Your Mom is an Enormous Nun Who Can't Play Tennis

My forehead is sun burnt and my hair smelled of bad Chinese food before I washed it.

I'm a bit tired and loopy, so this blog will probably seem pretty random.

The Women's Studies cast and crew had some good times over the past three days. I think it was because we were all just glad to be doing dialogue scenes instead of scenes that involved combat, hiking up a mountain, or stopping traffic on a blind hill at midnight, which we did this past Friday night . . . or Saturday morning . . . You know what I mean.

Melisa Breiner Sanders (Beth) was around to do some of her scenes. She's short and makes fun of your mom. After eight hours of working with her, EVERYBODY was making fun of everybody else's mom. It kept things light though.

We have schizophrenic Production Assistants. I mean, the PAs themselves are not actually schizophrenic, but the scheduling of them is. One day we'll have like five of them, and the next day we'll have none. On Monday we had none and we could have used five. Today, we had four and could have used two.

We could use more PAs on this film in case you're interested. There's no pay and we'll probably make fun of you and/or your mom. However, you'll be well fed and caffeinated, and I'll guarantee you'll laugh your ass off at least once. Trust me on this.

All right. That's all I have to say. The only thing saving this blog from being filed under "lamest ever" is that fact that there are pictures from the various shoots. They're not the pictures I took of Melisa's mom, but they'll have to do.



Everyone gets ready for a big outdoor shot.




Cindy Marie Martin (Mary) has make-up applied by Art Director Stephanie Petagno.




DP Aaron Shirley and Zhibo Lai set up some lights.




Director Lonnie Martin explains a low angle shot.




Cindy Marie Martin and Carlyn Paschall wait patiently for the shot to roll.




Lonnie Martin and Aaron Shirley set up for "Zack's Apartment."




Melisa Breiner Sanders (Beth) is ready for her close-up.




Aaron Shirley readies the camera.




From left to right: Lonnie Martin, James A.Radack (Zack), Melisa Briener Sanders (Beth), and Camera Operator Thomas Fant.




The camera crew is ready to roll.




Melisa Breiner Sanders brings the crew some water.




Your mom is a lonely mike stand.

Gearing Down to Gear Up

***MARK YOUR CALENDARS! Ningen Manga Productions will be in attendance at Horrorfind Weekend 8 being held in Baltimore, Maryland on August 10 - 12, 2007.

Members of the Women's Studies cast and crew will be on hand. Also, attendees will get their first look at the film as we'll be premiering the Women's Studies teaser trailer. Details and tickets for the event can be found at www.horrorfindweekend.com .***

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Though we've been shooting Women's Studies for almost a month now, this week begins what is essentially two months of non-stop production on the film. At this point, we've got about 80% of the movie's scenes scheduled and hope to have the remaining 20% done so by month's end. (Knock on wood.)

Up until now, we've been shooting outdoors and during the day which from a lighting set-up point of view, isn't too hard. Basically, all we have to do is pray it doesn't rain and bring some bounce cards to throw light in the right direction. As we get into some of our interiors though, the size and scope of the production grows a little bit. Having the month of "warm-up" to work out the kinks of production has been extremely beneficial. I'm very excited about this weekend's "church shoot" of a pivotal and rather involved scene from an Art Direction point of view.

This past Saturday, we were lucky enough to have a very lazy day of shooting elements for a montage sequence at the Ross-Prentiss Women's Academy. One of the joys of filmmaking is finding those moments where you can slow down and take your time instead of having to worry about getting all your day's shots in. It was a beautiful day to be outdoors, and the cast and crew was happy to have the slower pace.

That same evening we shot two short indoor scenes with Mary which help to establish her character. Again, it was nice to have two small lighting set-ups to help us prep for this weekend's much larger one. Yet it's the smaller details and smaller scenes which often add the most texture to a story, so I'm very jazzed about the footage we shot.

The day was so lazy that not many pictures were taken, but here's a few snapshots.



The cast relaxes in between shots. From left to right: Laura Bloechl (Iris), Cindy Marie Martin (Mary), Tara Garwood (Judith), Mundy Spears (Sharon), Tiffany James (Melissa).




Tiffany James checks to see what's cooking in Mundy Spears' oven.




Camera Operator Thomas Fant and DP Aaron Shirley setting up a yet another jib shot.




"Free me!" Laura Bloechl, Tara Garwood, and Tiffany James work to remove the pregnancy belly from Mundy Spears.




Thomas Fant and Kurt Gustafson work on a shot of "Mary's Altar."

Hostel Territory

(***Women's Studies update: Last weekend and this weekend are B-Roll shoots. Our next big scene will be shot on June 30/July 1.***)

Hostel II tanked and everybody keeps asking me what I think about it. Since I haven't seen the movie, I'm not sure why my opinion matters. Rest assured that I want to see it and probably will see it. Anyway, here goes:

Director Eli Roth posted this blog in response to Hostel II's poor box office showing.

Hey Everyone,

I'm in Paris, doing press for the French release of Hostel Part II, and tonight I'm off to Rome for the last leg of the press tour. After that I'm going to take a long overdue break, since I've gone from one film to the next without stopping, just to recharge my brain a bit.

I want to thank all of you for your kind e-mails and incredible support for the film. However, piracy has become worse than ever now, and a stolen workprint (with uninished music, no sound effects, and no VFX) leaked out on line before the release, and is really hurting us, especially internationally. Piracy will be the death of the film industry, as it killed the music industry, and while it makes a smaller dent in huge movies like Spider Man 3, it really hurts films like mine, which have far less of an advertising and production budget. Not only that, critics have actually been REVIEWING the film based off the pirated copy, which is inexcusable. Some of these critics I have actually known for a few years, and while I wouldn't dignify them by mentioning them by name, I know who they are, as do the studios, and other filmmakers, and they will no longer have any access to any of my films.

What I'm saying is, this is your last chance to see one of my films for a while. If you haven't seen it, go now, because after next weekend the film will be gone from theaters. There are too many other summer movies coming in, so basically we get two weeks in cinemas, and then the film will live on DVD. I am not directing CELL any time soon, and I most likely will take the rest of the year to write my other projects. Which means I wouldn't shoot until the spring, and you wouldn't see a film directed by me in the cinemas until at least next fall. If everyone on my friends list went to see the film this weekend and brought a friend, it would make a huge difference. Bring a non-horror fan - try to convert them. It's the only way these films will live. But right now the R rated horror film is in serious jeopardy. Studios feel the public doesn't want them any more, and so they are only putting PG-13 films into production. The only way to counter this perception is to get out there and support R rated horror. It's the only message they'll hear. People love the movie, and even though it only cost $10 million dollars (as opposed to the other summer tentpoles which cost $300 million), and has already earned its money back, if it's not a massive money earner then they'll just continue to make the same PG-13 films everyone complained about a few years ago.

To counter piracy, fans can flood file sharing services with fake Hostel II downloads just so no one can ever actually get the movie, but the only thing that really makes a difference is supporting the movie in the theaters. Also - the theater OWNERS know this as well. If horror movies aren't bringing in customers, they're not going to program them. If we are going to send them a message, we have to do it with our wallets, and we have to do it now. I've done all I can to make a great film for the fans, as violent and bloody and fun as possible. The rest is up to you guys...

Thanks again for all your support,

Eli

I undertand your disappointment, Mr. Roth. We all hope our film will be huge. However, may I put this in perspective for you?

First off, Hostel II tanking supports my argument that horror, true horror, is still a fringe genre that only a small percentage of the population seek out. People try to argue me on this all the time with shit like, "But The Ring . . ." "But The Exorcist . . . "But Scream . . ." Yes, all three of those are both good horror films and made oodles of money. That said, it's a big jump away from watching Heather Matarazzo get strung up and gutted while some other chick masturbates in her blood . . . which I hear happens in Hostel II.

For months, Eli Roth has been out and about touting how Hostel II would be one of the most disturbing, goriest movies ever made, and why not? The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre made a small fortune on such a reputation. The problem is that your average moviegoer who likes horror probably doesn't shine to all that. They like to get sacred, and a little blood and a little horror, but not the gobs of it that the old 80s low-budget films offered. They want (and I hate to use this term) "Horror Lite," those PG-13 horror movies that Hollywood is so in love with right now. (It allows them to advertise to a wider audience.)

Are there exceptions? Sure there are. The original Friday the 13th made it's money because of the gore effects, but that was 1980 and no one had really seen effects like this before. Make no mistake. The star of that film was Tom Savini's make-up, not Adrienne King as Alice.

When you look at the horror movies that make big money, they do so on concept not gross-outs.

This is why the original Hostel and the Saw movies were such big successes. They came out when the nightly news was filled with stories about Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and "Holy Shit, are we torturing people?" Torture was "in the ether" so to speak, and people used those movies to work out their discomfort with the fact that torture was something very real in the world. (It still is, but for better or for worse, it shocks us less than it did two years ago.)

Finally, and most importantly, let's take a look at the numbers. The original Hostel was made for $4.5 million. It pulled in about $20 million on it's opening weekend in the U.S. and levelled off theatrically with a total of around $50 million. Throw in another $30 million for DVD rentals and sales and you're looking at $80 million .

Not bad, right? In fact, pretty damned good especially when this isn't accounting for overseas theatre and DVD business. Certainly enough to warrant production of a sequel.

Lion's Gate gives Roth $10.2 million to make a sequel. But after two weeks in the theatre, Hostel II has brought in $14 million WORLDWIDE. It's a drop off to be sure and definitely one the producers can't have anticipated. Even with the traditional 50% box office drop off sequels often get, they had to be expecting around $40 million in gross receipts. But then again, if you go back and look at those original numbers, you see that while for it's budget the original Hostel was a hit, it was only gathering up a small percentage of the movie going audience.

No one could have anticipated Hostel II tanking especially after Saw III made more money than each of the two previous installments last fall. That said, there was no reason to expect a huge hit either, especially after Grindhouse had also tanked with marquee directors Rodriguez and Tarantino attached. Both Hostel II and Grindhouse will make their money back over the long haul on DVD because that's how horror movies make their money. They get a following, friends tell friends. Tobe Hooper is still collecting royalty checks for the original Chainsaw.

Piracy shot down Hostel II? Bullshit. Spider-Man 3 and Pirates 3 made a shitload and they were pirated to hell and back. The fact remains that the gory type of horror film Roth makes (And makes well, I might add. I loved the first Hostel.) appeals to a niche audience. Horror may seem mainstream, but it isn't.

KA-THUMP*

(*Sound of me hopping off my soapbox.)

Sex is Violence

***BEWARE! SPOILERS AHEAD!***

Towards the end of Women's Studies, Mary (Cindy Marie Martin) becomes aware of the deadly agenda of Ross-Prentiss Women's Academy. Soon, she realizes escape is only possible if she makes a stand and fights against the Academy Girls including Diane (Kelley Slagle) and Judith (Tara Garwood).

The "Duel of the Goddesses" as I've come to call it is the climax of Women's Studies on most levels. For Mary, it's the time where she finds her own inner strength, her resolution, and her will to truly stand on her own.

Yet it's also the physical culmination of Mary's relationship with Judith. Throughout the film, their friendship has undertones of something much deeper, and despite that fact that fate has turned them into rivals, that emotional and sexual energy finds an outlet in their physical confrontation. The idea I've always reiterated was while it looks like a fight scene, the Duel of the Goddesses is really a sex scene.

Cindy Marie Martin and Tara Garwood rehearsed for weeks under the tutelage of Fight Choreographer Shanna Beauchamp to perfect the elegant yet brutal fight moves for the scene. Once at the location, they endured unforgiving mountain terrain including sharp rocks and embedded roots. Despite those obstacles they, along with Kelley Slagle, gave nothing less than their all.

The Ningen Manga gremlins have finally started to give up and production ran the smoothest it has yet. Our biggest issue was being about thirty miles from an airport and having to wait for planes to pass so they wouldn't interfere with sound. Being a weekend, planes would come by at five and sometimes even two minute intervals. Our windows were short, but we managed.

Stephanie Petagno's costume and make-up designs were also on full display during this shoot. Though I think the actors did part of her job for her with the various cuts, scrapes and bruises they got while shooting. The combination of real and fake injuries is going to make this scene something really special.

Since we shot for three days, I've including sixteen pics taken over the course of the weekend. Enjoy.



Director Lonnie Martin, Fight Choreographer Shanna Beauchamp, and Sound Engineer Sean Russell survey the location.




Camera Operator Thomas Fant stalks Kelley Slagle (Diane) as she touches up her make-up.




Boom Operator Kevin Nowak sets up.




Joey Cabrera applies FX make-up to Kelley Slagle (Diane) while Shanna Beauchamp looks on.




Lonnie Martin and Art Director Stephanie Petagno discuss the look of the scene.




Stephanie Petagno's make-up arsenal.




DP Aaron Shirley and Thomas Fant work out how to shoot Cindy Marie Martin (Mary) with Lonnie Martin.




Sean Russell listens as another plane flies through.




Breaking for Lunch.




Shanna Beauchamp, Stephanie Petagno, and Tara Garwood (Judith) share a joke in between shots.




Weapons of choice?




Lonnie Martin and Aaron Shirley work with Cindy Marie Martin and Tara Garwood on a zip-line shot.




Cast and Crew watch a shot on playback.




Tara Garwood and Shanna Beauchamp talk over choreography.




Getting ready to shoot a scene.




Cindy Marie Martin, Shanna Beauchamp, and Tara Garwood celebrate the payoff for weeks of hard work.

Graveyard of the Goddess

On Saturday, we shot one of my favorite scenes in Women's Studies, the "Graveyard of the Goddess" scene.

It's an intimate scene in which Judith (Tara Garwood) introduces Mary (Cindy Marie Martin) to a sacred place on the campus of Ross-Prentiss Women's Academy, a stone circle where centuries before women were burned as witches. To Judith, it's a place to seek guidance, something she senses Mary could use. Once there, Judith explains her theory of why the sexes will never be equal and Mary opens up about her troubles with her boyfriend Zack (James A. Radack).

It was a good day. For the first time, I got to see Art Director Stephanie Petagno's Academy Girl uniform in action. Plus, after threatening to dump rain on us all week, we were gifted with "just right" temperatures and sunshine. We got some great footage, and Cindy and Tara did a couple of "one-take wonders" which was awesome to behold.

Some of the Ningen Manga technical gremlins still plagued us, but these particular problems helped us figure out solutions for some long standing bugs we hope to implement on this Friday's shoot. So I guess everything happens for a reason.

Below are some pics from the shoot. Enjoy



First AC Jim Housell and Camera Operator Thomas Fant prep the jib for the day's first shot.




Director Lonnie Martin gives some final direction before a shot rolls.




Adam Schreck gets ready to slate as Boom Operator Kevin Nowak and Actors Cindy Marie Martin (Mary) and Tara Garwood (Judith) look on.




Lonnie Martin consults with Sound Engineer Sean Russell.




Kurt Gustafson keeps everyone on schedule.




Cindy Marie Martin (Mary) and Tara Garwood (Judith) take direction for the scene.




Lonnie Martin and DP Aaron Shirley make sure the shot is right before rolling.




Shooting a scene from Women's Studies.

First Session

Today we kicked off the first day of production on Women's Studies, which if I may be allowed a brief moment of self-congratulation was a great success.

Don't get me wrong, conditions were less than optimal. The Ningen Manga gremlins indeed showed their ugly faces. We were shorthanded on crew. Lighting conditions weren't the most ideal. (Director of Photography Aaron Shirley commented that he felt like he was shooting underwater.) Yet none of that is what defined the day. In fact, the day was defined by how we overcame the obstacles put in front of us.

Plus, it was just a blast to be shooting on location. This is what all the lead up has been for . . . to get out there and create something.

I'm going to go ahead and let some of the pictures we took speak for the day, but a big shout out to the cast, crew, and extras who showed up and gave 110% today.

Here's to the beginning . . .



DP Aaron Shirley and Camera Operator Thomas Fant set up the jib for "Mary's Reveal."




Sound crew Sean Russell and Kevin Nowak always get the best spots to hang out in.




Director Lonnie Martin and DP Aaron Shirley review a shot on playback.




Adam Schreck slates a shot.




Cindy Marie Martin (Mary) prepares for the scene.




Director Lonnie Martin works with actors Cindy Marie Martin, Danielle Dike, and Sami Bashore.




Shooting a scene from Women's Studies.

Penultimate

Exactly one week from today is the first shooting day of Women's Studies.

An endorphin rush raced up my spine writing that.

Most of June will be spent shooting what I've been referring to as "second unit footage" though it will be done by the "first unit" crew. (There is no second unit crew on Women's Studies. It's all of us doing everything.) Many of the shoots will be to get one or two shots which are either transitional footage, MOS ("without sound" for the layman), or simply short, quarter or half page scenes that don't involve a whole lot of crazy camera moves, special effects, or long set-up time. The logic was to try and get some of this "smaller" stuff taken care of at the beginning of the shoot while everyone is still fresh.

That said, there are two MAJOR scenes being shot in June. One is a scene involving our heroine, Mary, near the end of the film. The other . . . Well, lets' just say I'm hoping it's going to "kick ass" in more ways than one.

While the past few weeks have been hectic with tons of choices needing to be made, there's also been a slow excitement building as well. Every cast and crew member I talk to seems to have an electricity running through them. All conversations have the subtext of "This is going to be so COOL!" It a pretty great feeling.

I'm a little nervous, but it's a good nervous; the nervous I'd get before opening night of a show back in my theater days. Everything seems louder, brighter, and alive as if everything is happening all at once. Yet my mind is more focused, less scattered, even though one minute I'm thinking about light equipment and the next about what color bloomers the academy girls should be wearing.

In last week's blog that wasn't, (Hey, I didn't miss one . . . technically.) I mentioned that we'd begun having rehearsals, and in a lot of ways I think that's what has made things click into place. There's something about exploring the realm of ideas and working with actors to figure out to bring those ideas to life that's totally invigorating.

I keep coming to back to imagery involving making something live, and that's what it feels like . . . that something well-rested is waking up and ready to take on the world.

Summer is here, my friends. Let's make a movie.

Casting & Rehearsals

Did some additional casting this week as well as started rehearsals. First day of shooting is only TWO WEEKS away.

More to come.

48 Hours of Madness

This past weekend, Ningen Manga Productions participated in the Washington DC 48 Hour Film Project, a competition where filmmaking teams are given a genre, prop, character, and line of dialogue and have to make a film containing those elements in a 48 hour period. Sounds like madness? It is.

Because of Women's Studies, I hadn't intended on NMP doing the 48HFP this year. However, Cindy convinced me that a) It would be a good chance to field test the Women's Studies gear and crew in a time sensitive situation and b) that it would be a good creative outlet that would be a hell of a lot of fun, and notch up our enthusiasm for Women's Studies. I'm happy to report she was correct on both counts.



I have to say, it really is a fantastic crew of creative individuals Cindy and I have assembled. This weekend wasn't easy by any means, but it was never problematic. The personalities mix well and any obstacle was met head on and dealt with quickly and smoothly. We all seem to communicate well and are on the way to building the kind of trust that's integral to a project the size of Women's Studies.



Anyway, the 48 Hour Film Project . . . So our genre was drama, which is good because it's really open ended, but also bad because, well, it's really open ended. The night before when brainstorming more difficult genres like sci-fi, I had come up with this idea about a guy who buys a robot and wants it to love him. I told Cindy about it and she really liked it. The next night after we drew drama, she was like, "We should do that robot thing."

So, I did. Friday night, I wrote a thirteen page script which was great, the problem being, your 48HFP film can be no longer than seven minutes long. Following the "one page of script = one minute of film" rule, we were six minutes over. So, we chopped. A group of mass murderers (Aaron Shirley, Kurt Gustafson, Jim Housell, and my own wife) proceeded to kill my darlings and got the script down to a leaner eight-and-a-half pages.

Deadline was 7:30pm, Sunday evening. The clock was ticking. We slept for about four hours. The next morning, we got up bright and early, caffeinated heavily, and drove to our first location, an office building.

A quick word about the the Ningen Manga gremlins. They like to make their presence felt. It's not a Ningen Manga Production unless there's some weird unexplainable technical snafu during the first set-up. This time, it was a weird audio issue with the DV Rack monitoring system we were using. We worked it out, but I'm getting gremlin repellent before the first Women's Studies shoot.



After we finished the office shoot, we headed back to our second location, the basement of my house, shoveled down some pizza, and began to shoot the core of the movie. Around this time, we hit a strange sort of serenity that was magical. For whatever reason, any pressure from the time crunch I felt disappeared and we started moving at a steady pace yet still had time to explore the ideas we wanted as well as get the shots and sound right. It was pretty cool.

Around 1:00am we wrapped inside and headed outside to shoot our big emotional climax. It was chilly, even with the lights, but we got the best shots we could considering how dog tired we were. At 4:00am, we headed over to my brother-in-law's house, woke him up. (He had no idea we were coming.), and shot our final scene.

If you think we then started editing, you're crazy. We had BEEN editing since we started shooting. Aaron Shirley had been working in tandem with us. We'd shoot some footage, dump it to him to edit, and then shoot some more. The rough cut of the film was finished about thirty minutes after we shot the last scene.



Aaron and I spent the next four hours tweaking and shaving, as well as finding the right rhythms and tone. It was a lot of ideas we were trying to shove into a short film, maybe too much, but it was too late for such considerations now. We were less than twelve hours away from the deadline.

Around 11:00am, we got the final picture lock FTPed to the sound and music guys. (Our Composer, Ryan Sayward Whittier, had been working on music since Friday.) They scrambled to match up the recorded sound, put in sound FX, sweeten the mix, and set it all down.

At 5:00pm, we left with the sound mix, raced back to the editor and slapped it together. There was a moment of panic when we had trouble burning out the whole thing to DVD. It worked out, finally, and Cindy drove us into DC at a speed of roughly a trillion miles per hour.

Thankfully we got our film in on time, with eighteen minutes to spare.

The film is called Posi+ive. It takes place in a not-so-distant future where a ban on sex and marriage is placed on HIV positive individuals. In response, a biotech industry selling life-like robot "Companions" has arisen. The story follows Ian, a positive, who purchases a Companion and tries to love her, hoping she will have the capability to love him back. We'll have it online to view after the official screenings.



It was a fun weekend. I'm still recovering from the effects of sleep deprivation, but I wouldn't think of taking it back for a second. Otherwise, I wouldn't have this picture of Women Studies's own "Judith," Tara Garwood, pinching the mystical nipple of Venus.



(A big thanks to Kirk Lambert for not only being part of our 48HFP team this year, but taking all the great pictures you see in this blog.)

Maternal Evolution

*WARNING: Minor spoilers ahead.*

Though I'm making a film called Women's Studies, the issue of motherhood is one I've sort of avoided. There's "sisters" and "daughters" aplenty, but the mothers get a bit of the short shrift.

I'm not in any way implying that motherhood and womanhood have anything to do with each other, but from a purely Darwinian, biological point of view, giving birth is what a woman's body is designed to do. Before any ladies out there get offended, keep in mind that from a physical standpoint, the importance of males drops far more considerably. At least women are biological incubators with intricate layers of child-bearing hardware. Dudes are the evolutionary equivalent of a garden hose.

The human infant isn't well designed for survival on it's own. Spiders are all but abandoned by their mother days after they're born. Snakes hatch from eggs and never meet Mom. Even kittens and horses are pretty much ready to do what they need to survive after a few weeks. Yet even a year after it's born, a human child can't do more than walk around (poorly) and shit itself. (I'll admit they do that pretty well.)

To increase the chances of survival, humans have evolved in a behavioral sense to be able to rear and care for human children. You see this in the higher primates as well as elephants and other large mammals as well. The babies are reared for a considerable period of time by at least one individual or animal, but often two parents or even in a group situation before going off by themselves to make more babies.

Evolutionary Psychology (EP) is a discipline which theorizes that much of our behavior is hardwired into us instinctually. For example, one theory states that for partners, women tend to seek out men who are attractive and intelligent because on a sub-conscious, instinctual level, they want the highest genetic material to pass on to offspring. The same theory states that men are attracted to women with larger breasts and wider hips because those are physical attributes that lead to successful bearing of a healthy child. Other evolutionary theories attempt to explain why men are more prone to infidelity than women, (Males are physically designed to disseminate their genetic material as widely as possible. Think of cats.) as well as why women tend to initiate most divorces. (If a male can't adequately provide food and protection, what good is he? Think of a pride of lions.)

Evolutionary psychologists theorize that early civilization's social structures evolved from these instinctual needs. Men and women chose each other on the merits that would allow the fragile human infant the chance to survive long enough where it could continue the genetic line. Leagues of royal families continued the same blood lines for centuries to a similar end. Was it due to ego or instinct?

(What does all this blather have to do with the weird feminist horror film I'm making? Hang on, I'm getting there.)

Gender roles and social structure also evolved this way, according to EP. Early civilizations worshipped female deities for woman's "magical" ability to create life. Males quickly realized that due to the biological requirements to bear children, women were physically weaker. Males also realized that while a male counterpoint was often better to assist the women in directing the child's life, it wasn't necessary for the woman. Remember, males are hardwired to keep their blood line going, not only in the physcial sense, but in the social sense.

Therefore, they invented male gods and myths to relegate woman to a subservient "mother" role for thousands of years in order to control the fates of their children. Yet even when these later civilizations banished woman's role in matters of politics and religion, she was still revered for her role as a child-bearer. In fact, for centuries that was considered her only role. After all, he didn't want her to use her evolutionary instinct for sniffing out a man who has outlived his usefulness.

The thing about evolution is it always continues. Here in the twenty-first century, strength is measured in different ways, and that whole idea of the "delicate child-bearer" who needs to be protected by her male companion is about current as hoop skirts. (Though sadly, there's still a great deal of that cro-magnon mentality swirling around in the ether.) The idea of the strong, independent mother has gained a lot of currency in the past few decades, mostly because a lot of males are too deadbeat to take responsibility for the kid they helped create. The term "Single Mom" used to be a mark of shame. Now it's a badge of honor.

Which brings us back around to Women's Studies and the character of Sharon, a Ross-Prentiss academy girl who is nine-months pregnant with a male baby. But as I said, "pregnant" doesn't equal "delicate." Sharon is tough and street smart. She could take care of this kid by herself without any problem, if only her "peers" would let her. Remember, Women's Studies is all about sisters, daughters, and even mothers. Sons however . . . Well, let's just say that the concept of "late term abortion" isn't one these ladies shy away from.

Sharon's plight mirrors Mary's. Both are pregnant with a child that they don't particularly want though each have different reasons for not doing do. Sharon's, we find out, are far more dire than Mary's. Sharon is afraid of going through what she has to alone. However, it's not someone else Sharon needs to find, but rather the strength in herself, which somehow the academy girls of Ross-Prentiss have managed to suck out of her, the same way they're trying to do to Mary.

Mundy Spears, the actor playing Sharon, has electric eyes that can convey the strength, fear, and confusion Sharon is supposed to be feeling. She comes off tough and resolute even when weeping with despair. It'll be a challenging role for her, so thank god/dess she has years of evolution on her side.

(If you're interested in reading more about Evolutionary Psychology, I highly recommend Robert Wright's The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology.)

A Day in the Life

"I read the news today, Oh Boy . . ."

(What Beatles album is that from? Oh my God/dess, I'm only 31 and going senile! Is it Sgt. Peppers? It is, right?)

Saturday marks the first big "all hands" meeting for the Women's Studies cast and crew, and Cindy and I are scrambling to get as much done as we can.

Things are going quite well. So well, in fact, that I wish Cindy and I could hire a third co-producer to take some of the workload off our shoulders. For the record, we don't have the funds, so unless you're willing to do a lot of unceremonious grunt work for free, don't even bother sending a resume. Besides, we have a pretty good system in place. Lots of work, but we're getting things done.

It's late and if I don't hurry this up, Tuesday will be over and it'll be the Wednesday blog which would make me sad since I've prided myself on not missing one so far. To that end, I'm simply listing off my to-do list for tomorrow which in a verite, "slice of life" manner, might be sort of interesting to the layman (or woman).

Then again, maybe I'm making excuses for not having much of a blog this week. The fact is simply that everything is pretty "nuts and bolts" right now, and not the glamorous filmmaking life that everybody keeps telling me independent filmmaking is. And really, by writing a blog about the things I have to do tomorrow, I'm killing two birds with one stone.

In the morning I have six phone calls to make: Four to potential locations, one to a potential script supervisor, the last to the insurance company who's covering the Women's Studies production. Depending on how these phone calls go could define the rest of my day, but let's assume that nothing from them needs any immediate action.

Afterwards, it's off to two locations we've already secured; one for the "initiation scene," the other a very cool field of flowers for a Melissa/Iris scene. Once there, I'll take pictures for our location photo log. On the way back, I'll check the company mailbox to see if the editing software and/or hardware pieces we ordered last week have arrived.

The afternoon will get me back to "the office" where I'll answer email and dig into various items of busywork including dealing with anything from the morning's phone calls. I'm also in the midst of prepping invites and schedule for a day player audition being held in two weeks. After I've had enough of that for awhile, I'll call Aaron the DP and we'll hopefully come to a consensus on a lighting kit we're wanting to order.

By that point, it'll be the evening and I'll take a bit of a break before coming back to "the office" before bed to maybe play around with storyboards or character notes for Saturday's meeting. Or maybe I'll just watch the new Harry Potter trailer over and over until I pass out from excitement.

If I actually get all that done, it'll be a good day. Hell, if I get half of it done, it'll be all right. Rereading it all just makes me want to go to bed, which I'm going to go do now.

Sound Garden

I learned the hard way that sound can make or break a film. On my first short film, First Session, my original sound guy kind of flaked out on me, and I was left with a fast approaching deadline and virtually no soundtrack.

Thankfully, I got introduced to Sean Russell who's not only an expert at putting out audio fires, but a creative mind and sincere professional who has been a blessing to work with. He's the sound master of Women's Studies, and understands the importance of audio to the cinematic experience. Not only that, his post-audio skills are, to coin a phrase, mad.

On a production full of PC/Avid technicians, Sean is also our lone Mac operator, for which he catches a lot of good natured flak, though sometimes I think he often gets the last laugh.

As the Women's Studies shoot dates roll closer, Sean has been busy prepping his sound recording gear as well as preparing for the eventual post process. I took some time recently and talked with him about his gear, work methods, and philosophy.

# # #

Lonnie:
Sean, what drew you to sound work?

Sean Russell:
I first got into sound at a young age visiting my uncle Steve's studio at the age of eleven. I was into playing drums, and he recorded a small solo to tape for me and right there I was hooked. Some Years Later, I was playing in bands and handing tapes to sound guys every night asking them to tape our show from the board feed. Usually, those tapes sounded horrible, and I thought I could make a better sounding recording. That's how I slowly moved from making music to recording music, and later, my passion for post developed. And here I am.

Lonnie:
A lot of independent filmmakers make the mistake of shortchanging their sound in both recording and post, why do you suppose that is?

Sean:
I've always been taught that video with poor audio might as well be surveillance!

I guess mostly because the conscious focus of any film is the visual. I think most people always think of movies that way - the visual judgment of how they looked may have been more immediate then how they sounded. I would also suppose that with days, weeks, months of shooting a project (and trying to make it look as good as possible) you end up with no time (and budget) to get the film properly posted to a standard we're all used to. Most gear budgets are a lot like casting budgets - you spend the big money on the biggest feature. In gear terms, that might mean a really cool camera. With casting, it might mean spending a chunk of the budget to get a big celebrity. After you've spent a good amount of budget on the camera and associated peripherals, the sound department gets 'what's left over,' meaning, usually the location audio suffers, both in equipment and quality.

In big productions, the location audio recorded isn't as big a deal, with 90% of most audio being replaced after principal photography is over. In post, the usual culprit is the timeline - too many projects hit post past deadline, need the audio yesterday, and don't have time to take time! I've been in this position many times - perhaps more times than not. Proper audio is the difference between a well-shot film with a good plot going over well, or just being well-shot with a good plot. So much of the audio for film is subconscious, and it's amazing what the human ear can perceive as being 'false' or 'fake' if the audio isn't up to par. It's my job to make it seem like there almost wasn't a 'sound guy' or 'post tech' tweaking stuff, as most people are pretty fuzzy about the process anyway.

Lonnie:
A lot of films which could have failed, succeed because of fantastic audio. Lucas's THX-1138 is one that comes to mind.

Sean:
Yes, films which 'could have failed' ...hmmm, there are so many that come to mind... anyone remember Armageddon? Man that was a bad movie, but the soundtrack - whew! The audio in general was top-notch. It's amazing sometimes what the Re-Recording mixers on a movie can do. You mentioned THX-1138 - I would even go so far as the first Star Wars movie. Have you seen cuts without audio? Complete Velveeta. Even the people making the movie thought it would tank - but then they saw it with all of Ben's audio behind it, John's music on it, and - WOW! What a great film! It's the subconscious element of sound to work almost behind the scenes on our senses while our eyes process the film itself. I think good sound makes the film believable - and allows the suspension of disbelief we all must experience to walk out of the film saying to each other 'that was a good movie.'

Lonnie:
I agree wholeheartedly. The aural experience enhances the visual one, and is just as important in making the audience lose themselves in the movie. What are some of the things you like to do to heighten that experience?

Sean:
Secret tips, eh? OK, well, there are general rules, 'see a sound, hear a sound,' that kind of thing. A lot of sounds that we typically hear on movies aren't actually realistic - but most of the time, our brain agrees with the delivery and there's no argument that would give pause. The easiest example in modern cinema is probably gun effects. On TV, when the bad guy cocks his 9-mil, you're usually hearing a 12-gauge shotgun sample. There might be other samples layered with that, but you almost never actually hear the 9-mil itself, it's just not believable. The same can be said for the firings of the guns - many guns in real life make more of a 'pop' sound then a 'boom' sound - but you rarely hear that, because it doesn't build the same way. It's not what we're 'used' to hearing on a movie.

I think it's mostly trying to make sure that the layers that make up an effect or sequence don't stick out independently enough to defeat the stack. It's also about the timing of the sequence, and build up musically coming in or going out.

Lonnie:
Give the gear heads a little taste of what your rig is like, for both production and post.

Sean:
Production audio is mostly Sennheiser shotgun mics feeding Lunatecs recorded 24-bit / 48 kHz to Compact Flash. It's usually a simple chain to get the clearest idea of dialog, location room tones/background loops, and general other sound gathering techniques that might comprise of 15%-20% of the actual audio in the movie.

When you get to Post, everything moves into ProTools and you begin 're-cutting' the film from the ground up - before music and final dialog mixing. Once you get the main beds down, you begin all the obvious effects, and things like the SPL transient designer are a must for making things 'bigger.' Much of the actual effects and editing is handled strictly in the DAW now, with the integration of ProTools and Avid.

Lonnie:
Last question: What does your world sound like?

Sean:
Good question. That's a question I've always wanted to ask those that came before me. I've always been fascinated with the human perception of sound and how people hear differently. I suppose my world sounds not unlike everyone else's. I am forever trying to be more conscientious about what I am perceiving, and how much I'm hearing something as opposed to how much I'm feeling it - or perceiving that I'm feeling it.

Connecting to the undercurrent of emotion that a piece is portraying and supporting that feeling is my main goal. It's my connection with that feeling that allows direction to the technical aspect of my job to come up with something that will enhance rather than distract the point of the story, whether it be in song or film.

Script Doctor

The "how, when, who, what, and where" of the Women's Studies production is really coming together nicely. We've got a lot of elements in place and have started to bang out something that resembles a shooting schedule. This weekend will be the big design meeting with Art Director Stephanie Petagno to finalize some costume designs and the like. At the end of the month I'll kick off the first rehearsal with the actors, a true milestone.

To that end, I spent part of the weekend working on what will be my final revision of the Women's Studies script, the "blue" script. (Once we started production, the script went from being the fourth draft to the "white" script. Since this is a production draft, it's gotten upgraded to "blue.") There will be other minor rewrites as location needs or storyboards require changes to be made. Still, from a certain point of view this is my last chance as a writer to craft the story before I hand it off for the actors and allow them to turn my words into their words.

I like to think I'm not one of "those" writer/directors. You know, the type that has to micro-manage every line delivery because the actor "just isn't capturing the vibe I intended." To me, a script is a blueprint. The actors, camera and sound crew, and art director are like the carpenters, electricians and pipe-fitters. The director is the foreman, and in this case, the foreman just happens to also be the guy who drew up the floor plans. But the foreman doesn't tell the carpenters every detail of how to put up the walls. He lets them use their own method and is just there to make sure evrything comes together as intended.

I come from an acting background, so my attitude towards actors is to give them enough space to discover their own countries, yet give them enough guidence so they don't get lost. I want them to find aspects of the script to claim for themsleves. If they need to take the words I've written and alter them slightly to make them their own, I'm down with that.

I like working with actors. A lot of directors have troubles with actors because their main tool is emotion, and to really get down and dig deep with them requires everyone to look inside their hearts and reveal truths they might not ordinarily want to share. It takes a lot of trust between actors and a director to really make the emotional discoveries, and trust just can't be given. It has to be earned.

Writing is like that too. I have respect for anyone who writes something and puts it out there for others to see. It takes a great deal of courage to expose your inner thoughts in that way, be it a poem, a novel, or a script. What if people don't like it? Or even worse, don't get it? That's the biggest fear I have, I think; a fear that people will read or see what I've written and just look at me in that queer way that says, "I don't understand what you're trying to say?" And yet there are times when I'm in the midst of creation that I myself don't quite understand what I'm trying to say. I only know I have to say it.

Another part of me feels a bit of loss at letting the Women's Studies script go into the arms of others because I've spent the better part of the last two years with it, constantly turning it over in my head. I still will of course, though once we start shooting, I'll lose the option to change anything. Film is immortal. Once an image is captured, it's always captured. You can only have so many takes before you simply have to choose one and live with it.

The consolation to it all is that I really like this script, and can't wait to share it. As great a blueprint I think it is, I think it's going to make an even better movie. And it'll do so not because of my singular voice, but the varied tones and tambours of the cast and crew's voices, singing together in harmony.

"You Don't Want No Drama"

I was sent this video of Alanis Morrisette singing "My Humps" and I'm totally obsessed with her version of the song.

And it's crazily apt because that fickle mistress Women's Studies, she's got me spending all my money on her, and spending time on her. (She's make making me work. Making me work, work. Making me work.)

A few points of interest:

--Crew: We hired our editor, Jim McGivney, who will be in charge of piecing together this crazy vision of mine. In addition to cutting together Ningen Manga Productions' short films First Session and Under the Bed, Jim's a filmmaker in his own right. More on his sweet Irish arse can be found at his MySpace page. (He's the one who sent me the above video. Damn him.) In addition, we've been interviewing other crew members and trying to work it all out.

--Gear, gear, and more gear . . . We're talking through and purchasing the various HD systems that will be working on the Women's Studies set, which I hope to keep as paperless as possible. Tapeless too, since the camera we're shooting with uses P2 capture technology. Therefore ours will be a set full of laptops. One for capturing, one for tweaking scopes, exposure, time-code, and monitoring, and one for all our production documentation. That doesn't include Sound Master Sean Russell's audio rig which is a totally different, yet awesome, beast. (More on Sean and sound will be featured in a blog later this month.) In the middle of the month we're having a big, long studio test of the production gear to work out any bugs.

--Locations: We've got a few locked in, are in talks for others, and the search goes on for others still. The progress here has been amazing, especially after I put out a semi-public call for some of our harder to find locales. The lesson? Never try to do it all yourself.

--Casting: We've had some private auditions for the remaining roles of "Zack" and "Sharon." (Not "private" like that. Get your head out the gutter.) We're having more in the next couple weeks. May will see our last big audition to fill out supporting and day player roles.

Some small "second-unit" shooting will begin in June and we're currently on target for principal photography to start in July.

Well, as long as I stop babbling and get back to work.