2013 Year in Review

2013 was not as busy as previous years for Sine Fine Films, however there we did shoot four short films in one weekend shoot and a few short films were completed and posted to youtube.

Filming took place in late September, beginning with Mary Contrary on September 12 and wrapping up with the Out of Time series on September 14 and 15.

Mary Contrary has been a short film that I’ve been wanting to shoot for at least two years now, if not more.  It’s a great script, funny and charming, written by the ever-talented Kate Weber.  It was originally written to feature Kate in the role of Mary, but we were never able to get together at the right time to film it. Since it’s one character in several forms it requires an actor who can play multiple characters and who is very funny and silly.  That narrowed it down to a few options, and 

with Kate’s approval, I cast Jen Weber in the part.

We filmed at her apartment, and she kindly messed the whole place up for it by adding tons of stuff to different areas (and of course I didn’t help clean up – my bad!  Sorry.  Although to be fair I didn’t know where any of it went).  After setting up, Jen read through the script a few times and we started shooting.

We learned a lot of things while filming such as how narrow hallways and heavy doors don’t help when filming wideshots.  Also, Jen discovered how difficult and uncomfortable it is to look sexy while sitting on top of a table for a long time.

It took several hours to film, complicated by the fact that she had to change clothes a lot and – since I finally purchased a lapel and boom microphone – had to be re-miced every time, so it took longer than either she or I expected.  However Jen was wonderful and we ended the shoot with dinner from Hot Wok, so it was great day.

I had difficulty getting actors together this year, and since Jen couldn’t film on the weekend I had only two actors to work with – Syndi Eller and Rachel Anderson.  The short film I had been hoping to film – Fortunate Ones: Intervention – required more actors and wasn’t able to be shot, so I had to really quickly (i.e. the day before) write a script or two that had only two characters and would showcase their wonderful silliness. That resulted in the Out of Time series.

Out of Time is a collection of short films featuring two average women – Karen and Amy – with boring jobs who spend their weekends dressing up in various costumes and playing different characters in a public setting that fits their characters just to freak out random people.

  However, they can only stay in character for so long, so they set themselves a time limit and go back to their normal selves (albeit still in costume) when the timer on their phone buzzes. It’s a fun idea, although I still need to write and film an introduction to the whole series in order for it to make any sense.

Syndi drove up from the St. Louis area to film and Rachel Anderson was the only Chambana actor available so I pretty much wrote the scripts for them. They have fantastic on screen chemistry and comic timing, and seem to have a blast filming together.  They were both in Eidolon, but never had a scene together and filmed at different times.  They first appeared on screen together in Twisted Tales: Charming, but it wasn’t until Goddess Anonymous that they really had a chance to work one-on-one and really clicked (and ate a lot of carrots).

The first film was Out of Time: Treasure Inland (the working title was Pirates’ Tavern, but I liked the new title better, given that it takes place at a bar in the middle of Illinois).  Each script has two titles just for fun, so it was also called The Adventures of Captain Keel and the Saucy Devil.  We met around 1pm to get into costume and read through the script a few times, before filming at Mike & Molly’s in the late afternoon.  

That’s when we discovered that the extremely busty Syndi had problems being strapped into a corset too tightly – not because she couldn’t breathe but because her boobs were pushed almost way too high. It was pretty hilarious.  There were a few adjustments to her costume, including tying her corset looser, and we added a ragged looking red wig for good measure.

The script was meant to be a starting point and they could adlib for the designated time, but the jokes were actually kind of funny so we pretty much stuck to the script.  Because it needed to flow and it wasn’t very long (4 pages), they were able to memorize it during filming. 

We arrived at Mike 'N Molly’s at little late to discover that, although I had gotten location approval from the owner and cleared the filming time with him, he apparently hadn’t told his staff we were coming.  A perplexed bartender – Kelsey Parker – welcomed us in none-the-less after a quick call to Mike and agreed to play the bartender in script, serving the pirates drinks.

The script calls for the pirates to drink a shot of rum together, and since we were at a bar and I wanted to pay them back for letting us film there, I ordered real rum (Captain Morgan’s of course) for the drinks. The actors – well over 21 – both consented to drinking real rum instead of tea or something non-alcoholic that could pass for it.  A single shot of rum wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but we filmed the part of the scene that required drinking three times from three different angles in about 15 minutes, so they each had three shots of rum on somewhat empty stomachs (since it was close to dinner time) in not a lot of time.

Now this isn’t something I would do normally, but it was a light-hearted shoot in the early evening with only two actors and we were all having fun, and I kinda wanted to see what would happen if I got the actors a little drunk.  I’m a bit of a sadist, remember?  

       Ever since I started shooting with people who could legally drink (starting with The Curse in college) there had been a few issues with alcohol.  Mostly it was actors suffering from hangovers after getting hammered the night before a shoot, and some might have still been drunk when they showed up I think (hell, one guy even dropped acid before arriving on set), but there was some drinking on location later on in Eidolon after filming was over for the day and we were partying at night.  However, I never sanctioned real alcohol on the set or got the actors drunk while shooting – until now. 

Rachel and Syndi weathered it well and were rather tipsy post-shoot.  So we headed to Dos Reales for dinner after it was over and I promptly ordered a large pina colda with rum (I usually don’t drink at all) so I could go through what they were and “catch up”.  I think we were all a little tipsy at the end of the night.

Each actress also received a dollar for filming for the weekend – yay for me finally paying the actors more than a quarter each! It’s such a rare thing for me to pay actors that they decided to keep the dollars as souvenirs and we all signed them.  Shooting Treasure Inland was a blast and a half, but I still needed to finish up one of the scripts for the next day when I got home that night. 

The printer at my dad’s house was out of ink, so Rachel agreed to print up the scripts for us (thank you!).  We met up at base camp (my parents house) the next day, bright and early at 10am. The best thing about shooting short films is that you don’t have to start as early when there’s plenty of time to shoot.  Plus I had gotten them drunk the night before, so there’s that.

The first script that day was A Walk in the Park (later renamed to A Stroll in the Park) or (in true lengthy Victorian title fashion) Lady Chestwyk’s Guide to the Reasonable Attributes of Proper Young Ladies in Acceptable Victorian Society and the Explanations Thereof. 

         It featured Karen and Amy dressed as uptight ladies at the turn of the 20^th Century strolling through West Side Park – a modern park with Victorian flair (it was built in 189?) – and commenting on the inappropriate attire and rude behavior of other people in the park (and we did get lots of funny looks – it was great).

The script has a few corset jokes, but I didn’t torture the actors with them this time, however Rachel’s jacket/shirt was not made for movement and she couldn’t raise her arms above her shoulders, which made it rather difficult for her when she had to swing the end of the script.  She kept saying she had “T-Rex” arms and it became a running joke during that shoot. Also her parasol kept getting caught in her hat, which was amusing but awkward and a little painful.

After shooting was over we headed back to base camp, picking up lunch at Jimmy Johns along the way.  Since the actors were still dressed in costume and Syndi was driving, we thought it would be funny to weird out the person at the drive thru window.  We were sadly disappointed when said person didn’t even blink an eye at the Victorians in a car, let alone comment, chuckle, or really even smile.  The lack of reaction at all to the costumes makes me wonder how many people in Victorian garb drive thru Jimmy Johns in an average week (a lot apparently - Steampunkers must like sub sandwiches).

The actors changed into their civvies, let down their hair (literally), and ate lunch while reading over the script for the next film. The original title for the last film was Timely Entertainment or Onzella Saves the Universe, but I changed it to Cosmic Bowling because that just sounded better, and Timely Entertainment just sounded a little awkward.

In Cosmic Bowling, Karen is waiting for Amy at a bowling alley for a day of non-role playing fun, when Amy suddenly runs in and insists she’s Onzella, a humanoid alien from the future who has returned to the past to warn humanity about a deadly threat to their existence.  Karen plays along and attempts to teach “Onzella” how to bowl.

After lunch I did Rachel’s hair in a crazy style to make it look mock-futuristic, and we read through the script a few more times before heading out to Western Bowl where the very nice Mark Maidens was working at the counter and helped set us up with a lane and turned down the loud music.  The day before Syndi had helped me pick out the outfit for Onzella at Goodwill and we had found a kick-ass pair of boots that Rachel got to keep as “payment” for filming.

Filming went well and quickly since they had mostly memorized the script (even though it was longer than the other two – 6 pages instead of 4 or 5). After it was over the three of us bowled the rest of the game for fun and Syndi won…by a lot.  I mostly got gutter balls.

It was a very fun weekend of shooting where I got to work with three of my favorite actors – Jen, Rachel, and Syndi.

Other news for the year includes the premiere of two Fortunate Ones – Faerie Tale and Only You – and The Medea School of Melodrama on youtube, and a complete overhaul and update of the website – now moved to here on blogger.

It was fun year for Sine Fine Films, although I really need to edit and upload more of the short films from 2012.  Thank you to everyone who participated in making movie magic and memories this year:

Rachel Anderson

Syndi Eller

Kate Weber

Jen Weber

and

Christopher and Mary Stasheff

Kelsey Parker and Mike Murphy from Mike 'N Molly’s

Mark Maidens from Western Bowl

Without all of you it would not have been possible to film at all and it certainly wouldn’t have been half as much fun!

And just for fun here’s a quick recap of the Actors, Locations, and Techies of the Month for 2013:

Happy Holidays!

Sine Fine Films would like to wish everyone a

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, 

and Happy Holidays in general!

Here are some Christmas cartoons from past years:

Production Diary - Twisted Tales: The Stranger

Once a month I’m going to talk about a specific production, what it was like to film it, and what was involved in making it happen.  This month I’m going to talk about The Stranger.

THE STORY

The Stranger is a short film in the Twisted Tales series, which involves taking a fairytale and putting a different twist on it like changing the genders, modernizing it, etc.  At the end of December in 2010, I needed to film some pick up shots and the final scene for Hulde, and I wanted to film another Twisted Tale as well. I thought about what kind of story I wanted to do and what I had to work with, then looked for a tale that would work with it.

I had never done a Christmas movie or even a real Holiday episode for a TV Show.  The closest I ever came was in Pandora’s Box in the two-part episode In Memoriam (Eps 6 & 7) which officially takes place during the Winter Solstice, but doesn’t really have any celebrations in it, and a few episodes that had Christmas decorations (because we were filming in the Virginia Theater right after Christmas) and they were referenced a few times.

Picture from here

So I really wanted to do a Christmas movie, and there was lots of snow on the ground and blowing around, so it seemed like a perfect time to make one.  I knew there were plenty of Christmas/Holiday legends and folktales so I set about searching for one.  I found several that could be fun like The Christmas Rose, and  The Snow Maiden, but the one I kept coming back to was The Stranger Child, a legend retold and written down by Count Franz Pocci.

Picture from here

 The story is about a poor woodcutter and his family – a wife and two small children.  On Christmas eve they are having dinner – a loaf of bread and that’s all - when a small child appears at their door and asks to be let in.  He is cold and hungry and the parents let him in at once.  The family doesn’t have much but the children share their bread with the strange child and offer him their bed to sleep in saying they will sleep on the little couch by the fire.  He accepts and everyone goes to sleep for the night.  Late in the night the children are woken up by the sound of beautiful singing and looking out the window they see a group of angels. Then the child – who reveals that he is the Christ child – comes towards the children then steps outside.  He takes a fir tree branch and plants it into the ground.  Then he blesses them and leaves and the tree magically grows into a huge fir tree covered in gold, silver, and fruit and blooms every year at Christmas.

It’s a very sweet story and has all the elements of most Christmas tales – sharing the little you have with those around you and giving gifts from the heart.  It appealed to me because I’ve always loved the mythic archetype of the Kindness of Strangers (such as Baucis and Philemon from Greek Mythology).  I twisted it by making a modern tale of a farmer and his adult daughter (instead of a woodcutter and two children), and making the stranger be Mary instead of Jesus as a child (mostly because of who I had available to cast).  I’m normally not fond of having a heavy religious message in my productions, but this is a more serene and sweet tale that, as the word archetype suggests, can have pretty much any divine being swapped out for the Christian figures of Mary or Jesus.

THE CASTING

So many of my movies these days are cast by who’s available, not by who would be the most awesome actor to play the part.  In fact, most of the scripts aren’t even written until I know who’s available so I write the parts for who I want to play them of the people that I know will be at the shoot.  It’s kind of a back-assward way to do things, but it works and lets face it – the real reason I keep filming at the point isn’t to make grand works of art, but to have an excuse to get a bunch of my friends together when they live scattered across the country.

I knew I had Annamarie MacLeod on board and I knew she would be perfect to play Mary.  I needed someone for the farmer and I was pretty sure that I could talk Mark MacLeod into playing the part.  Virginia McCreary happened to be available that day as well, so she played the daughter.  Jen Weber was there to play a character in the Hulde pick up scenes and was willing to stay and be my assistant director (yay!)

THE FILMING

We filmed on December 27, 2010 and since the script was short (5 ½ pages) and all located in the same place (the MacLeod Farm) we were able to shoot it all in one day (in one afternoon really).  Unfortunately I had been sick for several days before the shoot and had lost my voice to laryngitis so I needed Jen, my assistant director for the day, to be my ”voice” on the set and repeat my directions to the actors if they were farther away then a few feet.  Annamarie was also sick with a bad cold and, if I recall correctly, almost thought about begging out of filming after we were done with the pick up shots from Hulde, but after hearing my raspy voice and coughing she realized there would be little sympathy from me on it (in other words, if I could do it, so could she).

We started with a read through, then filmed the first scene between Mike and Sarah (Mark and Virginia).  After that we went outside in the cold and snow to film Scene 2 with the dogs.   Working with animals on set is always tricky because they don’t listen to directions as well as the actors do.

Willow, Lucy, and Bone (the MacLeod dogs) are all sweet and wonderful, and are pretty well behaved and well trained (and so CUTE!).  However, they were excited to be let out and have all these people around them, so getting them to do exactly what we wanted wasn’t easy - as you can see in this little featurette from the DVD:

After that scene we went back inside to warm up.  Shooting the next scene where Mary is welcomed into their home to stay the night, since there’s no phone service due to the blizzard outside.  It was actually snowing for a while during the shoot, but wasn’t really a blizzard and luckily it was mostly when we were inside. 

In that scene, Sarah is making soup and Mary helps her set the table, then they all sit down to eat.  The scene ends there and starts up after dinner was over, so it only made sense to stop shooting and have lunch at that point. Virginia had added some seasoning to the can of condensed tomato soup I had brought for the set and the cast and crew chowed down on and chatted while we all took a break. 

After lunch we continued the shoot, filming the longest scene in the movie where everyone opens gifts.  I didn’t think to bring extra paper so they could only unwrap them once for the camera.  We did three full takes with close ups of each actor for the lines where they pretended to open invisible gifts – which lead to a lot of bloopers and fun times.  Technically speaking the gift scene really should have been filmed at night, but that would have required staying on set longer to wait for it to get dark.  I gave the actors the choice of whether they wanted to wait and film that scene at night or just ignore the hints about it being at night and shoot it during the afternoon so the shoot would be done sooner.  Since it was right after Christmas and some of the actors were only in town for a short period of time or had other things to do that evening, we opted for an afternoon shoot.

When that scene was done we got ready to shoot the last scene, which I wanted to film around sunset so that it might look like dawn.  Virginia changed into pajamas and (after throwing on boots and coat in the scene) ran outside into the snow to shoot by the Christmas tree (which had supposedly been decorated by Mary) and watch Mary go all-angelic and disappear in the distance.

After running out and seeing Mary disappear, Sarah returns to the house to find her father standing by a table filled with Christmas presents.  The funny thing is that all the gifts we used were actually presents from my father and mother that I had wrapped to give to my sister's, rather than ship them I just took them back on the train with me when I returned to Kansas City after the New Year.  So, since I needed a bunch of wrapped packages at the end I just packed those in a box and took them to the shoot.  Since no one had to open them it worked out quite well.

The final shot of the day was Mary walking away and disappearing.  She starts off walking in her snow outfit, but turns back and looks at Sarah when she calls.  Then a light shines around her and she is suddenly clothed like Mary the mother of Jesus.  I didn’t have a lot of time to get ready for the shoot and I couldn’t find the outfit I wanted to use – a long white sequined and beaded gown with long beaded lace sleeves and a blue chiffon veil – and had to settle for what I could find – a white tunic-y thing and a sheer-ish white veil that looked more like cheesecloth then chiffon but it worked out okay since I knew I would add some glow to it in post-production.

However, it was cold, snowy, - pretty much everything outside was frozen – and I was asking Annamarie to walk away in a field for several yards wearing only what was basically a thin white sheet and a sheer curtain on her head.  She agreed (yay!) but insisted on wearing her snow pants and boots – which I had no problem with of course, I mean since when did I ever care about period or stylish footwear?

However, getting her from the house to the spot where we were filming without turning her into a popsicle was a bit of an issue.  Luckily Mark had a down coat that we were able to just drape on her and quickly take off as soon as we were ready to shoot.  As soon as she was done, she ran back into the sanctuary of the down coat and we all returned to the house to thaw out and wrap things up.

It was a really fun, simple shoot and it’s one of my favorite movies because it’s so sweet and festive.  I have actually watched it on Christmas Eve every year since it was edited and finished in early 2011.  If you want to get in the Christmas or Generic Holiday spirit then I highly recommend watching this wonderful short film.