Just a quick announcement that the editing for NEW YORK LATLEY is finished — yes!! The final running time as of now is 91 minutes — which may change slightly due to the end credits not being finalized.
This is really exciting as it is now out of my hands and into the musicians and sound designer to finish it up….then it will get a final color correction and be complete.
The first rough cut ran about 113 minutes….so it was really tough for me to let go of 22 minutes — some of which are really nice moments. However, I had to be selfish for the movie’s own good — rather than my director’s pride wanting to keep certain things in just because they were pretty shots or good performances.
I look forward to the next few months as the movie will have a new life with all the new elements added from other people who I really respect. It should be very exciting…..and I can’t wait to premiere it — ideally at the end of the year.
A new trailer should be coming soon in the next few months….
I’ve got exciting news to share — Nate Campany and Ben Romans are 2 incredibly talented singer/songwriters who’ve come on board to create the original score for NEW YORK LATELY — which also includes some original songs as well.
NATE CAMPANY Nate Campany is an incredible artist whose music has so many textures — not to mention amazing lyrics. He has already co-written a song for the film with Susan Cagle (playing Truly Hanssen in the film) — now he is beginning the scoring for the rest of the film.
BEN ROMANS Ben Romans is the songwriter and keyboardist for the band THE CLICK FIVE — they are huge overseas and are slowing gaining more attention here in the States. It’s amazing to see how huge of a following they actually have — rather it’s really impressive. This cat can really write some downright beautiful melodies.
Now when you put these two people together to work on a film score — I’m just drooling with anticipation on how they will elevate the film to something else I can’t even imagine.
Last month prior to heading to Georgia to shoot DISMAL, I sat down with INDIE PRODUCTION SOURCE to talk about the project and my experiences as a director. The guys (Charles Stewart Jr., Kelly Neilon, Matt Hacker) who run it are really nice and belong to the North Carolina indie film community as well.
If you are interested, my interview begins just at about the 08:55 mark — Hope you enjoy it!!!
John Weisenburger — or Johnny Ringo as we like to call him — is an amazing performer. Oh wait, we’re talking about his acting right? Ok, let me switch gears here.
Ok, all kidding aside, I met John through a friend when I first moved out to NY almost 3 years ago. He jumped right in and agreed to help me with my GRIT promotional trailer that I shot back in early 2007. When I saw him perform….even in those tiny scenes, I knew I had to work with him again and give him something meatier to chew on. The way I love to work with new actors on a project is see how they work and perform, then write something specifically for them for the next project.
For NEW YORK LATELY, I wrote the part of RINGO for him…..but didn’t tell him. In fact, I changed the name during the audition process just to see him squirm and sweat a bit — I really wanted him in the role, but just had to be sure he could pull it off. He nailed the audition. In fact, he nailed the role so much and has chemistry with his fellow actors that many times his scenes in the film ended up as “one’ers” — one full take — no cutting. That’s a testament to him and what he can bring to a scene.
John is a very humble actor — which makes him one of the easiest people to work with. We both hold a mutual respect and understanding regarding the actor/director relationship — so it’s always pleasant to step on the set knowing I’m going to be shooting with him.
Now about his nickname Ringo…..we’ll leave that for another day.
During the 2nd week of production, we started getting into the meat and potatoes of the shoot — which included our practical f/x, stunts and night shooting — fun fun fun (in theory).
The week started with some great discoveries that I had some seriously talented actors to work with — which always makes things more interesting. I hate to jinx things, but I really believe that one of the actors (Bill Oberst Jr. as DALE — see his pic above and below) had such an amazing performance, that with the right exposure he could really have something going. I’m talkin’ serious fans….the ones that go to conventions to get your signature on anything they can get their hands on. It was great to collaborate with him to create such an eerie role.
Night Shooting — This usually means we start shooting around 6pm and wrap around 4am which allows the crew to pack everything up by 6am. Everything is running on generators. It can be fun or hell depending on the location you’re shooting it…..for the deep woods, it’s not the most glamorous of experiences. I find them fun, but I do admit I faded here and there around the 2-3am hour…..not sure why as I’m usually so pumped up running on adrenaline doing what I love!!
I filmed my first death scenes this week and the actors (I’d list them here, but wish to keep this SPOILER FREE) blew it out of the water as did the F/X team. I hope audiences will be grossed out by everything. It’ll be a dream to see audiences have to look away or maybe groan during the death scenes.
Week 2 was also about the point where people grew tired. Just simply tired. Everyone was starting to run low on sleep due to the production schedule and things to do every day after we wrapped shooting. We were never done working. Week 1’s enthusiasm wore off and the knowledge of Week 3 still ahead of us was daunting to say the least. But I have to say that the crew and actors really fought through it with me….and we have some battle scars to show off as well as some stories to tell…….heh heh heh.
Here are some pics from Week 2
CLICK TO ENLARGE
Lydia and me at the cabin
Watching a running scene with the crew
Bill just being Bill
Night Shooting
Jade getting some work done
Some of the Cast (L to R: Capel Kane, Lydia Chandler, Bill Oberst Jr., Will Triplett)
Joking around with Shawn Lewallen (DP) - Me Pointing At Things Was A Running Joke On Set
I met Bridget when she auditioned in some of the later rounds of the NEW YORK LATELY audition process — and it was a breath of fresh air due to the difficult task we were finding in filling the role of JULIANNE GEORGE. I was looking for a woman with a striking presence, but she couldn’t be terribly young as it would be unrealistic to me. Julianne is marred to ELLIOT GEORGE (a man in his 40’s) — and I was looking for the right combination of skills and screen presence — she had to command the room.
I auditioned actresses for this role for over 2 months prior to finally seeing Bridget and believing she could pull off the tough role (an unfaithful wife) — which is difficult as many people find that they do not like the character. From the surface, Julianne does not have a lot of qualities that people find “endearing” — and yet I believe there are people like this who actually exist. The old saying goes that no one thinks of themselves as “evil”…..and Bridget’s difficult task was to embody the character regardless of how she really felt about her — which challenged both of us in ways I never thought of.
It will be very interesting to see how audiences react to the character — again, whether they like her or not isn’t the point — I just hope they find her interesting. That’s the key. And Bridget I believe helps make this point come across in more ways than I could’ve ever hoped for.
To recap, I was on location on Blakely, GA — a small, quaint town full of the friendliest people eager to help out our production. However, that area of the state only had Verizon as a carrier — and a major portion of the crew didn’t use them as a cell phone carrier (major problem….major).
Day One started out with heavy rain. The locals said it hadn’t rained in the area for MONTHS…but of course on our first day it poured. It threw off our first planned shot as we were shooting outdoors. We had to quickly put a PLAN B into action and moved on to shoot an interior car scene….but we still drove in the rain.
3 cars (#1 The Picture Car — cast, DP, me; #2 The Sound Van,; #3 The Crew — makeup, AD, PA) on a small strip of highway. We were driving pretty slow with a light rig mounted on the side of the car — it was funny to see other cars pass us wondering what the hell was going on. It was even funnier when the sheriff drove by and simply waved “hello” to us.
Day One’s weather had us playing catch up the rest of the week, but I’m happy with what we were able to get the rest of the way.
I did save one of the actresses (Capel Kane) from being stuck in wet mud that was acting like quicksand the day after it rained. We were shooting a scene where she was going to stand with another character and look out over the water…as we were setting up we asked her to take her mark….which she did and quickly sunk to her shins. I ran in and pulled her out of her shoes — her shoes literally stayed in the mud as I yanked her out. Once I held her up I started to sink to my shins….I couldn’t move….it was scary. I thought I was going deeper, but some people came to help me out. It was caught on video which I’ve gotta get my hands on.
Here are some pics from the first shooting week — plus a few from pre-production the week prior.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
Pre-Production Meeting
Scouting the Cabin Location (It’s A Real Life Slave’s Quarters Used In The Olden Days)
This Was The Size Of a Softball (Inside The Cabin)
This Fella Lived In The Ceiling Of The Cabin With Its Babies
My Mud Adventure With Capel (The Aftermath)
My Shoes
Day One - Interior Car
Meagan, Jade and Me
Will and Me Sharing a Moment in Front of the Port-a-Potty
I have to keep this entry light today as I’m busy digitizing 19 days of DISMAL footage into my computer.
On top of this I also have to sync separate audio files that we recorded for each scene — which is keeping me ultra-busy as I usually don’t like to record audio separately during filming since HD cameras have great audio specs nowadays. Oh well.
I plan to tackle another cut of NEW YORK LATELY later this week and next — while reviewing the DISMAL footage and hopefully putting together a quick teaser trailer.
In my downtime, I plan to post a few “behind the scenes” pics from DISMAL of me and the cast/crew — I made a bunch of new friends that I plan to keep in touch with for future projects. That’s always a nice feeling.
I’m working on posting some pics this week from the DISMAL set — I just got in after my flight was canceled last night (had to spend the night in Cincinnati, Ohio).
The DISMAL shoot was 19-days of fun over 5 weeks in GA. Bugs, rain, poison oak, no cell phone service, no internet, heat heat heat, jam packed shooting days, a stalker in the woods — filmmaking is a blast!
I plan to detail some highlights over the next few weeks and update with progress on both DISMAL and NEW YORK LATELY. So cool — I’ve got 2 feature films under my belt now!!!
