Shooting Chaointe

Well it was less then 4 weeks ago I talked with Tatiana about doing a improv type short. The setting would have to be simple with little movement and the script between 2 and 4 pages. The original idea was a boy playing chess with his mom and thier discussion about where the boy was going to live. I then went more of a banshee route. Mainly because I have always been fascinated with banshee's. So the story was a man having coffee with a banshee and then he dies shortly after.
So I picked up all the equipment for the shoot on Friday and dropped it off with Eric. Eric then fixed the lights and then did all kinds of magical things to the camera. wave monitors and warp drives he explianed it all to me I didnt understand any of it but I tried. Next I ran a thousand errends that were all for sensless little things that you need. The night before the shoot I stayed up until 4am to get myself ready for the shoot because we would be shooting until 4am or 6am. I stayed up until 4 printing off actors release forms, going over notes playing a game called flatout and then I fell asleep watching Donnie Darko again.
I woke up at 8am and laid in bed until noon pretending that I wasnt awake. At noon I finally got up pissed that I only got 4 hours of sleep. I went to Costco Wholesale and picked up muffins, pretzels, water, bananas, apples and ding dongs for the shoot. I then went to michals and picked up poster board and foam core. you use these to bounce your lights off of. Oh I picked up stronger wattage lights at costco for your regular lights or practicals. So you have a lamp with a 20 watt you replace it with a billion gigawatt type bulb. Let see I grabbed my thai food(for breakfast) nothing says 4 hours of wierd sleep like thai food for breakfast. Chicken Phad Thai extra peanuts 3 stars please.
After grabbing the matireals I went to Erics where we just went over the game plan, what sequence we would shoot in etc. After that I headed to Capital Hill or more specifically the Capital Hill Cafe internet lounge and eatary. If you go there tell Mike hi. He was so awesome to let us shoot there. Very mellow very nice go there and buy all his muffins. Ok so I"m on Capital hill hours before the shoot .....To be continued. I still havent gotten much sleep.

Dont play with guns

Me: so did you find a prop gun
friend: yes its a soft air gun has a very real look

my brain must have processed "oh he bought a real gun"

so I could just delete the prior input or post I made but I wont its a good lesson in guns. Dont buy real guns for your set and dont hallucinate that someone did and freak everyone out for no good reason.

Don't Shoot

Prop Guns
I needed a gun for chaointe so I started looking at toy guns and BB guns. Really I needed a prop gun, one of the crew volunteered to get one. Which is awesome one less thing for me to worry about. This morning I called and found he bought a real gun. I didnt think much of it. As I'm going over the script and talking with the location I discover a real gun quickly makes everyone uncomfortable. So I have done a couple of things to rework the script A is to have the gun not pointed at anyone, and B I will scramble tomorrow to see if I can find a prop one. IN the end if people are uncomfortable I will just cut the gun from the story. or the shoot. Oh that was bad but I couldnt resist. There is more information but I have work to do. The ending of Chaointe has changed many times and we shoot in about 30 hours I have to get everything to everyone. We will see how it goes.

Sans Vie Promo(in the works)

Sans Vie
do not touch

Synopsis
Jolie’s need for human interaction is awoken by her neighbor Paige.

Story
It is 50 years in the future because of technology the need for human interaction has decreased leading to hyper anti social behavior. This anti socialism leads to a rapid decline in population. People attend grammar school online, high school online, and college online. They get their first job online and any of their recreation is online.White collar workers now never leave their homes and blue collar workers are in short supply. This environment causes mass decay in the infrastructure. Your trash is not picked up for months, there is no animal control. Water has to be drawn from wells and the world although is at its technological peak, it is suffering from its social low point.
This story takes place around Jolie, a very shy anti social white collar worker who never has to leave her apartment. Infact Jolie in her entire life has rarely been outside or around anyone. Jolies neighbor Paige has decided its time to try and make a connection.

Inspiration
The entire story will be shot in Seattle however the dialogue is in French. Matthew Morris’s vision for sans vie comes from a very eclectic background of movies ranging from a local short Hannah and Heir Papa to classics such as Masculine Feminine and even blockbusters like 12 monkeys or Brazil. Sans vie does not follow the traditional plot line with a beginning middle and end but is more of a slice of time that displays a social study on the need for human interaction.

Estimated run time 20 minutes.
Intended Audience 1st and 2nd tier film festivals.

This story was written after Matthew had spent over 300 hours editing merlot with little human interaction and an unforgiving computer.


JOLIE – Melissa Roberts









PAIGE – Sahra Maya








Supporting Cast
ROY – Daryll Luckett

Brian- Adam Van Luevan
Scarlett – Scarlett Van Luevan

Crew
Matthew Morris
Mark Shapiro
Eric Thomas
Trent Olson
Jeff Creasey
Sten Ryason
Sadie Davis
Ben

shooting will take place January 2006 if you are interested in supporting this project financially or via time and energy you can contact Matthew (matthew@mockstreetfilms.com) or visit the Be a part link on the mockstreetfilms website.

Movies I have watched this summer

I have seen some movies over the past couple of summer months.

War of the worlds, this was entertaining, I thought Tom Cruise did a good job. the best part of the movie was the calling horns of the machines. Overall a B+ or its worth matinee prices. I probably wont by the DVD.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, This was better then the commercials by far. Gene Wilders performance in the original cannot be beat and I think Depp knew that and just went off the deep end. He at times came off as a jackson robot but other times he touched on Genius. the umpa's were not half bad either save the horrible last song. What in the world. I will buy this one on DVD.

Batman Begins I paid full price and may watch this one more time in the theatre I will also buy the directors cut and the theatrical release on DVD and I dont even like batman. This was a great movie. I'm sick of batman and this was a great movie Go see it.

Un Chein Andalou
This was an interesting movie it reminded me of a nightmare and a dream and I like that. I will watch this again before the week is out.

Masculine Feminine
in a word inspirational. I saw this in the theatre and will by the DVD

Finally ladies and Gentleman I have seen

Donnie Darko
wow what a great movie. everyone said I would love it and well I do!

AFI the Directors Terry Gilliam
This was ok I love Terry's work and it was more about his work then it was about him or how he shoots if there is a method behind someones madness they did not show it. You have a directors mind the director puts his mind on screen and I want to know the method Terry uses this does not show that. Before you get upset it can be done go out and buy or rent the secretary James spader and Maggie Gyllenhall. Listen to the directors commentary this is great commentary for any film maker.

I know I probably spelled names wrong I will fix it in the mix. So those are some movies I have seen this summer. I just received The Blue, White and Red trilogy in the mail and I'm looking forward to diving into those when I have a second.

Burning the candle at four ends

So we had our rehearsals today. Well first last night as I was going over my notes making sure I had everything taking care of my sister called who I have not seen in 4 or 5 years she said she would be by around 1 or 2 AM. So I stopped the rehearsal notes and went into sister coming over mode at midnight I pass out and then wake up at 2:30AM. We caught up on everything and she left at 6. I then proceeded to make some script changes hop in the shower print everything off run to the story get some grapes, bananas, Juice and swirly chocolate bread for the actors. Tatiana was there but Brian wasnt. Turns out he was a victim of an email cc error on my part so he never recieved the time or place. At the time I didnt know that so I called left him a message then called the next actor we were interested in the part. This may seem rash but I have had no call no shows before. I want to be clear though that Brian would have been there I in my crazy rush did not confirm that my CC worked correctly. At any rate. Dennis Bam was there. The script for anthony's part was weak at best but by the end of the rehearsal between Tatiana, Dennis and I we brought a very interesting, internally puzzling charecter together in Anthony. I think this will be a very interesting Charecter. A story about a banshee is one thing but a story about a banshee and a charecter you care about is something else entirely. Before today you really didnt care about Anthony that is the charecter that Dennis plays.
So I am home now it is 5:30 I have since hopefully explianed what must have happened to Brian. Because this shoot is so time sensitive and so improvisationally put together, I'm sticking with Dennis. Oh man you should have been there when he read the opening poem it was chilling. For a two page script I think this is going to be contender. There is a lot of meat for 2 minutes of material. I should sleep but our friend is up for her birthday and her and my wife our out on the town for the night. Her friends children are up so I must host a plethora of children for many hours to come. I will sleep tomorrow.

Wonderfully free and Genius Idea

If you are storyboarding save yourself some time and buy Sims 2 for 40 bucks. You can create your sets customize your characters and do all of your storyboards fairly quickly. Its great because you can move the camera where ever you want. Unfortunately you cant get great angles but you get everything you need for the most part.

I have found using this technique can be a bit frustrating though because you actually need to play the game a little. Otherwise your sims start dying. I feel a bit like the architect in the matrix as I have created 4 studios that were disasterous with Sims dying and all kinds of horribly nightmarish things happening. Also your sims wont do what you want if you don't treat them like...... Stars. hmmmmm Well to get my sims to behave and sit where I want and stand where I want for the storyboards, I first created a giant warehouse filled it with saunas and all kinds of luxuries so they could be happy as clams I even created an extra sim that liked cleaning. Then in the other part of the warehouse I created the studio where I can design my sets. So when My sims get unruly and wont don't want to do the story boarding I need done I just put the game on auto and high speed for 10 minutes and they are all refreshed and willing to sit or stand where I want. So far I have only lost one Sim. I have also had one sim go crazy. Regardless Story boards are much easier this way since I don't really draw and have way to many projects going on and not enough green to pay someone. I will post examples later of my Sim Storyboards.

The guy writing this

Here is a picture from a 1000 years ago. I figured I should put something somewhere that has some sort of resemblance of who I am. So here it is! Bonus points to anyone who knows where that alley is at. Yes I know this post has nothing to do with making a movie hmmmmm one sec. OH yes just so this is a bit productive. We are holding rehearsals this Saturday and I'm meeting with the amazing Eric Thomas, who by the way does not think Deckard is a replicant. He could not be any more wrong. Although he is right about a great deal of things I have to disagree with him on this point. Anyway I'm meeting with Eric to devise a plan or really watch in awe as he devises a plan and tries not to get mad at my craziness. After that we meet the talent and go over the script looking for what seems unnatural and what we can cut. things may seem natural in your head or even when you read them outloud but when you hear someone else read them whoa nelly all of the sudden you hear things that just dont sound right. So when you have finished your script and you have your final draft what you are really looking at is your first rough draft sorry to say.

Stop and smell the shampoo

Friends family co-workers, work, and life are all fun . Having a second alone never happens if you are trying to make movies. If you are trying to make movies and you work full time and have a family having a nano second alone is impossible. Well let me take that back you may be alone but you are editing or working on promotions.or writing in your blog, or writing up schedules or cooking dinner, or taking a shower but those don’t count. So for sanity you need to find some way to get alone time. If you are lucky enough to have someone special in your life that is patient with the insanity of making a movie then it may appear like a lot to try and find this time or unfair. I really try to make sure that this does not happen. I don’t think the logic of those last two sentence makes since to even me but you hopefully should get the gist. Anyway I have found a way to have relaxing alone time at least once a month. It only lasts about 5 minutes but it is great. Its very quiet and relaxing it is when I get my hair shampooed before its cut. You may be thinking, man you are weird. But trust me when you are crazy busy like Iam this is a nice quiet time. Don’t get me wrong I love what I’m doing but its nice to just not think about anything. I know what your thinking”why don’t you just get a massage. Well massages kinda make me tense and it would actually take to long and if I were to spend any extra money on something like that it would be for my lovely wife who endures my crazy dreaming. At any rate find something that gives you a bit of peace might be a massage, a walk around a lake or getting your hair washed by a stranger. Whatever it is I would recommend you find it and make sure its not related to anything but bringing you some peace.

I will have updates on Chaointe soon. We rehearse this saturday. Here are some links
Chaointe Tatiana Breger
Anthony Brian Forrest

You learn something new

I have been imparted a word of wisdom. do not submit your movie at or near the deadline of a film festival. 80% of all films are submitted at this time and this is a great way to get lost in the shuffle. Editing and Promoting two things wait, Grammar, Three things I'm just not born to exceed in or excel in, whatever. I really do lack the sales capacity to really push a product. I just figure if people like it they like it end of story.
Well the week of craziness is over. Auditions, Weddings, Birthdays all in one week. My friends wedding was probably the best I have ever been to or will go to it was perfect. A perfect mix of tradition and formality along with a good partying afterwords. Today I sent invitations out to the screening of Merlot
And I also worked on A new version of Chaointe. I still cant decide if the guy should kill himself, get hit by a car or get shot by a stranger. I try to write the happy stories. I'm hoping to be discovered by pixal studios or disney. You can just tell by Merlot that I'm in to cheery tales.

Chaointe is gearing up to be a good shoot. The crew that has assembled together is great. very professional and very keen on the same type of vision I have. Monday I will be taking a look at Perkatory a coffee shop. We will see how that goes. Thier hours of operation are better for our shoot.

OH this should go somewhere in here probably 2 months earlier. But I suck at grammar, have I mentioned that. Anyway Credits. What a nightmare, I actually submitted Merlot to a festival and in the credits was make-up and hare. I don't think that one was so much as being bad at grammar as it was hallucinating becuase of lack of sleep.

Freaked out!

I have a confession. I get really, really freaked out over the wierdest things. Auditions really freak me out. They are suppose to be a happy time for the writer and or director. A time where they see life breathed into thier script. I just become chattie mcChaterson mayor of Chatville and a nervous wreck. Those helping with auditions like my friend .... We will call her Brave Friend number 29. She said it was interesting that I call people by thier names in my blog. Anyway brave friend number 29 said that I seemed pretty cool and collected. Maybe when I'm completely undone and a wreck I come off cool and collected I dont know but at any rate that is how I feel at auditions. Ok so the other thing that freaks me out is doing location scouting/management work. I have avoided this at all costs. Merlot was filmed in my friends Condo. Chaointe takes place in a coffee shop. This means I have to find a coffee shop talk to the coffee shop owner, and see if I can use thier place of business easy right. Not if your me. I have been dreading this day since I first thought of jumping into this venture about 8 months before starting this blog. So There I was a list of 40 coffee shops with phone numbers. I had my notes all in front of me so I wouldnt screw it up and I would just call each one and hopefully one would say yes or maybe.
I look over my notes. yes good yes this all looks good. your staff can be extras, we can feature your store front, product placement, ok on and on. All my selling points. I take a deep breath (I know its ridiculas you would think I was bungee jumping or something) I make my first phone call.
Matt
Hi is the manager or supervisor there?
Clerk
yeah one sec

(going over what I'm going to say in my head)
Manager
hi this is the manager

Matt
Hi I'm shooting a short film and it takes place in a coffee shop

Manager
Oh cool we have a lot of student films come through here when did you want to shoot

Matt
uh july 30th
Manager
ok great

So if anyone out there is reading this and you have the same disease I have about location scouting take heart its not that bad.

I should also note that these are really the only two things in the process that are intimidating to me everything else is a lot of fun. Kinda like I would imagine having a baby is fun. Lots of crazy hard labor and then a baby. I'm sure I just upset someone with that comparision. I will come up with something better at another time.

Updates on everything

Merlot -
Richard Temple burned more then the midnight oil last night to get some final sketches of Merlot to me. We went over the music again around 5:30 this morning. He had not slept. If you are looking for a compositions this guy is dedicated and talented. He is also very easy going. check out his website http://www.mutexmusic.com/

Chaointe
Auditions were held and Seattles best came out. I'm always a wreck at auditions for some wierd reason. We had again, very talented actors come out and read for the part of Anthony all of them were actually really good. We did offer the part to Brian Forrest who seemed to not only deliver a natural performance with little direction if any but also just fit right into the envisioned part.

We have also secured a coffee shop for the location and we are scrambling to put this project together in the most efficiant and professional way possible with very little time. A total exersice in improvisation and keeping things low impact. whew!

On a personal note I will be in a wedding this Saturday and My day job has me very busy so I have sworn off sleep for a while.

What the hell is a banshee?

To answer the post and to answer a popular question from friends and those interested in the Chaointe project here is a fairly accurate definition there are many different forms but this gives you the idea.

The banshee , from ban (bean), a woman, and shee ( sidhe, a fairie), is an attendant fairy that follows the old families, and none but them, and wails before a death. Many have seen her as she goes wailing and clapping her hands. The keen (caoine), the funeral cry of the pesantry, is said to be an imitation of her cry. When more than one banshee is present, and they wail and sing in chorus, it is for the death of some holy or great one. An omen that sometimes accompanies the banshee is the _coach-a-bower_ (coiste-bodhar), an immense black coach, mounted by a coffin, and drawn by headless horses driven by a _Dullahan_. It will go rumbling to your door, and if you open it, according to Croker, a basin of blood will be thrown in your face. These headless phantoms are found elsewhere than in Ireland. In 1807 two of the sentries stationed outside St. James's Park died of fright. A headless woman the upper part of her body naked, used to pass at midnight and scale the railings. After a time the sentries were stationed no longer at the haunted spot. In Norway the heads of corpses were cut off to make their ghosts feeble. Thus came into existence the _Dullahans_, perhaps ; unless, indeed, they are descended from that Irish giant who swam across the Channel with his head in his teeth. -Ed. (from "A Treasury of Irish Myth, Legend, and Folklore", Ed. W.B. Yeats)

From Coney Island to London

Merlot has now been submitted to 8 festivals, the latest,coney island film festival and london international. We were hoping to submit to telluride but your flick has to be a united states premiere to play there. Its funny how many festivals demand you are a premier to play at thier festival. You cant be a premier at every festival. I have also opted to not submit to Palms this year. Its 60 bucks and I would rather spend 30 and submit to festivals where we are not competing with a studio to get in. Having said that we will still submit to Sundance in August.

I spoke with Shannon last night about our official premier of merlot here in Seattle. Currently the audience is up to 90 and the theatre holds 45. I have another theatre I can use that seats 60 and I can do two showings giving me 120 seats. So I will go with that one.
What else I'm in a wedding, I have wedding rehearsals. My day job has ramped up to become ultra busy and I'm holding auditions on the 12th for Chaointe. I'm very busy. I think I will turn around and it will be August. Which is great because I will be one month closer to shooting Sans Vie.

CHAOINTE

CHAOINTE
"more hollow then a heart, whittled by the cold blade of winter, pumping ice thru the chest of a dead man, is the heart that resides in you. your life saddens me"

Words from a banshee.....

She Cries

Isnt that a Guns and Roses song. Well while I wait for January to shoot Sans Vie. I'm pumping up the pre-production and I have started work on an ultra quick short. Tanya is a great actress that has been asking me when will I cast her. I want to make movies, she wants to make movies. So the other night I banged out a quick script that I think is a nice little one. Kind of Twilight Zone meets Poe. Some of the dialogue is great and then the rest is horrid. I have less then 4 weeks before we shoot this. Lets see if it happens I will keep updates. The working title is
CHAOINTE

Grammar and Spell check

I find it necessary to just put randomn reminders in here. That I'm working on flicks and this blog is a very messy journal. If I can break away from my schedule to write in it at all I'm lucky. So again I apologize for the Grammar mess.

Sans Vie our first Cast Reading.

Well the script for Sans vie is in its fine tuning stages. We had our first cast reading and one of the principle cast members was a no call no show. This was embarassing and frustrating. Its a tough call because the person is perfect for the part and I know thier personal life is very busy right now. They are directing thier own movie while working a full work week. Although I'm sensitive to that I have my own shoot I'm trying to do. The no call was really not cool. My first thought was to recast the role. This would put my production into January. My other thought was to try and schedule around her shoot. This would put my production into January. I like puzzles, I dont like this one. Some people were opting for recast others for keeping her. She is perfect for the role and wanting to support her work but still see mine get done I'm up in the air. We will be having lunch later to discuss this and decide how to go forward. It may be it will work out great in January or it may be her post production will still have her tied up. Either way I will go for the understudy just to have insurance. No call no show is not good.

Other then that the reading went great. Daryll and Adam did a superb job for having never acted before. Scarlett was nice enough to read for the part of Paige and Melissa Roberts shined with little direction. I found trouble areas in the script and I have already corrected them. Having the extra 6 months will give me more time to raise funds for an even bigger and better production. Speaking of which I update our website www.mockstreetfilms.com with a donation link. I should have an audio "Feed me seymore!"