The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Ecc. 7:8

the dang pot won't boil.

We're still working. Just breaking the month of silence. Trailer soon....

Wrap Weekend.

It was a good weekend:

RCKTWN was good to us.

Kristen and Darren wrapped.

I got to point some.

We rode in the back of a truck.

We had good conversation.

Darren was tired. And hilarious.

Take that, Alwahab.

and...PUSH....

It's Wrap Weekend.

We are nearing the end of principal photography. Above, you can see Seth and Darren taking a quick break in between covering Darren's car in dead branches....

Tonight will be a long night, we've still got a few scenes left to shoot, but we're nearing the end of the longest shoot any of us have ever collaborated on. Just a little bit more to go!!!

Keep posted for more information, and the trailer coming soon...

In Paste! (Not Literally!)

So if you go to PasteMagazine.com, you'll be like, "I wonder who their Band Of The Week is this particular week?" And when you go to find the answer, you won't know what to do, you'll be all like, "WHAT!? It's THE CHAMPION AND HIS BURNING FLAME!" and PasteMagazine.com will be all like, "I know," and you'll be like, "shutup, website, you're not a person."
But seriously. Check it out:

At a little more than a year's worth of bandship, this could be considered a fledgling pursuit. However, there is a chemistry and honesty in The Champion and His Burning Flame's inaugural effort, The French EP, that begs for listening, pondering and then listening again...

And they even shared the spotlight with some much lesser deserving artists:

...One way this is currently being realized is the band's contribution to Seth Worley's independent film The Time Closet. The first feature-length movie that the band has scored (Arnold has scored short films in the past), the project is expected to be submitted to various festivals in the coming year.

Champion, you guys absolutely rule. Congrats on the publicity and thanks for letting us tag along...

Teaser Teaser

Expect a teaser trailer very freaking soon.
I phrase it this way so as to avoid the passing of three months between this post and the next....

the Time Closet Infinity

we're still shooting.
We shot some pick-ups on Saturday night, and we hope to wrap on UT's fall break which is Oct. 9-12.

shortness.

Through The Yards

We shot some more this past weekend. We drove Darren's car through some backyards without obtaining permission first. We had the much-more qualified-to-make-a-movie-than-us Mark Cowart come out and fan our actors with reflectors. We had our entire cast onscreen at once for the first time.
We got about 2 hours of sleep.
And then we all went back to work/school today, only barely alive.

We're close....so close.....

The Champion And His Burning Time Closet

Hey folks,
Just wanted to announce something very cool. As of today, a band called The Champion And His Burning Flame will officially be composing the score for the movie.
The Champion is the current band of my longtime friend and collaborator Dave Arnold (who composed the score for the original short), and we met tonight to go over theme ideas, and I can't tell you how excited I am.
If you're skeptical, curious, and/or overwhelmingly thrilled, check out their MySpace to hear some songs from their most recent project "The French EP," which is hands down some of the best music I've heard in a very long time.

Get excited. Otherwise you'll be left out.

Another good day of shots. See you all over Labor Day weekend? Yes.

New photos yay!

Good to be back and shooting. Looking forward to Saturday.

New Mexico

We're currently about to go to bed as we all spend the night here in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. (which we just found out was named after a game show)

This is at White Sands National Park.

Lots of fun has been had such as spending all day in the desert, eating good meals, having good conversation, jumping off of sand dunes, and poking HUGE spiders. All the while we have been having Time Closet convos here and there and although tired, are ready to get back to shooting. As far as I know, we have about a 65-70% chunk of the movie finished. There are bugs EVERYWHERE.

Production Diary 3

We were rained out for a little while today. But we still finished everything we were supposed to finish. Except for one scene.

Next week we'll be taking a production break/vacation to New Mexico where, at some point, we'll be watching Facing the Giants. We'll let you know how much fun we're having while we're there.

It's Become A Drug

In the process of shooting this movie, one of the most prevalent recurrences has been the way Jeff has chosen to respond to people who opt to use sarcasm for any form of self-expression. Jeff will stop what he's doing, look you in the eye, and with a face straighter than light, correct you or question you as if you were speaking literally.
I pulled up GarageBand today and happened to find the first half of our table reading we did back in May. I forgot we recorded this. I dropped the cursor to a random point in the timeline and hit play, and discovered that we had plenty of warning ahead of time for this crap:

Production Diary 2

Production Diary 1

David Kiern is graciously and beautifully shooting and editing this behind the scenes stuff for us. It's just another effective tactic in keeping our ego's as high as possible throughout the shoot.

It's Dinosaurs.

Last night we shot outside. At night.
We pulled off a ridiculously cool steadicam shot. Not bad for the very first exterior night shot in our entire lives.
Kristen shot her first scenes (yep, there's actually a girl in this one, and she's really good).
Arley repeatedly placed large pots of plants in Tyler's designated path for previously mentioned steadicam shot.
Jeff took his shirt off.
Darren officially put "Murder, She Wrote" into the movie.
Lauren Smith brought us Rice Krispy Treats and Brownies.
My parents let us turn their AC off for half an hour, and somehow lived.
Tyler revealed to me that the To-Do List written on his character's arm throughout the movie has included the term, "It's Dinosaurs," in every scene shot so far.

We finished our first week of shooting.

Apparently, it was awkward photo night for everyone. Jeff wasn't wearing a shirt, Kristin gave quite the seducing pose, and Darren... Well Darren was just being himself. 11 new photos are up on my flickr.

almost a full week!

So we are entering into day 5 of shooting and it has been BUSY so far. The footage looks great and all the actors are delivering very well. Today was a little bit flustering because we were supposed to shoot ALL outdoors and it ended up raining so we had to completely change everything that we were doing and for a lot of things go off the cuff. I love this picture of Tyler, Seth and I because it basically summed up what went on that day: Tyler wore a collared shirt and didn't feel very well, Seth is hunched over planning on what is going to happen and wondering about the reason that something isn't working and I am carrying hot equipment with gloves on whilst purposely annoying Tyler.

I'm looking forward to a few things in the next few days.....
- Shooting some of the inserts with Daniel Hassell
- Kristen's first day
- the outside, glidecam scenes
- hopefully seeing some of the footage cut up

ONWARDS!

Sorry I had to bail early today, that pizza pasta wasn't mixing too well. I hope we're shooting tomorrow night cause I'm ready for some diversity in my photos. Aren't you? 10 new shots total up on my flickr (see sidebar).

Mas!

Another great day of shooting! I'm really impressed with how much we are accomplishing each day. Given our history in speedy filmmaking. Pray for no rain!

WHOA!

oh man, look at this blog!

What Kind Of Day Has It Been

You may find here that none of the posts have included more than about eight and a half actual words. It's because everyone involved has gotten home the past two nights and checked to see if they were still alive. Except Clint. He's got actual stamina and energy, whereas I fed all of mine to a dog or something over the past 2 days.
Day 1 started for me in the ER. My son has Croup, and we found that out when he woke us up at 11:30pm barking like a dog. His barking turned out to be his attempt at breathing, and so we were at the ER until about 3:30am. (He's doing great, though, as seen here with Uncle Ben and Uncle Darren:)

The rest of day 1 was a completely divine work of art. We shot four (FANTASTIC) scenes and got out on time. I came home incredibly fulfilled, but also incredibly worried that everything was going to fall apart at any minute. Because, you know, I just have to think that way.

Day 2 wasn't the debacle I expected it to be, but it wasn't the best day I've ever had in my entire life. We got off to a slow start and never seemed to get our engine running. Honestly it felt like we were still running off Day 1's fuel, chugging toxic fumes essentially. We were also filming a lot of inserts of stoplights, which, I'm convinced, are incapable of delivering a satsifying level of onscreen energy, no matter what lens you use. They just sit there and shine on cars, guiding traffic, a bunch of uninspiring sons of b's. It also felt like we were underprepared and understaffed. My theory is that it's because we were underprepared and understaffed.
And yet after all the fumes and untalented stoplights, I came home, strangely enough, feeling more fulfilled than I did on Day 1, more excited to take on tomorrow, to point at things and frame things with my hand, to rig heavy cameras and spring-loaded arms to Jeff and push Ben down the stairs and instruct Tyler to choke Darren, and then to make everyone do all of this a minimum of twelve times. I can't wait to get up tomorrow and go to work on Day 3.
As long as my arms and legs don't fall off first.