The hardest part

I actually think today was just as hard as any production day. I do a ton of video slideshows for weddings, events, teams, etc. that I get tired of doing because I never know any of the people in the photos. But today I had to scan Kyle's. I never thought I would ever be scanning Kyle's own slideshow. Pictures say a thousand words. So, anyway we're starting to put together the second half of the project that focuses on Kyle's life. I'm excited about it because it's something that needs to be done. The editing is coming along. This week we will start working on promotion for the film and we will be announcing pre-ordering information soon. If there is any way that you would like to help out with promotion via word of mouth etc... please do or email us with ways to do it. We really want to reach as many people as possible with this.

Slideshow contributions

We are in the midst of post-production right now, but we are also in the process of collecting together pictures and videos of Kyle for a slideshow portion of the film, so if any of you have any pictures of Kyle or videos, we would love to use them. You can email them to kyleosburn@gmail.com, or if you are unable to scan them, just let us know and we can work on a way to get them scanned.

Also, we are still looking for contributions to cover our initial production expenses. We also want to start working on setting up money for our initial DVD investment for 500 copies. So if you are interested in any of these things email josh@30frameproductions.com.

Also, The Lariat is running a story on the work we've been doing. Check it out.
Cool Story

The Trailer Arrives

We have finally posted a rough first version of the trailer. Finally you can see what we have been up to for the past couple of weeks. I hope you will enjoy and like it- let me know what you think because we definitely want feedback. We will be working on a HD version very soon that will be posted as well.

Kyle's Film Trailer 1

josh

*Soon

I'm happy to say that a much needed spring break was very successful. I'm also very happy to say that we will be posting the trailer this week. I'm not sure when, but it will be soon, so keep checking back. It looks very nice, and I can't wait for you to take a look at it and start spreading the word.

This week we will be editing and working on fundraising. Another new stage begins.

A Job Well Done

Wow. Thats all I can say about last night at Filmworkers, Dallas. We drove up completely nervous about the footage not showing up / one of our rolls was supposed to be messed up, and we just tried not to talk about it until we got there. Then we got there. Let me start by saying I was expecting the lab to be someplace that resembled a run-down Radio Shack with an old dude and some colored markers just drawing on our film. What we got was quite possibly the coolest film place that I've seen in Dallas. We were greeted and ushered in to a swank, upscale film club, complete with free drinks, free food, leather couches, and a breakroom with pinball among other things. Our colorist, Valerie (who was very very helpful and nice) lead us into our own private color-correction session. The room had all the technology imaginable for color correcting in HD + more leather couches, a guitar, full sound system, giant screening tv's, a mac to check our email/internet, and movie seats. It was pretty much the coolest place.





Then we got to see our footage. To attest that we are not in control of this project, most of our stuff was slightly overexposed, some parts really overexposed, and there was one part when we were shooting where the roll came off of the gate of the camera, giving us some blurry images. That was all fixed. In the most beautiful way. Our footage is quite possibly the most amazing stuff that I have ever shot. Valerie just pushed some buttons through color correction, and our footage came to life before our eyes. We just had to sit back in the leather chairs and tweak colors in accordance with our vision for the film. We opted to scan the film in HD at 2k resolution at 24p (for any geeks out there) which basically means we have a high definition scan of our color negative (that can be played on HD monitors, etc). And man does it look ridiculously good. All of our fears were alleviated with some amazing technology. As Brendon put it, we were served a slice of humble pie. I'm completely convinced HD color correction/DI's are the way to go with film because there is so much latitude for creativity.




After the session, we got to go visit the HD scanner room and the actual lab in the back where our film was developed. Basically, the whole trip was completely educational and completely worth all of our time we spent shooting this past week. It's crazy how just this one day made everything worth it. Everything. So, thanks for all the encouragement/prayers that we've received during the production process. We've learned that this isn't really our project that is in our hands, rather it is something of a bigger orchestration of the ultimate colorist and filmmaker. This was evident in the events of last night as we drove back in a lightning storm completely in awe.

I can't wait for you to see what is happening here.

A New Phase

It's with bittersweet sympathy that I say that our 12 day shoot ends tonight. 12 days really doesn't sound like a lot, but considering that we were at it everyday (and keeping up with school), it was extremely tiring. During this week I learned much more about filmmaking than I thought I had already known. It's hard when you are the producer, director, cinematographer, set design / art design, gaffer, electrician, technician, and editor all rolled into one. Now I really understand why major films have super large budgets for all these people. I wish we would have had a bigger, more consistent crew to help out, but we somehow managed. Hopefully we got a few cool shots in our 1400 ft. of 35mm that we ended up shooting. Our final shot is tonight, and it is actually going to be my favorite shot of the whole film if it turns out. When you see the film you should know which one it is.

On Wednesday we will be traveling up to Filmworkers in Dallas to watch all of our footage, so I'll be eager until then. We also will get to work with a professional colorist and we will transfer everything to HD. The transfer isn't cheap, and now that I'm thinking about it- we could have shot the whole thing on DV for $5, but we really wanted something like this to be something that people would remember for the visual quality for years to come. Wish us luck.

Another note: hopefully the week after spring break we will have a "trailer" up on the website. Now by "trailer" I mean more of a preview because I don't want to turn this into a commercially-infused thing.

Money Talks ($800)

Believe it or not, money really talks. If you are reading this and feel like you would like to help out in some way (or know someone who would like to) we could definitely use your support. By the end of this week we have to put up around $800 for processing and transfer for our 15 minutes of film. We need this so that we can complete Kyle's project. So, if you are interested in contributing to this project and furthering Kyle's message, definitely contact me. Our plan is to initially make 500 dvds to distribute to UBC members and anyone who knew Kyle, possibly make more if we need to (and have the resources to), and also to post it on various websites (also contact me if you are interested in this.) While I know it is hard to donate to something without seeing the finished product, I can only assure you that the results thus far have blown my mind. God is working through this film and I can only thank him for allowing me to be apart of something like this. Never doubt what is possible with the emotion and power of film to impact lives.
josh@30frameproductions.com

Today we met a really cool bagpipe player whose name was Danny. He was the coolest guy who has been playing bagpipe since the 70s. He helped us out with a couple of cool shots during the afternoon. AND since I've used the word 'cool' in every sentence thus far, we had a cool time. Tomorrow will be our almost last day of shooting. We have a couple of gardening shots that need to be completed, and then we wrap Monday night. What a week it has been.

Shooting Phase Almost Done

It's now Friday and man this week has been pretty exhausting. We've shot something pretty much everyday, which is great and has allowed us to think of more stuff creatively. When you space shooting out and mix it with rest, creative things happen. I've found when you try to cram too much stuff into one day, towards the end you find yourself just wanting to get done to go take a nap.

In the continuation from the Wednesday update, Wednesday was a very producive day. Our good friends Paul Pryor and Scott (Billy) Lilly came up and helped us throughout the day. It's now Friday and I've been slacking with taking pictures lately. So, these pictures are still from Wednesday.


However, we've been in close contact with Filmworkers Dallas about our film transfer to HD. The plan is to wrap shooting Monday with a very special shot, and the we will be heading up to Dallas on Wednesday night to see our footage in HD (!!!) and work on effects and color correcting. So, the production end of things is starting to slow down.

Today, Friday, we shot a very cute Browning baby and concluded the day with some amazing play shots from the Waco Hippodrome. My good friend Lacy Lynch helped us with the acting end of things, simulating a play ending. I'm actually very proud of how the look of this turned out, and I'm sure when you see it you will agree. Tomorrow, Saturday, we will be shooting a big gardening scene and some more random "arty" shots.

We Got Exposure !!!

After a climatic day of waiting for the lab to get things settled out and the pictures online, we finally saw our first results. And I'm happy to say that we were very pleased with what came out. Both our interiors and exteriors were very close to what we had predicted. There was a little overexposure of some of the outdoor shots, but apparently that was due to the light meter that we were using. So, now we have a new light meter.


By the way, the pictures that are on this post are the pictures we got back from the lab. While we haven't seen them in motion, they give the just that there are no scratches on the film and let us know what we have ballpark for exposure. We will have the film scanned to HD (telecine HD 2x transfer) so that we can color correct at Baylor.


So, back to review of today: 7:00 am woke up and filmed a hearse (depressing.... not really because we filmed it in an arty way...) and then in the afternoon we shot a mustang driving scene (exciting... yes because we were all hanging onto the car and filming on the roof.) I should have gotten more pictures, except I didn't want to die from falling off the car. Oh yeah, I also ripped my pants climbing through barbed wire, getting the shot. I had to take one for the team.

The Suspense Continues

So, the lab was supposed to call or email me with proofs from the film we shot last weekend. And.... nothing. I'm assuming it will be online tomorrow, but I have been worrying about that all night. This really makes or breaks the project. If our exposures come out good, no worries. If our exposures come out bad, we will have to plan on re-shooting a couple of scenes. I'm expecting a mixed bag of things, but I could possibly just be worrying over nothing- which could quite possibly be the case.


We shot some more stuff this afternoon (imagine that) around golden hour. And man was it golden hour. We went out towards Crawford, TX, passing the hippy peace shack and the 'bring them home' hippy bus. We also messed around with some exposure and frame rate effects for added art.


I also think we got a cool book in the field shot (see pic) that I was pretty proud of. But like I said, I'm not exactly sure how proud I will be until I see the exposure pics tomorrow. With that, we finished off our second roll of film, bringing our shooting count up to 400 ft or around 5 minutes of footage. Tomorrow will be a big day, waking up around 7 to shoot a hearse and later a mustang. What a contrast.