Low Shoulders crew recently illustrated, splashed with blood, photographed and filmed this map of California.
UPDATE: We finished ADR work, a rough cut, and are re-shooting one scene at the end of this month. Footage looks dope.
-Evan
Rough Cut Complete
The past couple of weeks, I’ve been getting a lot of questions about when our movie is going to screen. It’s a good thing—I’m glad people are still interested. I wanted to give you all a quick update, so you know what’s what. So here is the update:
The No One's Home Productions Editing Bay
A few months ago (around October) I purchased a Mac Pro tower to edit on. This machine is FAST. It starts up in literally 8 seconds. It has two 2.8 Ghz quad-core processors, for a total of 8 cores, and 32 GB worth of memory for lightning fast rendering and exporting, a killer graphics card for perfect real-time video playback, and I now have approximately 8 Terrabytes of total hard drive space on 5 separate drives so I can back up the entire project 5 times. Rule #1: always back up your footage!
But not long after the purchase, I had to take a short hiatus from working on Low Shoulders to concentrate on some personal life stuff. But now, it’s a new year, and I have refocused my energies on completing what is, at this point, a one and a half year long project.
Cutting together the last couple of scenes of Low Shoulders.
The good news is that, with my full attention now on this project, everything should proceed exponentially. In fact, I’m very happy to announce that I currently have fully completed a 45 minute rough cut of the entire film. It’s looking great. There are some really beautiful scenes and some powerful lines in the film. The ending is particularly engaging.
I’m working alone on the editing with literally hundreds of hours of footage, so it’s been a lot of work and a lot of time to get where I am, and I am extremely happy to have gotten this far. Continue reading
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Lana Del Rey – “Born to Die”
The teenage tragedy song was most popular during the 50s and 60s. It’s a style of ballad with names like “Black Denim Trousers,” “Endless Sleep,” “Dead Man’s Curve” and “Teen Angel.” Here’s Lana Del Rey with “Born to Die” (2011).
-Evan
An Actor’s Journal
Gene Thomas, who plays the part of The Stranger in Low Shoulders, writes a regular reflection on life as an actor in the SF Bay Area. Here is an excerpt from his latest journal. Nice glimpse at one actor’s process for preparing for a role.
Disappointment, And The Pleasures of Preparation
Dear Friends,
Well, I feel like I’ve finally joined the ranks of real, working actors. Last week I auditioned for a great part, got a callback, and then was not cast. Got a nice note from the director, however.
Although I haven’t auditioned many times in the last year or so, it seems as if I was cast for everything that I read. It was a good run, but the experience of not getting this part is as valuable a learning experience as anything.
Certainly, one of the secrets to a satisfying actor’s life — I’m told — is the ability to remain unattached to particular parts and opportunities. Go in, do your best, and then the rest is out of your hands. [...]
This audition was for a stage production of the play PROOF, which is a recent Pulitzer Prize winner. One result of my detailed preparation was that I found myself loving the character, Robert, and the emotional process I was experiencing being him. I was reading the main character’s father: so I was a brilliant mathematician who loses my mind. I found that being both mathematical and mentally disjointed intrigued me, drew me in. I began seeing things in a skewed but poetic manner.
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Denis Johnson Compression
Low Shoulders is in post-production. In the meantime, I’ve compressed this Denis Johnson novel, Nobody Move, into its constituent notable elements. Like Low Shoulders, Nobody Move has narratives of pursuit and escape. And crime. And pulp. Here goes:
In the middle of fancy new churches, all glass and swooping curves, you’d see oil rigs with their heads going up and down. Gambol suddenly tosses his white hat, then seems to lose consciousness. A man in the movie theater grins and jerks as he follows the action. I know a vet in Madrona. Ruthless neon on the wet streets like busted candy. The Guess What Motel. He’d assumed all logs were fake. Luntz gambles 80 bucks and makes back 65. Anita says, I can do anything I want. The Time Out Lounge. Wind thudded into the car. Capra sits in a flat-back chair. “You want to sit down?” You are what we call a hefty blonde. Luntz’s hands shake when he tries to touch Anita’s bare shoulders with his fingers. You’re cute enough, but you got a sissy body. Luntz dries the sweat between Anita’s breasts with the corner of the bedsheet. He comes upstairs with burgers, fries, soft drinks and vodka. Gambol tells Mary he’s going to come in her face. Using his cane, Gambol breaks the reverse light of a parked Wonder Bread truck. Gambol blacks out the reflectors of his jogging shoes with Magic Marker. Gambol puts bandaids on each of his ten fingers. Ford with novelty death’s heads for locks. Dead wasps litter the threshold. Gambol drinks milk from the refrigerator. Luntz hits Sally with a spade. Anita thinks she sees fireflies coming from the shower head. The chalk person has no legs below the knees. Gambol uses Luntz’s shirt to wrap the shotgun. Anita breaks the judge’s colostomy bag on the judge.
-Evan
That’s a Wrap
A couple of weeks ago, after over a year of production and a half-year on top of that for pre-production, Low Shoulders wrapped filming.
I don’t think we could have found a better way to do it. At about 5:30 AM, right in space where night has ended but the morning hasn’t begun – about 10 minutes before the sky first starts to brighten and dawn begins – Evan pulled up to my apartment. We loaded the gear into his car, and drove out to SF to pick up Dan Williams, who was going to help out on the shoot.
With Dan in the backseat, we headed towards the outer Mission, stopping for coffee along the way. The sun started to rise just as we left Starbucks (probably the 20th time we’ve been inside a Starbucks during filming of Low Shoulders) and when we pulled up to the Precita Market & Deli in San Francisco, it was just past 6:30. The sun was up, and the nearby sounds of Cesar Chavez and the freeway were starting to pick up.
And there was our host, Sang, the owner of the market, waiting for us outside with a friendly smile. He ushered us in and helped us set up our lights and gear. We had a full on Tota light kit borrowed from Adolph Gasser at the last minute, providing us with nice warm lights to make the scene really glow.
Sang and his family at the Precita Market & Deli
Then Sang’s family arrived bearing donuts and more coffee – de facto craft services for the day. Sean showed up to help us finish up our set-up. Smooth sailing. As we relaxed with our coffee and donuts, Gene and Austin arrived, and we began filming.
I thought it was one of our best shoots of the film, with everyone firing on all cylinders. The excitement of nearing the end was palpable, and the graciousness of our hosts made everything all the easier. We had great input from everyone. Danny even arrived to help finish up the last shots – he had driven up all the way from LA, hauling up California from midnight to daybreak, just to shoot these scenes.
We finished up around 9:30 and I got to say “well boys, that’s a wrap.”
Our shotgun mic (left) and the receipt that resulted from using the cash register as a prop (right).
Thanks to the entire cast and crew for bearing with me on this leg of the journey, and I can’t wait to share the fruits borne of the process.
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Genre Diggin’ – Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Lovers on the lam. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway starred in the 1967 movie based on the lives of Depression-era bank robbers Clyde Chestnut Barrow and Bonnie Elizabeth Parker.
Warren and Faye
Bonnie and Clyde
From Wikipedia: “By 1967′s Summer of Love, [director Arthur] Penn’s film gave the outlaws a new image for a new generation who had no personal recollection of the historical couple’s bloody exploits some 33 years earlier.”
After the jump, documentary footage from the Motion Picture Division of the U.S. National Archives. In 1934, an amateur filmmaker took 16mm footage at the scene of the final moments of Bonnie and Clyde. Narrator: “After having killed 14 people, most of whom were officers of the law, and having come safely through so many gun battles, it did not seem advisable to fire just one bullet.”
-Evan
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