Feb/Mar/Apr/May 1998

A pic of The Ganzinator as Michael in "High"

This is the last post before "High" falls apart and "Hunting Humans" begins.

We shot some cool tests on Super8 film, but the first camera I used had some sort of light-leak problem, so there's a bright white light on much of it.

I'll post some of the video when I rip it from old dvds that I burned from the video that I recorded from the projector playing the 8mm on the wall. Yeah, I did that. It's cheap, but it works.

Feb 28,1998

Made the changes we saw appropriate to the script, and I gotta tell you,
I think it's quite a bit better than it was. Stronger opening and we've cleaned
up some motivation problems that were there.

Mar-Apr

Started casting. Very busy, which is why I haven’t been able to keep up the log.
The producer who's been helping us had us put on the Maryland Film hotline, where actors can call to see what movies are casting in the area.

Met a lot of people, but it seems everyone wants to try out for the part
of the bad guy, Saul. Knew he was the best character, but still...

Ordered film and shot some test stuff. We were gonna shoot on 16, but it turned out to be too expensive when we lost our DP. Ordered some film for the super8 camera I have, an Elmo 240S-XL. The problem with the camera is it only shoots one speed, and we'd really like to have slow-motion. May get another camera depending on how the tests turn out.

May 9, 1998
Got the results of the tests back. Super8 really doesn't look too bad, but we don't know what it will look like transferred to video. We plan on shooting and then getting it transferred to either BetaSp or 3/4 video. We're gonna record sound on a DAT and then sync up the sound to the video. Problem is, the camera is not a sync camera, so we won't be able to run any scenes long. When I get into the editing room, I'll have to sync each take up, and may even have to sync the sound more than once per take.

Ordered blanks for the guns from Independent Studios. The blanks are .$65 apiece, which is more expensive than real bullets. We're going to have to do some weird editing as a result of the fact that real guns will only fire one blank at a time, because blanks don't eject themselves like real bullets.

If we had the money, we'd rent some prop guns that are built to shoot the blanks, but pistols cost $45 a week and semi-auto rifles cost $100. We'd need about 12 pistols and a couple of rifles. The other problem is, to get the guns, you need insurance.

That would add some more to our already strained budget.