Phobophobia: Team Horror!

Phobophobia from Cold Coffee Media on Vimeo.

Lullaby: Team Musical

Lullaby from Cold Coffee Media on Vimeo.

The Handler: Team Action!

The Handler from Cold Coffee Media on Vimeo.

A Successful Event!

WOW! I have to say that I was overwhelmed with the response that we had Friday Night for the premiere of the La Grande Summer Film Project. Despite some initial technical difficulties including some broken sound cables by a renegade beer cart that about 150 people stuck it out and squeezed into a tent to see what we had all been working on for the past week. I am very pleased! I am sure that this event has generated enough interest and support (we collected close to $200 in a pass around popcorn bag) to merit a version 2 of the event next year. Thank you everybody for your hard work and participation.

I realize that I was so deliriously tired that I forgot to take photos of the event... so if anyone has any please send them my way.

I am currently getting all of the videos put onto youtube and will post them in this here blog - so that those who did not get a opportunity to see them can enjoy them from home.

Also - as an additional fundraiser I will be selling the "La Grande Summer Film Project" Volume I to raise money for next year's event. Information on purchasing will be available via this blog and at www.coldcoffeemedia.com. Feel free to shoot me an email and reserve your copie(s) today.

Again thank you all - and I think we have created a new and exciting community event that can last for years to come. Pat each other on the back - take a breath... and GET SOME SLEEP!

I should have my head examined...

...for filming a scene where I sing a song right next to a really loud fountain.

Animus: TEAM DRAMA

Animus from Cold Coffee Media on Vimeo.

5:00 am : watched our full rough edit

I am taking that filmmakers have been blurry-eyed editing and that is why the blogging is getting lack... but a quick update - as we have a lot to do in less than 12 hours. The rough edit made me happy! Real Happy! I was worried about length but I think I may be able to get the film at exactly 15 minutes... (another challenge).

Jason Grech (Mad Man Editor) put together some great titles and we are working hard to even out the sound a bit - as that will potentially be the crowd killer - I also realized I would be a much better "silent film" director - I talk too much during the scene and now I have to spend a few hours getting rid of my voice from the scenes.

So to it I go, I hope the rest of the folks are enjoying this sleepless phase... kind of surreal.

P.S. I wanted to get you a teaser trailer: maybe it will happen - but don't hold it against me.



*image of my timeline! - Lots of Cuts!

i think its gunna get crazy...

so with the onset of a sleepless night i start to play with graphics and i waste like 3 hours working on cool titles... better turn the sails back westward!

TEAM ACTION WRAPS! - we hope

That's a wrap! Hot damn - I think we have everything we need - if not - it is up to post production to fill in the holes. An impromptu scene with Shane Morgan and Jeff Clark sealed the deal.

We are now prepping with a little food, drink, and brewing the coffee for the all nighter. We will see you all tomorrow. Will try to post up a teaser trailer ASAP! Happy post productions!

One more scene!

So last night was a tremendous success - I have to thank Kathleen and Bruce Weimer (La Grande Fire Chief) for their blessing and access to the Eastern Oregon Fire Museum. It was a great location to shoot in. We shot our two final fight scenes in their and had a great time weaving in and out of some of La Grande's history.



David Cheney (Not sure the spelling of his last name yet) , Mike Cooper, and Buck Potter along with Action hero Jeff D. Clark choreographed some more awesome fight scenes and made it easy for me to jump in with the camera and get all the angles we needed. The shoot took about 4 hours and we were all exhausted afterwords ... hence no blog last night.

Jason is currently hard at work editing up the fight footage as well as the footage we had shot at Hought's earlier yesterday. Thank you Carla for the use of your space -

I am working on the final scene that we will be shooting in the next couple of hours... and that will be a wrap! Will blog a bit more after that.

Planning on an all nighter tonight - so if you see the Cold Coffee Lights on it means we are hard at working making some sense of our action film!

unitl then.... (* the photo is of Jeff and Dan - bloodied up for the final battle!)

We're finished filming? For real?

Yes,
We are. We double, triple, quadruple, and dare I say quintuple checked our shooting script, and can now safely say, we have filmed everything we could ever need. After capturing the footage, the total came to just shy of ... I don't remember. A long time. Then like some crazy person, I stayed up till close to 4am editing the whole thing because I just couldn't stand the suspense. All that's left now is dumping on some more music and SFX, which we will be doing tonight.

Shooting last night went very well, largely thanks to Dan who, with the help of highlighters, and a tazer kept my sleep deprived mind at least somewhat on track. The sporadic rain proved to be a formidable challenge, but if anyone complains about continuity I can say "We filmed this in three days!" and then punch them right in the kisser.

I've had two full time jobs this week, and I do believe it's starting to catch up to me. So I shall bid you all a fond farewell until Friday evening. I'll add some pictures to this blog later this evening from my death bed.

Shooting is Wrapped for the Musical!

Ok, yesterday was a big day. For some reason I got it on my crazy head to create the biggest, most elaborate scene with as many people as I could possibly muster up. This is a difficult task for may reasons; the first being that there are three other crews shooting three2 other films around town, so gathering extras that aren't being used by another crew is challenging to say the least.

The scene I'm referring to is out opening scene which takes place outside the La Grande public library, which is the location I drew out of a hat on Monday.  We set up the outside of the library as a promenade of street performers with crowd members watching an wandering around while our lead actress walks past.  I was so impressed with the turnout of volunteer actors who dressed themselves as mimes, belly-dancers, magicians and more.

The highlight for me was that my friend Benjamin  Morgan, the award-winning director of Quality of Life showed up with his family to be crowd members.  When Ben realized that I was just about in over my head in dealing with the 30-ish people who had showed up to act, he offered to help in directing the extras.  This was a live-saving gesture that completely ensured our success for the day as far as I'm concerned.

I've been behind the camera for the majority of the shoot, except for the two scenes where I'm actually on camera.  Chuck Peters had been awesome at taking the reigns during those times. We've worked together on several projects over the years and I was blessed to have drawn his name out of the hat.  I'm having an awesome time working with him on this film.

This morning we shot the final scene in Bud Jackson's Sportsman's Bar and Grill.  The scene featured Josie Quillan and myself, and is the most dialogue-driven scene of our script.  It ties the story together like The Dude's rug.  It went very well to say the least.

This evening I've laid out a rough edit just to see how long the film will be.  It's looking like a healthy 12 minutes.  That's gonna work out just fine.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day of editing.  I'm stoked.  I've been experimenting with some digital orchestra through Garage Band, and I will also be recording some original music that I wrote for the film.  Miranda is interested in the editing process, so I think she'll be my sidekick for as long as she can hang  :)

P.S.  I stopped by the Firestation Museum for a few minutes and watched the Action Team filming a fight scene.  It was incredible.  I cant wait to see all these movies on Friday Night!!!

See you at Max Square!

Mike Surber

Relying heavily on editing - and post!

It is becoming pretty apparent that although I had a basic story in mind - that a lack of a solid concept is taking its toll. We have some great scenes shot - some not so great scenes, some big holes altogether, and a brand new concept dreamt of last night - to creatively implement without much of a structured script.

So that's happening... here is a recap of yesterday.

Shooting (TUESDAY AUGUST 19):
6:00: shot a great fight scene in the alley way behind "Ricki Lees" - the old "Mamacitas". Buck and Dan spent 3 hours getting beating down by Jeff. We did some great choreography - pulled off a few stunts (no one got hurt) .

10:00 am: We shot some of the initial establishing shots at Hought's 24 Flavors. We were missing our lead actor so we got a bunch of filler shots of kids eating ice cream, restaurant patrons and establishing our "Handler/Mystic" Renae Wells. Weather or not any of that is useable - only time will tell.

9:00 pm: We decided we needed a filler scene to establish why one of the thugs was not getting beat up in the fight scene we shot earlier in the day (Mike Cooper) had to work. So we visited Waypoint Studio where Test Audiences were rehearsing for Saturday's music at the festival. They were gracious enough to give us 20 minutes of their time to shoot. Thanks TA.

OTHER HAPPENINGS YESTERDAY:

1. The Fire Museum:

Took some photos at the Fire Museum - and was greeted warmly by Kathleen and the Fire Chief (Thanks for the SUpport and excitement.) We will be shooting a nice chase scene through out the classic fire engines tonight.

2. Mega Beard Records

About 1:00 am this morning I decided to go home and try to get 6 hours of sleep in - when I stumbled upon the MEGA BEARD crew - they had a cd of music for us and our fight scenes... so I walked back in and we all sat (Avery, Jeff, Jason, and I ) a previewed some great action music (beats?) music... laid it under our roughly cut fight scene from earlier that day - and BOOM - we had a solid scene - It is pretty amazing how much we can take the sound and music of a film for granted - when really it is the connective tissue to the whole project... Huge thanks Mega Beard !

A little late with the Blog ...

Don't worry, I'm not still up, but after sleeping two hours Sunday night, and four hours Monday night, I promised myself that I'd go to sleep as soon as we were done filming Tuesday. So, filming went faster than expected again, when our other location ended up working perfectly. A big part of that is thanks to Trish, who went crazy with arranging her house for us. We were done by 9 and I was home in bed pretty close to 10 o'clock, and I've got to tell you, I feel like a million bucks today after sleeping for around 10 hours.

Here are a couple pictures from Monday night's filming that didn't make it into Monday night's blog:







Now all that needs to happen is sunny weather, and so far today, it's not looking very promising. Oh well ... improvisation is our friend.

A proud moment:

We are very happy about our prop... Mike and Buck did a great job making this beautiful piece... I just have to show you.

OH yeah - starting to have some clarity!

So - shot a crazy fight scene at 6:00 am ... playing with the footage and I could not help myself - I had to make a mock-up movie poster - helps get the brain flowing - gives a little style and edge to the way we approach the edit... so here it is ... just throwing it out there...



Have some good stuff to say about the day but am just too tired and wired organize those thoughts.... busy with Jason on this edit for a bit...Will be back to update my day.

Tomorrow we shoot at the Fire Museum - that should be a good time.

rolling to film!! :) yay :)

Tuesday 19th crowns our work of writing to finally filming :) We have gained two more crew peoples Harley Ahner and Jutina Price have helped and pertaken this burden with us very well. Today, after finalizing our script and pushing to a screenplay we have BEGUN!!! As the Magster (Maggie) has put it: Game on! Tonight, scenes in Earth 'n Book are going smoothly. Which after tonight, leaves us tomorrow morning and on to the editing! WOOT!

ideas float on, scraped and rescraped

Monday the 19th was productive... in many ways. After 2 hours of rehashing the workings on the original idea, we came to a conclusion that the team did not have a collecive drive for the story. At that point it was time search for a new idea. 3 hrs and several topics later, we were whittling a new shape out of a length of fine creative mind-pine. The scrpit is being prepared, the score is collected and spirits are lighter. I'm pretty sure Santa Claus loves us all. Merry Christmas boys and girls! God bless us... everyone.

Lots of progress made in the last 24, but not so much sleep ...

Hey all,
After staying up WAY too late last night and getting up earlier than I have in quite some time, I put in a day's work at my real job, and then the hard stuff began. I swung by Valley Video on the way home, and John was nice enough to provide me with a mic and boom (Duncan was very happy about that). Sound guys ... so easy to please. Then I spent as much time as I could capturing video from the GL onto the computer, so I could be sure which settings I wanted to use.

Of COURSE it's raining! Why wouldn't it be? Today was supposed to be our day to film daytime shots. So the plan had to change; we'd film the nighttime stuff, and make sure we didn't start any scenes we couldn't finish tonight, because there's no counting on it being stormy again tomorrow.

6:00, and I was off to Highway 30. Anna was very cool, and showed me how to operate everything, and where all the switches are, and what to do when we leave. I felt like I was training for a new job. It was fun. Filming got off to a slow start with a literal, last-minute change in actors.

But then it started to pick up, and we got WAY more filmed than we were even planning on. I'd say at this point that at least 50% of our short has been shot. I had big plans of coming home, and writing a witty blog, and then editing what we got done. At this point it's becoming quite clear that neither of those is happening. There were pictures taken, but I forgot to procure them. So maybe there will be pictures later? After sleep. Yes ... sleep.

It was kind of surreal hanging out in HW30 all night. It felt like we had our own coffee shop; very Friends. Minus the random hipsters. So, tomorrow we film away from Highway 30, because it's open mic night, and that last until 9. Then we are back "on set" Wednesday with the hopeful plan of getting everything else filmed so Thursday can be spent editing. Then maybe I can take a nap after work on Friday before the Big Show.

First Scene Rocks! (Softly)

 

I feel so lucky to have drawn the names that I did out of that hat. We shot our first scene tonight and it was a huge success.
Miranda and Isabelle, my two lead actresses (whose ages combined equal about 24) were naturals.

I knew I had scored when I found out that 12-year-old Miranda won the Crazy Days Karaoke Contest by singing a Journey song. And thank heavens for Chuck Peters, whose pro-like screen presence was accompanied by a working knowledge of the camera and the shooting process. What a team!

We have a lot to do over the next few days, but if tonight was any indication of what's to come, we are gonna have one kick-ass sappy musical.

Viva La Revolucion!

Mike

Scene 1 - in the can

So I will be adding to and editing this blog over the course of the next few hours. I just wanted to say thank you to Steve for setting us up for our MOB scene location! And Kevin, for being a awesome bad guy. I will try to recap my day in between editing down the first scene with Jason and writing the dialogue for tomorrow morning's 6:00am shoot! Yikes..

8:00am - I woke up later than I wanted - but was glad to have the extra rest going into the day. I had to do some actual work to pay some bills but my brain was swirling - I was meeting with all my thugs at ten and they are expecting to have a script.

10:00am - Still no script - but a good solid story structure and some key bits of dialogue were starting to come about. I met our "handler" Renae (I hope I spelled your name right, it is late) and she solidified availability for tomorrows shoot at Hought's 24 Flavors. Yeah! I sent the thugs to the alley-ways to shoot some location photos and to start thinking about fight scenes. They returned with some photos for a great location:







Needless to say - hours go by of me pacing back and forth - working on a bit of dialogue for the scene we are suppose to shoot at 5:00. Still working on convincing our lead action star that he will do awesome and this is a worth while project to do - to play and have fun - I think I sold him on it... SUCKER!!!

5:00 pm : Mike Cooper picks me up and we head to our first location. A rough script is present - but the go-getem-ness of Kevin Cahill is what really gets the juices flowing - and all of a sudden we are making a movie.







8:00 pm - WRAP SCENE 1: We finished up the scene (WOOHOO) and returned back to main base - where Jason showed up to start putting some of the pieces together - got a good jump start on the edit. Made a quick trip to Hought's to scope the scene tomorrow and picked up a a juicy bacon cheese Hought's burger - perfect fuel. Jason came back determined to get a small chunk of footage laid out into a rough edit... we now officially have about 40 seconds of quasi-completed film!!!


Currently: 12:41 am: So after writing this blog and pacing around working on shot ideas for tomorrow morning's 6:00am go time - I find myself too - weary eyed. Set the alarm for 4:00 am and put the coffee in the machine now... gunna dream about a chase scene and see what we can shoot in the morning.

It was great to know that the other teams were all hard at work as well - I looked down the street and saw Jason heading out after their shoot - talked with MIke on the phone, and saw the lights on at Jess' house... I would say this project is already successful and I am grateful to all those involved... at the risk of getting to sappy I will adjourn to dreamtime for information - feel free to pass me your thoughts while I slumber - gunna need them.

Good Night - Christopher

brainstorming and maskmaking till late

Hello fellow bloggers and creative ladies/ gentleman.





Sunday August 17th, marked a late afternoon / early evening of great strides and overall colective scope for team DRAMA.

Jess was kind to host her place as a "home base" for our team. Our team has grown by 3 members who all will bring great things to our productivity and collaboration This meeting brought a fine discussion of plot and sub-plots, points of intrest, character goals, team goals, script needs and overall good. :)

Afterwards, birth was given to great design elements, one of which was a mask concept. (you'll have to see the film to get the rest).

This idea hatched by many was undertaken by Maggie, Jess and Hooper; with myself acting as good company and making sure there where many fine tunes of the big band era playing during this endeavor. Hope all is well in all the other projects.

Good luck and keep the cameras rolling :)

~Alan

6 Hours to Write a Musical

Mike here, director of the "Musical" team. I've got a killer team who have had lots of great ideas! A few of us brainstormed throughout the day as to the structure of the story... Lots left to do (like write a script and cast a few more folks).

I thought I'd show you our bloodshot late-night determination first-hand:

Action ACTION and more ACCTTIIOONNN!

So - it is 13 minutes passed midnight which means I did not get my blog done for the first day of pre-production... already a little behind... yikes.

I began the day after a full nights rest - as now I am grateful for that. I had set up a meeting with my team at 2:00pm this morning at Hought's 24 flavors (our sponsored location). I spent the most of last night and this morning running scene after scene in my head, shot after shot - all of it was "SLIPSTREAM" like.... but around 10 am this morning I was able to start fusing pieces together and come up with a brief outline.

Action - I thought to myself - no real dialogue just cool stunts and explosions.. oh wait I have no budget -

2:00pm: I arrive at the meeting with the ideas in hand and we immediatly start trying to figure out who can play these parts. I had the foresight to call up Mike Cooper (EOU theatre student I know) to meet with us as a quasi casting directing and a potential "THUG" himself.

Anne suggests someone for the MOB BOSS part and it pans out - we have our first actor. Mike has a handful of GOONS to use - now we just need our leading action star and the lady star. We have some friends with think will be perfect - we give them a call - DRAT! Already snaked by the "DRAMA" team.

A suggestion from Sarah from behind the ice cream lands us our lady...but no luck on a leading man... my mind is filled of ideas and twists and turns - but more so on the key ingrediant - one of the main elements of a good action film... "THE CHASE SCENE" - Definately putting some focus here...

I stumble through Blockbuster and run into an old favorite... Bobby D. in "RONIN" - man oh man - one of the best car chases in action history... take a look:

Ronin - Great Movie Car Chases | Wheels | SPIKE.com

So as the last couple of hours have passed doing some daily-need doings - this chase scene has been stuck in my brain... K - still need my MAIN ACTOR - we start shooting tomorrow or today I guess - I know the person will pop up - but by 2:00pm tomorrow where I need him to yield a Samari sword! - I guess we will find out... hoping to get some insights during dreamtime.

Excited to see what our mystery prop is in the morning!

Sweet Dreams,
Christopher

The writing process begins for Team 3

Hey everyone,
Jason here of Team ... 3 I suppose. I'm just getting home from a really productive brainstorming session at Denny's.



Last night, after the meeting I was consumed with overwhelming dread. Here's me:

"Ideas! IDEAS! Where are all the ideas!? This whole thing has to be written ... TOMORROW so we can start filming immediately after work on Monday. This isn't possible ... this isn't possible!"

It's my mindset during any timed project. Something always seems to work out in the end, but 75% of the time I have to get ready for any project is plagued with self doubt and pure terror. Finally after giving up, and hoping that someone else is sitting around at home writing out a brilliant idea, I gave into the temptation of sleep. But, just before drifting off, a small but usable idea popped into my head. I made a quick note of it and collapsed.

CUT TO:

INT. JASON'S LIVING ROOM - DAY
JASON sits in front of the T.V. deciphering last nights, almost incomprehensible note.

JASON
What!?

After more studying he finally makes some sense of it, and decides to call DAN. Jason dials Dan's number, and waits for him to pick up.

DAN
(on phone)
Hello, sir.

JASON
Coffee! Must have coffee! Let's drink coffee and write!

***

So anyway, we go for coffee on foot. It's one-hundred degrees-plus, and I'm wearing my not-made-for-long-excursions-shoes. We head for Highway 30, (our location) because, where better to go? What's this? Not open on Sunday? Really? But it's so hot, and we've come so far. Oh well, Burger King it is. We get cold sodas and minimal amounts of food, because it's so hot that food seems crazy. I've got ideas, Dan's got ideas, we end up planning out the whole short in an awkwardly long stay at Burger King. On the way to our next destination we run into the one, the only, Chris Jennings. He's at Houghts doing, presumably, the exact same thing we were. We wish each other luck, share some insecurities, and we're on our way.

Fast-forward to 7:30 and the whole teams meets up at Denny's, where we share the idea, and flesh it out even more, writing down everything scene by scene. Good times are had, and ... other times.



All in all, it's fun, and much is accomplished. Fast forwarding once again, I'm sitting in front of my computer, blogging obviously, and getting ready to turn my notes into a more organized shooting script. Then I will proceed to stay up most of the night planning it out shot by shot, because I work most of the day tomorrow, and would love to begin filming exactly at 6 o'clock. We'll see ... wish us luck!

La Grande Summer Film Project Kicks Off!

Hooray - we are under way. The filmmaking teams have been assembled and they are starting to create their stories, characters, themes, and what-nots. We had a great meeting on Saturday August 16th at Bear Mountain Pizza (thank you Don's Jewelry for picking up the tab!).

After looking at our participants and getting a sense of what people wanted to do and were able to do in the upcoming week we felt it was a good idea to give out some of the criteria, just to give the filmmakers a jump on putting their project in motion. Here is the break down of team captains (directors) and some of the criteria...

Team 1: Director: Mike Surber
Team Members: Charlie Koehler, Chuck Peters, Isabelle Richards,, and Miranda Putman.
Team Genre: Musical/Dance Film
Team One-Liner: "I had a cockroach in my pocket just a second ago..."
Team Location: F. Maxine and Thomas W. Cook Memorial Library

Team 2: Director: Michael O'Connor
Team Members: Alan Arnson, Chris Hooper, and Jess.
Team Genre: Drama
Team One-Liner: "Yes, you can borrow my car, and no, you can't keep it."
Team Location: Earth n' Book

Team 3: Director: Jason Crampton
Team Members: kevan Duncan, Dan Barrett, Trish Hansen.
Team Genre: Horror
Team One-Liner: "Why can't we all just recycle?"
Team Location: Highway 30

Team 4: Director: Christopher Jennings
Team Members: Jason Grech and Anne Barth
Team Genre: Action
Team One-Liner: "Hold on, where is your hand?"
Team Location: Hought's 24 Flavors

Monday morning the teams will be given their cameras and a mystery prop to incorporate into their short film. Be on the lookout as the teams will take to the streets of La Grande! Each team is also required to write a production blog here, so check back daily for behind-the-scenes looks at the progress.

Happy Filmmaking,
Cold Coffee Media

*photo of filmmaker meeting courtesy of Alan Arson's Cell Phone.