Crane Building

By Brad Leong

Hey everyone this is Brad, the director of this film. First off let me apologize for not posting anything before this, I’ve been slacking. Production is crazy and I didn’t have much time to do more then focus on the next day ahead. But now that production is over and everything is slowing down a little I’ve got no excuse.

Here is a series of pics of the construction of the crane that I built with Eon Mora our gaffer and friend who I construct a lot of random filmy stuff with. It took us a week or two right before production to get the crane built. Basically I knew I wanted huge arcing crane shots, but we didn’t have the budget to rent any crane gear so we constructed our own. Unfortunately we didn’t have the time or know how to create a remote head so we have to build something big and sturdy so that it could support a 35lb camera plus a 150lb operator.

First we made a bunch of rectangular boxes out of metal square tube.


Then we reinforced the metal rectangles with smaller pieces. Basically the main inspiration for the design was looking at pictures of oldering metal bridges.


From here we then made rectangular boxes out of the piece


Connection points to attach the pieces


Our failed first attempt at a base….


The center axis points. We went to a bearing shop and asked about getting some bearings for these axis points. They quoted us hundreds for them, but luckily we found them at a junkyard for 35 bucks.


It’s getting close


First test run


Cool pic of me


The final product after paint

We're Still Going Strong

By Tony Vallone story, screenplay, associate producer

It is Christmas Eve and a couple days ago I was at the Engelhardt's home for a private screening of a rough cut of Palo Alto with our families. We didn't have a big 80-foot screen theater so it went down much like all the past screenings of projects we've had with our families since middle school. Although I am sure it was only a matter of minutes before they realized this is nothing like they've seen before.

When the film was finished, Dan, Brad, and I were all buried in praise from our families and friends. We were skeptical at first because positive support is always found in family and friends but it didn't take long for us to recognize it as genuine. I was also reminded that the website hadn't been updated in the longest time so I decided it is probably a good idea for me to bring everyone up to date.

The fall was a very stressful time for our editors who were trying to lock picture as soon as possible while maintaining a full course load at school. We had test screenings once every few weeks that really helped us improve the film and experience audience reactions. The big items still ahead are mostly all in sound. Our sound department has been doing ADR and smoothing out all the scene's audio tracks so they don't sound like a Frankenstein combination of sound bites, we're still working on song selection and obtaining rights, and our composer is trying give some of our scenes more auditory umph.

Completion will hopefully arrive by the end of February. By that time we'll be working on a way for all of you to see it!