The feature film, after 3 months in class, was finally over with the final today. I shook hands with Cowboy for great experience. I was little embrassed and shy about the whole thing when he said that. Westerners don't know that Asians pull away because they are shy, not because Asians don't like foreingers. So now I am down to last month in July and the graduation. Time goes so fast. I'm not ready for the Real World!!! ^o^;;

Vedas is go, start shooting tomorrow. Good luck to them. I want to help, but I gotta move half of my stuff to NJ. (I bought waaaay too many DVDs, and more coming soon.) The weather hasn't been favorable lately with cloudy weather and occassional showers, but it's mostly shot in the interior, iirc.

As for Vivre Sa Vie! I finished the storyboard, the shot lists, and some other paperworks. I'm going over with my DP Adrian about the shots and hand-off the storyboard to Jason to have finer pictures. I draw well enough, but, despite having other tasks, Jason insist on him touching up the storyboard. It's all about visual communication between the crews. We got another actress for the role, hopefully. I'm not sure why David is picking up other girls beside the actresses we have auditioned. ^_^;; It's all about the looks, but will they be right for the role? I only need to lock a theater location, and we are pretty much golden barring any other trouble. Even July schedule is favorable as I don't have to work around lab hours too much to have the crew going for the three-day shooting schedule on 3rd weekend of July. It will be tight hours, but we'll pull it off. For the first time, I think everything is going well. Whew~.

Yahoo! News: "Minority" Reports Product Placement. "The movie is filled with fictional commercials and the onslaught is presented as intrusive; each has been geared to speak directly to the individual consumer about, paradoxically, escape. The movie turns product placement into omnipresent white noise fodder." Yeah, but they made great advertisement deals that will live nearly forever in the canon of Spielberg. That's priceless.

Casting call for Vivre Sa Vie! tonight had a rocky start and somewhat happy ending. I planned to have the very first pre-production meeting, but only 4 showed up. That's including me out of 11. Uhm ok. So what now? It was THE casting day for Full Sail student films that there were 6(!) auditions going at the same time, but only a dozen or so actors showed up. We started the advertisement late, but I don' think they advertised enough to attract talent pool. At least Chantel showed up and said hello. No, yes. And make the matter worst, one of 16mm casting groups took over our reserved room that we were treated with one of Avid labs. Ho-hum.

First hour was a big test as I was bouncing around to make copies for the prepartion of the casting call today, calling people up to tell that we DO have pre-production meeting but people didn't show up. OK... Maybe I did pick wrong people. I'm not paying them, everyone's busy taking three classes and looking for next move after the school, yet... It's no use to gripe about the fact. We talked about having lesser crew with more dedicated people. I liked the fact that I did fill people with every key positions and formed a basic skeleton film crew, but now I'm looking at an option to cut even more. I rather not have people quit on me than not participating. This brings back the bad memory of 16/35mm projects...

Whatever the turnrate was, the actresses who audition for us were great. One "hot" actress was enamored with my script that she was eager to get on board. Her enthusiasm for my script basically made my day--and I have feeling that this will be the story of my life. A recognition that this undertaking was genuinely necessary and I really needed that after taking many disappointments. And David who stayed by my side to pull off 2-men casting sessions. I owe him for his support.

Ron is still not back from Texas. I can honestly say, despite all the hardships, it basically comes down to Ron at the end. Because he has the equipments and knowledge to execute the shots, where despite every pre-production works I can do, they are not within my power to do them. I have no budget for renting XL1s and other stuffs even if I can borrow from Full Sail. Yeah, I can and will do so much, but if Ron pulls out, that's it. Game over. Because of his recent family tragedy, he's in tough position in terms of academically and business-wise and I'm not eager to press him if we can shoot my film when he comes back. No. Let me do whatever possible till the end, and let the heaven decide, as an old Korean adage goes.

The casting went well enough that I won't need another weekend of casting calls. I think I'm pretty much settled with the casting, the locations, and other logistics. The other stuff will have to come together sooner than later. I feel like I'm stuck in Murphy's Law where it states "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." True dat. Korea won and advanced to best of 16 in World Cup in the first time in the history of Korean football. Will I be able to go to next round, principle photography/production? Let my finger crossed.

Salon.com: The birds of Hollywood: An unnatural history. "Instead I brooded silently through the rest of the film, dreaming of the day when Hollywood adds "bird-song specialist" to its roster of technical advisors." Hehe.

The pre-production for Vivre Sa Vie! is not going well. That would be an understatement. Sobo bowed out due to hectic schedule revealed for the next last two months here at Full Sail, and Luke doesn't want to either. UPM is not fun job. Most of logistic parts to take care so that people can actually make creative decisions to execute a film production. Nope, I couldn't see it myself in it, but I maybe pulling double-duty if I want to make this film as an UPM. There are not many I can trust with this important position...

I found that I have to talk to Dave Franco, the head of feature film course, in order to get some support from Full Sail making this film, like borrowing rooms for pre-pro meetings and casting sessions, etc. I send him a pitch email but he's a busy man. I will have to go in and talk to him face-to-face.

Part of me wants to throw in the towel because it would be easier way out of this messy situation. I easily make a mistake of judging a task easier than what it really requires of me. I've gotten better, but this is my first film production endevor, and won't be my last. It would be a great practice, yet... like the guys bowed out of the UPM position, I also have to finish homeworks for the courses, look for a job, not to mention re-edit Silent Witness that was lost by some freak computer accident, look after a place to live after the graduation, finish scripts, etc. No, I can do this. Even Korean soccer team won then-impossible first win at World Cup today... actually yesterday. I will prevail.

I had my first Quantel lab for the post-production class early in the morning at 1am to 5am. (Yup. the infamous early morning labs are back with vengence! Ugh,) I was here in this lab room last year around this date when I came in for the open house. It was then, I saw this awesome real-time editing and effect machine that sold me to attend Full Sail. To sit in front of that machine was the sweetest thing and brought back a lot of memory of my hesitant moments before choosing to move to Orlando, from NY.

Full Sail is only one of two schools that are qualified to teach Quantel machines in US, with certified instructors. They claim you can almost land a job at any post-pro house if you know how to use this machine. (I believe!) The tablet and pen based editing interface is little hard to get used to in contrast to usual mouse and keyboard editing systems, but it will grow on me with its charms. The fact that every edit and effect are rendered as soon as you apply them are real big plus. Some say you can't never go back to any other because the machine is so quick. Amazingly, the machine is a couple of generations old in terms of processors yet the customized software and hardware makes it work better than editing software based on computers with newer chips.

We'll be learning and applying color corrections and effects rendered here with our 35mm projects later this month when the final edit is chosen--or so I believe. Since there's two films going on, there won't be any free lab hours to play around with this toy. No matter. By the end of this month, I'll add another line to my growing and glowing resume. Hehehe.

Mike bowed out from the UPM position of my film last Wednesday, a day before first pre-pro meeting, and I suddenly found myself very vunerable position of finding new UPM in such short notice. UPM is critical position that handles money and logistic that I cannot just assign another person. Well, every key position is important that is not easily replacable. Fortunately, Sobo took on the job and I was able to breath little easy. I didn't ask Sobo first for the UPM job because although he did great job on 16mm production, Silent Witness, he was tried of doing everything himself, practically. I hope to count on him as much as possible.

I learned from this episode that I couldn't hold on to people who wants to pursue their own thing. It will always be a challenge to manage creative and productive people. You can't do everything by yourself in a film production, and I don't intend on doing so, spreading myself too thin. The planned casting call is coming up this weekend, and yet we still don've have fliers up or any info except the website... -.-++

With Ron back in Texas with his family emergency, I sometimes wonder if this film will get made with so many obstacles that weren't presented in nice, protective environment of a film school/course. There were always instructors and the school to fall back when we messed up, but this is the real test of an indie film maker. I shall prevail regardless of the hardships, because this is only beginning.

Last Day of Lucidity Production. The camera was on the crane and never came down until the end of the day. The most of shots were in one set and that was all good for me and the rest of the crew. Half of the people were just chilling outside the set. I even went home and changed my contact lens that were bothering me whole day. We shot last 5 seconds left in the wheel with us all cheering and jeering. That was the wrap.

Study: Production Moving to Canada. "The author of the study, Stephen Katz, said the numbers demonstrate the success of government subsidies to attract foreign filmmakers to Canada. Katz said he hopes the study will bolster efforts to implement similar subsidies in several U.S. states." Hmmm. No wonder everyone wants to go to North. Even great "soft" skills like film making is not immune to the great Invisible Hand.