“Dance Again”

General Pictures’ offering for the 2009 48 Hour Film Festival.

Enjoy!

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48 Hour Film Production, “Dance Again”






This past weekend we produced a film for the 48 Hour Film Project titled “Dance Again”. It is about the stress of the mundane items of life and how chocolate cake makes it all better. We had a shoot of only eight hours, followed by twenty-five hours of editing. We had a great crew headed by Christian Parsons, and everyone did a great job. We got the film turned with four minutes to spare… damn, I could have gotten in one more cut!

Above are a few screen shots from the film.
Some people have asked me about how we got the look for the film. This is a very simple short film that takes place over six minutes at one small table. We do have one scene from the kitchen to help the “fantasy” aspect we needed to get in (one of the festival requirements). Anyway, we had set out to do a very simple film, but shoot it as beautifully as we could.

I had put a lot of thought into the look I wanted to achieve, and even before we arrived on the set, we did some critical work to achieve a clean image. A few days before the shoot, we brought all of the shoot monitors into the edit suite and calibrated everything as closely as we could. Here is a photo of that process. Then, our camera rig consisted of an Panasonic HPX500 – this is a 2/3 inch camera that I have spent a lot of time tweaking and setting up looks for. On the front of it, we used a Letus 35 adaptor with Canon zoom and prime lenses and a Chrosziel matte box. The lighting is a mix of soft window daylight, HMI, and tungsten lighting.

What this meant for post-production was that the color, contrast, brightness and overall look were achieved on the set. There was no correction done in post, except on the shot in the kitchen. This is big when you have a short deadline and need to edit, not spend time fixing exposure and color issues. I am coming to the place (perhaps it is back to the place) that we should create the look in-camera on the set whenever possible and change “fix it in post” to “enhance it in post”.

Call me if you would like to know more about this process at 336.854.0406
Here are some production shots from Elizabeth Lemon.


These photos are from Bert Vanderveen.




And, from Tom Lassiter.

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48 Hour Film Project Prep

Monitors- check!

Our team has been very busy this week making plans for a shooting a film for the 48 Hour Project this weekend. We will write, shoot  and edit a film in 48 hours, hopefully a bit less since we have to turn it in downtown.

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A long day of painting, I am one beat puppy.

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Popping Pills

These eye-popping images are part of an ongoing video & still project we’ve been working on with the good folks at Banner and Blue Zoom. For you techies out there – the movie was shot with the HPX500, and the stills with the Hasselblad H3D-39.
(For more video samples, check out our library on blip.tv.)




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Proximity Hotel Documentary Update

We are into the main parts of production on a new film about the Proximity Hotel. Recently we had the opportunity to do the first in a series of interviews with Dennis Quaintance. This interview was shot in the lower lobby of the hotel, where we talked about the formulation of the ideas that led to the creation of the only LEEDS Platinum certified hotel in the US.

The film will tell the story of how the Proximity came to be and look at the philosphy, the struggles, and the triumphs of the construction of this important American building. We had a great shoot with Dennis. Thank you’s go out to all the staff at the hotel who helped us and to Christian Parsons and Harvey Robinson, who both did a great job shooting.

Director Mark Wagoner interviews Dennis for the film.
Harvey Robinson shooting.

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Headed out to spend the day working with high school photo students.

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I spent a fun day at UNCG photographing students for admissions.

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Photographs with Libby




Last week I worked with Libby Newsome on some photos for a project she is working on for runners. Libby is a great trainer, she is helping me on health and fitness issues and my fight to lose weight. Her company Core Dynamics is near the Green Valley area of Greensboro. I cannot say enough nice things about my experience with Libby.

After we shot the photos for her book she was kind enough to model for some tests shots for me. This is part of the outcome of our little experiment. Thanks for everything Libby.

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