Three summers of short films recap

The past three years our summers been partially occupied with shooting short films. I just want to recap some of the interesting concepts, techniques, just really all the hard work and final shots that made it to each project. The budgets for each film were calculated based on expenses made specifically for that production.

Avenue

2009: Avenue: $700 (sound equipment, guns, gas, food)

Crime drama, starring Coelti Ticsay, Alex Olof Johnson, Steven Lopez, David Laurich, and Yvonne Wong

• So many firsts with this project: First non-linear story telling, use of a boom mic, solid structured script (the story was eh, but the organization was leaps ahead of what we were doing before), sound design, foley, use of outside professional actors, attempts at lighting, etc. This project had its flaws but sparked quite the enthusiasm for the following summer.
• This was also the first project of mine I submitted to a film festival, Asian American Film makers or whatever it was called. Garnered an honorable mention, which was nice. 

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Breakaway

2010: Breakaway: $650 (dolly, Zoom H4n, gas, food? lights)

Romantic Comedy? Starring Coelti Ticsay, Lauren Palac, Pasquale Di Diana, Alex Demetralis, Kelly Ardan, and Travis Cisco

• I really dispise this film being made. I feel really bad for disliking my projects but it was just bad. I rushed the writing with Mike and we only had two weeks, if even, to develop a concept into a short screenplay. Two weeks. I don't think television even works that fast...Whatever. I learned that it doesn't matter if the direction is good, cinematography, acting, editing, music, etc if the foundation, that being the script/story, isn't rock solid, everything you put on top of that becomes a pile of horse manure, which was a waste because we had some good actors on this project.
• Technically speaking, this was the first project to utilize more professional sound (ext audio recorder), the first of our films to shoot with a DSLR (which the footage looked uncanningly video because I was just pointing and shooting), and to rip off about twenty copyright songs (not really professional on my part). In the end, unlike Avenue, this project's firsts should have been left to an earlier project so we could have seen its flaws before figuring them out here. Organization was very bad as well, I learned people need to be fed especially when they work for free for you...Oh well. That was the past. We learn things and make bad films. Moving on.

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Living

2011: Living: $460 (mannequin, Home Depot things, car mount, gas, Good Will props, food)

Drama, starring Michael Stiff, Courtney Coelti Ticsay, Alex Demetralis, Steven Argoudelis, and Lauren Palac. 

• Everything we did wrong with Breakaway, we stayed far away from that. Taking an old script Mike wrote in freshman year during Flashpoint, he took the original concept and tweaked it to develop a more compelling story. We knew where the character was going to end up but the progress from point A to B still needed work, extending the plot driven story into a character driven one. 
• First summer film to use professional lighting equipment, camera gear, professional ORIGINAL music, and call sheets and catering (thanks Ben). I honestly hate producing but with the help of the highly organized Steve, everything went smooth. Most days we were ahead of schedule. Production design was also led by Steve who did an incredible job designing and building many of the props in the film. Considering it only took $460 to make this, I think the effiency went in the right direction, unlike Breakaway.
• Submitted this to major three film fests so we'll see how it does. We all might just get imdb pages too.
• Original music was composed and supervised by Devin Delaney of Noisefloor LTD who did an excellent job at the score. Every detail in the picture was heavily considered in the making of the score and Devin understood the story perfectly. Watching the cut with his soundtrack is like watching the film with a blank slate because honestly after watching this over and over again in the editing room (my humble bedroom), I got sick and tired of it. Not sure how many other filmmakers will read this note but I highly recommend this guy's work.  

Overall, I don't know if we will have another project next summer considering that people are moving away, things are changing, I don't know if I'll still be here. But if I'm not, I just want to let all of you know, it's been a great three years of exciting film making! I hope there will be more great times and achievements especially on those Christmas shorts! But I finally ask, what story are we going to tell next?

2011 Cinematography Reel - Louis Wong

updating....

Well, I'm 21...I've been 21 for almost 3 weeks now...got my new license, getting ready to shoot my summer project soon. Going back to school in the fall, actually I'm taking some jjc courses over the summer too and that starts near the end of June...

Yeah, aside from that, nothing really new going on...

Past stuff...

I dated this girl Amanda back in the early years of high school. She is probably one of those girls that you repeatedly ask yourself, “why the fuck did I go out with her in the first?” A total psycho bitch I didn’t see coming, only to see it too late.

She and I used to hang out after school everyday ever since we started dating. Her father split with her mother and Amanda lived with him since she could remember but he would get drunk almost every night so hanging out after school became a second home to her. I never officially had a class with her but met through one of my study group partner’s friend in math class. I probably knew her for about four months before we started dating. I went to steak and shake for the first time with her and she would get so upset at the end of each day so she decided to set up something that reminded about the two of us in her home, a fish tank.

One day after school, we walked to the PetsMart and bought a 10 gallon fish tank, a variety of fish, decorations for the tank, the whole package. We spent the entire rest of the day putting all the little touches to it and named everyone of the fish together. To us, they were like our little children and every time she would go home and be greeted by hungry fishes; she would still miss me but it felt like she went home to an actual family this time.

Well, I guess long story short, she got heavily deep into drugs in which my friend, Matt from my math class turns out was dealing drugs to her. I asked her many times to stop because I just wanted the old Amanda back. She tried probably twice but the addiction got worse and worse. I got upset and started a huge fight with Matt. She became upset that he stopped giving her drugs and I fell under deep depression.

And you know what the strange part was? At that time, I still felt that I loved her…that everything would be okay sooner or later and things would resume back to normal. I wrote things in class that bothered my teachers and was sent to the counselor in fear I would hurt myself. My counselor told me to attend creative writing club after school to help vent out the stress (because I never told anybody else what really happened) and hoped that I would resolve my issues there. There I met Mr. Mannoja and Lauren and I don’t know where I would be today without them. 

Amanda got angry when I told her about creative writing club and how this “Lauren” was being so helpful to me. In her rage, she pushed down the fish tank we had built together off the shelf, killing all the fish. I watched it all happen and I’ve never had the urge so strong before in my life to hit a girl. But instead I kissed her and held her head closely to mine, as if the moment I let go, all of this would go away….

It didn’t. I backed away from her and looked upon reality. Her kiss, it meant nothing anymore. I didn’t say a word and left her house.

scifi movies of 2011

I'm a huge scifi fanatic. I love movies that experiment with reality and science fiction and how all that could be possible. Whether I like or don't like a scifi movie is ultimately the story but what draws me in differently than other genres is that suspension of disbelief factoid and how a new world is visually created setting a new ground of universal rules that apply to the movie. I just fucking love that.

And since I have a good half hour to an hour time before my meds make me all sleepy and drowsy and shit, I felt like writing some of my most anticipated science fiction movies of 2011.

Where do I start? I'll begin with whats in my head at the moment. Battle Los Angeles. That movies is going to be what Skyline wished it was to begin with. I'm excited Aaron Eckhart and Michelle Rodriguez are in it however I'm not too fond of the director Jonathan Liebesman who hasn't really made a good movie so I'm worried at how it all ties together because it looks really fucking cool AND the music is creepy especially in the trailers where they mute everything in the battle scenes and just play that monotonous tone. The main score I've already got from iTunes and it's very well composed, despite its lonely two verse long lyrics. But it makes it's message though it so it's not a pointless composition. Very creepy yet happy and soothing at the same time. Great music choice. I also love the meaning of the release date of 3-11-11 which apparently is a codename for the infantry group that the movie centralizes on.

Speaking of music. Another trailer that caught my attention was Source Code. This movie is about a guy who relives the lives of different people who all died in the same train bomb explosion via computer to find out who the terrorist is. It's directed by Duncan Jones who also directed Moon, one of my all time favorite scifi movies so I have strong hopes for this movie. The music is geniusly (is that a word?) composed by Clint Mansell who also did moon and almost everything Darren Aronofsky's ever done. Unless the studio decides to take control of the project (it is Jones' first big budget production) I'm seeing this one when it comes out, which I don't know when...I feel like it might be sometime during the fall but who knows.

How many of us have play cowboys and indians when we were little? I certainly have and is upset at the amount of people who don't get the title reference Cowboys and Aliens....very upset. The trailer isn't cheesy. Surprisingly. We have two bad asses leading the screen. Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford. Opposing law and outlaw characters who have to join forces to stop the aliens in the western times. Oh and it's directed by Jon Favreau who did the Iron Man movies and Spielberg is producing. Such a win-derful cast and crew. Coming in July.

Let's talk about Zack Snyder now! Okay, this isn't really science fiction...or is it? A girl is taken to a mental institute and makes her escape with the help of her wild imaginary fantasy world (and the people she befriends with inside the institution.) Girls fighting thirty-foot tall samurai villians weilding .50 cal machine guns. Oh and there's dragons. Snyder has a great line of movies from his debut Dawn of the Dead remake to 300, to Watchmen. I don't know if I want to count Legends of the Guardians as his own (the one with the animated owls) as I heard the studio mainly took control of the project. I haven't seen that one yet but I heard good things. I'm quite stoked at what new world he's going to envelope us under and this one's coming in March.

How about another Transformers movie? Sure. My friend Mike told me what makes a good trilogy is when something ends suddenly in the second one and reveals its conclusive finale for the third. A great example would be the Back the Future trilogy. What we mean here is that, they should have left Optimus Prime dead so the villains win but bring him back to life in the third. But instead that had to rush the ending which really isn't as bad as everyone is putting it up to be...but it's still fucking horrible. At least Michael Bay and Shia Lebausgasdkgjdfnameslaughteredgivingup have admitted that Revenge of the Fallen wasn't really good and went into the third one knowing this. That's the first time I've head the director call out on his project. Which is good because he's just so full of himself and I really don't want to see it other than seeing all the shots they did in Chicago. So at least he knows what sucks and that's awesome because the superbowl teaser made me jizz my pants seeing LaSalle street all fucked up and destroyed. Another summer block buster release.

There are other movies I would like to mention but I think this note is long enough. Other movies they've announced which may be released after 2011, include District 10 (sequel to District 9), Don't be afraid of the Dark (Guillermo del Toro produced and written horror), Brave New World (Ridley Scott's scifi flick with DiCaprio), 28 Months Later (third movie in the 28 Days Later series, to be directed by Danny Boyle), Ghostbusters 3, and Kickass 2.

Well. I hope this was a fun review for all you not sleeping...unless you're reading this tomorrow morning...then well, good for you. Time to sleep now. Byes.