Everyone should have gotten an email about this, but just for the sake of public record:
On the night of December 1st, we tear up Ed’s house with fun and booze. Bring your friends, family, and loved ones! Let us celebrate our mighty works, inviting all to come bask in our radiance!
If you need directions, call Cameron or Sabina.
Crewman Ed Merta is no stranger to the apocalyptic landscape, and as a storyteller, he has no shortage of material to draw from all around us. Recently Ed bought himself a video camera — here’s the result.
On November 15th, author Eric Renz-Whitmore received an award for Industry Leadership from the New Mexico Information Technology and Software Association! Great leapin’ horny toads! It’s about time!
Anybody who has done anything in New Mexico having to do with — well, video games, data visualization, movie making, special effects, or anything else that goes under the giant umbrella of “media industries” — they all know Eric. He is probably the hardest working man I know, and I know people who make the Puritans look like hippie slackers on codeine.
Eric wrangles conferences, sits on panels, meets everyone who walks across his field of vision, and remembers all of it. He writes, presents, and represents. Eric has made it his personal mission to do what he can to help the creative and technical communities knit themselves together. He’s what you call “the guy who knows a guy,” but only if you only know him a little bit. Knowing him better, one starts to realize what a generous, creative, people-minded powerhouse of constructive zen this fellow is.
Invite him to lunch sometime. Good things will materialize soon after.
The UNM ARTS Lab, which is one of Eric many babies, played a generous and crucial role to the production of In The Wind. So did Eric himself, having written the script and all. We owe a lot to Eric’s dedication and effort in so many different arenas, and I’m personally gratified to see him get the professional recognition he has long deserved. Congratulations, Eric!
Here are a few notes I took about what I’ve learned through making In The Wind. It’s not everything — not by a long shot — but it’s what comes to mind when I think about what I’ll do differently next time.
First to do different:
* My previous year’s taxes. Having $2000 suddenly disappear is a bummer. And speaking of money …
* Pay everyone. They deserve it. And they know it.
* Get a dedicated Location Manager. There’s just too much at stake to lump this duty in among others. An experienced one was in the offering early on, but she got paying work at the last minute and we had to improvise … see the previous note.
* Get a dedicated Assistant Director. Again, too much going on to lump this in with other duties. Although Christal Segura did a fine job serving in my stead when I had to deal with an off-set emergency.
* Pay closer attention to the props that are available while constructing shots. I’m not talking about continuity here .. I’m talking missed opportunities for coolness.
* No more candlelit scenes. Not without a dedicated Light Board Operator. We had some skilled hands at those boards, sure, but managing light continuity across multiple scenes over a month is really damned hard in the first place. Either no candlelit scenes, or manage the continuity more stridently from the beginning.
* Reserve the set for many days at a time instead of over a few weekends. It’s easier to manage everyone’s time that way. If money is changing hands, this is definitely the way to go.
* Buy certain equipment instead of renting. It costs about the same after X many days. Not that Field and Frame didn’t treat us very, very well. But I’d like to have a pro mic or two for myself, you know? And hey: I can rent out too.
That’s just a few of the lessons I’ve learned. The rest will go into my memoirs.
For my first film — heck, a lot of people’s first film, I judge we did awesomely. Let’s not forget that the industry’s humble beginnings started with experimentation, improvisation, and just plain “hold this thing here for a minute while we get this done” necessity. (Do you know where the term “gaffer” came from?”)
New Mexico is tipping over into the birth of a new form of the industry, creative features driven from the ground up. We can’t do it Big Hollywood style, but we can adopt, adapt, and improve with what we have. That kind of thinking is what In The Wind came from. It’s a rough, unpaved road. We walked it.
Entering shot timecode data into a spreadsheet. Handwritten, sometimes legible data. About 30 pages’ worth. At this point, my job is similar to peeling potatoes.
Shoulda got a PA for this one. Oh well.
Something weird though. Going over all these shot listings really takes me back to the world we lived in for four weeks. That set encompassed us completely, and I’m a little sad to think I’ll never set foot on it again. The smell of the fog machine, the routine of “Cut! Timecode please? Reset,” that looped around every few moments, the sideways glances when somebody saw something funny off camera … it all comes back to me.
Entering in reams of timecode data is necessary and tedious, but every line brings me one step closer to being able to send all my footage off to my editor. Reliving our shooting days line by line offers me a moment to reflect on it all.
I miss it.
