Director’s Log

This page is designed as a journal of my experiences as I attempt to direct the lowest budget, most independent film ever made.  That film is “Birds of LA”.

HOW “BIRDS of LA” GOT STARTED:

Three years ago, Jesse Bernstein, a friend of my cousin and an actor in LA messaged me and said he liked the PerronBrothers’ stuff and we should do a movie together. I told him we would like that and maybe we could collaborate on a short film or something. He hit me back and said, no, we should make a feature-length film.  At the time, we were making a lot of five minute-or-less sketches and the thought of a ninety minute film seemed a little elaborate.  But I happened to have a longer script/treatment that I had been playing with for a while.  I sent it to Jesse and we set about getting ready to shoot “Birds of LA”.  I found facebook to be a powerful networking tool to reach the talent we wanted to work with.  It was easy.  With the support of my lovely wife and some LBC contacts, I made my way from Oregon to Hollywood for a week’s shooting.

PROBLEMS. My trip didn’t go exactly as planned.  First, I almost missed my flight when TSA decided to show me some extra love for packing my directional microphone.  They handled it like it was a bomb or a vibrator with was fine with me because that thing was expen$ive.  Next, as I boarded the plane, the boarding pass checker noticed that my drivers license had expired.  That didn’t stop me from flying but it did stop me from renting my car for the week.  That feeling really Hertz.  I sat in the sun outside the Long Beach airport with a suitcase filled with film equipment and a chicken suit and wondered what to do.

FRIENDS TO THE RESCUE.

Well, I still had my gear and eight days to get something set.  But I needed help.  I couldn’t afford to taxi to Studio City where I planned to stay a couple nights with my cousin.  I called my Mom.  I got a ride all the way to Studio City from Mom’s best friend’s son and his girlfriend.  I stayed at my cousin’s place the entire time in LA.  It worked out great, considering I had no means of private, personal transportation whatsoever.  My cousin knocked off a little early from work an met me at his place.  We had a beer and I ended up hanging at his pad the entire time.  It was great.  I had a couch and an HDTV and a neat corner for loading daily footage and audio.

DAY ONE – HOLLYWOOD SHOOTING

The first day of shooting was pretty easy.  Afternoon shoot.  Amy Vorpahl, Nathan Barnatt, and Jesse Bernstein were meeting at my cousin’s apartment to shoot a break-up scene and they all showed up on time.  I must admit I was pretty nervous directing a scene (I was stressing about the snacks I had provided for chrissakes) with those three pros but it went smoothly.  The thing is, if you are a tiny, amateur, indie filmmaker like me, you can’t afford the time and money it takes to run auditions.  So I didn’t.  I had seen enough of Amy and

Nathans’ work on funnyordie.com to know that their efforts would be more than welcome in our project.  My biggest concern for this day was that I would fcuk up the sound during the shoot.  I was picking audio up from my HD Sony Handcam but I had just gotten the Tascam digital recorder and it was virtually untested.  Well, the sound sounded fine although I looked like a total dork with the gear all draped around me.  I was pleased with the shoot.  Good day.

DAY TWO – HOLLYWOOD SHOOTING

The second day brought some new challenges.  I had originally planned to use an office room to set up and shoot a scene between Jesse’s character and his two agent partners, played by Eric Filipkowski and Bennie Arthur.  Now that I had no car, I had no means of setting up the shoot.  So we shot the scene at a park in Studio City.  It ended up being a really nice location and because it was an exterior shoot, I didn’t have to set up lights.  And just so you know, on interior shoots, I don’t set up lights either.  I simply diffuse to use them.  Ha ha.

Bad joke.  It was very nice of Bennie and Eric to pick me up on their way to the park.  It saved me three miles of walking with camera gear and snacks.  Note to self:  actors in Hollywood could care less about craft services on a two hour indie shoot.  So Eric Bingham and Jesse showed up right on time and we worked the scene out in three takes.  Bingham’s played a guy who had lost his girlfriend’s ferret in the park and he had full freedom to disrupt the scene at will.  If my camera work is shaky in this scene, I blame him because he was hilarious.

DAY 3 – HOLLYWOOD SHOOTING

On the third day of shooting, there wasn’t a lot to report.  I hooked up with Jesse and we shot some miscellaneous scenes involving a chicken suit.  And some other stuff.  That was the last real day of shooting for me.  Oh, wait.  On the next day I actually went to work with Ian, cleaning movie star’s swimming pools and I got some useful footage.  I also got to see Ian perform at a couple gigs.

So that just about wrapped up my Hollywood vacation.  Ian and I managed to get a little golf in too.  It was a fun trip.  I’ll be posting more about this movie when I finish the upcoming weekend shoot.  Cheers.

A BREAK FROM SHOOTING

After we shot in Hollywood, things got a little crazy on the home front.  My star, Marty Perron, moved back to Idaho.  Our brother Matt got really sick over Christmas break.  And Patti and I moved into a new house in Salem.  So we took about six months off from shooting and I did my best to rewrite the script.  The good thing about that is the story got better.  I mean, I think it did.  So with the winter and spring behind us, we started shooting scenes again.  And that was a good thing.  In July, I drove out to Montana solo to celebrate my favorite cousin’s wedding and I towed my movie magic kit with me.

— Updated 8/7/2010 —

KILLING DAVE JENKINS

One of the best parts of being an amateur filmmaker is that you get to work with the people you like: friends, family, and neighbors.  Basically, anyone that you can get in front of the camera for free.  A couple weeks ago we shot some great scenes out at our friend Merrill’s farm with Matt Perron and actor/writer Dave Jenkins.  It was hot out there and Dave was wearing black and we ran over him with our truck.

We ran over him three times.  He was sweating by the end of it and I gotta say, the hood of the truck was about 120 degrees F.  The F stands for “f*cking hot”.  When I finally thought we had the shots complete, Dave said, “No.  Let’s do it again”.  I admire that about him.  And I probably wont let him know that the first shots looked just fine.

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It’s now 11:34 am in Sandpoint, Idaho on 8/7/2010 and I’m getting set up to shoot a couple scenes in Marty’s house.   Cheers.

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MEET THE BAD GUYS….FINALLY

A couple weeks ago, I finally got three more bad guys in front of the camera.  Three bad guys who also happen to be my buddies.  In fact, making a film can become very challenging if you don’t have family, friends, and neighbors who are willing to participate in your project.  Fortunately, the Perron brothers have a huge pool of talent to pull from in the Salem, Portland, and Sandpoint areas.

This youtube clip features Dave Jenkins who plays “The Swede” in “Birds of LA”.  We stole this shot at Owen’s birthday party on Saturday. We’ll be using it in some form in our finished product.

That’s what a passion for film-making has done to me. I steal shots from my own son’s birthday party.

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Where Am I?