As technology improves each year (making everything better and more affordable), it makes me just hope to keep up with my own growth as a filmmaker and visual storyteller.  I’m dancin’ as fast as I can.

Looking at my trailers brings back fond memories of the people and experiences that have come and gone in the past 7 years.  I am who I am today because of them.

HOW DO YOU WRITE A JOE SCHERMANN SONG (2011)
(Canon 5D, Canon 7D)

DEATH OF THE DEAD (2010)
(Canon 7D)

WHAT’S UP LOVELY (2010)
(Canon HV30, Nikon D90)

DISMAL (2009)
(Sony EX-1)

NEW YORK LATELY (2009)
(Panasonic HVX200)

GRIT (2007) (Panasonic HVX200)

HUBRIS (2006)
(Canon XL2)

FAVORS (2004)
(Panasonic Varicam)

I hope to see you at one of the screenings!!

VIEW TRAILER

UPCOMING SCREENINGS:
Dark Bridges Film Festival (Saskatoon, SK – Canada)
Saturday, Sept 25th - 11:59pm (Midnight Screening)

***SEEKING SPONSORS***
Actress Christina Rose and are I interesting in making the trip to Canada in order to represent the film in person.  We are seeking companies that may be interested in sponsoring the trip.  In turn we will incorporate their service or product to feature it however it fits best into our travels and appearance.  This includes using the product directly, being featured in the film festival program, mentioning it in person and in blogs, video updates, etc.

We have a growing fan base now and hope that someone may be interested in tapping into it.  If you are interested or have any leads please contact me at gary@kitchentablefilms.com.  We really appreciate it.

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VIEW TRAILER

UPCOMING SCREENINGS:
NewFilmmakers (New York City)
Wednesday, October 6th – 8:15pm – (I’ll be at this screening with select cast)
Venue:
Anthology Film Archives
32 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10003

The Annapolis Pretentious Film Society (Annapolis, Maryland)
Sunday, October 10th – 12pm – (I’ll be at this screening with actress Jenn Dees)
Venue:
Rams Head Tavern
33 West Street
Annapolis, Maryland 21401
Get Tickets Online

Flyway Film Festival (Pepin, Wisconsin)
October 21-24 - screening time tbd – (I’ll be at this screening)

And after seeing this…I may even have a next project to work on with Christina Rose.

ADM Videoblog #67 — “Grab-Ass Fridays” — Gary King of “How Do You Write A Joe Schermann Song?” from Adam Daniel Mezei | ADMTV on Vimeo.

I’m just glad I know this talented woman — and that she’s willing to work with me.  She is simply amazing.

CINEFIST – What’s Up Lovely from Sabi Pictures on Vimeo.

Casting news!!  We have brought Debbie Williams on board to play the character of “Summer” (Details here). I will be spending the next week reviewing the script and sending out invitations to some of my favorite acting friends in New York to play some roles.  It will be nice to work with them again — and a few new ones that I’ve met and am looking forward to collaborating as well.

I’ll be following up with a more detailed blog about how pre-production is coming along very soon.

WHAT’S UP LOVELY

Reviews are trickling in….

“…experimental and imaginative, disjointed and whacked out……Dees gives a wonderfully realized, enthralling portrayal…” – THE INDEPENDENT CRITIC

“…part daydream, nightmare and whimsical journey…” – FILM SNOBBERY

The film was also invited to screen in NYC as part of a summer film series — which unfortunately I had to ask to delay until later this year.  The main reason being that a few film festivals ask for exclusivity and that it not screen in regions close to them.  I can’t name the festivals — but the delay will be worth it should the film be programmed.  If not, I just hope I don’t lose out from the New York screening later this fall (it kills me that I could’ve had a July screening in Manhattan).

DEATH OF THE DEAD

The edit is now locked.  I’ve been busy prepping files for the visual F/X team, the sound designer and the composer (happy to have Ken Lampl doing the score).  I’m uber excited to move along to the next stage as it will bring a whole new dimension to the film to have the team contribute their work.  It seems like the timeline will have me shooting my musical all hours, then coming home to review various aspects of this film for feedback.

It’s going to be a BUSY summer.  There’s no other way I’d want it.

WHAT’S UP LOVELY Q&A (Sneak Preview presented by Cinefist) from Gary King on Vimeo.

Click here to view Part 1

Images from the event

Here’s a snapshot of the final project in Final Cut Pro: (remember to keep your dialogue, sound f/x, music all on separate tracks)

This review is all just based on my experiences as I’m sure if I had a post-production supervisor and budget to hire a post-house things would be a lot different.

SCORE

Tackling the score with two different composers (Ken Lampl and Jonathan “Electronathan” Sorge) was no easy task.  First off, I had to see if they were even open to this idea.

The reason I was interested in having two composers is I enjoy both their work for different reasons and skill sets — and it’d be an easier time commitment for each (if they split the duties) as they would be doing it as a favor for me.  I showed them the rough cut to see if it was something they’d be interested in working on…thankfully they liked it and found it to be a great challenge they wanted to take part in.  The main factor that I believe hooked them is that “Lovely” is definitely a score-driven film.

Admittedly, I was a little afraid to even bring up the idea — but knowing each guy personally helped make this a realistic option.  They are true gentlemen and professional so I knew approaching them about it would at least be entertained.  However, it’s a very risky thing to ask any creative person to join forces (almost like asking 2 filmmakers to co-direct together) — as it leads to potential conflicts.  After a few phone calls to clearly define the roles/responsibilities and give each their own autonomy over specific scenes we were off to the races.

We all reviewed the film together in late November 2009.  Then they took several movie files from me in order to work separately in their studios to create sketches of ideas.  I let them work their magic until January 2010 when I checked in and previewed their cues.  There was definitely some back and forth of feedback and revised cues — and by the end of February the score was locked and I was truly amazed.

In fact, the score is now so alive and adaptable with each scene in the film….it moves seamlessly from cue to cue (composer to composer).  To me there is no sense of schizophrenia with the score – or at the very least their styles gel quite nicely together where it doesn’t take me out of it.  In the end, the audience feedback is just that they truly enjoyed “the score” which is a win for everyone.

SOUND DESIGN

Dialogue clean up and sound f/x were completed by a talented music student — Keith Ukrisna — that I had met while he was interning for a post-studio I was using for “New York Lately“.  I delivered the film to him and off he went.

We primarily used Google Wave for our entire communication/review process.  There were definitely some lengthy waves going on, but for the most part it helped us keep organized over the entire scope of the film.

Keith spent the majority of time working on cleaning up the audio (primarily the dialogue scenes).  Note: Remember to record “room tone” so that you can lay it under your scene to help smooth things out.   He worked wonders on some of the scenes.  Thankfully we had pretty clean sound throughout, but there were definitely a few locations that had some issues (ex: bar refrigerator, traffic, etc)

I asked him to put all his ideas into the sound design — and then we could scale back as needed.  I preferred him to explore the soundscape as I thought there would be things he developed that I never would think of  — which happened.  There were definitely times where I did say I wasn’t too fond of things and they were removed.

It was an easy process/workflow.  We divided the entire film into separate sequences for him to work on and referenced every shot with a timecode window. 

Once sound was approved for each scene, Keith would deliver the sound design files associated with the scene (referencing the timecode on where the file should be plopped in to the timeline to sync up with picture).

The only drawback in asking a student to work on your project is they have school and other activities that may cause delays if you’re on a strict timeline.  But for me, the cost-saving advantages far outweighed any hard deadline — even though I kept him on one to keep things on track.  Keith did a phenomenal job and I plan to work with him again.

FINAL MIX

I did the final mixing myself on Final Cut Pro.  Not the ideal whatsoever but it worked.  I had all the separate files (music, sound design, dialogue) on discrete tracks so I could easily mix the levels to what I needed.  And since the film is in stereo 2.0 (and not some complex 5.1 or 7.2 mix) I felt I could handle it.

Again, not my choice to do it (I’d really prefer someone else) — but to save money and not burn any favors — I believed I could spend about a week on it.  If I had any trouble I had friends willing to help out which was a great safety net.

AFTERTHOUGHTS

The best part was at a recent sneak preview of the film we had the audience comment on how great the music and sound was — which is an incredible testament to my team.  They were truly amazing to work with and I hope I can keep them around (and pay them next time!).  Sometimes I have to take a step back to really appreciate the amount of talented people that are willing to work with me for very low (or no) pay.  I definitely don’t want this to be a regular thing and — as evidenced with my next project “How Do You Write A Joe Schermann Song” — I’m able to move up and gain a little funding which I’m more than happy to share with the people who’ve been there the whole time believing in what I’m doing.

That’s sometimes the best part — to look around at the people who were there with you from the beginning….and to see everyone moving up together.  Helping each other along the way.  That’s independent filmmaking.

Thank you Steve Nguyen for connecting with me and conducting the interview.