moved to: http://danf.mine.nu (at least temporarily)

Because I haven’t posted much of value recently, here’s a brief update:

 

The movie is “officially” 27 scenes.  I put “officially” in quotes because that’s merely the number of scenes in the script.  The “trick” is that there are a fair number of “a” scenes, such as 10a, 13a, and so on, so the actual number is a bit higher.  Of course, considering the method of how we work on such projects, there is no scene 22 [I think].  The moral of the story: there are about thirty scenes.

 

Of these 30, I have finished: 18, 04, 01, 02, 27,10,10a, 21(that’s an especially good one),17, 16, 15, 06, 07, 08, and 13.  Oddly enough I’ve never spent the two seconds it would take to count them, so by choice, I’m not sure exactly how many I have left.  [Obviously, I’m trying to avoid thinking in such terms].

 

During break, Adam and I got off to a good start, finishing one of the more challenging scenes and beginning a couple others, and upon returning from break [three weeks ago today], I went crazy editing and editing, and unfortunately sort of burned myself out about a week ago, and my movie-making productivity went way down.  In the list above (which reflects the order that I completed the scenes), I averaged more than one scene per day up to scene 06, but in the week after that, only the last three scenes listed were finished.

 

But, I wouldn’t consider this bad news necessarily, I’m sure I’ll be back full steam by the end of this week, and I’ve been doing “quality passes” through the scenes that I’ve finished to make sure the timing is as natural as possible between shots.  That’s a luxury we/I couldn’t afford during this stage of the first movie...

 

In the meantime, I’ve been re-doing the original movie’s DVD.  There aren’t any new features or videos or anything, but there were a number of things that bothered me about how I made the disc, so I’ve been rather intently re-authoring it.  It’s a particularly secondary project at the moment (the new movie and its upcoming “trailering” being the primary), so I’m not sure when I’ll get it done, but if you want a copy, yell.  Remember, there won’t be new content; I’m merely cleaning up some of its navigation (not the menus themselves, but the process of moving among them), so if you think the current navigation is fine, I doubt you’ll get anything out of the new discs.

 

Some good news: During a “screen test” of the completed scenes of the new movie, one of my friends here said it was looking like it was going to be decidedly better than the first movie, and he’s one of the (many) people here (and most everywhere) who choose not to comment much on the first movie…

 

Dan

Yes folks, in the course of working on this movie, I had to search Google with this exact phrase: "the gayest font ever." Now for all of those on the lookout for hate crimes, don't worry, I mean it in the purely homosexual sense.

One of the six results referred to Comic Sans (as "the gayest font ever"), but I think that'd be too easy...

Dan

It looks like some other movie is big on community theater too.  Bigger than the Sky which seems to be about some guy realizing his dreams through a local production of Cyrano de Bergerac is a blatant rip-off of our idea.  It doesn't matter that they probably finished filming their movie [probably editing it, too] before we even had the rough idea in August or that no one in our movie "find's himself," they stole our idea.  Let the boycott begin.

Note: Waiting for Guffman, also about community theater, dates back to the 90's [way, way before "Prey for Snow"], but doesn't count because, um, it's presented as a documentary.

Dan

let me preface this by saying that no thought went into it before the typing, so if you've never gotten an email from me, this is what to expect.

 

so when we set out to make this movie, the main difference from the first one was that instead of having 4 main characters and 6 or so peripheral characters (if that many), we decided to go with a more ensemble-style movie, with franklin having approximately the same amount of screen time as some of the other roles. all 10 of them or so. yes. 10. so the amount of roles needed, combined with the compact and intense shooting schedule made finding people for this movie a big challenge.

of course for the lead, we had franklin, and Andy Marstellar was in from the beginning. There were also, obviously, roles for adam grochowsky and myself, and a small part for dan and his stunt body, but where to fill the other parts we needed? originally i was planning on writing a role for one of my dad's friends to do, but i thought it would be weird asking an adult to come and be in this little project of ours, especially after all the monologues i wrote for the character. So i figured that since i wrote so much for him, that i'd just play the part myself. hell, i did it before, right? so i was up to two roles....ish...

but that ish is left to be a suprise.

anyway, for our villain, i looked to a guy that only i knew who went to school with me at ithaca and lives in emmaus. Nick SCHWEIP (I use the capital letters, because his last name became synonomous with the casting dilemmas that ensued...more on that soon) was this man. I had discussed this movie with him in person and through email and he ensured me that he would be available. and he left his cell phone number.

suffice to say, SCHWEIP is not one to EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, answer said cell phone. I don't know the point in even having one, if you're never going to pick up. Again, more on this later. So not getting in touch with him, i scheduled all of his scenes to be shot in a one-day period, the last day of shooting. As the day rolled around, of course he didn't bother to ever talk to me about it, and i had no choice but to find a replacement, at the last minute. So, for the first time i've ever said this, and probably the last, "Thank God for Greg(g) Goletz". He may not be the most menacing villain to ever grace the screen, but he was a damn good sport about getting lines at the last minute and, for once, reading over them before the shoot. But this was the last of our casting problems.

However, it was in no way the first. You see, not knowing a lot of people still around allentown that would be interested in acting in a movie about ben franklin and community theatre, i pulled a favor out of an old friend, matt breiner. You may know him from his one line in the original ("Halt, who goes there?!"), or his two lines on some episode of the sopranos in season 3 somewhere. Well, i asked him to help us out and try to find two males and one female actor besides himself to help us with parts. He's an acting student at desales university of allentown college, and told me straight off that he would be able to get the people necessary. after all, his roommates, and girlfriend would be around for all of christmas break with nothing to do. actually, let me mention this again, this is after he, in addition to SCHWEIP, WOULD NOT ANSWER HIS DAMN CELL PHONE.

Seriously kids, what's the deal? I was given the excuse that my phone number looks like that of some kid he doesn't like. whatever.

So going in, we're set with the cast (still under the assumption of SCHWEIP). we had a few returners from the first movie, and some vets of the franklin two trailer (cough, cough, insert somewhat bitter yet totally over it so the only reason to be bitter is for comic effect remark here, cough), sasha fletcher, rob rudzinski, tim sampson, and sarah hinkle, as well as four "real" actors from desales.

of course, in any kind of story, even a "nate story"

there is some kind of rising action, some tension or something, and of course, knowing us, SCHWEIP can't have been the only complication we had... especially with Breiner as well as SCHWEIP not answering his phone.

well, we're getting close to the end of my semester, and i've asked him numerous times for names and contact information of who these "randoms" would be, after all, it's a little daunting to find out that you're relying on people you've never met before. i believe i was about to call quits on the whole thing about 3 times before something convinced me each time that he could still get the people. The whole movie was revolving around his recruitment of these actors.

So with one last statement of conviction from him, that he would have the people, i came home from school for break.

First day of shooting rolls around and it only involves, me, adam, dan, andy, and zach buckallew. of course it take about 3 times longer than was scheduled. so we shoot every shot that zach's in and hope that we have the ability to come back later and get the rest of the shots ("continuity schmontinuity"

i always say). our decree is that, even though we still don't have the names of these actors for tomorrow, we're going to go through with the next day, the first full day of shooting.

we meet at pizza hut lunch buffet before the shoot.

let me be a little more specific. andy and i meet adam at pizza hut, because it's the mid-morning and dan is late (insert easy joke here). so we're all sitting around the table and my cell phone rings from breiner.

"umm, so i'm in, but my girlfriend ended up going home, and i can't find my roommates". and i look at adam and andy, and i tell them. and as we try to understand the response we're going to have from dan, he walks in.

so, of course, having an inkling before this that breiner wasn't going to come through with the other people, i had tried to get some backups in case. only one of them came through... my cousin, who, while he looked the part, had a difficult time coming out of his shell/remembering some of the longer lines i gave him. but he really helped us out and was dedicated to the work, so that's cool. this leaves two other parts.

andy picked up his cell phone and called one of greg's many ex-girlfriends who offered her services (insert greg-manwhore joke here). but we were still left with the dilemma of the last character. we shot around it all we could, and then i said screw it, and i threw on a trenchcoat. Three-ish characters for me. our final cast was set.

 

As usual i don't have an end to this story.....

 

ummm... so then i found five dollars?

 

I hesitate to make this entry, being that I’m pretty sure most of you [all five of you reading, I’m sure] don’t get much out of this, but it’s a common question.  So, here’s the hardware behind this little movie of ours:

 

Camera: Sony DCR-TRV730.  768,000 pixel single CCD.  It doesn’t get much more consumer-grade than that.  It records DV on Hi8 tape (Digital8).

 

Computer (both of these are do-it-yourself-ers….mainly because I’m cheap):

For editing:

Windows XP Professional

Pentium4 2.8C

1GB Memory (dual-channel PC3200)

280GB Total Hard Drive Space (120 Maxtor, 160GB Seagate, both 7200rpm)

NEC 3500AG DVD Recorder

Radeon 8500 Video Card (which actually doesn’t have very much to do with video editing, for those who don’t know much about computers)

 

For those who really care, it’s a Asus P4S800D-E motherboard.  At the risk of being one of those people who leaves opinions on the internet and doesn’t explain or justify them, my experience with this board precludes me from buying both Asus boards and SiS chipsets in the future.  If you’ve read this far, you probably “care,” so here’s a link to the relevant discussion.

 

The computer is perfectly competent and quite awhile away from being ‘state of the art,’ but it gets the job done.

 

For Storage:

Ubuntu Linux running SAMBA (note: I’m not Linux apologist, but I found that it is a much more responsive file server than Windows, and it’s free, so that’s that.  Without potentially causing an argument with those who have much stronger opinions on the matter, I’ll say that in my experience, Linux does a good job serving things, but for average users (and uses), the reliance on the command prompt needs to be done away with.)

AthlonXP 2000+

256MB Memory

160GB Hard Drive Space (Maxtor, 7200rpm)

It has a Gigabyte GA-7VT600 1394 motherboard which I bought used and has worked perfectly well.

 

Why two computers?  Well, the “storage” computer was put together from spare (and not so spare) parts at a total cost of about $100, so waste not, want not.  And the 160GB Maxtor drive wouldn’t work in the “editing” computer [which was just the “computer” at the time], so waste not, want not.

 

The two computers are connected through a particularly regular D-Link 10/100 router, and I use ssh and/or TightVNC for connecting to the Linux computer from Windows.  (99% of the time there’s no monitor connected to the Linux computer.)

 

For comparison's sake:

The first Franklin was edited (and stored) with/on:

Celeron 850

256MB Memory (added another 256 part way through the editing process, for 512)

30GB hard drive space (a 100GB drive was added towards the end of editing)

Abit BX133 Motherboard

I made most of the "Stupendous Edition" DVD (and re-did a fair amount of editing) with/on:

AthlonXP 1900+ (its fan died last year, which sent it to the great heatsink in the sky; the RMA process produced the 2000+ in the current "storage" computer)

Iwill XP333 Motherboard (worked fine, but probably not one of my smarter purchases, as its Ali Magik chipset didn't bring much to the table compared to the VIA and Nvidia-based boards which weren't much more expensive, all things considered)

It had 170GB Total hard drive space.

It was also very, very loud.

Back on track…

As said before, one of the goals of this movie was to do what we did in the first movie better. Bigger, louder, cheaper, etc. Naturally, also included [but usually forgotten or relegated to “oh well, good enough”] are the little things that can make tasks in the future much, much simpler, for example, giving an audible or visual notice as to which scene is being currently taped. Because of the sheer number of takes and the fact that each take ends up being its own computer file, organization is very important. Naturally, the most logical way to organize these files (takes) is by scene. Video can be transferred to one giant temporary folder then reviewed so one would know which scene (folder) to which it should be moved.

Being that I grumbled to myself during the process of organizing the first movie’s files because of the lack of any instant notification (again, audible or visual), I told myself that if I ever made a movie again, I would make a point to say “Scene Number Whatever” at the beginning of every take right after pressing RECORD so I could organize things much more quickly after the fact. Only having to watch the first few seconds of each scene to get the scene number is much preferred to having to dig through a script to find the scene. Real movies have those things with the arm that swings down in front of the camera which have the scene number and lots of other information printed on them so everyone knows what’s going on and there’s good sync. Saying the scene number isn’t quite as “elegant” or quick as just showing it, but it’s free and doesn’t need someone to stay on top of writing the scene number then flashing it in front of the camera.

Fully aware of the shortcomings of the saying the scene method, that didn’t stop me from planning on doing that for every take.

BUT, movie-making is a rather grueling process, and gosh-darn-it, I didn’t say the scene number every time. At the takes from the beginning of the day (the files contain the day and time they were created on the tape), I was good about it and said the name, but as the day wore on, I must’ve thought I was too hardcore to do it.

So, here I am attempting to organize over 1,000 takes, realizing that for 50% of the files, I’m going to have to check the script to see what scene the files are from. I’d hate laziness if laziness weren’t so easy.

Truth be told, it’s not too daunting of a task, as scenes were generally shot in one chunk of time, and 15 or 20 files [or more] in a row go with the same scene, but it’s not the best system in world. Being that the files contain day and date information up to the second (actually up to the 1/30 of a second), one might assume I could match that information to some sort of production schedule. Nate did a particularly commendable job taking care of scheduling and whatnot, but much of what we did was changed on-the-fly or we did random “fill” shots in the middle of other scenes, so it’s a rather manual process.

A special note: Adam was rock-solid with his announcing of the scene numbers when he manned the camera.

How weird... was looking through the site statistics and all of the visitors have come from unknown referrers. Basically this means that the people looking at the site clicked on the link in an IM profile or went right to it from a bookmark instead of clicking on a link in another webpage. Well, all the visitors except one. Someone linked from http://spaces.msn.com/members/laura7272/ . Now, I don't know many "tweens," but this particular "tween"'s page must've had a link to this site. It might've just showed up in the "recently updated spaces" box, but still, that's the internet for you.

For clarity's sake, I've edited this to make more sense for everyone (all 7 of you) and unattached something unrelated that I didn't realize could/would be construed in just about the absolute worst way considering the above paragraph. I've also gotten rid of a joke about the internet and some of the disgusting people who use it.

I figured that I should post something simple underneath this heading since I'm sure the people who are reading this little blog (yes, all 7 of you) are just begging for more interesting tidbits on this "film" (look Dan, I used quotation marks so not to offend your virgin ears by implying that this second abomination might actually be watchable)...that, and I really don't have anything to add to the technical aspects of the current editing.

Alright, as Dan has already explained, this is Tempest Studios' (look how important we sound) pseudo-sequel to the 2001 modern classic, Franklin. Those of you hoping to see the some wacky historical characters (new and old) and the poorly written and delivered historical jokes that accompany them will be somewhat disappointed this time around. Oh, but don't fret. If you were confused as to what the big joke was in the first film, sitting there contemplating whether to force another chuckle or hide that oncoming yawn, you can look forward to that old familiar feeling. Yes, this sequel is another long inside joke…but what makes even more unbearable for those of you out of the loop is that it is an inside joke based entirely on another inside joke (that being Franklin). So don’t forget to study up on all of the small plot points (whether or not they made it onto the first DVD), because there will be a short menu quiz before the sequel can be unlocked for viewing.

“The best community theater, action, comedy, drama, historical, gonzo, murder mystery without much mystery, supernatural thriller you'll ever see.”

“What does that mean?” Good question, with a lengthy answer. “Will I care?” Even better question…No. To explain Dan’s new genre would completely give away the plot, so instead I will give a brief explanation as to how this concept came about. The film is essentially the combination of three aborted projects following the completion of Franklin. The first was the “official” sequel to the first film, which was trailered in the Fall of 2002, killed once, resurrected twice, re-outlined, killed again, and finally left to die in nearly completed script form (minus a decent ending) on my computer. Here are some excerpts from the group’s email discussion of the film’s status following the release of the trailer:

Dan: “Simply, I'm 100% for the idea of doing something new and different…If the final title were to have said "Die Hard 6: Die Slower," and I added a title that said "ADAM GROCHOWSY IS JOHN MCCLANE", people would've been pumped to see Die Hard 6: Die Slower, starring Adam Grochowsky.”
Drew: “Dan wants new and cutting edge (*cough* tool *cough*)…we've shown what we can do with American history, viewers now have expectations.”
Adam: “I am not gay…I am behind whatever the group decides, not just one person.” (note: in retrospect, regardless of preserving the theme of the emails, I probably shouldn’t have put those two sentences next to each other)
Nate: “Seems we've come to a solid solution to our little predicament: we're putting it off until later. WELL BRAVO GENTLEMEN!! WE ARE TRULY COLLEGE STUDENTS”
Dan: [wrapping up the discussion] “What did we learn? First and foremost, Adam Grochowsky is gay. Second, Jon crashed his car into the barrier on Rt. 22, and it was totaled. Third, Drew is dropping out of college (Don't worry Drew, we all get a turn at the mill). Fourth, Andy's keyboarding skills are extremely lacking [notice the extremely long amount of time it took to respond]. Fifth, that Greg(g) and emm-jay are either dead or dying.”


Following this obvious attempt to avoid making any solid plans, the group brainstormed on several new concepts, completely separate from the “Franklin-verse.” A few of the ideas pitched were as follows (note: I am sampling these quotes from long filed away emails…so just because someone mentioned the concept does not mean that they initially pitched it):

Drew: “Everyone likes Christmas movies (I know I do).”
Nate: “We have a run-down, grumpy Charles Dickens, his editor is on his case because he hasn't written any books lately, he's lacking inspiration and could care less about Christmas... then on Christmas Eve he gets visited by angels or ghosts or something... something similar to a Christmas Carol plot, but with things that are nowhere in a Christmas Carol, like I’m thinking we don't have the ghosts named future, past, and yet to come, just random ghosts (the ghost of Santa perhaps, I dunno)...”
Andy: “We need to make the big battle for the Roman Empire to be conquering the lands east of the Delaware. Then, Emperor Constantine leads his men across the river on Christmas Eve and butchers the Visigoths. Then, a la Overboard, Constantine falls off his boat when they re-cross the Delaware and gets amnesia. He washes up on shore in occupied territory and learns the true meaning of the Visigoth holiday, Christmas. When Constantine regains his memory he returns to Rome and Christianizes the empire. On a side not, I think Adam would make a fairly good Roman Emperor.”
Dan: “I like the ideas for Castro, Emperor Constantine, and Lee Harvey Oswald.” (note: unknown what this is in reference to…most likely the subject of a Christmas Carol spoof.) [note2: I don't ever remember saying that the Constantine thing was a good idea....I don't even remember the idea at all. --Dan]

However, in usual fashion, our group lost interest in a matter of hours when no one decided to take the lead and push forward with any of the projects. So once the entire group returned to Allentown for Winter break, we brainstormed in person (hence, on quotes from that session). Finally, after bouncing some ideas off of each other, it was decided that our most satisfying suggestion was to film a documentary/flashback feature on the subject of what really happened to Franklin 2 after the trailer was produced. The general idea was that the group from the second film would play themselves, but not themselves. For anyone who actually looked through the first DVD or isn’t using as a coaster at this moment, you may have noticed the humorous “Cast and Crew Biographies” section. The concept was to have say Nate play the character of Nate Brown that was in that biography while he was trying to film Franklin 2 (and so on with the other characters). As production went on, the entire cast was to be killed off in murder mystery fashion, thus explaining the fate of the sequel…forever. Everyone was behind the idea, and Andy, Nate and I even fleshed out the plot. However, disaster struck when we attempted to plan out the opening of the film:

Nate: “Did you all read my [draft for the opening] scene?”
Drew: “I can see this being another car scene. I’m not a huge fan of story-telling. It seems like that’s a cop-out way of explaining what the movie is about.”


…And then it was on…

Zach: “I would just like to make it abundantly clear that you can't "cop-out" on something when there is nothing to cop out about. Frankly that comment is tossed around too much and it is used inappropriately and unwarrantedly. That's my take on the situation, so here, for the benefit of all, is the exact definition of what cop-out is... Definition of Cop-out: cop-out
Pronunciation: (kop'out"), [key]
n. Informal.
1. an act or instance of copping out; reneging; evasion: The governor's platform was a cop-out.
2. a person who cops out: Everyone helped as they had promised, except for one cop-out. “
Adam: “Although I don’t believe the scene to be a ‘cop-out’ by any of the stated definitions, it is very cheap…but then again, at this time, I don’t have any solutions.”
Dan: “Indeed, when someone says, ‘I think using a flashback in the beginning is a cop-out, they are using it correctly. Try finding a definition for the word that doesn't include itself in its own definition. One of the definitions for "cop-out" is, and I quote, ‘cop-out n : a failure to face some difficulty squarely.’…Now, Zach, you're probably bashing things into walls and arranging the sacrifice of virgins (probably Distler and Barney) after I took my turn at the word game, but really, it's nothing against you; it's just that some solutions" here are cop-outs by any definition of the word; well, except maybe your "exact definition", I guess.”

Due to our unwillingness to remain focused on the task at hand, we eventually lost sight of the project and it was thrown into the unending pile of “hey, remember when we [insert moment of shame]” jokes. So, here we are…two years later we have combined the characters from Franklin 2, the Christmas concept from the unknown film project, and many of the plot points from the Franklin 2 Murder Mystery. Hopefully this was somewhat enjoyable (or at least helped you procrastinate a little longer). Stay tuned for more insight into the creation of this project…if not on this blog, hopefully within the extras of the eventual second DVD.

Adam G.

Well, the tide of interest in the movie has seemingly subsided. Granted there wasn't much of a tide and even if it were, I don't think it was a "tide of interest," but oh well, like it says at top, this is all "in the continuing quest to make us think we're more important than we really are..."

Well, about the movie:

It's a sequel only in chronological-terms of the first movie. It's a different type of movie than the first. [Granted, we didn't really make it any differently, but at the minimum, the story is in a completely different vein than that of the first movie.] Though it supposedly takes place in the 1700's (like the first movie), there really aren't any "history" jokes this time around. One character has a sort of historical name, but like most everything else, it'll probably go over the head of the audience. Not to say that the people that watch it wouldn't "get it," but that, like a lot of things, we (the people "responsible" for this) seem to find more humor in things that a lot of other people (usually rightly) think is more stupid than funny. So, yes, we are aware that this movie will be another 90+ [I think] minute inside joke that we'd willingly explain to you at great length as you tried to watch it.

Also, as briefly mentioned in an earlier post, this new sequel has no connection to the movie that was partially taped then "trailered" about two years ago. Well, most of the "actors"/actors are the same, but that sequel is basically just a complete script at this point.

I guess that all just answered what the movie isn't, so here's a bit of what it is... perhaps the best community theater, action, comedy, drama, historical, gonzo, murder mystery without much mystery, supernatural thriller you'll ever see. Perhaps the only community theater etc.,etc.... you'll ever see.