So I will be adding to and editing this blog over the course of the next few hours. I just wanted to say thank you to Steve for setting us up for our MOB scene location! And Kevin, for being a awesome bad guy. I will try to recap my day in between editing down the first scene with Jason and writing the dialogue for tomorrow morning's 6:00am shoot! Yikes..

8:00am - I woke up later than I wanted - but was glad to have the extra rest going into the day. I had to do some actual work to pay some bills but my brain was swirling - I was meeting with all my thugs at ten and they are expecting to have a script.

10:00am - Still no script - but a good solid story structure and some key bits of dialogue were starting to come about. I met our "handler" Renae (I hope I spelled your name right, it is late) and she solidified availability for tomorrows shoot at Hought's 24 Flavors. Yeah! I sent the thugs to the alley-ways to shoot some location photos and to start thinking about fight scenes. They returned with some photos for a great location:







Needless to say - hours go by of me pacing back and forth - working on a bit of dialogue for the scene we are suppose to shoot at 5:00. Still working on convincing our lead action star that he will do awesome and this is a worth while project to do - to play and have fun - I think I sold him on it... SUCKER!!!

5:00 pm : Mike Cooper picks me up and we head to our first location. A rough script is present - but the go-getem-ness of Kevin Cahill is what really gets the juices flowing - and all of a sudden we are making a movie.







8:00 pm - WRAP SCENE 1: We finished up the scene (WOOHOO) and returned back to main base - where Jason showed up to start putting some of the pieces together - got a good jump start on the edit. Made a quick trip to Hought's to scope the scene tomorrow and picked up a a juicy bacon cheese Hought's burger - perfect fuel. Jason came back determined to get a small chunk of footage laid out into a rough edit... we now officially have about 40 seconds of quasi-completed film!!!


Currently: 12:41 am: So after writing this blog and pacing around working on shot ideas for tomorrow morning's 6:00am go time - I find myself too - weary eyed. Set the alarm for 4:00 am and put the coffee in the machine now... gunna dream about a chase scene and see what we can shoot in the morning.

It was great to know that the other teams were all hard at work as well - I looked down the street and saw Jason heading out after their shoot - talked with MIke on the phone, and saw the lights on at Jess' house... I would say this project is already successful and I am grateful to all those involved... at the risk of getting to sappy I will adjourn to dreamtime for information - feel free to pass me your thoughts while I slumber - gunna need them.

Good Night - Christopher

Labels: acting, actors, film, la grande, production, shoots

Hooray - we are under way. The filmmaking teams have been assembled and they are starting to create their stories, characters, themes, and what-nots. We had a great meeting on Saturday August 16th at Bear Mountain Pizza (thank you Don's Jewelry for picking up the tab!).

After looking at our participants and getting a sense of what people wanted to do and were able to do in the upcoming week we felt it was a good idea to give out some of the criteria, just to give the filmmakers a jump on putting their project in motion. Here is the break down of team captains (directors) and some of the criteria...

Team 1: Director: Mike Surber
Team Members: Charlie Koehler, Chuck Peters, Isabelle Richards,, and Miranda Putman.
Team Genre: Musical/Dance Film
Team One-Liner: "I had a cockroach in my pocket just a second ago..."
Team Location: F. Maxine and Thomas W. Cook Memorial Library

Team 2: Director: Michael O'Connor
Team Members: Alan Arnson, Chris Hooper, and Jess.
Team Genre: Drama
Team One-Liner: "Yes, you can borrow my car, and no, you can't keep it."
Team Location: Earth n' Book

Team 3: Director: Jason Crampton
Team Members: kevan Duncan, Dan Barrett, Trish Hansen.
Team Genre: Horror
Team One-Liner: "Why can't we all just recycle?"
Team Location: Highway 30

Team 4: Director: Christopher Jennings
Team Members: Jason Grech and Anne Barth
Team Genre: Action
Team One-Liner: "Hold on, where is your hand?"
Team Location: Hought's 24 Flavors

Monday morning the teams will be given their cameras and a mystery prop to incorporate into their short film. Be on the lookout as the teams will take to the streets of La Grande! Each team is also required to write a production blog here, so check back daily for behind-the-scenes looks at the progress.

Happy Filmmaking,
Cold Coffee Media

*photo of filmmaker meeting courtesy of Alan Arson's Cell Phone.

Labels: acting, cold coffee, film, la grande, video