I’ve posted new photos to Flickr of our location scout in Phoenix. Looks like we’re confirmed to start shooting in Arizona on April 1st. The time is nearing.

I thought there might be some chance (albeit slim) that some of you might be interested in the technical work-flow we’ll be applying to production and post. Though it’s not yet hammered out, here’s where we are right now…

Camera: Panasonic HVX200

• uncompressed; 720HD; 24 FPS (possibly 23.98 - not sure which is the best bet); straight to data
• considering shooting directly to Final Cut (using an Apple Powerbook with a 7200 RPM harddrive)
• OR shooting to P2 cards and ingesting into a computer on the set.

Picture Edit: Final Cut Pro 5 on a G5

• Probably using a 2-4 terrabyte RAID for storage
• Debating whether to edit in HD or to down-rez and edit that for quicker processing speed, with an “online” later, once the entire picture is assembled. Currently unsure if this is a possibility as we don’t know how we will be able to reference the original HD footage (it shoots to data, so we won’t have timecode, etc…).

Finishing: ???

• We will have some VFX shots. Unsure of the best delivery medium, etc…
• Debating upconverting the 720 footage to 1080, then re-ingesting and compoisting effects/filters on the upconverted image.
• We want to be ready for a D.I. if the opportunity arises (i.e. we receive distribution, etc…).
• Our final delivery medium will (probably) be HDCam

I have posted pictures of Jeff Chong’s Valiant on Flickr.

Last night, for the first time, I saw Bullitt from start to finish. Let me start by saying that Steve McQueen is a stone-cold bad ass. And let me follow that up by saying that Steve McQueen is not Blake.

I’ve been pitching the Untitled Late Night Project as Doctor Zhivago meets Bullitt, with emphasis on Bullitt’s car usage and Zhivago’s poetic, thoughtful landscapes (note: damn good book, too). And to be perfectly honest, now that I’ve seen it in its entirety, Bullitt seemed less exciting to me.

Christine credits the lack of excitement to MTV. Let’s face it: compared to action movies of today, Bullitt is slow. Not much really happens until the car chase except maybe a handful of Steve McQueen glory shots set to some pretty sweet 1960’s jazz (which, I should note, Barry does not want to emulate).

As much as I may claim the rest of the movie was slow, the car chase through San Francisco had us all on the edge of our seats. It was damn exciting, even by the rapid cutting techniques of today. And even if the Charger threw 7 of them, the hubcaps added a pretty cool element to the chase.

So, I’m rambling. The basic point is this: rent Bullitt, skip to the car chase and don’t expect our movie to be its identical twin. Fair enough?

A friend of my brother’s just sent me an email asking:

How do Keats, Eliot, and negative capability figure into your script? I’m pretty familiar with most of the poems you had listed and I would love to hear how they come up in your script.

So, friend of my brother (I’ll use your name if you’d like… it’s your call), thanks for asking.

For those of you who don’t know what he’s talking about, I’ve added a section on the right hand side called “research for the project.” This section is a list of links I’ve thrown up there for my benefit and that of others. Yes (strange as it may sound) they do factor into the movie.

And yes, the Late Night Project is an action movie. So, how, you ask, does this work?

I mentioned in an earlier post that an independent movie should “own those things that limit it.” And from the start of the writing process, Dean and I knew our budget was limited (~$20,000+) and that in order to make this action movie work, we needed to have something besides fancy explosions and chase scenes. Sun Tzu says in his Art of War that in order to defeat one’s enemies, one must maximize his strengths and minimize his weaknesses. We need to do for the movie what we do best: write; and ignore what we do worst: afford stuff.

Dean and I are both ridiculous romantics and amateur poets. So, when the question arose of how to make this movie different than a dull low-production-value/low-stunt/low-budget action movie, we agreed that a good jumping off point would be our mutual love for poetry.

I have pitched this movie as Dr. Zhivago meets Bullitt. Blake, our protagonist, is a poet who loves to drive late at night when the roads are open and clear. The action happens when he comes across Jessica, broken down on the side of the road and looking for help.

In related news, Travis recently his dislike for the name, Blake. While I do agree with his point that “if the name doesn’t work, you shouldn’t force it,” I would like to point out the obvious literary reference to a certain other “Blake” mentioned at the bottom right of the page and in an earlier post.

Should I delve deeper into character descriptions and explanations here? I’m tempted to stop “explaining” Dean’s and my writing. But I could be convinced. Then again, only a handful of you out there have actually read the script, so I guess I wouldn’t be “explaining” much at all now, would I?

Check ‘er out, friends… Blake’s car.

Special thanks to Jeff Chong (thanks for the spelling update, EK) for furnishing us with this beauty. Jeff has an incredible collection of amazing cars and is willing to part with this beautiful piece of American muscle for the duration of the shoot. She’s a 1963 Plymouth Valiant. Fully operational. And did I mention: damn, she’s beautiful. Now that we have a car locked in, we’re on the path. Now on to casting…

“Yo, She-bitch. Let’s go.”
- Bruce Campbell, Army of Darkness

I have a disgusting affinity for one-liners. Yes, it’s bad, I know. I’m a bad man. An evil man. A scary man. But I just can’t get enough of them. Can’t resist. They are to a writer (or at least to me) what a starched napkin is to a country club.

Last Sunday, I handed the script to the crew and told them we could discuss it on Thursday.

Never a fan of criticism - and always a skittish recipient - I drove nervously to our location and prepared myself for the worst. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the generally all-around approval of the script. Travis, repeatedly expressed his surprise at the film’s coherence (does this indicate a previous lack of faith?) and the general report was, “good, but…”

The one-liners. My sweet little, “Let’s go,” and “Please… Please, don’t kill me,” and “You got the keys? (Blake winks).” There were a number of others. Some better, some worse.

And the team proclaimed, “Lose them, lose them, lose them.” So loudly, in fact that even my co-writer turned on me, “I’ve actually been thinking this all along, Brock, but just haven’t said anything.” Feeling dejected and hurt, I buried my head to the unfamiliar lines of, “Haven’t you seen Con Air? Face/Off?” And the so-unfamililar-I really-hope-never-to-hear-it-again line, “You really should see these movies… Both of them.”

Last night, Christine was out of town - in Vegas for the weekend - so I cuddled up in bed by myself with a glass of wine and a Trader Joe’s stromboli and commited an unspeakable: I watched Con Air.

Who could forget such classic zingers as, “No! That’s clever!” (John Malkovich) and “I’m gonna show you God does exist” (Nicholas Cage)? The answer: no one. And Dean’s point when he expressed my need to see these movies before I could possibly argue over the need for one-liners was just that: no one will ever forget the painful siege of zingy quips suffered at the hands of Simon West (I say nothing yet of Face/Off as I haven’t yet seen it). And another way to say this: Con Air has effectively killed the one-liner forever.

Maybe I’m being silly. Maybe (God forbid) the one-liner has always been outdated and cheesy. But the bottom and short of it is that there is no more, “Let’s go!” or “Let’s be heroes.” And I’ve read over my changes, and the script is good. And (God forbid) surpisingly (thanks, Travis) intelligent.

Dean has finished his revisions and has, in accordance with protocol, given the script back to me. Although this moment of near-completion is damn exciting, it is also damn scary.

I have to take risks that I don’t have time to take. A screenplay or any other piece of good writing is like a Jenga tower. You can only take out or add or change so many pieces before the whole thing falls apart. Today’s perplexing question: what happens if Blake, the hero of the film, has just been dishonorably discharged from the military? Sure, it makes sense on some level, but what else does it change along the way?

I guess for the next couple days, I’ll be at war. Both with myself and with the movie. Hope it puts hair on my chest.

I have a confession to make (again): I love French film. And yes, the stuffy kind.

Claude Lelouch is known best (at least to me) for his work on the film, Un Homme et Une Femme (A Man and a Woman) (**weird thing about IMDB - it says he’s “uncredited” but I’m pretty sure this isn’t the case).

From Jerry Kindall:

On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris. The film was limited for technical reasons to 10 minutes; the course was from Porte Dauphine, through the Louvre, to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur.

No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.

The driver completed the course in about 9 minutes, reaching nearly 140 MPH in some stretches. The footage reveals him running real red lights, nearly hitting real pedestrians, and driving the wrong way up real one-way streets.

Upon showing the film in public for the first time, Lelouch was arrested. He has never revealed the identity of the driver, and the film went underground until a DVD release a few years ago.

I have found it here. Quite a ridiculously awesome experiment and a prime example of why I love old French movies: fearlessness (see my earlier post on Breathless). The race through Paris is absolutely ridiculous, absolutely insane: he nearly gets hit by a bus, kills a pedestrian, hits multiple other automobiles. But he drives. And it’s all for the film, all for this ridiculous little nine-minute piece of je ne sais “the f@%k” quoi.

Thanks Kottke.org

Alright, someone just used the word wonky in a formal setting and it got me thinking about “new” words that are becoming “normal” speech. Such as blog (or, a derivative I just heard, bloggerati). I know there are alot more out there.

(and here’s the part where you offer your suggestions in the comments section)…

UPDATE…

Check out this link to 2005’s best new words. Pretty much exactly what I was talking about.