The new "RED" camera gets shown off at the Pinellas Filmmakers Society!!

First of all, I have to say I am so grateful to Curtis Graham and the other gentleman (a local Digital Imaging Technologist) who brought their cameras to display to the Society! Let me explain...

If you shoot in HD you know the resolution... Well, the RED camera is so much more of a revolution in filmmaking than I could hardly imagine! Curtis Graham (a local commercial & feature filmmaker) brought his entire RED rig to explain it's features for all in the audience to see. He used the in-house projectionist as a subject to get some recording done at a resolution of 4096x2304 as opposed to the normally used 1080 in the industry now!! By the way, the projectionist should consider acting-- he has a great face for film! So, he then transferred his RAGE 320G hard drive from his camera to a Mac G5 with a wide-screen monitor which was wheeled up into the front area. He showed us in post the amazing things you could do right away with your footage (with the free red editing software and with Final Cut) that couldnt be done if you were using film or most digital rigs! I was blown away at the picture quality, size, and incredible features that the red camera offered at a staggering $17,500! I am focusing now, on trying to get this technology into the next major project I want to do in this area.


I couldn't hope to explain all of its revolutionary features to you here! It is the best film rig combined with the very best digital rig imaginable!

As Wikipedia says "According to Red's official website, director Steven Soderbergh is shooting the first of his two upcoming features Guerrilla and The Argentine" using the RED. Also, "Soderbergh is very enthusiastic about the camera, saying that 'This is the camera I've been waiting for my whole career...'!"

Please... if you wanna know what I'm talking about go to their page and these other web pages.
www.red.com | Home Site
RedUser.net | Red Camera Forums
RedRelay | 4k Gallery Host Site
Wiki Red Camera Company
WonderHowTo on the RED camera

If this wasn't enough... as you may be able to notice... next year the Red company is planning on a new handheld 3k camera called "Scarlett"! It is also better than HD!! And in the palm of your hand! So you can understand my gratefulness towards the PFS! They have my full attention with this new technology!

....


Some essential news about the group. The Pinellas Filmmakers Society is run by Pete Bradshaw & Curtis Graham. There is no dues or other fees & the meeting is open to the public. Meetings take place on the 4th Friday of every month (it used to be the 3rd) from 7pm to 9pm (come an hour early for networking & rubbing elbows with local filmmakers). If you want to get involved in the local filmmaking scene, this is the best way to get moving! So, bring a stack of business cards & get over there next month!!

Image on upper right from red.com.

Antisocial Butterfly Update

My wife (Rebecca) & I have been sporadically putting together her short mini-DV film "Antisocial Butterfly" now for the past 6 months or so. Every so often we'll have time on the weekends to do a half day of shooting for certain scenes & she'll need to get a new haircut & keep her "continuity" up for the look of the film. We have been doing only the scenes where she is alone so far until we can organize for more complex scenes. So we still have a long way to go as it comes to the entire film being ready for the final edit.

...Although... As you can see we had just enough footage to make a small teaser!!

Enjoy!



(If the embedded video doesnt work heres the link)


...Whaddya think?


Make sure to tell Rebecca how awesome she is... It always helps when people encourage!!
You can talk to her via her YouTube page.
http://www.youtube.com/user/ladyrebeccacroft

"Tampa Weekend Film School" Update

Daniel Brienza really is awesome. This is because, I really like the new business model they are pursuing for the Weekend Film School. To elaborate, I guess its not so much a business model as a strategy to make this network learning experience most effective to Tampa Bay filmmakers.

First of all, their mission is for the group to start making films together. Second, the way they want to do this is to break the entire network up into four more manageable teams (based on the basic teams in the filmmaking process).

The teams are as follows:
1. Scriptwriting
2. Acting
3. Pre-Production/Production
4. Post-Production

Then, after these phases of training within each team is done, the filming process might start taking place & hopefully, good films will ensue from this process. Sounds good to me!

At the last Tampa Bay Industry & Actors Network we signed up for our team so, hopefully there will be some emails going out soon to keep us up to date on upcoming team meetings.

(I hope it wont get in the way of "Electric Picasso")
:O

"Electric Picasso" Update

Hello folks!

I am & have been an Assistant Producer for "The Electric Picasso" production by CandiMark Productions now, for the past month and a half or so. We are going to be mentored during production by four professionals from the Pinellas Filmmakers Society meeting in St. Petersburg. They will, also, be generously donating use of much of the equipment (especially for production phase). As this will make our movie of much higher quality I am so very grateful for this gift by the PFS.

This has been a really exciting project! I am loving everyone on the team & we are really forming a great production team in my view (which can do other projects in the future). I have been helping the Producers a lot, hopefully, and now we are into the location scouting and filling all crew positions phase.

I can't really talk about the story "The Electric Picasso" simply because I am not very good at the "pitch" just yet, but I can say some technical details. This is probably going to be a 12-15 min. comedy movie on color Panasonic DVC Pro. We have most of our primary crew positions filled. We, of course, still need to do the ultra-important casting for most of the parts.

Our Producer, Mark Keim, is so awesome. Our Director, Lisa Inserra, is also so awesome it makes you want to scream. The DP, Connie Pearson, I am really taking a liking to and for this reason I have personal hopes to work with her in the future. There are also others I wont mention just yet, but let me tell you... so far we are a great team.

We have these positions open still: 1st AD, 2nd AD, possibly a PM, PC, PA's, Gaffer, Key Grip, Best Boy- Electric, possibly a Location Manager, and a Marketing/Ad Guru or Publicist (depending).

So, for now I am really psyched! I have been generating some reports & having meetings (which I love), and I have really been learning a lot.

If you have any questions... please ask!