Great Work. Keep Your Focus

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

My first thought is directed at the cast and crew of this energetic endeavor. They have truly come together over the least few weeks to turn out amazingly artistic shots, that will add up to highly creative scenes, that will be edited together into an excellent and entertaining motion picture. My hat is off to each and every one of them.

For the novices, this film was their own coming of age experience. For the veterans, it was a great way to remember how personal and passionate a film performance is. We shot this movie in the heart of Silicon Valley, and even though so much technology will be used to ultimately bring it to the screen, there are some valuable principles to remember: Film making has its own "circle of life". The audience is human. The story needs to touch their hearts. The performances need to stir emotion. The reactions create buzz. The word of mouth drives more humans to the box office. The revenue will help create the next great film. True artists and filmmakers are in it for the continuity of this experience.

Daniel and Brad, as founders of Anchange, set forth to appeal to audiences in a very sincere way. Each of their projects leading up to Palo Alto has been about the story and the art of telling it. Joined on Palo Alto by Steve and Tony, the team has matured to become a bona fide independent film production company. As they recruited students and professionals to share in the experience of making this film, Anchange has never strayed from its roots. Those who needed mentoring readily found it on set, and those in a position to mentor readily gave of their knowledge and experience. As the cast began to take shape, it became clear that all who signed on shared the thrill of the mission. One by one, as their roles in the film wrapped, they expressed honest appreciation for having been a part of this earnest adventure.

My heartfelt appreciation goes out to all who have contributed of their time, ability, talent, craft and funding. To our investors, a very special thanks for making it all possible. To the crew, we hope that the long nights, and weeks away from home will translate into successful careers ahead of you. To the cast, what can we say? You have absolutely put your faith in us to carry your outstanding performance to the awaiting audience. We will continue to work tirelessly to deliver the rewards you have earned and deserve. To our friends at Lionsgate Entertainment, thanks for your ever present helping hand. To Daniel, Brad, Steve and Tony - I am very proud of you. Your combination of business acumen and creativity will serve you and all your films well.

Early in the production process, I gave Daniel a metaphor for the focus we would need to make this picture. "It is like walking a tightrope", I told him. "You must never lose sight of the rope. Never allow yourself to be thrown off balance. I promise you, Daniel, there is a platform at the end of this rope. Your job is to get us there." He and Steve have done an amazing job of managing the business aspects of this production. Whenever we had a moment of euphoria over incremental success, we would quickly remind ourselves - "back to the rope". As we enter post production, this will continue to be the mantra.

I wish continued good luck to our golden team of cast and crew. Aaron, Johnny, Justin, Autumn, Ben and Tom. Thanks. And thanks again. To the growing audience that has found us here, and to those who still await discovering Anchange's work - we truly appreciate your support.

The producer of filmdom's greatest franchise once took me to sit in the back of a small theatre in a small town to gauge the response to his work. The pleasure he had from hearing the reaction of a random audience far surpassed the roar of a crowd along the red carpet on opening night. That exemplifies honest passion for this business. The producer is Rick McCallum. His trilogy of work at Lucasfilm includes Episodes I, II and III of Star Wars. A few weeks ago, I carried several rough cuts of Palo Alto to Rick at his summer hideaway in Europe. As we watched them together, I could see the swell of pride combine with awe at the work of this talented young team. Rick's entry follows mine. I can tell you that he meant every word of his praise - expletives included ;) PLE

KUDOS from Rick McCallum

By Rick McCallum producer of Star Wars: Episodes I, II, III

I've known Daniel since the day he was born. Within a few years, it was obvious he had set his sights on film making. His early works with Brad showed extraordinary promise. When he came to see me at the Skywalker Ranch earlier this year, I was amazed that they were ready to undertake their first feature length motion picture. A few weeks ago, his dad showed me some rough cuts from Palo Alto, and I was overwhelmed by the obvious quality and attention to detail that had gone into production. It is amazing that a student based production company could be so advanced in their thinking and execution.

Dan - I am so f***ing proud of you. The film looks fantastic. It is beautifully lit, and the acting is superb. My congratulations to all the cast and crew. Awesome !!! I didn't produce my first film until I was 25! You're years ahead of me!!!! I am so proud of you. All the best - Rick.

A Huge Thank You to Veronica Mars

By Dan Engelhardt producer

One of our actors, Ryan Hansen, has recurring role on the critically acclaimed Veronica Mars. Needless to say this created a fair amount of scheduling conflicts for me because for the most part T.V. Shows do not have the luxury of shifting their production plans – a new episode has to be ready for each week. Consequently, I spent a lot of time moving things around to make sure that when Ryan was available, we were ready to go.

These last few days got really crazy since one of our other actors, Aaron Ashmore, is on Smallville and had one week to spare for us before heading back to Vancouver. We had no choice but to squeeze our schedule and hope that Ryan was available at similar times. On Friday (8/18) I got a call from Ryan’s manager saying that he needed to shoot with Veronica on Tuesday and Thursday of the following week. We had been hoping to shoot with Ryan Monday – Wednesday so this was a huge problem. Normally I would have moved some dates around, but this was the end of our shoot so there was nothing we could add to those days.

I quickly called the producer of Veronica, who is an amazingly nice guy. He informed me that Ryan was shooting Tuesday morning – this we could make work! Ryan would shoot in Palo Alto on Monday night, he would fly down to San Diego in the morning, shoot with Veronica, and fly back to us for a Tuesday night shoot. A huge thank you to Ryan for working with a crazy 48 hours. Problem solved (so we thought)…

On Tuesday afternoon I called down to Howard, the producer of Veronica, to check on Ryan’s wrap time, and received some unfortunate news. He had to shift the days schedule a bit, and Ryan was not going to be wrapped until 8pm. This meant with travel time, he would not be on set in Palo Alto until 10-11pm putting us in a situation where had to rush the day. Still, after talking with Brad and Tony, I felt like we could get it done.

Around 7pm I get a call from Ryan. He was on set in San Diego and concerned that they were not going to wrap by 8pm (fyi: the last flight out of San Diego is at 855 so if he didn’t wrap by then we would lose him for the day). I quickly called Howard who re-confirmed this unfortunate fact. I explained our situation to him, which was if Ryan didn’t shoot with us we were going to have to cut scenes out of the movie. He politely said he would look into the situation, and call me back.

Cut to a few minutes later: Howard calls with his production manager on the line. They have redone the schedule, and pushed Ryan’s scene to another day!!! We were saved… Ryan left set at 8pm, made is 855 flight and arrived on our set at 1045. I owe Howard a huge favor…. moving his tight TV schedule around could not have been easy, and we here at PALO ALTO truly appreciate it. We had a lot to shoot in very little time, but the crew worked fast, and we made it happen. What a way to wrap production.

Week 6 Gallery

The Week 6 Gallery is here:

The Hood Mount

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

Last night we needed to film more car driving stuff. This time we couldn't be bothered with our trailer because we had three scenes to film and needed something quick and dirty. The solution was renting a hood mount that we could use for the camera and the lights but still allow our actor to drive. A self-contained car rig is not hard during the day but at night you run into some problems.



See all that crap? It needs to live on the front of the car, between the driver and the innocent pedestrians. The big light also blinds anyone in the car so you need to mount it high enough so that the driver can see. But the higher it is the less light actually reaches actor and they become a nice white spot on our negative.

Another problem is rolling the camera. Some camera packages come with remote start/stops but ours did not. This meant we had to stop the car, run to the front, roll the camera, run back into the car, drive, film, stop the car, and run to the front, and stop the camera. What this means is we have about 30 feet of film where the actors are sitting in the car and someone can be seen running around.

The third problem is power. Lights typically use more power than a regular car inverter can provide. This night we actually used very little power but only realized we needed any at all after I had assembled the hood mount. The hood that the battery is under. We decided to toss a small generator in the back of the truck with our sound mixer and hope for the best.



Usually the solution to most of these problems is having the actors towed by a truck with everything we need on it. But we didn't have the time or the resources for it. Our solution was to cross our fingers and drive at 3am (home to very little traffic, most of it drunk).

Luckily we made it. However we must have seen about 10 cop cars on the same road as us. We were pulled over once but were let off. In LA we would have been in jail.

The Cowper House

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

The past three nights we filmed at the "Cowper House". The Cowper house is a house we rented in Palo Alto to be used primarily as housing for our actors and as a set for a few scenes. We shot 4 days at the Cowper house - one way back with Autumn and Johnny and three this past weekend. When we shot this weekend we had to re-dress the house to look as it did when we shot at the house earlier. This was a big task for production design. But it paid off.

Since the location was fixed for three days it meant we did not have to break down the set each night. Set up and break down usually takes 4 hours every shooting day and is really stressful for everyone involved. It also contributes to our need to rush production throughout the night. The last three days we were able to leave and return each night like civilized filmmakers. Most people received over 6 hours of sleep!

Shooting at a house also provided glorious luxaries like clean and working bathrooms, warm seating areas, power, and a kitchen. One morning I stayed an extra hour on set after everyone left because I was comforable, lazy, and had no need be anywhere. Maybe for our next project we'll shoot in a sound stage and film-make like kings!

A Message From Clara

By Clara Aranovich third assistant camera

So I guess being buddies w/ Tony and Brad back in our Palo Alto High School days payed off for this little aspiring filmmaker... because as of last week I joined the happy crew of this feature. For now I'm acting as the first and second AC's (re: whole camera dept), assisting the remarkably knowledgeable Eon... since everyone (including the Rachels and Matt, whom I all loved) is gone.

We've been shooting in the Cowper house (a house on Cowper Street) for the past few days, finishing up Alec and Anthony's sequence. The crew continually seems to vary in size from day to day, but it works since the small location lends itself to a leaner group (re: Crew Lite). It makes me wonder how things were back in the earlier weeks, with the full cast and larger set-ups.

What's nice about this location has been our ability to walk off it without striking everything and having to rebuild it all in the morning. Although the neighbors seem to hate us and the sprinklers make for some unwarranted excitement.

Either way, things have been going well for me, at least. I spend lots of time with the camera which I love, but ultimately seem to have been designated 'Head Massage and Head Scratch Giver'... at least people are nice to me? And when I'm not relishing Aaron's easy laughs at my Borat impression, Brad's self-proclaimed 'racial slur genius,' assorted flatulence, or Ian Dickinson's "Picture is UP, picture is UP!!!"... I am simply soaking in the niceness, niceitude, and niceity of being on the set of Palo Alto... and I'll be sad to have it end.

It really is such a pleasure to be back in the company of other cinematically-minded peeps-- especially these ones :)

Yours,
Clara "Click-Clacks" Aranovich

Autoshop

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

We shot at my old High School's auto shop earlier this week. We couldn't have dreamed of a nicer location. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Week 5 Gallery

Week 5 Gallery is here:

A Message from Peter Rand

By Peter Rand production sound mixer

Were getting close to the end of production so I thought I’d put in my two cents worth. I’m the production sound mixer and the old man of the set with experience. I came to this project having worked two days last summer with Brad, Tony, Dan and a few of the other crew members. I knew that the majority of the crew was young and coming up film makers but I never thought I would see such enthusiasm and to watch them go through such an amazing learning curve. The first days on set they were tripping over there own feet, they didn’t know the names of the equipment or how to use it and here we are 5 weeks later, they are as proficient as they can be learning everything on there own without the help of anyone with experience. Needless to say after reading the other blogs you are aware of the trials and tribulations in the making of this film but when all is said and done the final product will speak for itself.

Two Locations in One Night

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

The other day we filmed at two exterior locations. This meant that we needed to set up the generator and the big lights, break down the generator and big lights, move, and set up the generator and big lights a second time - all in the same night. Usually the set up and break down is the biggest thing we do on a regular night.

We shot the exterior of the abandoned house at an amazing location. Sam will point it out for you.



It was really spooky and awesome at the same time. just look at it.



It had a huge front lawn where Ladybird (production design) decided he'd try and fly. It inspired me to write my next film:



After the Abandoned house location we went to yet another location where we were filming pickups. The tricky thing about pickups is that we need to make sure the lighting matches exactly. For that we used reference pictures that were taken that day and in this case dailies from that day.



We also filmed out the back of a car and it required wranglers. The car was basically on a tether because we needed to feed power to the light that was mounted to it. this meant that Kenny and Vince had to wrangle the extension cord as the car drove by. 6mph might not seem that fast but when you are wrangling cable it is pretty ridiculous. Look how tired they are:

Creative Blog Title

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

Today is the first blog in awhile because, as I predicted, my macbook broke a second time and I needed to send it in for "repair". Lets just hope it survives this time.

The first part of this entry is going to be mainly about what happens on set that isn't filming. If you sit and think about it for awhile, we don't really film for that long when we are on set. Most of the time we are getting ready to film. When we are not filming we do things like take pictures of ourselves pretending to work:



Our best boy likes to steal my camera and take his zoom+long exposure shots of himself in the mirror. I don't know why he does this because the pictures are on my computer - he can't even add them to his myspace or anything.



Here you can see vince and sam. Enough said.



Look at that big smile on Dan. Normally I wouldn't put up this picture but he has been bugging me about putting more photos of him on the site. check.



This is me after only getting a few hours sleep for two nights in a row. Either that or I just fell asleep watching a poorly scripted scene... (ha ha).



But that night we did actually get a lot done. We filmed three scenes in one night that covered nearly 8 pages of the script. to make it work we had to black out the windows when the sun started to come up so it still felt like night time.



Brad and I even took over camera for a few takes - Brad operating and I focusing. Not because we needed to, just because we wanted to. Here is a picture of us really working for real.



Next up is a picture of the close attention to detail our production design team has. We a million pictures of our two actors in various boyfriend/girlfriend poses. That was a fun afternoon. We took the best ones and planted them around the room.



We also needed to work in a crude dolly shot into the scene. It worked by making a sled out of an old wheelchair.



It was a fun night.

A Message from Dylan Chapgier

By Dylan Chapgier grip, boom

It’s 6:14 in the morning on Saturday the 12 of August. Today, or Friday night, was an off day, and i have recently been informed that Saturday night will also be a night off. We have filmed for nearly a month and a half. It is exciting to hear that we are nearly complete with the film. I must say that at times, it is really hard to say that I enjoy making this film, especially when we have to begin and end the day unloading the truck with extremely heavy lights. But, at the end of the day, or at least after watching the daily’s, i must say that i feel proud of the work the crew and cast has pulled off.

Since this was my first time on a movie set, I had no idea what to expect, and boy was I surprised. When you watch a movie, you don’t realize the work and pain that went into making each individual shot in the film. As mentioned before in Rachel’s blog, setting up lights for each scene can take hours of labor. We usually don’t start rolling film until 11 at night, and the crew comes on set at 6 to start working. It’s a lot of back-breaking labor that, in my mind, the crew should receive more credit.

For this reason, I will take this opportunity to introduce you, the reader, to some of our crew.

Kenny is our key electric. He is in charge of the distribution of electricity along the set. This is a very tough job that he excels in very well. He’s in High school and loves to go long boarding. He’s done a bunch of other films and knows a lot about the technology used in the film-making.



Porgie is key grip. He has a this great talent of getting himself injured. His leg got stuck in our grip truck’s platform and recently had a 2 x 4 beam fall on his head, just to name a few. When he’s not hurting himself, he is an awesome guy to chill with.



Ichiban is the gaffer. His job to assign all of us jobs and make sure the scene looks pretty. He has blown me away with his knowledge of film making, especially at the age of 19. He has a great sense of humor and makes all of our jobs easier when he talks about his relations with our mothers.



Cody is boom. He took my job because he is more interested in sound and editing, and I am more interested in the photography and lighting of a shot. He is a great guy to have on set, especially when talking about the superiority of apple computers (if you can’t tell, I’m a mac owner myself).



Luis was on our team. He had to leave early because he needed to start making money on his own, and couldn’t keep up with both a day job and a night job. He is lives close by and is a great person to chat with. I wish we could still have him on set. He made our lives easy with the music played from his cell phone to the walkie talkies.



Vince is a great guy to have on set. He is super tall and has a belching ability that rivals that of Brad’s. Having him burp on the walkie-talkie gets me through the day. He also decided to leave early, but came back, and has been a great helping hand.



Rachel is AC 1. She has worked on a lot of other films and is quite experienced in film making. Being one of my house-mates, I usually give her ride to and from location everyday. Usually when we come back from location, we like to watch an episode of our favorite show, Arrested Development. She is a super-awesome person who has an equally awesome music selection.



Matt is AC 2. Like me, this is his first film shoot, and is doing a good job loading film magazines and running errands for both Rachels. Just like Georgie Porgie, he also has an extraordinary ability of getting himself hurt. One day it’s a door that falls on his face, another day he hurts his hand somehow. The crew recently pitched in to buy him a helmet, but for some odd reason, he doesn’t want to wear it.



I have had such a great time working close with these people. I only hope they enjoy my stupid jokes and annoying awkwardness. And i also hope i didn’t just embarace them.

Bringing You Guys up to Date

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

It has been awhile since my last blog entry which is just as well because I have been really busy. Luckily I’ve had some other people sending me entries to lighten my load. So this entry will attempt to bring everyone back up to speed with what we’ve been up to.

We filmed at my old high school with all four of our guys. Aaron Ashmore (Alec), Justin Mentell (Ryan), Johnny Lewis (Nolan), and Ben Savage (Patrick). We were filming the opening scene in the story where they all break into their old classroom to steal something that was confiscated by their teacher.



It was great to have them all here because they get along really well and in the scene I felt that they truly were good old friends. In reality they’ve only all just met.

The next night we went to a different high school to film all the boys before they break off for the night. It is there that we took this great picture of all of them together:



After that, everyone but Justin Mentell flew back to LA and we filmed some more car rig stuff. This time it was a little more sophisticated with a generator ratcheted to the front of the tow car. Brad had also spent his free time in the previous week welding on platforms for lighting and camera.





The following night was pretty intense. We were shooting another scene at our abandoned house which had since been completely cleaned up. We had to match the exact placement of ALL OUR PROPS. Down to the position of the very last beer can and the aggressiveness of its crumpling.



The night after that we filmed a slight throwback to American Graffiti. It included a familiar car character:



The night after that was more car stuff. The last of the Geo Metro car stuff. Justin and Eve were glad not to have anymore long dialogue scenes in that car. I don’t know what the big deal is, I liked it. The funk lingers on your clothes longer than any other car I’ve driven.



That brings us to yesterday where we filmed a crane shot. No dialogue and only one shot. It took us 4 hours to set up, 15 minutes to film and an hour and a half to break down… but believe it or not it was worth it



So that is the big update from me. We have about 12 more days of filming and then it is back to LA and back to seeing the sun for more than an hour or two each day.

Thoughts from the Boom Operator

By Cody Foltz boom, grip

Finally someone new on this page..naw I’m just joking, I love all you guys. Hey everyone I’m Cody Foltz AKA Cujo and I have been working as boom operator for most of the picture. I started out as a grip and maybe that’s why my poor arm had taken such a beating, not to mention my ankle. Yes it’s been tough but if life was always easy…well that just wouldn’t be any fun now would it. We’ve all been through a lot of adventures along the way. Just yesterday one of our key grips got taken to the hospital after suffering a blow to the head from a 2x4 but I’m happy to report he’s doing just fine, kudos to porgy :) (George M.)

One day we were shooting a bus stop scene and as we had done for street shoots; we would have grips blocking the surrounding streets to keep the area clear. I was working as a grip at the time and had been blocking traffic most of the night. Our A.D. Ian calls picture up and all of a sudden a vehicle comes around the corner, so I walk out to have the driver stop. Only this vehicle kept coming at me. Then right behind it was a cop car with its light blaring. I had to literally jump out of the way to avoid being hit, the driver hit his breaks, and before I could even process what was happening I heard a voice yell “get out of the car now!” I turn around to see two police officers with their guns drawn and pointed in my direction, I moved away as quickly as possible while trying not to draw any unnecessary attention. Soon about six more cop cars flood the streets and our key gaffer Ion M. had to hold up a black flag inches away from a patrol car to block the flashing lights from ruining our shot. That was one night I will certainly remember when we are all wrapped and done, if that ever even happens… It seems that each day our wonderful producer Dan is always adding more and more work days to principle photography, I guess he just loves the show too much to let it end.

Well if nearly getting run over wasn’t enough, I sprained my ankle and my right arm just one day decided to stop working. I suddenly found myself not being able to lift anything anymore. I couldn’t even lift the Chinese noodles with chopsticks to my mouth to eat one night, no joke. Peter I knew I should have listened to you about how to correctly hold a boom pole. Peter is our head sound mixer; he’s an awesome guy to work with and I really appreciate all his help and hard work.

Now to wrap this thing up finally, this has been one of the most fun and exciting experiences of my life. Working with such a talented cast and crew and just getting the opportunity to experience filmmaking firsthand has been absolutely unforgettable. Even after nearly four weeks of filming there’s always something new to learn, you can never learn enough. I hope all of you who are still reading this by now will go see our film once we make the Cannes Film Festival…YES WE CAN DO IT! Thanks for reading :)

“I couldn't sleep one night and I was sitting in my office and I realized that I was an independent filmmaker”. (Darren Aronofsky)

More Cinematographer Stills

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

Rachel sent me some more pictures. Once again these are stills she takes are taken with a camera that tries to match film camera to help her communicate with the colorist who is transfering the film to video.

Renting a Back Lot: Anchange Style

By Dan Engelhardt producer

This entire film has been shot on location in Palo Alto. No sound stages, standing sets, or back lots. The reason for this is twofold – we are hoping to hold true to the feel of Palo Alto, and it is for the most part cheaper to shoot on location.

Yesterday, however we need a fairly controlled and empty environment. It was a car scene in which the actors needed to stop in the middle of the street – so El Camino didn’t seem like a good idea. In order to light the scene properly we needed as much available light as possible – street lamps, store fronts etc. Unfortunately for us most streets with lots of lights are busy. The solution we came up with was downtown Los Altos, which empties out at 7pm. You have to love small town, USA. By 8pm we had Main Street to ourselves. We used one of the large parking lots for staging our equipment, and craft services. Our picture car was on a trailer stationed on Main. We used one of crew members Golf’s to transport actors from set our staging area, and essentially had a back lot for free. The city allowed us to use the street throughout the night, and a restaurant left its exterior bathroom open for us. Who says you need millions in overhead to have control of your filming environment?

The Ever Changing Schedule

Dan Engelhardt producer

We are amazingly lucky to have a cast young, but extremely credible actors. Our five leads all have major credits, and are constantly working on big budget productions. While this fact is great for the quality of the film it presents a huge challenge for me as the producer. Every few days I receive a call from an agent needing us to revise the production schedule.

Last Wednesday, for example, I received a call regarding one of our actors who was suddenly unavailable for a shoot set to take place the next day. To make matters worse it was a scene that had been lined up on one of the only days that our four male leads were available. In order to not fall behind schedule I had to move shoots set for the following week forward - this meant calling locations, actors, equipment vendors etc. - hoping that all the resources would align in under 24 hours.

Shortly after this call, we found out that another one of our actors was unavailable to shoot a couple weeks down the road. Again days had to be moved, and the schedule had to be heavily revised - flights, accommodation plans, you name it. I was literally on the phone from 1pm until 8pm making these changes. Another issue that was introduced a few days later was “facial hair.” One of the leads was recently booked on a big budget movie that requires them to have facial hair. A day after we wrap with him he needs to be on another set with a beard. Because our budget is smaller, and the date we are shooting with him was moved from a previously locked date we have little leverage to require him to shave. For this reason Brad, Tony and I are trying to come up with creative ways to either to explain the beard through story points and /or shift the schedule in a way that eliminates the issue. So far we have moved one of the chase scenes to the day in question. This will hopefully allow us to avoid seeing the facial hair, but still allow us to get the scenes we need.

To compensate for these major shifts we have setup a week break during principle photography. During this time frame we will return some of our equipment to Los Angeles, undergo pre-production for the revised shoots, and take a few pickups that normally would have taken place well after production. Making this shift could potentially affect the budget, but hopefully returning some of our gear, and shifting to guerilla style filmmaking for the last week will minimize the added expense…. as luck would have it the scenes that will be left to shoot during this final week are pretty simple, and do not require huge lighting setups.

In the end the time spent to shift the schedule, and any added cost is well worth it. We have a talented cast signed on, and one that will be giving us a huge amount of exposure based on the other projects they are involved with.

Week 4 Gallery

Week 4 gallery here:

A Message from the Director of Photography

By Rachel Morrison Director of Photography

FADE IN:

If I weren't so exhausted, I would have written much sooner, but I will do my best to start from the beginning. Alas, the beginning seems like so long ago...

When I first signed on to shoot "Palo Alto," I was told my entire crew would consist of fairly inexperience high school (and a few college) students. Needless to say, I was nervous. Very, very nervous. "We will teach them," Brad said, without hesitation. Ok???

...And so the process began. With the extraordinary assistance of Larry Parker, we scheduled lighting workshops at Mole-Richardson stages to train the kids on everything from basic set safety, to the ins-and-outs of cinema lighting.

Many of the crew had barely worked on a set before, let alone anything even close to what we were setting out to do - a 30 something day shoot, comprised entirely of nights. No sooner had we got our equipment, than we started an intensive program of night lighting - attempting to familiarize everyone with the gear, the walkie talkie lingo, set procedure etc. We met at a parking lot off the 405 and ran drills until about 4AM, in an attempt to get the crew used to working nights and sleeping days. To an outsider, the whole set-up was pret-ty sketchy.

But "the beginning" started way before all that. It started with a conversation with Dan, where he suggested we buy a school bus, which could be used as the picture car and double as a means to haul our gear. "What!!!???," I demanded. We NEED a truck. With a lift gate! There were discussions that started by Daniel asking why we needed walkie talkies and ended with me pretending to scream "Pan the 10K" at the top of my lungs [at 3 in the morning]. "Got it, got it" Dan reconciled.

Like any good indie, this one has always been a delicate balance of what is necessity versus what is expendable. Many of my wishes, Brad answered with, "but I can build that". And build he did. See pictures of the 22-foot crane that was ingeniously designed in Brad's backyard. Other tools would have made our lives a billion times easier, but just couldn't be purchased on such a small budget.

CUT TO:

We are over half way done with the shoot. The crew has been extraordinary - rising to every challenge and impressing me time and time again with their quick insight and knowledge learned.

At only 19, the gaffer, Eon, is one of the oldest on the crew and is not only an incredible team leader, but is extremely wise in his ability to judge light. George, had barely set a C-Stand before this shoot, but is now Key Gripping up a storm He is 16.

Going in to the shoot, the position I was most concerned about was the Best Boy Electric because this crewmember deals with all the power. Running and distributing from a 500amp generator is not only essential to any production, but safety-wise, it is truly a matter of life and death. Kenny has stepped up to the challenge and exceeded even my best expectations. He is only 15 years old! When I was 15, I think my biggest responsibility was not screwing up the orders at the local Au Bon Pain.

Rachel, Matt, Dillon, Kujo, Juneau, Vince, Luis, Jon, Jay... everyone has busted their asses in both the camera and grip/electric departments and for this I am truly grateful. This production more than any other I've worked on is really a TEAM effort.

OUR BIGGEST CHALLENGES:

From a cinematography standpoint, the hardest thing about this shoot (besides the hours of course) is that night out here in Palo Alto is DARK. Very dark. Of course, you say, what did you expect? But the difference shooting here than shooting, say in a city, is that there is no light in the background, and there are very rarely sources from which to motivate light.

Normally, one might be able to light the foreground elements in relation to the background, but here you need to light EVERYTHING. This can be extremely time consuming. Every set-up, you are dealing with a blank slate. When you turn around for a reverse shot, your subject may still be lit, but you have to light the background all over again. And for those who don't realize this, it takes a lot of light to make things visible on film. And trees, especially, which seem to be everywhere, eat light like you wouldn't believe. And a lot of light takes a lot of time. Oh, and in case I didn't mention it, lights are heavy.

Another huge challenge is that because we don't have many sources to motivate light i.e. city buildings, streetlights, storefronts, we often have to make MOONLIGHT the motivating source. This wouldn't be a big deal if we had the proper tools for moonlight, but we cannot afford condors or cherry pickers or helium balloons. We have high-high-roller stands and mombo combos which can maybe get to 20 feet in the air, depending on which light fixture we use, but really can't get high enough to provide a 'toppy' source = moonlight. Aaaagghhh.

This has been our biggest battle time and time again - How to cheat moonlight for night exteriors without ugly shadows or rapid light fall-off or gigantic specular reflections from shiny metallic surfaces such as the cars that are practically featured characters in the film. It is all much more difficult than one would expect.

The only other consistent challenges are 'found' locations (read white walls) and scheduling- we spend over 1/3 of our day, nearly every day, setting up and breaking down. In over 3 weeks, we have had exactly 1 'walkaway,' where we could leave the gear in the location overnight... But enough tech talk and enough about the challenges because the point is, overall, we are definitely prevailing.

Daniel starts and ends each day [and by 'day' I mean 'night'] by saying "another day" and slapping me high-five... This is almost like a metaphor. "Another day???" at the start, with the uncertainty of what indie problem will arise... met by, "Another day!!!" when we wrap, with a sigh of exhaustion, and the pride and enthusiasm of accomplishment in the tone of his voice.

FIN.

Cinematographer Stills

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

Our DP Rachel Morrison sent me some stills she has taken from set. These stills were captured with a digital camera that comes pretty close to reporudcing the settings on our movie camera. What this means is that these pictures are essentially what a freeze frame of the movie will look like. Rachel uses these pictures to check lighting in a scene because otherwise you cannot see what the camera is capturing until after the film is developed. Rachel said she has written be a blog so that will be very interesting I am sure.

15 Hour Film Delivery: Anchange Style

By Dan Engelhardt producer

At the beginning of our August 4 th shoot Matt, our 2 nd AC, mentioned that we were running low on film, and that we were probably due for our second batch from Kodak. Under normal circumstances this would be a simple request – my first call the following morning would be to our sales rep. and the problem would be solved. Unfortunately for us we are shooting 400 miles from LA, and this announcement was made on a Friday night.

There are a good number of 24 hour film dealers in LA, but San Francsico is a different story. As we wrapped on Saturday morning (7AM) I began my phone calls – at this point I had been up for 19 hours. The plan was to have Kevin our editor, who is currently in Los Angeles, pickup a few roles of film, drive them to LAX, and ship the package through United Airlines’ cargo service. A perfect plan, I thought. At 9am, after coordinating our after hours pickup and payment with Film Emporium, I called Kevin. He quickly drove to Hollywood (from Culver City), and then headed back to LAX.

At the United front desk he ran into a problem. They recently changed their policies, and only a “credited shipper” can send packages over 1 lbs. Suddenly we were stuck with no way to get our film to Palo Alto in time for the shoot set to take place in less then 12 hours. It was now 12pm, and I had been up for a solid 24 hours. I began pooling friends, and family hoping someone might be willing to fly to Los Angeles, and drive the film to Palo Alto for us (as luck would have it my sisters car was in LA even though my sister was here in Palo Alto). After my parents and I made a few calls, a close friend was willing to do us a huge favor, and after being up for 27 hours I was able to sleep for 3, and head over to set. At 10pm on August 5 our savior arrived with a fresh box of film – we were saved.

Message from the Assistant Director

By Ian Dickinson assistant director

Hey everybody! It’s your friendly local Assistant Director Ian Dickinson! Some of you may be wondering just what the heck an Assistant Director does round these parts, and I hope I might shed a little light on the subject!

Let me just state right now that I do a lot of work. And because I span that awkward divide between Production management and Crew, that work provides me a unique view behind the scenes on all aspects of filmmaking. For instance, on the typical day, my first activity is waking up and sending out the call sheets. I eat my daily bowl of grape nuts while tying up the next day’s call sheets, and then I make call after call to make sure everyone has directions and rides to the location. Once that is settled, I shower, take care of other personal tasks, and drive myself and the boom operator (assuming I don’t have any extra tasks like picking up a prop) to Brad’s house to pick up crew members. And this is all in the hour before I start work!

Once on location I constantly check that everyone is working as hard as they can. I organize the shoot so we can go faster. I help the grips set up, I make sure the actors are in position and I pass out the walkies. On top of that I have to make sure everyone constantly knows the time. From the moment I arrive on set I can’t afford to relax except for a few minutes during lunch and then at the end of my shift. Stress is a daily part of my life, because the clock is always ticking. I sometimes have visions of myself as a giant walking stopwatch that goes around and pokes people just to annoy them and tell them the time.

So on and on it goes until the end of the day when I help the grips break down the set and find a dumpster to take care of all of our trash. During this part of the morning, because it is usually 7 am, I wonder if I could apply to be on the Worlds Dirtiest Jobs.

So yes, I work almost every hour of the day (and then have anxiety dreams at night), but I still find myself invigorated by the cornucopia of new activities in which I am fully engaged. Here is a list of things I have tried or experienced for the first time on this shoot:

Bought a bisexual porno film
Bought a banana hammock
Welded a piece of metal
Driven an El Camino
Driven a 67 Mustang
Have a big-time actor constantly deride me for my politeness
Get more than 15 phone calls in a 6 hour period
Talked in Italian
Hooked up a trailer to a hitch and then drive backwards with it
Used a longboard as a really useful transportation device
Driven a fifteen foot high truck
Watched a black widow fight a white spider
So overall it has been a pretty great experience. Again, the work is hard, but honestly, I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. The people are great, the actors are funny (notice how I don’t lump them in with “people”), and the finished product is something I will be proud of for the rest of my life. So while some days I might grit my teeth and pull my hair (see: everyday), I know that in the end all of this is worth it.

Generator Shuffle

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

I was up for 30 hours yesterday. Up at noon to go to the Apple store to fix my new Black Macbook (which is now completely dead - expect slow updates of the site as a result) and then making calls trying to secure extras and locations. Then we were on set from 6pm to 12pm setting up, filming, and breaking down. At 12pm it was time for a small team of idiots to drive from Palo Alto to Oakland on no sleep to swap generators. On the way the generator needed to be topped off which required a 30 minute visit to the gas station. Cheveron was very happy to provide me with $350 worth of gass to fill up the tank. In the process my credit card was flagged for suspicious use. I don't blame them, typically I buy $50 of gas once a month for my little car. $350 is the most I've ever spent at a gas station.

Once we swapped generators it was a slow drive back to the Palo Alto where I was greeted with a nice box to ship off my computer to be "fixed". This is not the proper place for it but I definitely want people to know that Apple built me a defective computer and their customer service department is doing a horrible job of keeping me happy.

Extra Shuffle

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

The last two nights we shot interior party scenes and required a bunch of extras to fill the first floor of our party house. We figured about 50 or so would do it but apparently you need a lot more than that. 50 filled out about half of the house and we needed our character to walk through the entire house.

The solution we came up with was an extra shuffle where we'd walk through one half of the house and then move all our extras into the other half and film there. It got pretty ridiculous because some of the extras were more distinctinve than others so we had to make sure the same 8 foot tall chinese guy with the top hat wasn't in every shot. Our AD (Ian Dickinson) had the difficult job of directing all the extras who were mainly teenagers.

On the second night the same kind of thing happened. Except with a twist. All of our extras were girls! We had maybe two guys total. So to mask the fact that it was an incredibly unrealistic party turn out we filled the scene with crew members that had some down time. In one particular shot, Ben Savage (patrick) changed outfits and played an extra in his own scene. We'll see if you guys can find it when you see the film.

A Special Thank You to our Vendors

By Dan Engelhardt producer

One of the most important elements in pulling together this project has been the support we have received from vendors in Hollywood and the San Francisco Bay Area. Our vendors have been flexible with the ever-changing schedule and beyond generous in the amount of equipment and services they have provided us with.

All of us involved with the project extend our deepest gratitude to Ric at Panavision, Lorette at Kodak, Eryn at Westside, Frieder at Kino Flo, John and Carmelo at Ari, Jani at Bigshot, Alan at Cole Ave. Studios, Brian at DTC, Ed at Barger-Bag Light, Max at Frankel and Associates, Larry at Mole-Richardson and Stephanie at Entertainment Partners.

Throughout the making of this movie I was thrown into to quite a few sticking scenarios (some of which were documented on this blog) and all of the individuals above went out of there way to help. We still have pickups to do, and I am sure we will continue to find a helping hand in these companies.

Production Update

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer



In an effort to keep our producer Dan happy, I am posting a photo that includes him on the website. Also photographed is executive producer Gersh, director Brad, associate producer/casting Jason, and myself. Happy Dan?

This is the first entry of our fourth week of production and I am proud to say we are over the hill. Lately we've experiencing some hiccups that have forced us to move our schedule around last minute. This is a big deal because we have to fly our actors in and we try to minimize the number of flights and number of days actors are in town without a scene. We also need to tip toe around our break days because everyone is really exhausted.

If you haven't noticed, I have received some blog support by some other people working on the project. I am going to push for more crew to give me write ups so you guys don't have to read the same voice all the time. Expect in the near future a blog from the assistant director, cinematographer, and sound mixer. Dan and the stunt coordinator submitted earlier this week.