Gotta Love Magic Hour

In case anyone was wondering "Why travel all the way to Vermont just to shoot a trailer?" I proffer the following:
I had never been to Vermont before, but quickly decided that it's a lot like Ireland: overwhelmingly green, with contours to die for, one of those places where you could pretty much close your eyes, point a camera at random, and get a good picture. The above was taken when I had no time to do anything but point and click, yet it looks like a postcard. Too damn easy. And if the point is to make something with visual oomph, well, this particular property in gorgeous Vermont does half our work for us.

(And besides--the people in town were unfailingly pleasant, and the food was beyond-belief-good. I was working like crazy and still gained four pounds in four days.)

After flying a red-eye, and driving up from Boston (loads of fun to be in Boston again, no matter how briefly), and checking into the hotel, we got off our first shot right at magic hour. A jib-arm shot that floated above a fence to reveal the teahouse, framed in Maxfield Parrish lighting (in fact, Parrish worked in New Hampshire, just next door, so no wonder). Here we've got actors Jennifer Ann Evans and David Goryl doing their thing, while director Marc Rosenbush and DP Chris Gosch do theirs. Me, I had just made the strange Blair Witch-thing, just visible beyond the camera, that was meant to disguise an electrical outlet that would have marred the beauty of the shot. We were supposed to have cloudy weather, with a too-high chance of rain; instead we walked into a painting and shot some film of it. Not bad.

The weather held all through the next day, during which we got the tricky shots: the ones that will require special effects, and compositing and green screens and so forth. There were the beautiful scenes at the teahouse, and at the mini-Stonehenge only a few yards away, and as were working on the last of the tricky effects shots, something blew the power main and we lost power, just as the sun was setting. The next day, it rained. Then rained some more. Then rained harder.

Which is, of course, why everything is so green up there in green green Vermont. We got some interior shots, then started improvising, then kinda had to give up for a while. Went back to the hotel and everyone got a nap for a few hours, till sunset, when the rain finally stopped--and we grabbed a shot at the swimming pond behind the hotel instead of dashing back to the property to get what would have been a nearly identical shot. (Like I said: point a camera practically anywhere in Vermont and you're gonna get something good.)

In the end, we didn't get everything we wanted--but the question remains, did we get everything we needed? Yeah, I think maybe we did. The trailer will be less of a linear storyline and more a progression of interesting images, but that's fine, that's what most trailers are anyway. Now if only we had gotten footage of the time David got attacked by a giant badger...

Travelating

The idea is, make a trailer that looks like the next movie we want to make, and it becomes easier to make investors say "Hey, I want to see that movie!" so that we can, in fact, shoot the real thing. Film being, after all, a visual medium. Would you rather see a business plan or three minutes of footage?

That's why we're flying to Vermont tonight. A bunch of actors, some minimal crew, and an astonishing amount of checked baggage. We'll shoot for just a few days, be back by Friday, and then I get some real mileage out of Final Cut Pro.

And what have I been up to in the meantime? Well, getting ready for this, obviously, but also: finishing a treatment for a new screenplay, revising the City of Truth screenplay with Marc (incorporating a wealth of great feedback from several sources), defining the mission statement and purpose of Lightwheel Entertainment, and, happiest of all, rediscovering Thereby.

I posted an excerpt from Thereby Hangs a Tale a long while back, but hadn't actually read it in a time much longer than that. (The book itself has been basically finished for years--long enough that there is stuff in there about two towers being destroyed, collapsing with people in them, that most definitely predates Sept. 11th, and consequently becomes a bit of a problem--do you change the novel because it is, accidentally, too close to something real in a way that would be distracting? Unfortunately, the fall of my towers is so deeply integrated into the story itself that that would be pretty much impossible, so all I can do is have one of my characters, from the "real" world rather than the unnamed someplace where most of the novel happens, comment on the freakish coincidence.)

But since my friend Buffie was visiting, I happened to mention the novel to her one day, and realized I'd never actually shown it to her. So I pulled up the file, started reading, and had that happiest of discoveries: after a great deal of time, not only do I still like the book, I absolutely love it. So I zoomed through a touch-ups rewrite, happy to find that it was already in very good shape, and after getting some comments from people I will start working on finding exactly the right agent--someone who'll love it as much as I do.

Being in L.A. had kinda convinced me that Thereby was just too weird to ever sell, that's exactly why it sat for so long, unseen and unloved. But as soon as I started reading it again I realized, Hell no, it's not that weird at all, all it needs is the right agent and the right editor and the right marketing campaign, and I think people will go a little crazy over it.

But enough for now. Now, I have to pick up a fish-eye lens and then finish packing before a red-eye to Vermont. If there's an internet connection (we already know our cellphones will be just about useless) I'll try to check in from the road.