EvansAmerica

Listen up EA fans, the hiatus is over and the revolution will now continue. It has been about two months since we last left the crew at Leeden State College. Tomorrow night at about 6pm the new webisode will be up on the main home page and available to download and watch so tell your friends to stop by.

WEBISODE #3 SYNOPSIS:

We rejoin the crew as they brace themselves for the coming storm over the school's stem cell research program vote. Joshua Gordon's vigil against the program ends in dramatic fashion as several students are taken to the hospital after a clash with campus security. Deana takes charge and uses her resources to help the Student Government President Kyle Blankenship defend the school against attacks by conservative columnist Bonnie Rockwell who is inciting backlash to kill the vote. Tate and Dee Dee embark on a frustrating journey to get their towed van back and Nikki and Haley's disagreement on stem cell research boils over. Don't miss it!

Could it be that I'm putting a director's journal up from this weekend, on....wait for it....THIS WEEKEND! It is true. Well we will be wrapped with webisode #4 this weekend, except for one scene rescheduled for next Sunday. Nonetheless, we were on our way early Saturday (well for us early, back off) to downtown for our first scenes of the day. The wind wasn't too bad on our audio, wind can always be the worst enemy for sound when you shoot exterior scenes. In this scene there is a crazy yet funny girl who's a fan of the site in the show who corners Tate who in return is forced to act like Dee Dee is his girlfriend to keep her at a distant. It's a funny scene and everyone did a great job. We watched the dailies late that night and the takes are just hilarious. Branden brought it on this day, we got served. His facial reactions are just money. Later that evening we changed up the script slightly to accomodate the lack of extras and not wanting to piss off my neighbors by lighting up our backyard like frickin Field of Dreams. So the crew is instead setting up for the eventual crazy protest party that will ensue. See how we think on our feet. I captured some awesome roofs shots as well as you can see from the photos. We wrapped at a decent 7:15pm just in time for me to catch my Pacers get the crap kicked out of them in Game 1 of the playoffs against the Celtics. Oh well. 

What could be better than mixing poker with filmmaking? NOTHING. Come on, keep up. We had a very fun scene on the agenda today involving the group playing poker and deciding how they are going outwit their newest adversaries. We rehearsed the hell out of the scene so that it finally was coming off relaxed and fun like I wanted it to. We decided to add a bunch of smoke to the scene to give it a cool look, which Givani and Branden took great pride in with their cigarettes. It looks really sweet on the dailies, but the buildup of smoke almost killed us all. Wouldn't that have been terrible yet tragically funny at the same time. The police find the cast of EA dead in a garage/turned filming studio. A scene gone awry. When we finished the scene and opened the garage door, this huge plume of smoke went outside. With that our neighbors changed their bets that we were filming porn to the new Reefer Madness film. (shout out to chris for letting me watch some of that on his HD TV yesterday). I can't wait to edit this scene, the camera was always moving on the dolly so if it cuts well, wow, Dan will be happy.

Another one of these, about three weeks after the fact.

Big weekend of Webisode #4 production started off on Friday night with two scenes between Tate and Dee Dee. Fun scenes that Scotty and I wrote way back when and when I say write, I mean scribbled down in a notebook in a moment of sheer creative spontaneity. Apparently we had to teach Lara how to flirt on screen, what's that about? I'm not sure, but moving on, we had a lot of fun shooting the scenes. Scotty lost timecode about halfway through on the DAT, I yelled and bitched, but got over it and we marched ahead. The kitchen was a pain to light and took awhile, which is funny because we had just lit that kitchen two months earlier for Scotty's short film "New House". But this was at night so we needed a different scheme. It worked out and then we moved to the bedroom, oh yeah. Big props to Lara for the blushing type shots at the end of the night, she knows why, and you'll know why if you check out Webisode #4, launching May 13th. Look at that, shameless plug, I always manage to get those in.

Lara's bed cam. (and who are those handsome filmmakers?)

Soooo….new pope, eh? Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. Granted, this guy is only going to live another five or ten years, but just read the biography of him (from BBC Profiles): To some, he is the Catholic Church's intellectual salvation during a time of confusion and compromise. To others, he is an intimidating "Enforcer", punishing liberal thinkers, and keeping the Church in the Middle Ages. Certainly, in the world's largest Christian community the Pope's prefect of doctrine, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, cannot be overlooked. While many theologians strive for a Catholic Church that is more open and in touch with the world around it, Ratzinger's mission is to stamp out dissent, and curb the "wild excesses" of this more tolerant era. He wields the tools of his office with steely efficiency. By influencing diocese budgets, bishops' transfers and even excommunications, what an opponent calls "symbolic violence", Ratzinger has clamped down on the more radical contingent of the Church. Personally charming, quick-witted and fluent in four languages, the Cardinal is a convincing orator. Jesuit Father Thomas Reese calls him "a delightful dialogue partner", but adds that most of the Cardinal's fellow clergy would be too worried about the prospect of excommunication to enjoy talking to him. That's EXACTLY what we need for the Catholic Church in the 21st Century. A POPE WHO WANTS TO GO BACK TO THE MIDDLE AGES. Let's not look to the future or things that might be GOOD for the Church. Ooooh, no. Let's, instead, continue to keep whittling down the number of priests by not moving forward at all, keeping them single and sexless and forcing them to turn to alter boys for relief. Let's not let women take a larger role in the church. Let's not review our policy on contraceptives or gays. Hey! I have an idea! Let's just erase Vatican II completely! Let's pretend like it never happened. That will put us one step closer to how the church was in the Middle Ages and seems like a good start. I love that MOST OF HIS FELLOW CLERGY won't talk to him for fear of EXCOMMUNICATION. This is FANTASTIC! Hmmm…a "convincing orator" whose "mission is to stamp out dissent…" I know another guy like that. HITLER. ***UPDATE*** This is always great to see in a headline about the new leader of millions of people: "New Pope a Conservative Who Divided Germans." (Hmmm...Hitler did that too....) And in the article: But opinion about him remains deeply divided in Germany, a sharp contrast to John Paul, who was revered in his native Poland. A recent poll for Der Spiegel news weekly said Germans [who] opposed Ratzinger becoming pope outnumbered supporters 36 percent to 29 percent, with 17 percent having no preference. The poll of 1,000 people, taken April 5-7, gave no margin of error. Many blame Ratzinger for decrees from Rome barring Catholic priests from counseling pregnant teens on their options and blocking German Catholics from sharing communion with their Lutheran brethren at a joint gathering in 2003. YES! Again, score! I don't even have a comment on the pregnant teen thing I'm so TO'd about it. Because I'M SURE that those priests were probably forcing the girls to have abortions and not discussing, maybe, adoption. And let's also keep the Catholic Church COMPLETELY seperate from all other Christian groups. PERFECT.

-originally posted by "Lara"

I say "boo" to the nay sayers. This past Wednesday night I had the privilege to be the guest speaker at the NIFP meeting in Lincoln. It's a wonderful organization that supports local film of all kinds. And a great place to meet and mingle with fellow filmmakers, actors and screenwriters. I showed some EvansAmerica stuff, even though most had already been to the website and checked out the show and had a lively Q&A about how we are pulling off an ongoing webseries with 45-minute webisodes on "no-budget" in Nebraska no less. It was a fun discussion and it even made me think about some aspects I never had before. It seems like this runaway train of a show never stops to let me sit back and think about a lot of the aesthetics of the show. After the meeting was over and letting out, it was very rewarding to get such positive feedback from people who attended. We actually have some fans, ssshhh, don't tell anyone. And after the meeting I went out for some drinks at Old Chicago with a few of the NIFP regulars and we chatted away about all things film. Overall it was a very fun night and I met a lot of very cool people who love film and live in.....wait for it....Nebraska. Eff hollywood! I say this is where its at. Anyways thanks to the NIFP President Rhett for having me down, peace out.

Not EvansAmerica related, BUT, as you may have read below, Scotty's short film "New House" was in an online film festival last week and they announced the winner today. You guessed it, first place baby! He is an award winning filmmaker now (note: his ego now combined with mine may explode this blog). So onwards and upwards. Anyways I'm proud of Scotty and the small band of EA cast and crew who worked hard on the project. Congrats everyone, let's drink!

New cast diary up, thanks to Branden Maslonka aka. "PAUL" click here. A few more Production Journals by Director Dan, click here for those. And some Behind the Scenes galleries from this year, click here to go there.

EvansAmerica Season 1 - Volume 1 DVDs go on sale soon. Help support the show.
Volume 1 will feature: The complete pilot webisode and all six character shorts. Cast and Crew commentary track. EA Trailer. 5 Behind the Scenes Videos. Hidden Videos and Recommended Reading.

And don't forget, Webisode #3 launches Friday night, April 29th!

I am not quite sure what to think of this, it is a fascinating story, but in my mind very scary. It is called the MinuteMan Project, about 200 volunteers led by this retired guy Jim Gilchrist. Who are taking immigration control into their own hands by vowing to do border patrols along the Arizona/Mexico border themselves. Neither Bush nor Fox quite knows what to make of it, or what to do about it. Can you really stop a bunch of bitter old men from patroling the desert in their trucks. It's a real throw back to the wild west law enforcement, some are calling them vigilantes. They say they are just there as a deterent, and that illegal aliens will be scared to cross if the Minutemen are around. But what happens, when a group of immigrants decide, eff it, let's just go, they aren't U.S. officials? Do the minutemen stop them, kick the crap out of them, what? I'm asking, I want to know, who is responsible for them? And I really think the choice of name is tacky, come on, what they are doing in no way does justice to the historic U.S. group of heroes known as the "Minutemen" who were after all, IMMIGRANTS!

In unrealted-to-EA news:

Last February, I approached Director Dan with my first venture into directing. It's a little short called "New House." It was for an on-line contest that's, coincidentally, going on right now! My premiere day is today.

Because I'm such a good guy, I'll give you the link here.

There should be reviews and stuff there, so I suggest watching the movie before you are tainted by the overwhelmingly good reviews (or the overwhelmingly bad reviews).

It's about 10 minutes long and stars EA's own Chelsie "Hotness" Hartness and Lara "Flynn Boyle" Adkins. We've got Dan on the camera and Chris on the sound. "New House" also features music by the lovely and talented Givani.

So check it out. We had fun making it. You might have fun watching it.

Might.

later,
sc.

There will still be archived production journal entries on the behind the scenes page, but it has been advised that we start blogging more here as to keep it fresh and new. Plus this is easier and we don't have to bug Wendy to update the site every night. Plus I learned more about pictures. Anyways, here we go.

Production Journal - Saturday, March 26th:

We invaded the very cool theater at Papio South High School. It invoked  the cast and crew's own high school memories, which then quickly made us feel really old. Suck. Anyways, it was a 9am call time, which is always fun on a weekend, I'm sure everyone was thrilled with me. SEP veteran actors Diane Watson and Ron Moore were on set today for a scene I've been looking forward to for a while. The scene is a cable news political show called "Political Watchdog" that comes to the campus and Deana and Bonnie Rockwell (aka Ann Coulter-like) battle it out. Fun stuff. Everyone was really on today, it was weird seeing Diane play an antagonist. She's always played a nice character, so it was enjoyable to me having worked with Diane many times to see here play someone the audience is supposed to hate. We had plenty of space to light and we were even able to use some of the lighting and monitor equipment at the theater. Six hours later we were wrapping up. We did some cool stuff shot and sound wise that I think it going to cut together quite nicely. So Webisode 3 is in the bag, we have some fill stuff, but only post is left and it should be in cyberspace shortly. Here's some pics:

Tyson and Chris waiting for me to yell at them.

Big props to the Papio South girls who showed up and were fine extras. You guys rock!

This is a way you shoot a scene, shoot a scene, shoot a scene....(in best singing voice)

Yeah, there's that

And that.

We shot some more stuff for webisode 4 on Friday night. This time we were at Casa de la Nate, my current residence. We shot a crucial, mindblowing scene (were those adjectives too much?)between DeeDee and Tate that will forever change everything you ever thought about everything (Dan told me to hype these more, but it feels forced... anybody?).

And to capture this momentous scene/event we had the perfect crew consisting of... 2 people.

That's right. Dan and I crewed this scene. I think we had gotten use to our standard 4 person crew because it took us like 5 hours to shoot four pages. Granted some of the pages were distinctive dialogues written by Scott "I've-never-acted-a-day-in-my-life-but-insist-on-writing-horrendously-difficult-to-perform-dialogue-scenes" Coleman. Not to say that Martin and Lara weren't up to the task, they were. They, dare I say, Brought It?

After this dialogue scene we got a couple more scenes that I swear to you will blow your mind. The mood was also suprisingly light, given our lack of helping hands, and therefore, efficiency. There are a couple behind the scenes/outtakes that I'm afraid may make there way to an internet near you...

Not to be a tease or anything.

After shooting, we went back to Director Dan's place to celebrate the big deuce-deuce for Joseph "mother-effing" Boro (he plays Miles, for those unbaptized at the shrine of EvansAmerica). Happy birthday, big guy.

The rest of the weekend was spent shooting other stuff. But I wasn't there, so I can't really report on it. I mean, I could, but I don't think my summary would much match what really happened the last two days.

toodles,
Ess to the ceezie.

ps: it is really 3am when I'm posting this. I really do have to be at school tomorrow at 9am. Yes I really do hate myself.