I’ve already posted a compressed quicktime file of some of the shots I took with the new camera, but it really doesn’t do this amazing camera justice. Below are some frame exports, full resolution (some were shot at 1080P, and others at 720P). Also, I’ve included some dynamic range tests. Notice how even when underexposed, the subject maintains a nice level of detail; and as the background is overexposed, notice how much detail remains in those highlights, thus alloiwing more proper exposure on the foreground subject.

The new camera is the Panasonic HPX500, 2/3″ P2 DVCPROHD camcorder. The glass is a Fujinon HAc 15×7.3 Cine zoom. This amazing lens allows for relatively wide shots, as well as 15x zoom, maintaining a F-stop of 2.0 throughout the entire zoom range. This means quality depth at the entirety of its length!

The new package also includes a 7.9″ HD LCD monitor, (4, yes 4!) 32gb P2 cards, 2 Dionic 160 Anton Bauer batteries and dual charger, heavy duty Bogen Manfrotto tripod with the 526 fluid head, Chrosziel matte box and rails.

Now that I’ve sufficiently buttered you up, here are the first full resolution stills I pulled from this amazing setup…

This is a slapped together cut of some test shots I took with my new Panasonic HPX500. Dig it.

The trailer for my latest film can be viewed under the “projects” tab.

Here’s the 99% semi final edit of the Scarantino’s commercial (only because I didn’t feel like recompressing it for the minor changes made, I.E. fading in the phone number earlier).

So principle photography on the Scarantino’s Italian restaurant commercial has finally been completed. The challenge was to create an engaging, well lit run for a single steadicam shot beginning on the family, running through the restaurant, and ending outside as the doors close and we tilt up to see the sign. This provided a unique challenge, as I’d never lit anything for such a dynamic and constantly moving shot. We had to account for not only making sure the lights and stands didn’t get in the shot as it swung around, but also that my shadow stayed out of frame at all times. Needless to say, it was a long lighting setup which I think really paid off in the end!

The story of how this commercial finally came to exist is an interesting one, to say the least. The owner, Jesse, had approached me some months back about putting together a commercial for his restaurant. Now, Jesse is the 21 year old son of the guy who fired me as a waiter from the Scarantino’s Italian Inn in Glendale (note that I WAS a horrendous waiter, and that firing did send me off with proper motivation to make this movie thing happen… so no hard feelings).

We get to talking and he has this idea to do a Goodfellas style steadicam shot while he narrates the family history behind his restaurant. I thought that sounded fun and interesting, so we got the go ahead to start preparations. Twice, we set up shooting dates, lock in the crew, but not enough extras came through, so we had to push it back. Finally, Christmas time rolls around and there are enough extras in town to make it happen!

So… Christmas rears its head and I wake up with a chest and throat cold reminiscent of the black plague. This is two days before we shoot, JUST WONDERFUL. Crew members still haven’t called back to lock in their hand in all of this, so I’ve now got to make frantic phone calls to get it all put together. Thankfully, the right people answered the phone and backed me up once again. Good, the crew’s locked, now… do I need anything else? It’s at this point that it dawns on me that my lighting kit might not pack enough punch (or that some of the lights pack TOO much punch) for a delicate, romantic atmosphere.

Here I am, the day before the shoot… I find myself trying to rent grip and lighting packages from Wooden Nickel (the savior of all low budget film shoots… many of you know what I mean). It’s a tense day as I pray I get a call back from my email. Finally, at around 6pm, I receive the call that my rental is confirmed, thank GOD!

I wake up the next morning, the big day, before the sun is up… That’s odd, I’m never up this early, what could have awoken me at such an hour?… Ooooh, maybe it’s the freaking biblical storm that’s gushing outside of my window! This is just peachy. I’ve got a shoot that starts inside the restaurant and ends outside only in the very last of it, and now the whole thing is potentially ruined because of this ridiculous rain… maybe it can be a horror/Italian food commercial?

Thankfully the rain subsides long enough to pack up all of my equipment and I’m out the door at 10:30 am. Plenty of time to get to LA from Carlsbad, as Wooden Nickel wanted me there by 3:30 to pick up the rentals. Wait one second, that’s RIGHT! I totally forgot that not only did I wake up sick on Christmas, but my car also overheated! So, now I’ve got to stop at a mechanic and ask what might be the cause, because the last thing I need is to overheat in the rain with a car full of equipment and not make it to the shoot! Needless to say, the car refuses to overheat while he’s looking at it so he can’t give me a diagnostic, and it’s getting late so I’ve got to hit the road! This is awesome because as soon as I finish filming this commercial and return my rentals, I’m supposed to be heading up to the bay area, and then out to Tahoe for new years! Could this possibly be the best time ever to be testing the limits of my car’s radiator?! Only fate knows the answer to that one.

By now, it’s noon and of course, the lapse in rain was short lived and as soon as my tires hit the freeway it’s back in full force. Now, I don’t know what it is, but southern California drivers are just plumb afeared of this here rain! One tiny droplet falls from the sky and they’re up in arms, helpless to defend themselves against the onslaught of God’s wrath, plummeting from the heavens in such violent tyranny. It’s watery oppression is what it is… and these people pray to this dude? Here they are, just trying to LIVE and apparently he’s busy giggling and throwing knives of water, just having a ball, trying to stop them from making it to Costco to save money on low priced bulk toilet paper and cigarettes. Or at least, so it would seem… Because these idiots just freeze, “Oh shit Honey, the water lasers from SPACE are back, we better drop it to 15 on the old speed-o-meter here, we just gotta play this one COOL, I SWEAR we’re gonna get out of it with our hides intact!”

Yeah, we “played it cool”… we were thousands of little Fonzies on the freeway for over FOUR HOURS. This from a northern point of San Diego! On a good day I can get to my normal destination point in LA in an hour and a quarter. But I guess he must be right because here I am writing this little story, not on the side of the road with a hole through my brain from one of those big, scary water bullets.

All the while, my heat gauge is dancing around like it’s doing the samba… so yeah, that little piece of the puzzle couldn’t have added any tension to the mix, could it?

As I’m driving I realise that I won’t have enough room in my Explorer for all of my equipment along with a rented 1 ton grip package and an additional 7 lights and C-stands. Shit. Ok ok ok ok ok… where can I drop this stuff that’s on the way, because at this point in time I KNOW I’m going to be late to the rental house. So, i resolve to stop by my old fraternity house, drop off the stuff, go to wooden nickel, pick UP the rentals, drive to the restaurant, drop off the rentals, poke around to look at the lighting situation, and then finally leave to pick up my stuff from my fraternity house (this all with the distinct possibility that the house could have now been locked with nobody home, and me without a key… wouldn’t have been the first time I’d broken into that puppy though). Luckily there are a few people there to let me in and I dart out of there with no explanation other than me yelling the word “COMMERCIAL” at them in response to their queries.

After all of this equipment juggling, crew handling, rental getting, and death defying rain driving, I’m finally on the set with my crew, and discussing the lighting setup as if nothing had ever gone wrong.

We shoot, it’s great, and the next morning I’ve got to do the equipment shuffle all over again to get this stuff back to wooden nickel, and get on the road to the bay area.

In the end, I’m extremely happy with what came out of this, and I think Jesse will be as well. We were short a bunch of extras, and his whole family was sick so it meant we had to change things a bit, but it’s done, and done well, and will be a nice little piece of the cable advertising pie!

The story doesn’t end there… as I head out to Tahoe, the adventure continues, only getting crazier and zanier… but that’s a story for another time, my fingers are bleeding.

Man, things are just moving so quickly here! The poster is looking great (or so I’ve heard, as I’ve yet to see it in the painting stages! I can’t wait!), the scene came out fantastic, but here below is something I thought would have to be overlooked… an update to my Sea monster concept “The Eye of Poseidon.” After viewing the amazing digital painting abilities of Aaron Bahlman, I asked him if he’d be interested in painting in the color for my concept artwork. I had hoped to get around to doing it myself, but had seceded to the idea that I simply wouldn’t have enough time. However, he did such a kick ass job painting a drawing my brother had given him that I thought he might even do a better job than I would have in painting this creation! He obliged my offer and brought back a piece of artwork that wildly exceeded my expectations. Take a look for yourself and leave some feedback, the guy deserves it!

Thanks Aaron, you’ve been a huge anchor in the realization of this project… the artwork, the bag, the work on set, and of course, behind it all, your time. Your tenacity and enthusiam is making this whole thing possible!

So last weekend, December 10th, to be exact… we shot two of the scenes from A Mouthful of Misfortune. While I don’t want to post the scenes for now, I assure you that they are quite hilarious (at least to me they are)!

Thank you to Daniel and Wes for doing a fantastic job! The two of you worked hard and really pulled through with some believable and RIDICULOUSLY FUNNY performances. I’ve been getting numerous compliments on the quality of acting all around from those who have seen the cut.

I also want to thank everyone who came out to Hollywood at 8am and busted their ass to make this happen. Amir, Karen, James, and Aaron, I owe all of you a huge favor… any time you need it, I’ll be there with bells on. Thank you for sticking around through the wee hours of the night, and putting up with our unorganized mess we called a shoot, you all ROCK!

Lastly, I really want to thank Bonnie and Lindsay for lending us their apartment to completely rearrange and trash on a level that only Rusty could be capable of achieving. We basically raped their beautifully Christmas decorated apartment to make the pit in which Rusty dwells. So, aside from having to create an environment for our characters to interact within, we also had to be careful with moving christmas trees, removing hanging stockings, shooting around the christmas lights, etc. Dressing the set turned out ot be a much larger task than I had anticipated! The Rusty Zone (as I have affectionately come to know the whole of our set) thanks you.

So, to tide the 6 of you who actually visit this site over, here are a couple of production stills to whet your appetite for misfortune, all of which were taken by Mr. Aaron Bahlman and his amazing new camera!…

Cast and crew

Behind the lens

Directors at work

Busy set

“I’ve been crapping ramen for three weeks and maybe you should have bought some food before you left!”

“Here, read MY fortune”

The bag of tiny cookie destinies

These are the little bastards that started it all

Hard at work

“I’m getting sick of this shit!”

A fortune cookie fiesta!

Steadicam crazzzziness!!!

Well, it’s done, FINALLY! Charles and I wrapped up the second revision of “A Mouthful of Misfortune” before last weekend hit. I’ve sent it out to a select few people to make sure all the jokes I thought were funny, actually ARE funny. Responses thus far indicates that we’ve succeeded quite well! I would offer to send it out to more of you, but I want to keep this thing a secret until I can screen the final product for you all! So, as time goes on, I’ll be posting all kinds of concept artwork (the watercolor movie poster will be started shortly!) and storyboards to whet your appetite for this ridiculous movie. I eagerly anticipate the day when I have it all done, and I’m renting out a theatre to show it to all of you! Keep checkin’ in!

Things are getting little crazy around here… Time seems to be passing quicker and quicker as I near the end of the second edit on the script, and there is so much to prepare for! Finally, I have been able to sit down and start chipping away at the humungous amount of pre production concept artwork that needs to be done, which is both exciting and horrifying. We’ve got set design, costuming, props, storyboarding, and concept design for the sea monster to contend with (most of you have already heard me going on about this last item on the list… to those of you who are unaware… this film will involve a two story tenticle and that is all I will say). So, one item can now be safely crossed off of the list. Below is a rough concept design for the sea monster, which I finished the other night. I hope you enjoy it… for me, it’s very exciting to even see one tiny piece of this insane story taking its first baby steps toward being realized on screen.

-Nick