Here’s an article on Ain’t it Cool News about I Sell the Dead, the film for which I was a grip intern.

Both photos were shot the first night I worked (Thursday). The second photo – where the actors are looking down onto the camera – was taken when I was standing directly behind Merry putting all the c-stands together. It was cool!

was on those two days working as a grip intern on that show (that’s what they call it) “I Sell The Dead”. A 12+ hour work day on a film shoot is no joke, man. I mean, I’ve worked long days on music video shoots before, but I have never, ever, EVER been so sore in my entire life. Granted, it’s been a while since I’ve used that many muscles in such a short timespan, but holy crap!

So let me break down how my Thursday and Friday nights worked:

Thursday – call time: 7:30 PM
5:30 PM – jumped on the 1 train to head down to the South Ferry stop

6:15 PM – got on the Staten Island Ferry

(side note: it was my first time going to Staten Island so I spent most of the ferry ride making like a tourist, staring at Manhattan’s silhouette in the horizon. It was also cool seeing the silhouettes of the Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queensboro bridges overlapping in the background.)

7:00 PM – arrived on set, met the Key Grip (my boss)

7:30 PM – hustled my ass off building t-bones, 12×12 light grids, menace arms, and siders, skinning 4 by and 2×3 frames with hampshire filters…using equipment named lollipops, gary colemans, websters, mombo-combos, high-rollers, and other random names that would only make sense when you actually see the apparatus.

Midnight – broke for lunch, which was pretty decent. They had chicken parmigiana and some sweet and sour tofu. Didn’t exactly match, but it was tasty. We only get 30 minutes for lunch, but the time starts right when the last man on the set gets his lunch. So that meant we were back in at…

12:45 AM – started doing much of the same as before lunch. But as we got closer to sunrise, we started consolidating all our gear. This was to get a head start for tomorrow’s day. Since we didn’t know where we were going to be just yet, everyone agreed it’d be a good idea to make sure that the gear was easily accessible so we could hit the ground running.

5:45 AM – wrapped! It was a shorter day than I expected, which was awesome because I was absolutely EXHAUSTED.

7:30 AM – arrived back at the St. George’s Ferry station.

9:00 AM – back at the apartment in Hell’s Kitchen.

(side note: it was a bit surreal walking home as everyone’s going to work. These folks were sleepy for an entirely different reason. All I know is that I wanted a shower and a bed.)

All in all, the experience was amazing. The Best Boy guessed that the budget for the show was anywhere between 500K to 1 million – which is officially the most expensive production and the most populated set I’ve ever been on. There was even a Hollywood star – Dominic Monaghan.

You know, I wouldn’t consider him an A-list star or anything, but he sure acted like it. I mean, don’t get me wrong…he’s in no way a jackass, but he spent most of the time between takes sitting off to the side in his chair texting someone on his Treo or playing his PSP. I guess for someone who’s still pretty young and not really in the upper echelon of Hollywood-folk, I figured he’d be shootin’ the shit with the rest of the crew or whatever. But hey, maybe he was just being respectful of the craft and letting folks do their jobs. I did see him stop and pose for a picture with one of the electricians, though. He even smiled. That was pretty cool.

I don’t know…if I’m asked to work on this show again, maybe I’ll bring a camera.

so i know i said i’d post regularly – sue me. by now i’m almost here for two weeks. a few people have asked me how things have been, but they’ve all received the same answer: “kinda feels like i’m still on vacation”. i would tell people that it probably won’t feel like home until i got A) a job interview or B) did laundry for the first time (at a laundromat).

so i guess what i’m saying is…it is really starting to feel like home. i did laundry on Monday because i thought i was running out of underwear. turns out i found a few extra pairs hiding out w/ some socks. i had to do it anyway cuz i wanted to represent my Steven Gerrard jersey for the Liverpool vs. AC Milan UEFA Champions League Final yesterday. Liverpool lost – boo!

side note: i ended up meeting this English couple who were in town for their honeymoon. several rounds later, we exchanged email address and now I’ve got a place to stay in England if i ever wanted to. Tess and i took them to Chanpen, this aweseome Thai joint, and we had a great dinner. might meet up with them some time this weekend for sushi – they’ve never had it. they’re cool folks.

so i applied for a few internships. unfortunately, they’re the non-paying kind, but in the film/video production biz, that’s kind of how you get started. everyone’s got dues to pay, and because i’m new to the area, i have to pay them all over again. i’ve got a couple of replies and even had an interview this past Tuesday. i think i made a pretty good impression and the gigs will mainly be for shooting interviews.

oh but i’m pretty excited for tonight. last week, i saw a posting for a grip intern. i sent the dude a resume and i’m working on the set tonight. it’s in Staten Island for I Sell the Dead starring a few Hollywood names. I think Merry is on the call sheet for tonight.

it’s my first night shoot so i have no idea what a 7:30PM to 7:30AM work “day” will feel like. but the Key Grip (the dude i’m working for) told me it should be a pretty cool shoot – we’re digging up aliens tonight…RAD! hopefully, they’ll ask me to help out with other shoots. should be a good time.

It’s kind of a weird feeling. I’m doing the last of my packing and I think about 2 things: 1) wow, this is all my stuff and 2) why the hell do I have so much random crap?

Seriously, I thought I got rid of it when I moved out of my Lago Vista house back in April. Sadly, there are some things that may get left behind because I don’t have enough space: soccer turf cleats, basketball shoes, and some books. The funny thing is that the first two items I listed are the ones directly related to exercise. I guess that shows where my priorities are – hee hee.

Oh well, those are replaceable.

So this was the big day – Cereal Monogamy was going to be screened at 9:45 that night. This would also prove to be my longest day since I was at the fest for over 12 hours. So here are the highlights:

1) Instant Screenwriting – This seminar was geared more towards first-time and novice writers. The panelists discussed structure and character development. Now the information I got wasn’t really anything new, but it’s always good to hear the same lessons come from different mouths. What I did enjoy, though, was that they provided examples from different movies to get their point across. Weiko Lin loved using Rain Man as an example of a structurally sound script. And Kris Young even used scenes in Dodgeball to make a point about structure – because, you know, Dodgeball IS a screenwriting masterpiece.

The most important lesson here – finish your sh*t. Weiko asked the audience if we knew anyone who had several incomplete scripts stuck on page 30. Shoot, know anyone? Homeboy is talking about me! Long story short, he said that you should always just finish a script before moving onto the next one. Even if it sucks, just finish it. So that’s what I’m going to try to do this summer – finish my sh*t.

2) Lunch at the Griddle Cafe – I had a pretty big break between seminars so I ended up having a conversation with another director named Joy Dietrich. She had a big break too and I was starving so we decided to eat at a breakfast spot next door called The Griddle Cafe. side note: their French toast is off the hizzy. Since Tie a Yellow Ribbon was her first feature-length film, I bombarded her with all these questions about the entire process. Of course, since I do plan on making a feature one day, she was a valuable resource. I mean, how often would I get to sit across from another director and just pick her brain about her experience? The other cool part is that she lives in Brooklyn! One of my key goals for moving to NYC was to find a community of creative folks (especially filmmakers) and I got a bit of a head start this weekend. And these are people who have actually done stuff – stuff I will be doing.

3) Hey Listen Up! – This was the name of one of the music video programs that featured a video directed and produced by Patricio Ginelsa and AJ Calomay respectively. Eric and I worked with these guys to film two of the 6th Day videos almost 2 years ago. (man, that’s a long time ago now) Gotta come out to support. It was convenient because it was right before our program and in the exact same theatre. The only thing that was NOT conveninet was the Baja Fresh we ate right before. Not such a good idea, dude.

Most of the videos were pretty good, but my favorite one was Young Lovers by a group called the Love Grenades. It was an homage to the French New Wave and the actual track was dope! iTunes only has a remix version available – boo!

4) In the Mood for Love – This was the name of my program and I got pretty nervous right before it started. There were A LOT of friends who came out to support that night:

Gelo
Eric
Monica
Dave
Malaya
Mark
Joan
Emory
Emory’s +1 (whose name I forgot)
Rich
Tricia
Tricia’s bro Jovi
James
Nicole
James’ cousin
Annalisa
Annalisa’s +1
Jocelyn
Ed
Marking
Han
Anthony
Aaron
Di
Judith
Ava
Raf
Donna
(their peeps)
Shelene
Shelene’s friend
Patricio
Melanie
AJ
Anna
Megan (Julie’s college friend)
Megan’s +1 (whose name I forgot)

So yeah, it was quite a good turnout for CM. It was awesome to have that many folks come out and support my work. Thanks to them, I got the loudest cheers when the credits came up. What’s cool is that about half of these folks…I met through my volunteer work at Bindlestiff. I even rocked my Bindlestiff shirt to represent.

Anyway, CM started and it was LOUD. I think the levels were either too loud on our tape OR the levels were too low on the film right before ours. Maybe they forgot to bump down the volume when CM came on. But man, that facility is AMAZING. It was playing on a HUGE screen and the sound system was state-of-the-art. (so much that even the audio clipping sounded good! ha!) But it got a pretty good reaction. Folks were laughing when they were supposed to – which is always good.

It’s interesting that CM was second to last. So in live music terms, we’re right before the headliner. That’s pretty awesome, because the one after CM, Thom Harp’s Fortune Hunters, was easily the strongest piece in the program – writing-wise, perfomance-wise, and production value-wise. I would’ve taken that spot any day – especially since Thom is totally a cool cat.

I was invited up to the front of the theater for Q&A afterwards. We answered the typical questions about budget, shooting schedule, what’s next, etc. It kind of sucked that it was so short though. The DGA people pretty much kicked us out because the garage was going to be closing. I wish I could’ve stuck around to chat w/ more folks afterward, especially to thank them for coming out to support.

Here are some observations of the program in general:
- it was pretty cool that all the shorts were comedies. It kept the mood light and most everyone (except robots) like to laugh. However there was one that seemed to be a bit TOO dramatic. It was also 5-10 minutes too long. Luckily, it was the one right before our program, so folks were probably in the mood to laugh.
- there were lots of pieces that showed or referred to cereal. I guess CM was destined to be in this fest.
- i really thought there’d be a better turnout. There were probably only 40 out of 155 seats filled up, but I guess we were competing with Cinco de Mayo celebrations, the De La Hoya / Mayweather fight, and Spider-Man 3. It’s cool though, CM was on the big screen!

Stay tuned for final thoughts about the fest.