MovingPictures

Cute Video of Zippy Eating...

My Canon XH-A1s for Sale on eBay...

My Canon XH-A1s for sale on eBay...

Go to Bid HERE...

A New Slideshow Trial...

I am experimenting with the program called SoundSlides, hope you like it...

My Footage on Weather that Changed History...

On Sunday the Weather Channel will be running a new episode of Weather that Changed History at 9 p.m. I will have a bunch of footage and stills in the production from the Greensburg EF5 tornado in 2007.

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Man Behind the "Voice of the Movie Trailer" Dies...

On Monday, LaFontaine, also known as "Thunder Throat", "King of Trailers" and "The Voice of God", died aged 68 at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles. At his creative peak, he is said to have recorded as many as 35 voiceovers – for film trailers, television commercials and video games – in a single day. He has been the announcer for the Oscars and the Screen Actors Guild awards and, based on the number of contracts signed, is the most employed actor in the guild's 75-year history.

My Name on the Big Screen, at Hollywood Premier...

My name on the big screen (in red) at the premier of Angel Wishes...

My wife Mary and I attended my first Hollywood movie premier in Cincinnati, Ohio this weekend. The movie Angel Wishes, Journey of a Spiritual Healer was shown on the big screen this weekend during a red carpet premier/birthday party for the hometown star/subject of the movie Lana Bettencourt. Lana welcomed family, friends and people who worked on and starred in the auto-biographical story. The 1 1/2 hour movie had people laughing and crying and was well crafted. The night included photos on the red carpet, good music, food, friendship and a really tasty birthday cake for Lana. I am looking forward to working on more movies with Lana and crew, and with six more movies in the works, I have been promised, I will be kept busy in the near future...
On a side note, Mary and I went to a movie last fall, shortly after going freelance, and as I started filming some local movie shorts. I told her then, that she would see my name on the big screen within a year. With a little chuckle, she said, "even if it doesn't happen, I will still love you." Well, it is just eight plus months later it happened and I had the pleasure to have her along at the premier and elbow her in the side, everytime some of my footage rolled on the screen. I have to admit, I had a few chills go up my spine, and a swelling of pride in my heart as I saw my name slowly rolled up during the credits. I have to admit, it also makes me want to work on more and bigger movies in the future, who knows, maybe even writing a movie screenplay is not out of the picture also, I never, say never...

Left: My wife Mary on the red carpet before the premier in Cincinnati.

 

Another person dressed to the T, attends the Angel Wishes Premier.

Thrilled to be a Part of Angel Wishes...

I got a call from Teo, the director of Angel Wishes: Journey of a Spiritual Healer today, thanking me for sending him video on a hard drive. I thanked him and shared a link with him that lead to one of my earlier blog posts about the now trailer online. He reminded me of the official movie site www.angelwishesthemovie.com. As I looked around the site I found in Lana's blog, in it are some of the still pictures I shot for the movie. Below is a screenshot. I had such a great time working with Teo and Lana and hope they will keep me in mind for future projects. The premier of the movie will be in Cleveland sometime in August, I will keep you informed on that...

Trailer for Angel Wishes...

Just in, a trailer for the the movie Angel Wishes: Journey of a Spiritual Healer from the Director Teo. I shot the Cleveland location stuff for the movie, hopefull coming to a theater near you soon...

Lana Bettencourt and Teo on location in Cleveland.

Cloverfield Monster is More Scary Than Godzilla...

On Friday, my son Noah, daughter Katrina and I made the trek to Toledo to watch the long anticipated Cloverfield monster movie by J. J. Abrams. Noah has been waiting for this movie since seeing the trailer last April when we went to see Transformers. Noah is one of the biggest Godzilla fans in the world and has almost every Godzilla action figure known to man. As a kid I loved watching Godzilla movies on Saturdays on channel 43 out of Cleveland on the Houlihan and Big Chuck show. Almost every other week was a new Godzilla flick, ahhh... the good old days. Lest I digress, so we go to the theater, and we missed the 4:55 showing so we had to hang around till the 7:00 p.m. show. We went out to find some supper, so Noah suggested his second most favorite Japanese creation, sushi. So our themed night continues... We finished our dinner and went to the movie. As the theater got dark, Noah just shook with excitement, and after the first few minutes of the show he settled down. He was getting a little excited to get to the monster part, but with the first flicker of the lights, he was ready! As the Statue of Liberty's head rolled down the street of New York, the smile on his face got bigger and bigger. The Cloverfield monster was a mean one. Twenty-five stories tall, and it had no problem eating people, stepping on people, and destroying the city with the best of them. The monster also had little parasites dropping off of it, who were kicking butt of their own.

When it was all said and done, Noah said he was "A little scared." He told me that Godzilla did not eat people and I think this was his comparison point. In the Godzilla movies, most of the time Godzilla is the hero and saves Tokyo from the other monsters from the Godzilla era. He sees Godzilla as the good guy.

I am pretty sure there will be a sequel to the Cloverfield movie, it was made fairly cheaply and had an opening weekend record take of 50 million dollars. It gives hope to filmmakers all over that a big box office opening can be achieved with a film that was partially shot on a camcorder.

All in all, a day without monsters...is like a day without monsters...

Location Scouting Day...

I visited the Sandusky County Commissioners today to look at the old county jail, built in the late 1800's. I have a scene in my short film, Four Mile House, that calls for a jail cell scene. I ran into Commissioner Brad Smith at a Christmas party and he told me about the jail, so we finally connected for a tour. The jail was perfect, and after the law department draws up a release, I will be ready to shoot. I think my filmmaker friend Travis Seppala is writing up a short script to film part of it in the jail also.

Travis and I also made a quick trip to Lincoln Park , MI, to look at an abandoned Movie theater and surrounding buildings for a script we hope to shoot called Aisle Seats. It turns out the location looks perfect, and we just need to contact the management of the strip mall to find out what it would cost to rent the theater for a month or so. Another big hurdle for the movie is financing, we need someone to step up and back the film, so if any of you want to pony up some cash, let us know!!!

Convenience is a wrap...

A still photo from the film, as a thief plays dead in a convenience store to exact revenge on a clerk who framed him years ago

Last night, and I do mean all last night, we finished shooting the short film Convenience. We met at 11:00 p.m. in Ann Arbor, MI, and traveled together to our location, a 7/11 in Flint, MI. The shooting tonight required the use of several firearms. Need to say, firearms and a 7/11 are not a good combination, whether the police know you are filming a movie or not. We filmed between customers and at one point had a Flint patrol unit abruptly stop in and wonder what all the people behind the counter with a shotgun. Guess they did not get the memo from dispatch about the shoot. Film makers Max Roytman and Don McNair did a wonderful job with the script, and were well organized, we wrapped the shoot up at about 8:30 a.m. this morning. Editing now begins, and I will post a copy of the film here when it is finished.

On Friday I filmed the opening sequence to Convenience here in Fremont, Ohio. I wanted to incorporate the look of a Convenience store while having the name of the film spelled out in letters on a lighted sigh. I found the look I wanted in a sign at a business names Tune Town. It is a car audio place owned by Matt Roberts. I approached him about the concept and he was on board. We waited till dark on Friday and had him spell out CONVENIENCE on the sign and then disappear out of frame, it worked perfect!!

I start filming on a movie in Cleveland February 2nd called Hurting Starr, stay tuned...

When it rains it pours...

I finished my first film short Frankie, which had its big screen debut in Detroit tonight. As much as I wanted to go to the showing, I could not make the drive from Cleveland all the way to Detroit, after a long day of work.

I worked today with a director Teo, and Executive producer Lana Bettencourt on my first Hollywood based film, with a real budget, Angel Wishes. The film is set in Cleveland, but being filmed in LA. I was hired to film all the Cleveland scene setters and shoot stills for the opening montage of the movie. It was very cool working with Teo, listening to the stories of him working in the film Starship Troopers, Showgirls and Barb Wire. They will film the rest of the movie in the last two weeks of January, and go into editing in February. There is going to be a premier in Cleveland and Cincinnati in 2008.

Lana Bettencourt and Director Teo in front of Lana's childhood home in Cleveland.

The night before, I met with the director of the now titled Frankie Andrews Project, and got the call tonight to film their movie, starting February 2nd, 2008. It will be a 50-60 minute movie. The first cast meeting in Jan 15th.

Last week I met with a director and writer in Ann Arbor, MI and will begin filming their movie Convenience, in early January 2008.

The film business is picking up. I have a short film I have written and want to shoot called Four Mile House, which I have had to put on the back burner for a month or so. I have the primary actors and locations scouted. I will shoot this film closer to spring.

Frankie...

I can now post the first completed movie I have filmed for someone else. I am working on a full length horror/comedy film in Columbus, but this short film Frankie came in the middle of production. I shot this for Travis Seppala, of Monroe, MI. He wrote, and directed the film we shot in just 4 days. We auditioned kids in Monroe, and shot on locations in Detroit and Monroe. The film was entered in the Fox Network Storyteller Challenge and other film festivals. What a great new world I am entering...

Frankie

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A Rockin' Birthday...

Most people spent their birthday with family and friends, mine was a little different. I had the opportunity to go to Cleveland for a couple of days to work on a documentary on a legendary rock, and blues player named Sleepy LaBeef, with director, Dan Lerner of Chicago. I had not heard of Sleepy before. After I accepted the gig, I found out that we would be shooting at a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame event playing tribute to Legend Jerry Lee Lewis. Sleepy was one of the thirteen artists performing including, Terry Adams of NRBQ, Cowboy Jack Clement, Chrissie Hynde, Kris Kristofferson, Shelby Lynne, the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart and George Thorogood.

Friday night, we went to the State Theater for Sleepy's sound check and just a little videotaping, and then back to the Ritz Carlton for the night. We appropriately had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Now Sleepy is a mountain of a man, and made me feel small. He was dressed all in black, wearing a cowboy hat and glasses ala Elvis. Sleepy told us stories from on the road and many of the artists he either knew or played with over the years, several include Elvis, Johnny Cash, Bill Monroe and others. I began to realize I was in the presence of a legend. Later that night we watched Terry Adams, formerly of the NRBQ band perform on Friday night at Wilberts. I sat at a table in the front row and got some amazing footage of him and his new band.

Saturday we set up lights in a dressing room in the basement of the State Theater, in anticipation of interviews with several participants telling stories about Sleepy. The night was a whirlwind, and some unfortunate things lead to us to not getting any interviews at the venue. Dan got to briefly chat with Kristofferson and got a couple of stories out of him about Sleepy but nothing on video, we could not shoot upstairs or backstage. We tried waiting outside the backstage door for Kristofferson, but he was hustled onto a shuttle. We raced back to the hotel in my truck, parked it and waited for Kristofferson in the lobby. We then approached him and Dan asked him to recount his story  so we could get it on video. We got it, mission 1 complete. Our other target was George Thorogood, who was influence by Sleepy many years ago. George's manager promised an interview at the theater, but a rough song by Thorogood, due to technical problems with his guitar, kinda spoiled the high flying mood of the rock legend. A later flawless set by Thorogood, got his mood back to the positive side. We were promised an interview back at the hotel.

Now just a little bit about what made the night so cool. We had all access passes, so we were able to go anywhere, anytime, which made watching the tribute so amazing. We got to watch it from just off the stage in the wings. At one point I was watching Kris Kristofferson perform "Me and Bobby McGee" flanked by Chrissie Hynde just two feet to my left, and George Thorogood a couple feet to my right. Pretty amazing. Jerry Lee Lewis ended the night with an emotional version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

Back at the Ritz, we went to the wrap party, and found Thorogood and his band the Destroyers having "One Bourbon, one Shot and One Beer", not really, just some beers, but we were cornered by a security guard that was bound and determined not to let us tape Thorogood, even though we had permission from him, and the Rock Hall of Fame. He said we could not tape at all in the hotel. I suggested to Dan, that the sound guy, Rick and I go upstairs and set up in our Hotel room, for the interview. So while we set up the lighting and sound, Dan talked to the Thorogood people, and gave us fifteen minutes to get ready. So eventually the Thorogood entourage arrived, and fifteen minutes later, we were done. Dan said something to George about me working on my birthday, he wished me a happy one and than posed for a photo as a "Present".

All in all it was a long day, but one for the books. I got home to my own bed about 3:30 a.m. and spending "Sleepy" Sunday at home relaxing and having dinner with my family.

Video, a Whole New World, that is Pretty Cool...

I have been on a learning curve that at first, looked like Mount Everest, but now has flattened out to now, to maybe look like the Smokey Mountains. I have been working on several projects and learning the ins and outs of the video world. Coming from a background of still photos for 25 years, it is a challenge making moving photos work together. When shooting stills, you have to get that peak moment that tells the story, and your job is done. In video, you have to be able to pan, tilt, zoom, follow, get B roll, wide, medium and tight shots, and make them all work together, seamlessly.

I have been fortunate enough to work on several cool projects. I am working on a horror flick in Columbus, low budget, but I am working with some great people, and will eventually get to shoot some celebrities. I will be traveling to Vegas in late November to do a shoot for the movie.

I just finished a film short called "Frankie" about a man, who finds out that hard way, that he cannot be seen, but he is a seven-year boy's invisible friend. This was shot for a contest on Fox Network called the Storyteller Challenge. I will post the video here once the editing is done. The director and writer of the project is Travis Seppala, a film maker from Monroe. I think we have a real nice piece. I will share it with you in the near future, and you can help vote for it!

Yesterday I shot some footage for a documentary on a sailor, John Rozzano, that died on the USS Indianapolis from the Lorain, Ohio area. The film maker Jaclyn Bradley, hopes to enter the film in the Sundance Film Fest next year, and I hope she does.

This new challenge is an area I have always wanted to work in. I first aspired to shoot stills on movie sets, and then I have written a couple of ideas I have had for movies, and now I am doing the filming, who knows where this might lead...

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