to get a head start.

So what does Alaska have to do with my AP? One experience in particular directly influenced the flow of a couple of my scenes, and that was after a kayaking trip when we met Harvey "Wallbanger." He'd built an amazing bench, hauled it out to the beachside by the harbor, and sat it there. Why? Because he said he thought that spot needed a bench, "Bet you can't do this sort of thing where you're from," was what he said to us. Nope. Definitely not. The way it meshes with my AP will be revealed as time goes on, but I was struck by this incident because it served as a reminder that many times fact is much better than fiction.