Pictures!!!

Here are some pics I've been meaning to post up...

This first one is from the set of the film 'Staten Island' when we were filming in a junkyard

 

Still from 'Staten Island', we were getting some shots of the Manhattan skyline

This night we had to re-sink a car.  The first time they filmed it it went to the bottom of the river and got stuck.

We have strange wildlife run-ins from time to time... Here a random peacock rolled up to a hospital we were filming in and tried to walk through the automatic doors of the emergency room. 

 

A little family of geese, with the Intrepid and Manhattan in the background.

 

Me, Ethan Hawke, and Jeremy Shwartz on the set of 'Staten Island' 

I don't know if I wrote about this, but I worked three days on a kids video pilot. 

  How cute!

 

Brooklyn Bridge and downtown from the water taxi dock in Brooklyn

These two shots were kind-of from a surreal experience.  I was driving around downtown... and came across urban ninjas!!! ...or maybe they were samarais...

Regardless, pretty strange.  Until next time...

Naked Brothers and Pothedz Couch - Episode 6 News

So we officially have recorded Episode 6 of Pothedz Couch!  It took forever to get everybody together to do it, but it finally happened yesterday. Peyton came over and filmed with us until about 2PM, then we shot the rest with some extra characters being played by our friends Leslie Bowen (who we know originally from college) and our neighbor Sam George, with only a little break so that Sam could go downstairs and play a concert in Second Life (check him out if you're in Second Life, his name in SL is Sebastian Jacks).  It looks like its going to be another good one, although this will be the first of our shorter, more internet-geared shows.  Odds are we'll start just making smaller segment clips and put them on the site with a new setup, but who knows.  I have a habit of changing my mind depending on what I have time for and how much funny stuff I come up with. 

Also, once again, I've started back on the Nickelodeon show "The Naked Brothers' Band".  While that means I won't be on any cool movie gigs until October, it also means I have a steady job with good hours until then.  It's on the good end of rates for PAs ($150/day), although not as good as commercials, which are about $200/day or more sometimes, but better than most low budget movies, which are usually around $125-$130/day (sometimes $100/day in the winter).  Also the hours are better than on features, which usually run 12-19 hours a day.  Most days on this are closer to 8-10 hours, which I hear is more common on episodic TV.

Anyway, I've got a little work to do on Episode 6 before it makes it to the site.  I've got to log all the tapes, edit them together, do a few more animated bits, add sound effects and music, film a couple of insert shots,....well, you get the idea.  There's still a little ways to go.  I'll be working on it every chance I get, though, which means nights and weekends now that I'm on a nearly normal person's schedule.  Hopefully it'll be done in a couple of weeks,but don't be surprised if it takes a little longer...

Staten Island and Martha Stewart

I just finished working on another indie movie called 'Staten Island' and then I worked a couple of days on Martha Stewart's 'Everyday Food' taking apart the whole kitchen set and moving it up to a storage space in Norwalk, Connecticut. Today I'm working on some kids video pilot that's really low-budget and we're stealing shots all over the city w/out a permit.

The 'Staten Island' movie was an alright shoot.  I only worked the last couple of weeks on it because one of their PAs got in an accident and went to jail because of some outstanding tickets on his license.  It wasn't too bad.  It looks like the story's pretty decent, so it just might get picked up by a distributer.  It stars Ethan Hawke and Vincent D'Onofrio.  I got my picture taken with Ethan Hawke, but I'll have to post it up here later 'cause I'm at work right now and it's on my home computer.

The Martha Stewart gig was a lot of tiring work; moving huge refridgerators, heavy ass set walls, marble countertops and thick tile flooring.  Needless to say, I'm still a little worn out from the last couple of days.  At least the hours were good and the rate was too.

We should be shooting the next episode of Pothedz Couch Monday or Tuesday of next week...(keeping my fingers crossed that nobody ends up having to work those days)  Me and Peyton talked to some lady about the show at this Comedynet place he works now, but she just mainly gave us some "advice" about toning down the weed stuff and not using copyrighted stuff like we've been doing.  I'm not really a fan of 'toning down' and doing things the 'acceptable' way, but who knows...maybe I'll end up having to do it...

What I've been up to...Part III

So...where was I...

Another movie I worked on was called "The Toe Tactic" that was actually kind-of cool for an indie, but you can never really tell until you see the end product.  It was written/directed by the woman (Emily Hubley) who did the animations in 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch'.  It's 1/3 live-action, 1/3 animation, and 1/3 animation over live-action.  It's kind-of an odd story about these animated dogs playing this weird card game with an animated bird where they watch this girl's real life and every time they see an object in the real world that matches one of the cards they have they hit a bell on the table, an animated sequence starts, and they jump into the real world an alter one thing slighty, then jump back into animated world, all to help the girl deal with the death of her father.(wow. what a long-ass sentence).  You probably wouldn't know any of the real life actors in it, but two of the animated dogs are David Cross (Mr. Show, Arrested Development) and Jane Lynch (the lesbian dog trainer from Best in Show).  Anyway, it should be pretty good, but it may turn out to be very "independent".

One cool thing I worked on was "The Bourne Ultimatum", the third in the Matt Damon/Jason Bourne series.  I only did one or two days, but I got to see a really cool stunt where we had to close down a whole block in Chelsea (which of course really pissed off a bunch of people that we PAs had to deal with).  The basic jist of the scene is that Matt Damon's character at this point in the movie has stolen a cop car and is engaged in a big chase scene where a bunch of other cars are chasing him.  Suddenly a car pulls out of a parking deck, which Matt Damon's car narrowly avoids, but the one of the cars behind him smashes into it, spins it, an it goes slamming into other cars down the street. Awesome, right?  They only did the actual crash twice; the rest of the day was mainly coverage of the scene without the crash, but the rigs they used for the cars were really cool.  One had this go-cart type thing on top of the car Matt Damon was "driving" where the stunt driver sat.  At first, I thought the rig was for the camera, but then I realized the guy on top was DRIVING!. Another one had the go-cart looking thing way in the front of Matt Damon's car, with the camera and a couple of guys right behind him, facing the front of the actual car.  Anyway, it was a pretty cool day of smashing up cars!

Aside from that, I worked a couple of foreign films, one called "The Father Game" by some German guy, and "Restless", which I think was an Israeli film.  Neither one of them was really cool or remarkable in any way...

A couple of weeks ago, I worked the MTV Road Show, which basically was an MTV upfront (upfronts are those things where the network unveils and hypes their new shows for investors and advertisers).  I actually have a camera now, so I'll try to put the pictures I took at it up when I get home (I'm actually at work right now).  That band Gym Class Heroes played for the entertainment (they sing that song that samples that 70's Supertramp song that goes 'Take a look at my girlfriend, she's the only one I've got, ba da ba da da'...).  They also has Three 6 Mafia and those girls form that one show "Taquita and Kaui",as well as the guys from the show 'Human Giant'.  I was gonna get pics with all of them, but I never did find the right opportunity.

This brings me to my current job, the Survivor XIV Fiji Reunion (which I'm sitting at now...wasting time ;).  This is my third year working it, and it's a pretty good gig with some fun people.  Anyway, I guess that gets us all caught up now...

Until next time....

What I've been up to... Part II

Ok. Part deux.
So, I also did a few days on Law and Order, the staple for New York TV employment.  Usually, during the winter, shooting on TV and film slows down a lot, but Law and Order is one of the few reliable steady gigs that works through the winter. Luckily, I had a friend working as key PA, so I was able to get hooked up with some work during those cold winter months.  I don't really remember what the episode was about, except that we were outside and they surrounded some house with a bunch of cop cars and then rushed the house and pulled some guy out.

So, I'm actually at work right now, so I'll finish this entry up in a little while...

What I've been up to.... Part I

Hello again, freinds and fans.  I've actually tried posting a new blog a few different times in the past month, but everytime something has gone horribly wrong (usually on a wireless laptop) and my post has evaporated into the ether... Well, here I go again on an impossible long catch-up attempt that hopefully will reach you instead of dissappearing into the nether regions of computer space:
So...November.  Was that really the last time I wrote something!?  Don't get me wrong, nothing THAT major has happened in the past 6 months to change the course of my life or anything, just a lot of good stories that I'll probably mess up the details on now, if I can remember them at all.  I'm going to attempt to write in this thing more often, but I think I always say that....
Ok.  Let's start where I left off last..."The Accidental Husband".  So, like I said before, it's a romantic comedy with Uma Thurman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Colin Firth.  I was mainly working additional days here and there on it, but they had to shut down production last year 'cause Uma broke her wrist.  At first I heard it was because of a accident on set involving a process trailer, but then somebody told me she fell off a ladder at her place in Connecticut.The funny thing was, since I was only working additional days, I found out only later by reading some tabloid magazine that the reason I hadn't heard from them in a while was because Uma had broke her wrist...
Ok. Now in an effort to make sure this posts and doesn't dissappear, I'll get back to you in the next post with part 2....

"Nothing Special" Days (Law and Order, Funny Games, Here's the Story, and Accidental Husband)

Lately I've been just working a few days here and there on different projects.  Nothing really special, but I've learned that sometimes my "nothing special" days can seem interesting, like when I hurt my back one day at work this summer.  I was telling some one about it when I realized the fact that I hurt it moving a rocket ship made it sound a little bit cooler.

Anyway, as I mentioned in my last blog entry, I worked a couple of days on 'Law and Order' (the regular one, that is to say, the one without any letters after it).  The episode was about this guy who kills a guard and breaks out of police custody and ends up taking some schoolgirls hostage and shooting some of them before he gets caught.  I think the headline it's supposed to imitate is the Amish school shooting, but, of course, there are a bunch of twists near the end and it becomes less a story of forgiveness and more about revenge and justice.  Anyway, it was an OK couple of days of work.  I helped with first team (the main actors) the first day and locked up part of the street where we had a bunch of cop cars and ambulances outside of a Catholic school on the second day. Oh yeah, and I had to lock up a staircase when we filmed this scene in a projects building and I almost died because it reeked of piss so bad.

I've also been working a few days here and there on that "Funny Games" movie I mentioned in the last blog entry that's a shot for shot remake into english by a German director.  It's all inside Steiner Studios, so it's pretty dull days (no random people on the street to keep quiet in a studio), but at least I'm out of the cold.  They're supposed to finish filming next Tuesday, but I think most of the cast is done already.  I've heard there has been some tension on the set some days between the director and some of the actors.  Mainly I've heard that Michael Pitt (Last Days, Hedwig and the Angry Inch) and sometimes Tim Roth (Pulp Fiction, Resevoir Dogs) have gotten into some yelling matches with the director, but I think it's to be expected when you have somebody who is remaking something that they liked fine the first time and people who want to make something new that's their own as well.  And there is also the language barrier problem.  Sometimes the production meetings with the higher-ups sound like the United Nations with English, French, German, and who knows what else flying around in there.

  I did have one particularly good day on '"Funny Games" last week when I brought a few of my handmade Pothedz Couch DVDs and sold them to people on set.  I even got Tim Roth to buy one!  Although, I think he may have thought I was just giving it to him until I asked for the ten bucks.  But, oh well, I figured he's got the money and I'm sure he doesn't mind helping out a poor PA that needs it.

 The only other job that I've worked on was a couple of days on a TV Land show called 'Here's the Story...'.  It was a pretty easy gig and the pay was really good too (almost double my normal rate).  The first day was kind-of boring and was for a segment about the "history of the future".  We shot out at the old World's Fairgrounds in Queens in a museum.  At least I got to see that giant metal globe thing (the Unisphere, I'm told) and those old UFO's on sticks that were in "Men In Black".  The second day we were in Times Square at the Snapple Theater Center where we interviewed Wendy the Snapple Lady for a story about her.  She's the coolest lady and she really is the Snapple Lady, she's not just an actress.  I got a hug from her right before she left.

 Anyway, that's what's been going on in my life lately.  Tommorrow I'm supposed to work on some Uma Thurman film called "The Accidental Husband", but I know nothing about it.  Except that call is probably 6AM.  But it's not too bad because they're filming just one stop away from my apartment on the subway, so I don't have to add an hour travel time.  One good thing about working in this industry is that no matter where you live, you'll eventually get one day when you can walk to work.

Until next time...