THE OFFICIAL TRAILER

The title says it all... Thanks very much to Ben Goloff for helping us put this together and credit to Dom for doing all the conceptual work.

Sometimes, the second take's "the keeper"...

So, we're one week away from the start of principal photography (Cue dramatic music).

All kidding aside, everything seems to be running smoothly. We've been doing camera tests with the Nikon D5000 for over one month now and the stuff we shot looks absolutely fantastic. We've gathered an amazing crew and a cast to dream of. A meeting of professional artisans and eager newbies, like yours truly.

A lot of you are aware that this is a second chance thing for me. My second directorial debut, so to speak. You see, I wrote and directed a feature film in 2005 entitled Hallowed Halls. I got a distribution deal based on my script alone and was flying high. I was quickly put in touch with a producer and we got the ball rolling. Except that this particular ball was quickly deflating.

It all started when half of my cast decided not to show up three days before we were supposed to start rolling. Luckily, we were shooting at Bishop's University, in Lennoxville, Quebec, which has a pretty respectable theatre department. I filled out my cast, again with some eager newbies and was, for the most part, really satisfied with their talent. If only my troubles had ended there! I had to fight for every shot because my producer was off preparing a second feature to be shot on the school grounds once this production wrapped. I had no one to turn to, no one to fight for me. A producer should have your back. This one had my ass. Anyway, he wound up losing the financing for post-production, the film was never edited, and no one got paid. Two years of my life down the drain and all I have to show for it is a trailer.

The whole experience turned me off filmmaking completely. I was done. I had my shot and blew it. I never thought I would ever go back. That's until I read Kate MacDonald's brilliant script...

We don't often get another shot in life, I'm ready to really make this one count.

Dom

P.S.: I was interviewed by Montreal's La Presse newspaper last week about Conversion and how we got to do this. It's the first of at least two interviews we're going to do with them, for a story running sometime next month. Will keep you posted...

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: