Sunday, June 28, 2009

coming not soon enough


Ah, it's never an easy ride when you want to make use of new technology. And so, despite our best-laid plans, Conversion has hit its first hitch.

I worked for years in product development, which has given me an in-depth understanding of all the things that can go wrong in the process of introducing something to market. When you know what can go wrong, large stores with many products in them start to seem kind of miraculous.

So I have a bit of sympathy for the fact that Panasonic has delayed the launch of their new Lumix hybrid camera, which we had planned to use to shoot Conversion (see video blog below). These things happen. I also understand that, because things happen and are difficult to resolve, that they've had to delay the launch multiple times.

It's hard not to be frustrated, however, at the fact that the latest delay in launch makes the camera available roughly three weeks after Conversion is due to start filming, and even then, there's no guarantee that Panasonic will be able to meet their launch date.

So we've made the decision to set our sights on acquiring a new camera, the Nikon D-5000. Like the Lumix camera we'd originally settled on, this is actually a high-end still camera, with remarkable high definition video capabilities. The drawback in this case is that, unlike the Lumix, the Nikon does not have good sound recording, meaning that, after filming, the video part of the movie will need to be synched up with a completely separate audio track. While not unheard of, this is something that adds a considerable layer of complication to the post-production process.

The major advantage of the D-5000 over the Lumix is that it's actually available for purchase.

Here's a short marketing video showing what the camera can do in the hands of some young amateur photographers:

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Meet the Converters

Here's a short video where the producers and stars of Conversion talk about the project, as well as some scenes from our first group read-through.


Thursday, June 4, 2009

locations, location, locations

It's of limited use having a script you want to film if you don't have a place to film it. Sometimes, the glamourous life of a film-maker means that you get to spend your days doing this...



Monday, June 1, 2009

you have to start somewhere

In this case, we start with a tiny scene, some basic dialogue between the two central characters. The scene will actually take place with these two walking down the street, but this is the very first attempt at reading any part f the script out loud. It was recorded using a no-frills digital camera, the kind that's normally used to take still shots, but which can capture short bursts of grainy-quality video as well. The purpose of doing this was to see how the reading translated to film (you could argue that the sound going in is so muffled that it is a failure in that respect) and to record for posterity one of the earliest moments in Conversion history.

Yes, the lighting is almost non-existent and you need to turn up the volume really loud to hear anything (especially my lines, since one of the things I have to work on is projecting). So what's interesting about this? If nothing else, I think that the body language (limited because of the fact that we're both seated on a sofa, rather than walking outside) really captures the spirit of friendship that rests at the heart of the story.