Pick-Up Gallery

The gallery for pick-up filming is here:

Second Week of Pick-Ups

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

So we had our second weekend of pick-ups last weekend to get rid of the last of the "Scene Missing" title cards that litered throughout the film. We did two car rigs and a scene in a Psychiatric Hospital. This was the official last weekend of shooting, all that is left now is little inserts and B-roll footage - but we do have a film! Here are some pictures from the weekend:



We all thought we'd seen the last of the Tiede-Mobile. Here it is becoming a "drivable" picturecar.



If you were wondering why I put "Drivable" in quotes in the above caption, it is because this is what you see when looking out the windshield. It was a pain in the ass to drive but it got a lot of attention at the gas station.



Kevin our editor played the role of locaiton sound mixer for the weekend. Here he is doing nothing out of the ordinary.



The next morning we did our second rig, this time on a BMW. Notice how all of a sudden we found a bunch of furniture pads to protect the car from the mount - the Tiede-Mobile had no protection. And if we had put furnipads on the Tiede-Mobile it would be used to protect the Mount, not the car.



Hallway. Producer Dan having a cameo in the background.



This is what directing looks like in case you couldn't tell.



Human C-Stand.

There will be a gallery up this weekend with pictures from both pick-up weekends.

Filling the Generator

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

At the end of filming last weekend Dan (Producer) and I were on our own returning all the gear we rented. Keep in mind we had a 22 foot truck's worth of equipment. It took all day but the most eventful return by far was the generator. No, not because it was huge and difficult to navigate through LA traffic, but because we had to fill it up prior to returning it.

Now people that have been tuning in for awhile now realize that filling up the generator is something we did every few days in Palo Alto, "so why is Tony building this up?". Well the answer can be found in the following series of camera phone pictures.



So this is the hole for the gas tank. Notice the hole the nozzle is suppose to fit in. This generator also takes gasoline, and I almost screwed up big time when I didn't notice the sign as I held up the diesel pump. All the equipment we've used has been diesel until today, so an honest mistake. Luckily I noticed before any damage was done.



This is the nozzle. It is exactly the same size as the hole. In order to fill up the generator we'd have to "Make it work" by just holding the nozzel up agaist the other hole and hope gas would flow nicely.



"Wait" Dan said, "Why don't we just get a funnel". Luckily for Dan, he made this comment before any gas was pumped, but AFTER I attempted to pump, failing only because of a time out with the fuel system.



There is your paper funnel Dan. Have fun being the one holding it. Anybody that knows exactly how fast and in what shape fuel shoots out of a gas nozzle knows that the smile on Dan's face won't be there for very long



Oh wait, Luis, a man who undoubtedly acted upon seeing Dan and I almost make a very stupid decision, showed us the proper filling procedure.



Oh, it twists off! In our defense we didn't have a wrench. If we did we would have immediately found this solution.

Pick-Up Filming in Los Angeles

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

Last weekend we shot for two nights picking up little inserts and scenes we didn't have time for during principle production. Now that school has started for almost everyone involved we are limited to only weekends and we have a lot of extra crew memebers helping us out. Now because I know my writing isn't as interesting as pictures, I will now post a selection of pictures from filming.









Once we finished filming we needed to process and transfer the film right away so our editors could start working. We have deadlines after all. So after Dan and I returned the equipment on Monday (an new entry about this is coming), Dan dropped off the film Monday evening. Then Tuesday afternoon I grabbed the developed film and took it to IVC for a telecine session (digitizing the film for editing). I took some cool photos while I was there for anyone that gets excited about lots of buttons and switches. Thank you to Steve who operated the process.





It was a busy weekend. Now the editors have the digitized footage and can begin editing what we shot this weekend. After next weekend I'll post a new gallery for pick-ups.

Post-Production: The Journey Continues

By Kevin Gasca editor

I signed on to be the editor of Palo Alto in April, and have had quite a while to gear up for working on this film. You think you know what you’re getting into, but you really have no idea. Over the course of these last few months, everyone associated with the production has been through many trials and tribulations – and that was just on set, in another completely different city! There is another vast realm that now is being ventured into on Palo Alto, and that is post production.

Since the production is shot on location in the Bay area and editorial (as well as our film processing and post production house) is based out of Los Angeles, our first real problem was how to create an adequate workflow to get dailies back up to the production. The ultimate solution came from our esteemed executive producer, Phillip Engelhardt, who set up an “.ftp” (file transfer protocol). This gave myself and my co-editor Daniel Walker a way to cut together dailies in the Avid Media Composer© and then upload the dailies selects to the FTP. Seconds later Brad and the rest of the crew can see their hard work come to fruition some 350 miles away!



Simultaneously, as the film was being shipped into Los Angeles and being processed at Fotokem, I supervised the telecine sessions (the process of transferring film negative into digital video – in our case DVCAM for “SD” and D5 for our “HD” ) at IVC with our colorist, Steve Peer. I just want to give my sincere thanks to Steve for all his hard work and many hours spent doing a first color pass for our film; his work is greatly appreciated! Also, all of us with Palo Alto owe many thanks to Peter Dana—who is our sales representative over at IVC. Without him, none of this would be happening on the post production end!

We are currently in the middle of our first assembly cut of the film where we basically lay out each scene as it was shot. Then we sit down with Brad and decide what elements of each scene are the most crucial and what other elements are expendable. As scenes are pieced together and more of the film is completed we will keep everyone updated. But now we have to concentrate on a fast approaching deadline. So to Brad, Dan, Steve, Tony and the rest of the Palo Alto post production crew, we’ve got some work ahead of us, but it’s coming together and it looks great!