On this day in 2019, Majdolene 'MJ' Abualfaraj and Nicholas Mariano enact the first scene of The Broken Table during a callback audition held at The Los Angeles Film School in Hollywood, California.
MJ was cast as 'Jennifer' after her great audition three months earlier, while Nicholas accepted the role of 'Adam' the day after this callback! Happy Monday.
As mentioned in yesterday's Blog entry, here's the full-screen version of my experimental short The Cinematography Project(TCP)...which is the original version of the film that I shot back in 2002. The only difference is that I'm using a Hans Zimmer track from the 1996 action flick Broken Arrow for the music score (I'm a huge fan of Zimmer, in case you're wondering) in this iteration. I also did another version of TCP where I used John Williams' "Across the Stars" theme from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, but I didn't upload that to YouTube as I'm sure it would've have elicited smirks by some viewers since this track is probably more recognizable!
That's it for now. I'll post another Blog entry focusing on the student film version of The Broken Table that's also posted on YouTube. Carry on!
Happy Saturday, everyone! Just thought I'd share this experimental short that I did during film school 18 years ago! Dubbed The Cinematography Project(even though I only called it Cinematograpy Project in the film itself), this short was shot using a Super 8mm camera provided by my school's film department [I went to California State University, Long Beach (CSULB)]. I originally had to splice the film together manually using a device provided to me by the film department...but I eventually digitized my project so I could enhance it using Final Cut Pro(FCP). I used FCP to make this version widescreen, while also adding in Hans Zimmer's track from the 2001 film Black Hawk Down as the music score (this was also the track that I played on a separate audio player when I screened The Cinematography Project in my film class back in 2002). I'll post the full-screen version of The Cinematography Project in the next Blog entry.
I'm so happy to watch this film again considering the fact that I've been unable to do so for the past 18 years! The Cinematography Project, plus three other films that I did at CSULB (including the original version of The Broken Table), were on an external hard drive that I couldn't access since it was formatted for the Mac G5 computer I used to edit the films at school. With the new Apple MacBook that I received as a birthday gift last week, I was finally able to download the files from the hard drive so I can view them once more. Click on the link above to see what my future plans are in regards to using my new MacBook to resume doing filmmaking stuff! Have a great weekend.
On this day 10 years ago, the bank heist film The Town was unleashed in theaters nationwide (though it wasn't till a few days later that I watched it at the multiplex for the first time...on September 21). It was my favorite flick of 2010! Click here to read my review of the Ben Affleck-directed movie.
In honor of Chadwick Boseman, who tragically passed away today due to cancer at the age of 43, here's a drawing I made of Black Panther around the time the Oscar-nominated film played in theaters back in 2018. Rest In Peace, Chadwick... Along with portraying T'Challa in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Mr. Boseman also played Jackie Robinson in 2013's 42 and James Brown in 2014's Get on Up. The last movie I saw him in (after Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, of course) was 2019's 21 Bridges. Boseman kicked arse in that flick...
Just thought I'd share this collage I saw on Twitter this past weekend comparing shots from 1994's The Crow with those in The Dark Knight. While I figured that director Christopher Nolan was apparently inspired by the late Brandon Lee's antihero when the look of Heath Ledger's Joker was being created in preproduction, I had no idea that he based one of the most memorable scenes in the 2008 comic book epic to one from the '94 cult classic. (It's been a while since I watched The Crow on DVD.) Well done.
It's sad to realize that comic book fans and movie aficionados need to honor the works of Lee and Ledger posthumously. But I'm just glad that The Crow is recognized as the film that would pave the way for a whole generation of gritty comic book films...with The Dark Knight being the pinnacle of all that is right with this popular genre. Happy Monday.
"I'm vengeance." And I'm shook! Just thought I'd share this screenshot from the newest trailer for Matt Reeve's The Batman...which should resume filming next month after a long coronavirus-related hiatus, and get released in theaters sometime in 2021.
From the looks of this preview, Robert Pattinson is gonna do a heckuva job following in the footsteps of Ben Affleck (who along with Michael Keaton will reprise their roles as the Dark Knight in 2022's The Flash) and Christian Bale, respectively. Happy Saturday!
Happy Cinco de Mayo, everyone! Just thought I'd mention that my short film The Broken Table is now available to view on YouTube and Vimeo(whose version is embedded below), as today is its official online release date. If there's one silver lining to the quarantine caused by the coronavirus pandemic, it's that I had lots of time to put the finishing touches on my film...courtesy of Lightworks and not the Final Cut Pro editing program that I used during film school at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) over 15 years ago.
So what's my next project, you ask? Finishing my short film Envious...which I shot at CSULB back in early 2004. To this day, the sound design is still incomplete—due to a myriad of reasons too numerous to explain here. To paraphrase Kylo Ren from The Force Awakens: "I will finish what I have started." Since we're talking about Star Wars now, Happy Revenge of the Fifth! Carry on.
Sorry for the long absence, everyone! I've been too busy prepping my short filmThe Broken Table over the past month or so (I begin filming this Saturday, October 26), so I haven't had time to post new entries to this blog. Anyways, check out the cool theatrical poster above and the final trailer below for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. I'm going to the 8:15 PM showing for the final installment in the Skywalker saga at a local AMC Theatre on December 19! Can't wait!
Two days ago, I launched a crowdfunding campaign for my short film The Broken Table...which is a psychological thriller about a man whose mundane act of fixing a damaged piece of furniture at home isn’t what it seems. This film has a crazy twist at the end...which I obviously won't reveal, except to say that my friends who read the script asked me, "What comes next?" For those of you reading this Blog entry, click on the link below and make a generous contribution to this project and find out! You can donate as little as $1, $5, $15 or $25—or as high as $1,000 if you wanna be credited as an Executive Producer plus get other perks! Guess with pledge level I actually want you to choose, heheh. (HINT: I don't mind putting another Producer credit at the end of the film!) Anyways, click on this link:
The Kickstarter campaign will go from August 13 to September 13, and end at 9 AM, PDT that Friday. Even though there are still 28 days left, donate now! My crew and I are planning to shoot The Broken Table less than two months later...on November 2 and 3. So donate now!
PS: My awesome pitch video (with its random Family Guy-ish cut scenes) on the Kickstarter page won't reflect the awesomely sinister nature of the actual film! Carry on.
ABOVE: An animated promo for The Broken Table...featuring a snippet of music that will be used in the actual film.
