In this video, you’ll see:

• Part II of my trip to Hollywood
• Part I was an homage to the film noir trend of the 1950’s.  This one is more modern; a high tech, mission impossible, espionage theme.
• While I was in Hollywood for the meeting at Fotokem, I took a day out to visit Paramount Studios during the CineGear Expo; THE Premier American film industry Trade Show.

Paramount is a trip because it’s the only studio from the Hollywood hey day within walking distance from Hollywood boulevard, the walk of fame, etc.  At the Expo, they had every toy (I mean tool) that a filmmaker could dream of, and then some! (stuff I had no idea could exist in my imagination much less reality!)  So if you want to see some crazy camera gizmos…watch on.  As cool as the gear show is, they also had lots of equally inspiring seminars with panelists; everything from lens companies, to cinematographers and directors and everything in between. This is all held in sound stages and on the backlot where countless movies were made in the classic Hollywood era.  It’s a powerful draw for me because the old studios hail to a by-gone era, a time that I romanticized in my 22 year old mind while I sat in the University theatre watching Sunset Boulevard (and other classics) during my “History of Narrative film” class.  They literally don’t make ’em like this anymore! Real estate is too expensive and new movies are being shot on location or in front of green screens because sets can be built digitally around an actor.

I planned on publishing this video much earlier as the  footage was edited months ago.  It seemed like a reasonable target because there was no VFX work to be done like in Part I.  Doh!….(Best laid plans, ‘eh).  Well, actually, my prediction wasn’t too far off…technically.  While I didn’t, do any true VFX work, I ended up putting my effects palate (and editing skills) to the test.  Before I knew it, I was going all out and creating some bad ass (if I do say so myself….and I do…ha!)  title sequences that look like something out of mission impossible.  That gave me an opportunity to flex my creative muscle and see what I can pull off in post-production rather than relying on the traditional big crew with fancy gear (how ironic).  It was a welcomed challenge, as my formal training is more in the traditional filmmaking arena where emphasis is placed on writing, pre-pro, and a complex production process with lots of delegation going on.  It was too much fun; almost as much as filming a character driven film, with complex lighting setups carefully executed, shot on film and cut on a Steenbeck.  Once I had the visual elements down, it felt naked without matching sound effects (The one feature film that I’ve worked on was a drama called Master of The Game where I was the post production sound mixer)  This month, I got to dive back into the sound world, search for perfect samples from a massive online sound library and arrange them, mix them and then sit back and  marvel at this craft of creating an imaginary world out of scraps of sound and picture.  It’s gotten my film heart thumping again. I hope you enjoy the video!

Other Deets:

– Indiegogo Campaign is pushed back so that we can find a fill-in for one member of our pitch video team that had to drop out.  I have a replacement who will be available in early May.  That means the tentative ETA for the campaign drop date is mid-June!

– Now that I’ve finnaly finished the Hollywood Trip videos, I can relax…..kidding! haha. I’m now prepping to cut a trailer that will be used for the Indiegogo campaign.  Once that’s cut, I’ll post it in advance of the campaign as a pre-launch page.  I’ll let Y’all know when it’s up so that you can pass along the link to anyone you know who might want to check out the movie.

– The effects sequences are real flashy so, I don’t recommend this material for cognative a-typical folks who can have related health issues. As an “on-the-spectrum” artist, I’m aware and respectful of the needs of autistic folks who are visually hyper-sensitive.  While I’m not affected personally, I’ll probably make it a habit of producing sensory friendly versions alongside the mainstream versions of future programs with this in mind. (but, I’m still working on figuring out that process, so I’m not there yet)

As usual, feel free to send feedback on anything you like or not,
-Blake