Hello everyone, and happy Monday. There is so much going on over here at the new GSP Headquarters, I barely have time to keep up with it myself.
First off, the new office is AWESOME! I am loving this place, and I am loving having a store front. The best move I could have made was one in which GSP had a place that was called work that wasn’t also called home. I have successfully spread geek film memorabilia all about the place, so it feels like home. I mean, really, did you think I was going to have a space that didn’t have a HALO helmet on some shelf somewhere?
Galaxy Sailor Productions is very happy to have brought PacWest Communications the type of services they need. We have taken on a few filming projects, such as the expansion of PGE Park for the Timbers, as well as filming the installation and new solar panels on a retirement home, all facilitated by the local NECA/IBEW. I am realizing, though, that I don’t have a commercial reel. I am having to tone down my zombie work so that I can get gigs that pay instead of frighten.
On a final not, Galaxy Sailor Productions is currently working on the new short film, A Deed Without a Name. Written by Jeri Klein, and directed by Martin Vavra (owner of GSP) A Deed Without a Name is a film noir influenced sexual thriller in which being the good guy is not the best thing. Shot in Portland, Oregon, A Deed Without a Name is looking for your support. Click on the link about to find out more about the film and how you can help make it happen.
Ok, back to work…
Yes, I said it. DSLR crazyness. It has gotten a bit out of hand with the DSLR crazy and all the non-camera, non-film people who are suddenly film camera people or are shooting films. Look, because you a camera, don’t assume you are a camera person. I own a still camera and I don’t call myself a photographer. I have come across far too many people that haven’t shot a lick of film and are suddenly filmmakers because they turned the dial on their 7D and filmed their cat chasing a laser pointer. First off, you don’t need $1700 worth of equipment to make that film, and C) it’s about a story not hitting record.
I admittedly got into a brief online argument with someone who was going to make the first iPhone G4 film. So what! Look, in the time it took you to type that, someone has already filmed their kid licking the dog and uploaded it to YouTube. So you got beat on that finish line. Again, so what! If all you care about is being the first guy to make a film on a G4 then you are part of a larger world of people who don’t have a story that they care about. You are just dropping the hammer on your camera and assuming the world is about to bestow awards on you. Their not.
A film is a story. You are telling a story in the images, the dialog, the sounds, and colors (or lack of). There is tone, pulse, mood, and so many aspects to a film that make it successful that have nothing to do with the camera. A good camera has good capture, yes, but so much has been done by people that didn’t have new technology and they made something amazing. All I am saying is, don’t get caught up in this DSLR crap any more. It is getting silly, as the following pictures will show:
If you don’t know it yet, the show Portlandia is now available on HULU. If you don’t know it yet, Portlandia is a sketch style comedy show on IFC about the quirky little world of Portland, Oregon. If you don’t know that quirky little world of Portland, Oregon, you may not get the joke and think that we are a hipster mecca or 90′s rejected 25 year old retirees. That would be the joke. It is on HULU nearly a week sooner than its release to the world on TV. Not sure why that is, but if you want to see the joke that you probably won’t get unless you live here, go watch it. If you get the joke because you live here, you probably aren’t laughing at it any more.
One the First Contact front, I was fortunate enough to meet Peter Nelson and Sally Roy, a husband and wife team of cinematographer and producer, respectively. Sally helps to produce the Bill Moyer programs and has worked with him years, while Peter has worked on many documentaries and films behind the camera. I have to say, I was please to spend time with them and am hopeful of many good things to come from talking with them.
Off to script writing.
That is right. 2011 starts out with Galaxy Sailor Productions getting its own production office. Not a small feat, and definitely a gamble, but I am a firm believer that fortune favors the bold. I came to Portland with no film career behind me and I have made it this far in two years…no sense in sitting back and letting it ride now.
The office space is in one of the ActivSpace builds in Portland. I believe I am one block off of the Pearl District, of the boundary is the 405 overpass. So if Freemont Bridge is the other side of the tracks, thats where I am. Come on by and say hello. I’m in suite #403 and I would love to have guests!
Just a reminder, The Last Stand was voted one of the top 20 web series for 2010 by LAWebFest. I will be at the Award ceremony March 27th down in LA! Zombies rule.
I thought this video about the new RED SCARLETT was pretty amazing and decided I would pass it on. Check it out and watch it. You’ll learn a lot. Especially you DSLR lovers. Pay close attention.
The close of the new year and all sorts of great things happening at Galaxy Sailor Productions. Most of which I am not going to tell you about just yet.
I would first like to say that I am really excited about the fact that The Last Stand has made it into LAWeb Fest for 2011 and is up for some awards! We are part of the top 20 web series of 2010 that made it into the festival, and with any luck, we make take some awards home with us. Even if it is for “Best Use of Airsoft Guns in a Web Series about Zombies” I’ll take it. we can now say we have the little olive leaf emblem that you see on so many things that doesn’t mean much anymore about where their film was shown. Yes, that emblem…I can be excited about that.
Thanks to all the people that I worked with in 2010. From the folks that I loved working with to the folks that didn’t quite come through the way I hope: I can say I learned a lot, loved a lot, worked a lot, and will dwarf that for 2011.
Have a safe New Years Night and we’ll see you on the other side!