Special guest

Special guest, originally uploaded by mr_director.

Anyone think he looks familiar?

Inspiration

I walked into my house tonight and took a breath. Wow. It feels good to leave the editing bay. In fact, I hadn't felt an immense sense of relief like this in quite a long time. It's the sense that you're finally done -- and you feel proud of something.

In the midst of my thoughts of accomplishment, at 12:15 AM in the morning, the disturbing sounds of muffled rambunctious playtime permeate the walls of my apartment.

My roommate and her boyfriend -- or perhaps my roommate and herself -- are having sex.

Loud.

Unabashed.

Sex.

And now you know the genesis of scenario no. 3.

Sc. 9 Cut 4

Hey guys. I've re-cut the clown sequence. Thoughts? Based on the suggestion to hand out scenes to other people, I'm also handing it to Cris to see what he can come up with.

Password for the video is "d3".


APL Sc. 9 Cut 3 from Jesse Chapman on Vimeo.

My favorite comments, part 2

Round two:

What would you say the director was trying to do with this film?

"looked like one of those tapes they make you watch" [Kidnapped?]

"poke fun at college living places by doing everything wrong."

"trying to make every bad thing you shouldn't do in a film"

"nuka nuka nuka nuka nuka!"

What really worked for this film?

"kind of funnn"

"the way it stay with its bit"

"joke writing"

"The idea of makeing a well made film, look bad well"

What really didn't work for this film, or, how can this film be improved?

"The"

"better sound, please" [Worse sound, coming right up.]

"i saw the boom a few times"

"the last narrator long shot with the broom mic bothering her"

"STATIC"

How did you feel about the ending of this film?

"it fitted, giving the film was a comedy"

"if you wanted this to be serious, I'd suggest a reshoot."

Please list below any general comments or questions for the director.

"Rochkun" [I really have no idea.]

"Film is good for an amateur audience at best."

One more test screening to go. These comments are amazing!

My favorite comments, part 1

Hello everyone! Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback on my film today at the test screenings. I really enjoyed reading all the comments -- both good and bad and ... I'm wondering if some people thought that the assignment was to fill out the comment forms based on the last movie they saw in theaters.

One person indicated that the "Common Sense Tips" section, including the thermostat battle, the messages on the white erase board, and the pad-locked laundry detergent was "inappropriate and rude." I really don't know what this means, though I am analyzing each frame to see if there are some...subliminal messages...hidden...somewhere....

Without further ado, I present my favorite comments, part 1:

What would you say the director was trying to do with this film?

"Make fun of college apartment orientation/living videos." [As if apartment orientation videos exist.]

"Mock such films."

"---------"

"lampoon housing"

"Make a cheesy apartment complex welcome video even cheesier" [Okay, where are these people getting these videos from? I must know!]

"TELL A SWEET LOVE STORY ABOUT THE HOPE LOVE GIVES US IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY."

"parody of all those off campus housing videos, but I've never seen one before" [It's like he knows the videos are out there, but he's just not seen one. Just when I thought I was being original.]

How did you feel about the ending of this film?

"love love love love"

"I thought the ending of the film was better than the entire film."

"Roll." [ROFL?]

"I felt the ending was a lot better than the entire short film."

"OK"

"full of action"

Please list below any general comments or questions for the director.

"Without a 'stick' the comedian is just a reciter of jokes."

"Do you like my dress, its very glamorous."

"na"

[And my personal favorite...]

"UnProfessional, Made to get laughs. I think D3 student should strive for great filmmaking not a easy Joke." [Maybe this is true. I should make a professional movie for my capstone, eh?]

All in all, though, there were some great suggestions. One of which, "Consider putting in those calibration signs that old VCRs put up." They're referring to calibration bars. I put them in and it works great. So, thank you to whoever wrote that one, and thank you again to everyone who wrote so many helpful comments.

I encourage everyone to test screen their film.

Test screenings and photos

Splash, originally uploaded by mr_director.

Today was a good day. I test screened Apartment Place Landings to one of my classes today and it got some good laughs. I haven't had the chance to go through the feedback forms yet, but I feel confident that all the comments will help in making a stronger, shorter cut.

I have some photos posted on flickr for those of you who have an account and want to see. I don't have that many because I got them from John Heppe's facebook account. He hoards photos like gold.

A real spring break

I really can't remember the last time I actually had a real spring break. Most of the time, Spring Break is like any other week -- thousands of things to do with minutes to do them in (and there's always someone else thinking that you have all the free time in the world and why don't you ever call me back, okay, dad, maybe I will just give me some time, thanks).

Anyway, this past week I went to North Carolina and had a great time. I'll be ramping up back into the editing process very soon. I know that Phil wants me to take a look at his film as well, which I would love to make time for.

Carolyn, have you found an editor yet or are you still looking? Let me know and I'll take a look at my own schedule.

Meet Autumn Winters

I'm at work right now, busy as ever blog blog blog. The only phone call that I've answered for Best Buy today was an automated message telling me about luxury suites in the Fiji islands. Call now and save.

Shannon will do the first cut of the film sometime this weekend. Soon after she finishes, I'll take the reigns. I'm hoping to bring a cut into class this Wednesday, but that's lofty because I have a mid-term in French on Tuesday.

Speaking of French, I'm so glad it's a requirement for my FILM major because, honestly, no class has better prepared me to make a parody orientation video than French II. And if you think I'm joking, next time you have to make a film try translating "I went to the movie theater, and then I watched a movie." Don't forget to use passé composé instead of imparfait because you're describing a series of events and not a habitual action, and also remember to conjugate "I went" with être instead of avoir, because it falls under the exception conjugation rules, but tranlsate "I watched" with avoir, because it's not an exception. "Je suis allé au cinéma, après quoi j'ai regardé un film" works just nicely. I used the phrase, "après quoi" because that means, "and then..." or "after that." "Alors" or "ensuite" could probably work, too, though I’m not positive.

I started capturing dailies yesterday evening around 7pm, ended my session around 3am, and I still have a full tape to log and capture. Okay, so taking a dinner break with Shannon (the rough-cutter) and David (the writer) last night didn't help me. And also taking a LOST break probably wasn't the most time efficient idea (though last night's episode was far superior to the week previous -- Phil, you were right). And I do try and only take breaks while footage is actually capturing, and yes, I do mark ins and outs and then batch capture. I find that I save lots more hard drive space than just doing a "capture now" because I don't log the times when I told Cris to roll camera and didn't call action for ten minutes what was I thinking I have no idea don't ask me. Also, capture now tends to cause problems when it reaches the end of the tape.

I also like batch capture because I can watch The X-Files in the next room on DVD. Scully just found out she may have a child, but, if I remember correctly, don't worry, I think it’s just a clone baby.

I'll be completely honest -- I absolutely loved every second of filming my Directing III. And while I love being a director, I hate being the only person who's throwing out ideas. It’s way too egotistical for me to think that I'm the only one with good ideas. So, I encourage people to throw out alternate takes if they so feel inspired. Of course that concept lends itself to comedy more so than drama.

In the following clip, Autumn Winters (played by the lovely Kim Riley) tells us that there are many types of hostile roommate interactions.

APL 2A-2 from Jesse Chapman on Vimeo.

I still have to record voiceover segments for Autumn sometime soon. I could have just had her read them on set, but I really wanted to have a radical change in quality for the voiceover, which is very characterisitc of these types of videos.

Vimeo

I found out about this awesome video hosting service called Vimeo. I know this post sounds like spam, but it's not. This service is like YouTube, but strickly for videos that you yourself make. No copyright infringement allowed (and they're much more strict about this than YouTube). But...the quality is better and the site design is lovely.

I urge you to check it out. I'll probably be converting all my videos to Vimeo to host on my personal site.

jesse's personal thanksgiving video diary from Jesse Chapman on Vimeo.

This is great for hosting our short films, at least.

Wrapped

The production phase is officially complete. Shannon Bennett has been brought on to do a rough assembly of the film. We'll start capturing the footage this week. She should have that complete within two weeks. I'll try and post a clip soon, too.

This film has been a huge collaboration of creative and artistic talents from many of my friends. There were three or so people originally signed on to work on the film that ended up dropping out before doing any work, and I can honestly say that I'm glad they did. Having to come up with alternate ideas resulted in stronger ideas.

I really can't thank everyone enough for putting so much time and energy into the film.

I am very happy.

Thank you all.

More casting sessions

I'll be doing casting today at school at 5pm - 8pm and again on Sunday at 10am. Let me know if you want to come out. Sunday will be short -- I only have one appointment at 10. I'm also going to be working on the script in between appointments today. Time management at its finest.

http://ucf.facebook.com/event.php?eid=10172692585

One week until shooting begins

I'm on version six of the script right now with my writer, David Sigurani. Is it a bad idea to revise a script so much? I don't know. I know it's unhealthy to think that it's ever going to be perfect. I'm getting happier with it, though it is extremely awkward writing a script to an instructional-type video.

Here's a snippet:

As you can see, we're trying to walk that fine line of parody and reality, though by the end it does become more obvious. But that doesn't mean that there won't be people who watch it and go, "Wait, what?"

Yvonne Vairma is officially producing the project. She's the amazingness that sat in on our Directing III class the other week and actually gave more feedback than most of our class. She's got a lot on her plate, but is handling it very nicely.

We're still in the process of locking down the apartment complex for our location. Beatriz Gomez, our location manager, had to drop out due to conflicts with other projects. This is definitely turning out to be the most challenging aspect of production. If anyone knows of any ideas, please send them my way. A lot of the issues are, "We'll have to check with our regional manager" type stuff. I'm trying to get someone else to work with locations. Any ideas?

Cris and I just completed our camera tests and decided to make it look really digital when we're recording the narration parts, then slightly more film-like with the reenactments. You see this type of stuff on shows sometimes. I've asked Travis to gaff the project. His work is pretty awesome -- he did Jeanette McNeil's capstone. Allie Kenyon has agreed to work with Cris as 1st AC.

Rebecca Kenyon didn't show up to our production meeting today. She's doing production design. She could be dead. My good friend Kristin Aiello is working with Becca, so things should look great. Tyler Sherrier is doing make-up. He's my ex-roommate, actually, and we had our fair share of roommate conflicts. There's certainly some irony in that. Here's an example of make-up he did on himself for his theatrical make-up techniques class:

I had this idea today at the meeting to have one of those vinyl banners that apartment complex have with some fake phone number and something like, "Sign up today!" I'd put it in all the background shots of the tour portion of the video. You'd clearly be able to tell that it's the same poster being moved around, which is what a real complex would probably do. Not sure about that yet. Also, wondering if I should have the narrator of the video holding an "Apartment Place Landings" travel mug at some point.

Deborah Fishkind is doing casting. She's doing good for her first time. Casting is hard, especially for this project. I'm having another casting session at school tomorrow (Saturday) at 5pm. Feel free to show up and help/steal people.

Cast rehearsals next Wednesday. Final production meeting next Thursday. And we're off.

My acting inspriaton

My inspiration for the style and tone of acting I'm looking for:



Know anyone that can imitate that? I just had my casting call today and had a very hard time trying to explain the idea to the actors, many of which had training and experience. It really shocked me, actually, how hard it was for some of the actors to act in this way.

I think that's one hard aspect of selling this film. I think the more we talk about the project creatively people are starting to understand what I'm going for. My DP, Cris Mertens, wants to blows his brains out, I know, because he has to really downgrade his skills. I'm still trying to convince him that doing that really shows...dexterity? Right?

It's a hard idea to sell. Let's make something bad intentionally -- and in that, it'll be hilarious.

Send me some headshots/resumes/contact information if you know anyone who could act in this amazing and campy (but unaware) way.

Here is a link to some more wonderful videos: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3E00328D3A166D01

Welcome to Apartment Place Landings

My last entry was written in a panic because I had not yet figured out what project I wanted to direct.

Thanks to a wonderful brainstorming session with me and some of my friends we came up with a very reasonable idea - an homage to the absurdness of instructional and training videos. It's not really a parody. It's not really a replica. It's something in between the two and I'm not quite sure yet what that will be, but I'm very excited.

I'm directing. David Sigurani, who wrote my directing 2 project "p.s." is writing. Cris Mertens has agreed to DP, which is fantastic. Yivonne Vairma has agreed to produce, though I'm still waiting to hear back from her about some things. Becca Kenyon (you know, that twin with the bangs) is going to do production design. Beatrice Gomez is location scouting at this very moment (either that or clubbing, but either way, that's fine with me as long as she's on board). Those are all the major pre-production crew members.

I'm still looking for someone talented to do make-up. I asked Lindsay, but she's shooting that same weekend. Any thoughts, fellow readers? Ashley Hooker was also asked, but she may be leaving town soon. I need someone to be able to do standard make-up, but also someone to do a CLOWN FROM HELL make-up. So, that's pretty important.

Casting is tomorrow in COMM 148 from 11am-2pm. Feel free to come out. Deborah Fishkind is the casting director, which is awesome. Rich suggested using her in class. She's actually been great so far and has done some amazing things in the short time since we've pulled her on board.

Here's a link to a promotional letter I passed out in class for my pitch. It's a fake welcoming letter to the fake apartment complex in my fake film. Fake fake fake.

script has been written

I'm really not a fan of big film concepts done with simple means. It always shows. If I can't execute something in a realistic way then I don't really care much for trying. I want to watch a movie and believe what I'm seeing -- either that or laugh at the fact that I'm not supposed to believe what I'm seeing.

I entered the film program capable of graduating on the three-year track. However, due to my schedule being handled by someone else and them not selecting the right class for me to take, I was slotted on the four year track. Why didn't I look over what they were doing? I should have. So, I got over it. And I'm actually glad that I had the additional year. I really enjoy the group of people that are on the same track as me. We all have really differing visions, but we still manage to laugh, create, and experience.

The first draft of my script has been written. It will go through some revisions and then I will pitch my short in class soon. I'm excited and though I have some concerns with the project, I eagerly await feedback from my class.