4WT

24 Hour Film Festival

admin — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 17:53:03 +0000

At 10pm on October 16, our team began the sometimes hurried but always enjoyable process of creating a film in 24 hours for Film Racing. After opening the email from the festival we discovered what our film must include; the theme needed to be fame and the surprise element to be included was butter. That known we dove right into setting up our shoot.

Our location was my sister and her boyfriend’s apartment in Hollywood. I had borrowed some KinoFlo lights and set to prelighting the set. I decided that shooting handheld would save time and keep our schedule chugging along. On the crew side it was really just myself as cam op and Jose Guel recording sound. Having a bare bones crew actually helped us I think due to the tight quarters of the location.

The premise of the film is that a pair of friends talking about movies at their boring apartment are soon plunged into an exciting experience that could be right out a film they discussed. It was conceived as a comedy with a few jokes scattered throughout and we worked hard to make sure those moments were funny.

Working on such tight time constraints really proved to be challenging in post. Once we wrapped at about 6am, I went about ingesting and transcoding footage then onto syncing it with the audio recorded on a Zoom H4n. The entire process took precious hours and made me certainly regret not beginning sooner. I finally was able to begin cutting and was literally burning the DVD as I drove to drop off the film at the W Hotel in Hollywood.

We did get our film in and it screened the following Thursday. The winners haven’t yet been announced but regardless of the outcome, it was certainly a lot of fun to make a film in such a short time.
Check out a slightly revised and color-corrected version of Where is Ms. Sailboat?

Big Thanks to everyone who generously helped make this happen!

Big Whup Music Video

admin — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 16:43:56 +0000

Back in August I shot a music video for the band, Big Whup. The video turned out very surreal with feathers floating everywhere. The shoot was a lot of fun and I had a great time working with DP, Donald Mckinnon. Don is actually shooting his thesis film for the AFI, Dead Man’s Hand, which I’ll be helping out with.

Anyway, check out the video for “Cover My Eyes” by Big Whup!

BW on Vimeo.

Shot T-Love + Love is the Drug Concert

admin — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 02:03:53 +0000

I had the unique pleasure of shooting the first concert in 10 years from venerable Los Angeles MC, Taura Love in her native land. The show featured my good friend, Nelson Marquez and his band, Love is the Drug at the Little Temple Bar in Silverlake. Knowing Nelson, I expected great music but I was surprised to meet some amazing people! Taura herself was very warm and we had fun doing an interview. She also translated while I interviewed DJ Dusty of Jazz Liberatorz. Overall it was an awesome show and despite being incredibly dark, I got some nice footage.

Nelson and I will be cutting the footage soon and I’ll post it once completed. Until then enjoy this sample of the show!
Listen to T-Love + Love is the Drug Concert

Music Video for BIG WHUP

admin — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 20:45:06 +0000

Had a great experience shooting a video today for LA-based band, Big Whup. The song was an richly layered and upbeat track called, “Cover My Eyes” Listen here

The video was directed by AFI fellow Matt Chevlan and DP was good friend and AFI fellow, Donald Mckinnon. Don has been shooting with us on the Get Carla Trailer (which has wrapped principal photography and is now in post) and asked me to shoot the video. The concept Matt had envisioned was the band waking up and having a massive pillow fight amongst friends intercut with performance footage also shot on the day.

We shot at 60fps on a Canon 7D for much of the video and had the song being played back at double speed so that once slowed down the slow motion footage would appear floaty and dreamy while remaining in sync with the track. Even at 720p as opposed to full 1080, the images are full and crisp. Although we didn’t have slow motion playback on set, the footage looked great with all the feathers flying through the frame while a pillow war raged on.

The video is now being edited and I’ll post it once it’s finished.

“Jamdown” selected as Quarter-Finalist for Cinestory Film Festival

admin — Sun, 16 May 2010 02:14:20 +0000

Got some good news this week that Jamdown, the screenplay I co-wrote with Paul Mckoy, was selected for the 2010 Cinestory Film Festival. This is an exciting development and definitely a fest that has some great upside. From the 50 quarter finalists, 21 will be chosen to attend the Cinestory retreat in Idyllwild, California. If it’s anything like the LAMP conference that Get Carla was selected for, it will be an amazing experience! The idea of hot-housing our script with screenwriters and filmmakers much more accomplished than myself, sounds great. We found the process to be indispensable when creating Get Carla and should be very rewarding for Jamdown.

Too often I’ve found film festivals to be hyping themselves as a windfall for budding filmmakers who should be honored that they are lucky enough to be selected. The sad reality is that most film fests don’t result in the opportunities they purport to aspiring auteurs. I personally always look into the past winners of fests that I enter, perhaps a byproduct of a few sour experiences along the way. Most notably, in 2006 during the New Castle Shootout in Australia, our film was unable to be screened in the correct aspect ratio due to technical issues out of our control. Needless to say after shooting and staying up for 40 straight hours we weren’t entirely pleased.

BUT overall I think film festivals are a good option if you direct your efforts in the right places. For Jamdown, we looked specifically toward places we knew would be receptive to our material and not the International Horror and Sci-fi Film Festival. We’ll definitely be looking forward to hearing the results in early June. Keep your fingers crossed!

4WT

The Sunpilots vid reaches 100,000 hits

admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:47:08 +0000

Our old friends, Sydney-based band The Sunpliots, have reached a milestone with their song “Spotlight in the Sun” breaking the 100,000 views mark on youtube. 4WT produced the video in Sydney back in late 2007 with Julien De Nys directing, Australian actor Johnny Boxer making a cameo.

Check out the video here:

It was a great experience overall, we had a challenging production schedule with two locations with their own specific challenges. We used a rear projection screen for the segments where the band is actually performing. The images were mostly timelapses shot by Julien around Sydney. The results were good although the screen could have been brighter. Our second location, the Vangaurd Theatre required a fair amount of set dressing and we were working under a tight schedule.

Judging from the reaction of MTV Australia (and comments on youtube), certain aspects of the video were off-putting. Specifically, Johnny Boxer getting some tongue action with Jody Kennedy and 4WT’s own James Mitchell as a tranny wasn’t winning anyone over. So we had to recut a more TV friendly version to go to air. In my opinion, the original was far more compelling despite being labeled too “artsy”. Of course we’ve come to expect surprises from our favorite Belgian director, Julien De Nys. His style and sensibility is brazen without a second thought of whether he’s conforming to the status quo. Check out his music videos for the infamous Brussels-based band, ETRON.

Definitely a memorable production for many reasons but remains a standout as an example of staying true to artistic vision. Even though we had to edit a version for TV and have had some negative feedback, it is a unique video that sparks conversation and polarizes viewers- most people have an opinion about it. It was a lesson to stay true to one’s vision and forget about the critics.

In the words of the eternal Johnny Boxer: “Mate, give us some money for the pokies.”

WELCOME!

admin — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 03:08:01 +0000

This pic of a contrail in front of the moon seemed fitting for a first of many posts from your friends at 4word Thought Entertainment. We love to create, learn and share new things with people from all over the globe so don’t be shy! If you have something to say about what we post, please by all means, let’s dialogue.

I should say at this point that we’re still new to the blog-o-sphere and by no means are we wizened technocrats with biting yet relevant banter that makes you burst into spontaneous laughter each time you behold our glorious posts. Nah, we are but humble travelers on the information super tidal wave trying to stay afloat. The internet’s vastness is almost beyond comprehension and is growing larger everyday, consider this a haven for creativity where ideas can flourish (or at least find solace).

So with all that philosophical jargon, you hope we better stay true and bring your attention to some noteworthy stuff! We’ll leave it short and sweet with what I think are some great movies that everyone who loves movies should see. They are in no particular order except perhaps from oldest to newest:

1. Birth of A Nation
2. Sunrise
3. The Great Train Robbery
4. M
5. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
6. Modern Times
7. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
8. The Wizard of OZ
9. Bringing Up Baby
10. Casablanca
11. Citizen Kane
12. The Bicycle Thief
13. Rome: Open City
14. My Darling Clementine
15. Rashomon
16. 12 Angry Men
17. Singin’ in the Rain
18. On the Waterfront
19. Rear Window
20. Vertigo
21. The Seventh Seal
22. Wild Strawberries
23. High Noon
24. The Searchers
25. Throne of Blood
26. African Queen
27. Tokyo Story
28. A Streetcar Named Desire
29. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
30. Once Upon a Time in the West
31. Dr Strangeglove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
32. Psycho
33. To Kill a Mockingbird
34. The Great Escape
35. The Hustler
36. The Graduate
37. Yojimbo
38. 2001: A Space Odyessey
39. The Wild Bunch
40. 8 1/2 (eight and a half)
41. Persona
42. The Godfather
43. The Godfather: Part 2
44. Apocolypse Now
45. Taxi Driver
46. Jaws
47. Alien
48. The Sting
49. A Clockwork Orange
50. Chinatown
51. The Conversation
52. Das Boot
53. The Shining
54. Blade Runner
55. Platoon
56. Full Metal Jacket
57. Goodfellas
58. The Professional
59. L.A. Confidential
60. Reservoir Dogs
61. Unforgiven
62. Run Lola Run
63. Twelve Monkeys
64. The Sweet Hereafter
65. Heat
66. Deep Cover
67. Boyz in da Hood
68. Menace 2 Society
69. Fresh
70. Juice
71. Dead Presidents
72. New Jack City
73. Clockers
74. Higher Learning
75. Baby Boy
76. Above the Rim

I don’t know why I ended here with all these urban crime dramas but they are all good (could even throw The Wire in there for good measure) but it’s not the end, it’s just the beginning!
Thanks for reading and feel free to comment on the list!
4WT