Hold up - New Stories!

I had been working on the script for what has come to be called "Zombie Girl." Far from a real title also far from finished. The story was coming along fine when I started researching indie film on the internet, specifically horror shorts. I wanted to get a good idea of what people were doing and how I could make it better. This is part of my process.
I found "You're scaring the children", by Soren Narnia. The film leaves a bit to be desired as far as film production, but the story had me hooked. The creepy quality of the film did add to the peculiar story of this man's childhood. It was a good time spent and I had to get in touch with him about the story. I thought the imagery of the events would be great on film. So I wrote him a note and he actually responded to me!
He gave me the go ahead to make the story into a film. He even sent me his ebook "Knifepoint Horror". You should check out his blog, he is one creatively cool writer. I was really fond of the story about the batting machine in first person.
Since he gave me permission and full artistic license to make his story, I am stopping pre- production on Zombie Girl. We are now focusing on getting You're scaring the children up and running. Fortunately, the actors i have talked to about the zombie flick don't mind acting in this film either. woot!
Along with a bunch of other things, video blogging will commence in the next few days. Let's hope the lens doesn't break. ha!

The Big Day

Z opened our first autonomous office this past Wednesday. I have run this ramshackle company from my laptop for so many years it is really hard to know what to do with the space I am renting. I have a desk a computer and a window that opens, this is the good life. I have so many projects on their way this month it is going to be really fun to get it all in order. New crew members have come a long with the new office. The film I shot this autumn is still in editing phase, simply because I have never edited a film before. I think I'm doing a good job. I've read quite a bit about the medium and played with the software so i know what it can do. I am anxious to get off the computer and get behind the camera again. I have one film that is in script phase. A sweet love story about a failed medical student and a cognizant zombie on the run from a terrible circ de macabre.

Translation Key

This is a rudimentary key for translating the notes on the treble clef to the string/fret on the guitar. When looking at the picture, the small tab on the top left tells you which guitar strings represent which notes. String 1 note E correlates to the top space on the treble clef. This is shown in the bottom half of the page. Each whole note has the correlating string number inside it. The notes on the treble clef tell you which notes are where. F, D, B, G, E are the notes on the lines. F, A, C, E, are the notes on the spaces. Middle C on the piano is string 5 fret 3 on the guitar. High C is second string, first fret. As you move up the treble clef your fingers will move down the fret board. Each string being higher than the string before it; you can move from middle C down each string until you hit the open first string, High E. The notes continue on above the treble clef as you follow the frets down the High E string. With this key I have been able to translate beginner piano music into guitar tabs. I don't have one for the base clef yet. I want to learn more about this before I move on to something else. I hope this helps if you need it. If you already know this information I would appreciate some pointers and clarification. Message if you have and comments or questions.

Production Day Five

The house was sold so we had to rush a shoot day. we had originally planned to film the next weekend but we only had the key for two more days. Everyone was very cool about it and showed up on time even though I was ten minutes late. We got a lot of film that night. I managed to fill in a lot of holes. I tried getting some supplemental footage with my computer camera. The resolution is not that great but I though the extra film couldn't hurt. Unfortunately I had not practice well enough using the new computer cam. Somehow the files never saved to my hard drive. I don't know what the problem was but I have found a better way to save the files. I rearranged my database of footage to comply with the movie time line. Now all the files go in a specific place and can be retrieved a lot easier than before. The organization database is the best tool I have found for the movie project. I really like how this is turning out. The marketing plan I have for the film is going to have some changes. I feel that this film can really take a piece of the market if advertised correctly. I think it will be great practice for the future when I have a real budget. Here's a clip from the fifth day.

Storyboard Concepts

This is the most dificult problem so far, making an accurate storyboard for the movie. Bakk has helped a great deal with the organzation. I wouldn't be this far without her help. We made a card for each single segment of the scenes and we need to finish the complete set with all of he splash pages and animation included. Once that is done the editing can continue and the graphics designers can create some art for the film. Here is an example of the storyboard cards.