I just finished the film Mid 90’s. A film Written and Directed Jonah Hill and distributed by A24. This film is so nostalgic for people like me growing up in the 90’s. Its like a love letter, especially in dealing with male friendship or lack thereof. I found myself on the edge of my seat jumping and everything! Its like a west coast version of the movie KIDS with heart. Speaking of which was there a Harmony Korine appearance in the film? I can’t wait to cover the commentary of this film for the next episode of Filmmaker Commentary! I do recommend this film!
Inspiration
As a creative person I need to consume creative content by great artists. I was browsing through my old DVD collection and I stumbled across a DVD called “The Work of Spike Jonze” which is basically like a collection of his short films and music videos. This DVD was published in 2003, and even though its dated in quality (non-HD) the content is still top notch to this day! Anyway, this lead me down a Spike Jonze Rabbit Hole, and I found this commercial directed by him. Spike has a long career going from Music Videos, Features, Commercials and he is also the co-founder of VICE. Of course he is!!
Here is the behind the scenes to it. Which i just as entertaining for the technical people out there!
American Film Market 2018
Me and two producers from the feature film Natural Hair The Movie went to the American Film Market in Santa Monica November 4th - November 7th. We are currently working on the selling the foreign rights for the film, and the best way to do that is by going to a film market and selling your wares. We’ve obtained interest from three companies, and that’s all I can say about that so far. Overall we had a good market, we got a chance to meetup with old friends and we acquired some new ones. This is an annual event for us.
Interview on WFAA 8 ABC about Natural Hair The movie Project
This last year has been overwhelming to say the least. I've had to juggle married life with 3 kids, editing a movie, and running a production business while staying sane. You know what though? It's beginning to pay off, we were jsut recenly interveiwd by a top news station in the Dallas Market about our movie project and we have bigger news in the future!
Check the video out below or click the link.
Here is the link to the interview. WFAA 8 ABC Dynamic Duo
New Podcast
I really enjoy listening to podcasts during the day; when I'm driving, shopping, washing some dishes, etc. I'm usually listening to podcasts that help me with my business and personal brand, I also listen to podcast for entertainment like sports, and comedians.
After listening to a couple of friends and listening to a podcast from a well known business man about personal brand. The business man said 'now is the time to invest in audio" with that being said I just launched my own podcast that deals with film-making, video production and business.
As of right now its on www.soundcloud.com/filmmakercommentary
I plan on publishing to itunes and sticher in a couple of weeks once I figure everything out.
Also I will have a webiste specifically for the podcast, coming soon!
Thank you for your support!
Here is the first version of the logo, I'll include hosted by..Reginald Titus Jr. soon
When it rains...Reschedule
I'm working on a video profile piece for photographer Kathy Tran. I met Kathy at a gig over a year ago via a mutual colleague Jessica Ayers. Kathy is full of energy, instantly likable, and her pictures are incredible.
This past weekend she was commissioned to shoot the Dallas Observer Magazine cover! She setup the shoot at the W hotel in Dallas on Friday June 9th around 2:00 pm, but that morning it was raining, like big time. I texted her, "is it raining at the shoot location and will it change the plan?" She said "It should stop by then." Cool. I went back to sleep. Hours later as I was getting ready she responded "this rain is rescheduling everything! We are going to shoot tomorrow at 2:30." I texted back "bet." A few hours later Kathy texted back "its at 8:00 am" I say "no problem." Turns out the models couldn't make it and Kathy had to find a replacement, quickly!
working the magic
Kathy getting some underwater shots for fun. That's the camera cage in the water.
There were a few more obstacles at the shoot but Kathy will explain that in the video soon. At the end of the day its about moving forward and getting the work done. The new Dallas Observer drops tomorrow featuring Kathy's work.
K-Swiss Commercial Shoot
Last night's shoot went well for K-Swiss featuring music from AD Grand, athlete model Lashanda Ingram, Model Ariana Reed, and KRB Fitness owner Kelly Burke. I decided to go for a scaled down gritty look. Since the theme of the shoot is GRIND and working hard, I used the natural light from outside and the fluorescent lighting inside. The models were really working out, building a sweat, and enjoying the process.
I plan to edit the spot down to a 30 seconds. I will also put in more digital noise, over saturate the colors so that the red shoes POP, and introduce a transition effect. This will be fun.
Wide angle shot to show off shoe and testing color palette.
I didn't adjust any colors in this picture. I will compare this to the other color palette to see what feels better.
This is what you asked for.
I'm sitting here at my desk tired, slightly frustrated, but happy. I just edited a funeral video, shot and edited a stage play, I'm shooting a K-Swiss Commercial tonight, preparing for a wedding video this Saturday, and I'm editing my first feature film.
I just recently flew out to Boston with my movie producer Casey Smith to shoot an interview at Babson College. The interview is pivotal for the current movie we are working on. The schedule was crazy, we flew out of Dallas on Sunday which was Mother's Day mind you, switched planes in Houston quickly and headed to Logan International. We got to Logan at 10:00pm we took an uber to our Air BNB we got a few zzz's and we woke up Sunday morning ready to rock!
We took another Uber to head to Babson College, man what a beautiful campus.
This is where we met Dr. Tina Opie, we hit it off quickly and spent nearly 3 hours with the lovely Dr.
She waited with us as our Uber came to pick us up for the airport. Once we got to the airport we celebrated at a nice restaurant and then headed to our next flight to Kansas. Once we got to Kansas to switch planes to Dallas, we discovered that the flight was going to be delayed an hour and half. We eventually got into Dallas around 11:04pm Monday. Our Music Supervisor picked us up from the airport.
Once I got home I plugged in the footage for review, it looks good and sounds good. Mission accomplished.
Level up - Shoot Film or Nah
I just recently watched the movie "Spring Breakers" I'm like way behind, this movie came out in March of 2013. I've been a fan of the director Harmony Korine for awhile. I mean after watching the movie "Kids" I was all in. Anyway. The movie was shot on 35mm anamorphic and the film aesthetically looks great! Check out some of these clips I snatched from the Blu Ray.
So now I'm inspired right and I've recently been thinking of ways to level up my work, and one way I'm thinking about doing this is with film. Like real film, 16mm and 35mm. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to use it on a music video project or a commercial. It might be a commercial, budgetary reasons as I learn this medium. Film adds another dimension to the dynamic range and texture that you really can't emulate 100% in digital land. Not yet anyway. Stay tuned. I'm going to level up!
The Path to Distribution
I'm currently developing a distribution strategy for my new film with my producing partners. While my little ones sleep at night, I turn on videos for inspiration and read articels by other filmmakers about how they develop their films. One of those filmmakers is Ava Duvernay, she is a wealth of knowledge and it is much appreciated, because alot of people are keeping their secrets close to them. I suggest you check her out. Thanks AVA for all that you for up and coming filmmakers!
I'm currently revisiting her film "I Will Follow" so that I can reverse engineer the distribution strategy behind it and decide what strategy will work best for my current film.
http://www.avaduvernay.com/#/i-will-follow/
Movies about directing
If you know me, you know that I am always researching my craft and finding an edge to be better. I'm an indie filmmaker, so being resourceful is one of my greatest assets. I just purchased a documentary about music video director Dontell Antonio. I hope this is a good one!
