Official Movie Newsletter - Volume 1 Issue 3

Hello Friend!

Welcome to the third installment of our monthly newsletter. This month I would like to discuss an aspect of film making that I consider to be one of the most important, from a Directorial perspective. The official term is pre-visualization, which basically means knowing exactly what you are shooting, frame by frame, before you start principal photography.

When I first started this project, I was sure to let everyone know, that I had no idea what I was doing and that I would be learning along the way. Boy was that an under-statement. I feel as though I just crammed through a four year degree in film making in nine months. At the start, I had a basic visual concept in my head of how a scene would play out, but didn't even have a simple shot list for most of the scenes. As time progressed I began to realize how lost I felt on set sometimes when all eyes were on me for the next shot. It didn't take long for me to seek out a better method, and started creating shot lists in Microsoft Excel.

My shot lists were fairly simple and looked something like this:

Medium, Handheld - Gruff staggers towards camera, dazed.

"Medium" in that example tells me how I want the shot framed. A medium shot generally frames the upper torso of the character(s). "Handheld" refers to how I want the camera handled, other examples could be tripod, steadicam, dolly or crane. Now, while this type of shot list is much better than say nothing, it is still a far cry from how I will work in the future.

There is a great program online called Frame Forge, that allows you to digitally create your shots using 3D graphics similar to leading video games. You can create characters and sets, put them together with your lighting and even set up your camera positions. This is the program I will use going forward. Being prepared for every shot and every lighting setup before you get to set saves soooo much time and energy, and when we are working with a budget, it ultimately saves money.

...cya next month.

Hello everyone again from the windy city. In this third edition of On The Script, I will be focusing in on our hero, the great and mysterious Gruff. We'll be discussing my first impressions of director Keith Mosher's vision for Gruff, my early conversations with Keith about approach and development, and how that was all distilled into this larger than life character that became the driving force for the One Long Day script.

Over the first few days of the development of Gruff, my sense of how Keith perceived Gruff was initially a basic pulp list of tough guy attributes and instincts; which was nice for me as a writer because I'm a big fan of old pulp fiction novels and I had a good basic knowledge of how to write this type of character. Keith wanted an heir of mystery to follow Gruff in both his internal dialogue as well as external; which is a good approach because it keeps Gruff's internal dialogue from ever coming in conflict with his external dialogue. The challenge for me as a writer here was to create an interesting character without revealing too much about him. Keith felt that one way this could be achieved would be by using an "echo" device in Gruff's V.O. (voice over) dialogue. An "echo" is an action or dialogue that is repeated within a narrative (or story) for a specific effect. The type of echo Keith wanted to incorporate was a dialogue echo – the less than revealing line, "In my line of work…" throughout the script. The following is two excerpts from the One Long Day screenplay illustrating use of this echo device:

GRUFF (V.O) In my line of work, you do a job and then you get paid for that job. Nothing personal… just business. But I'm not getting any money for this job. No, this one is personal. This one is pure revenge. This one is for Fluffy.

And:

GRUFF (V.O.) In my line of work you meet professionals and you meet hacks. The two assholes that paid me a visit this morning were definitely pros, but they were sloppy. Whether they meant to or not, they gave me a name… Tony Revario.

In both of these instances the "In my line of work…" echo is used effectively in both raising the question of what Gruff's line of work might actually be, as well as giving small hints to what his line of work actually is. Keith felt (and I completely agreed) this particular echo would be a great device for keeping Gruff's character interesting without revealing too much about him to the viewer. What line of work is this psychopath involved in exactly? Keith wanted a complete anti-hero – no redeeming qualities, singular in purpose and merciless; intimidating to the last. But, before I can discuss how I started churning all of this red meat into a story I'd like to move backward on the development timeline a little bit to the original premise of the story.

The very first time I sat down with Keith to discuss the initial conception of Gruff, Keith basically had a character that was a victim of circumstance. Gruff was presented to me as more of a plot premise than an actual character. The premise: two hitmen are sent to an apartment to shake down an accountant named Ching. Through circumstance, the hitmen end up at the wrong apartment. A struggle ensues and when the dust settles, Gruff has been left for dead and Gruff's best friend, the wiener dog Fluffy has been killed (Note: as some of you already know, Fluffy started out as a poodle, but I'll be getting more into that next month). When Gruff discovers that Fluffy is dead, he goes on a mission to avenge her death with one singular goal in mind – kill anyone who had anything to do with the death of Fluffy. With this in mind, Keith and I more and more begin to see Gruff as a superhuman character that has always lived by the sword, rather than simply a wayward victim of circumstance who is only behaving like this because his dog was killed. I personally like to think of Gruff as a cross between Dirty Harry and Robocop. We even discussed the possibility that Gruff may actually be a mass murderer of some kind, a hitman himself or a deranged war veteran. The story is just ambiguous enough to allow the movie viewer to draw some of his/her own conclusions on this one, but one thing became clear in our early meetings about Gruff, he was becoming one mean bad ass motor scooter. And someone you'd never want to meet.

This leads me to the main challenge I encountered when I finally sat down and started developing the final version of Gruff. How do I make a remorseless, dangerous man and potential mass murderer likable enough to be our hero? Well, I started with my Dirty Harry/Robocop comparison in mind and added a good dose of humor. I personally find funny people easier to like and warm up to. Even though his humor is mostly obscene, it belies an understated good nature at times that lets you know that, yeah Gruff might kill you, but at least he'll kill you with a smile. And, Gruff does tend to be funniest when things seem to be at there worst for him. I enjoyed that about his personality because it gave him an admirable quality of unflappability. Another approach I took to making Gruff a hero you'd root for was to humanizing him. I wanted him to have an extreme emotional reaction to Fluffy's death before he goes on his killing spree. This notion led to the scene in his apartment where he weeps over the dead Fluffy carcass, as well as the Desert/Funeral Fire scene. And although I found the Funeral Fire scene to be funny when I wrote it, it was also intended to show Gruff's extreme respect for his lost friend. These two scenes, I believe, solidified Gruff as a character we could all get behind on his journey of revenge. When all of these elements where finalized and brought together, I believe that Keith and I were very successful in creating a memorable killing machine we could all get behind and definitely like, if not love. I know I do.

Well, that will wrap up this edition of On The Script. In the next edition, I will be discussing all of the supporting characters and their roles in our story – Skunk, "Cold Fingers" Johnny, The Kid, Ching, Frankie and of course Fluffy. (And coming soon, the incomparable Tony Revario.)

Be good,
David Sean Greider
Screenwriter,
One Long Day

Hello, once again. Wow, already another month has gone by. Well, this month I was going to cover filters and how it affects the shot. Whether the shot is improved, (i.e. reducing glare off of a windshield or someone's head), or affected like a special effect, (i.e. a dreamy hazy diffused look for dream sequences), the filter is used in most shots in one way or another. Anyway, that is where we were going to go. But I have to share with you an experience that will hopefully sink in a little to each and every one of you that use your computer on a daily basis to store maybe music, photos, important docs, movies, etc., instead.

A couple of weeks ago, we started cutting the trailer. It is going in a great direction, and we are into a good solid minute plus in the trailer, and our illustrious director gives me a file on a jump drive to render out in one of our programs. Essentially, that means take all the different layers and tracks and make it into one flowing track, kinda like its own movie. Anyhow this is our working title graphics and so on. (By the way, it's pretty cool how that is coming out as well.) So I'm rendering this file on my computer, and it crashes. Ok, so I restart and try again, and it crashes. Again, this time error message, not enough memory. I don't understand, for what we are doing with this program and others as well, I have more than enough memory. So to make a long story short, I figure out the problem, render out this cool track, and we are all good again, or so I thought. I go back to my desktop, and notice that my main external hard drive with all the footage on it is not there. F@#*&$ $#$%^@* piece of g##@%*&@ bleep bleep bleep. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get it to show up . It has all the footage to the trailer, let alone the project itself and some other projects I'm working on, including a very important music video I had just shot. There went my night,... and then my week.

I spent three days on the phone with tech support with the hard drive company. After trying countless different ways to recover, they concluded that I needed to call Apple tech support and deal with it there. After a day with them, it was determined the repeated crashing of the computer had corrupted the operating system of my RAID system. (My hard drive basically has its own operating system.) And therefore it couldn't make the connection to the computer. AAAAARRRGHGHHHH!!! I really need those files!! As far as we could tell, the actual files on the hard drive were still okay. I just can't get to them.

So, we have a moral to this story. And yes there is a good ending. It hasn't got here yet, as I am typing this. But by the time you are reading this, I should be back online, so everybody smile. Here is the moral. Are you ready, you might want to write this down.(JK)

BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVE. BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVE! BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVE!! BACK UP YOUR HARD DRIVE!!!

I can't stress it enough. I never thought something like this would happen to me. I'm very careful about how I manage my data. Fortunately, I have the project backed up on my internal drive, but not the footage. The footage is on tape, so if this other plan doesn't work, I just put the footage back in and presto, we are back up and running. In the mean time, I'm checking out this software called Data Rescue II and just trying out the demo, it looks like I'm gonna have a full recovery. It's gonna take a while to find out though (12 hours just to scan the drive). So everything is looking brighter, a light at the end of the dark, dismal tunnel.

So, remember, if pictures and your immense mp3 library and whatever else you may have on your computer is important to you, please refer to the large print above.

Oh, here is a recipe I thought you might like. Okay, here is what you need to get from the store. 1 lb of lean hamburger, a can of Manwich and some buns, preferably Aunt Hattie's Potato Hamburger Buns. You add the hamburger to the skillet and turn the heat to medium high and then break up the hamburger meat til lightly browned. Drain the fat and with a can opener, open the Manwich and add to hamburger. Stir until hot and serve on those awesome potato buns. Okay, so that isn't exactly a real recipe, give me a break, that's the kind of week I had, and the kind of diet too. If I have a better week and month ahead, well, I'll have a better recipe to share. I Do know how to cook, I promise. 'Til next time,

Talk soon,
Jason Coblentz
Director of Photography/Editor/Visual Effects Artist,
One Long Day

Gruff looks like he is having One Long Day, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Gruff takes on Big Sherm in the desert. This battle rocks on for a good minute

Could this be the end of Gruff???

Did you know that Chris Schaub (Gruff) performed all of his own stunts? Including getting punched in the nose (for real), getting thrown from an elevated pickup truck bed to the hard ground (3x) and having a 2x4 smashed across his skull...not once, but three times! All this, was just one day in the desert and at the end of it all, he only complained that the fake blood made his head hurt.

I guess it's back to corn syrup and food coloring! In all seriousness though, my hats off to Chris, he is one tough S.O.B. that is willing to do whatever it takes to get this movie done.