Archive for 2007

Two minutes and forty seven seconds.

I get to shoot my first film this week and words can hardly describe how excited I am. The main reason I switched schools was so that I could actually work with film, and after a year and a half I get to shoot 100′ of 16mm black and white reversal. While this is a big deal for me, 100′ is not a lot of film. So I’ve been putting a lot of thought into how I want to use my 4008 frames. The idea I’ve settled on is pretty cool, it’s simple yet clever and should be easy to shoot. Which is great because I’m very much use to a video work flow, and film is unforgiving at best. I get to set my focus with a measuring tape, frame my shots in an inaccurate viewfinder, and depth of field? Well, I have to consult a chart to even have a chance of controlling that. I’m proud to say I am pretty handy with a light meter these days, and my knowledge of lighting has grown to a respectable level. For most of my shots I’ll only get one or two takes though, so while I can prepare for most anything, I’ll still need a lot of luck for this project to really turn out.
Which I hope it does, because visually this has the potential to be by far the best thing I’ve shot… and that measly 100′ of film is $85.

I got to see David Bazan in Tucson on friday. I was sorta on the fence about going to the show until a few weeks ago, but I am so glad I went. It was amazing. Me and two guys made the drive down to Solar Culture in Tucson and while I wish David had been in Phoenix, the venue was worth the drive. The place is an art gallery by day and at night it has concerts on a little stage, which makes for a intimate and unique atmosphere. The acoustics were good, which can be rough at smaller places, but it was just the overall feeling of the place that really made it work. The show was only $10, and the guy at the door was just taking cash with a small money box for change, which is better then an ass hole bouncer or some huge commercial ticketing system. After getting in we looked around and saw that most people had bought in their own drinks, which the venue is totally cool with. So we went to a gas station and got a six pack and enjoyed a few cheap beers with the show. A concert sans the ~$8 beer? What’s not to love? The first act was some local guy, who was awful but after him was J Tillman. I had never heard of him, but he was really quite good. His sound is sorta Iron and Wine -esque and his voice is just off the charts. I’d definitely check him out if you’re like me and had never heard of him.
Then David Bazan took the stage, and I immediately noticed something a bit different about him. Earlier in the night I had seen a balding, bearded man making a phone call near the front of the venue. I thought to myself, “Is that David? Nah, he was shorter then I am, there is no way.” Its funny how you can sometimes idolize people in odd ways. David Bazan has always struck me as a hulking beast of a man, with a lumber jack beard and a straight face, he just seemed like Paul Bunyan with a guitar.
So to set the record straight, David Bazan is an excellent singer/songwriter, a hulking, beast of a man… who is also like 5′6”.
He played a wide variety of songs, from his solo stuff to old Pedro The Lion tunes. He also played a bit of Headphones and apologized for not playing “Natural Disaster” because he didn’t know the synth part very well. He did play “Bad Things To Such Good People” which was amazing. He played the first riff while getting himself set between songs and I (and most of the people around me) yelled in excitement. It’s a dark and complicated song, but hearing it live was great. Also I couldn’t help thinking about Luke playing it in the back yard of the Juanita House with the rest of us trying to sing along, good times.

I saw I’m Not There last night, it’s a movie about Bob Dylan where Bob Dylan is played by five different actors. Each story line follows a different time in his life or aspect of his character. While it’s not the most cohesive movie I’ve seen in recent memory it was really fun to watch. Dylan is portrayed as an old soul who is running from his past by an eleven year old african american boy. As a conflicted husband and father by Heath Ledger, a spiritual person and preacher by Christian Bale. A young poet who speaks his mind by Ben Whishaw, an old hermit by Richard Gere and finally as a jaded and misunderstood rock star by none other then Cate Blanchett. It’s a really fun watch, if you can catch it, I highly recommend seeing it.

Keep it chill, I’ll do my best too do the same.
Dave Hildreth

A movie I liked, another that’s ok and other fun opinions

I saw No Country For Old Men a few days ago, and after having a few days to mull it over I think I’m ready to call it the best movie I’ve seen this year. There was a lot in the movie to think about and while I certainly don’t worship the brothers Coen they have really done a masterful job of telling this story. As is often true, I wasn’t sure of my opinion when the movie ended, but I did know that I liked the ending. The guys sitting in front of us didn’t, I guess things weren’t wrapped up as tightly as they would have liked. It did end abruptly and generally unresolved, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good ending. From the reviews I read the ending was most people’s biggest problem, others didn’t like the seemingly senseless violence. Which I’m not a huge fan of, but thats pretty much what the movie was about. So if you are willing to watch a complex movie and pay attention to the characters definitely go see No Country For Old Men, it’s worth $9.

That being said I also saw something very different a couple of weeks ago. Southland Tales is Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly’s second movie… and man is it complex. I loved Donnie Darko, it’s strange and deep, I’ve seldom had as much fun as I had discussing that movie with people. However, a while after Donnie Darko came the Director’s Cut, which is awful. Southland Tales is basically every bad part of the director’s cut of DD stretched out to three hours. Southland Tales was very long, and I felt every minute of it. The story has lots of characters and lots of dialogue and while it is insightful and funny there was just too much. About an hour into the movie about 10 people in the theatre had already walked out, which is a mistake because if they had stayed for the whole things they might have liked it. Despite it’s length and how tedious the story felt the end wrapped everything up into something that was satisfying. I liked the movie, it’s not the best thing i’ve seen in a while but I liked it and will see it again. The movie could have been so much more though, and that is frustrating. First off the first half of the plot was told in a series of three comic books… I didn’t know this and because I can’t find them for free I still haven’t read them. Expecting your audience to already know half the plot is a mistake. I don’t care how much advertising they could have done for the comics (there was basically none) most people aren’t going to read them before seeing the movie. The second big problem with the movie was what made me hate the Director’s Cut of DD… titles. Kelly used full screen titles to explain plot and breakup the three acts, which is un-needed in a movie and really just made me want to hate the convoluted plot. If the plot of your movie needs to be explained in such a blunt manner you’re story needs to be simplified or shortened.. that’s pretty much it. If you get a chance go see Southland Tales, but it’s probably better to just wait for the DVD.

In other news I’ve finalized my holiday travel plans. I’ll be in Boise from December 20th until January 7th so if you’ll be in Boise too let me know and we’ll hang out. While it’s nice here in Tempe it’l be fun to experience some weather again, maybe even some snow if I’m lucky.

Everyone should also go and check out www.synthar.com. There you’ll find an awesome band who just put out their first record… which you should purchase. I’ve only listened to it once through, so I’ll maybe talk about it later but It’s really solid stuff from some hard working artists and there are no record companies involved… you can’t go wrong with that.

Laters,
Dave

Nighttime

More and more I crave solitude. I use to have a real problem being alone but as I move through the years I’ve really started to cherish time where I am simply left to myself.

Being alone is best at night, often I’ll go and sit on the couches that line our pool and work or read or have a smoke. I’ve been staying up later than usual lately and sometimes I’ll even sneak off at 2:00 or 3:00 am and go get some food or take a walk around the neighborhood. My iPhone has become a real asset, and I’m constantly moving albums on and off it to listen to. Speaking of album I picked up an awesome LP the other day. Sufjan Steven’s Seven Swans, an original pressing… which cool because despite it’s age there have already been subsequent pressing that were much larger then the first.

A few nights ago at Denny’s around 4:00 am or so I got another 10 pages of my script done. I have a lot of work to do still, just in conceptualizing it even. In the next two weeks I have to write out a 3×5 card for every scene, and while I have a good idea of what my story is about, it’s going to be hard to come up with all the scenes that fill the story in. When I’m done I’ll have about 40 cards, which is normal for a feature.

Thanksgiving should be fun around here, all but one of my roommates will be in town so I am going to cook again. Hopefully my side dishes come out better than last year, but at least I know I can cook a turkey.

In recent news the WGA is on strike and while I’ve heard a lot about it at school it’s fun to look around the internet for different opinions. The major point of contention is how much money the writers of TV shows and movies get from the distribution of their work. In the ’90s the guild struck a deal for the royalties of DVD sales, the studios said that since DVDs were a “new” format that the guild should only get a small amount and if the format works out it can be raised. Well years later DVDs obviously worked out but writers only get about $.04 for every DVD sold. With a product that takes basically pennies to produce $.04 is not a lot and certainly isn’t anywhere close to the huge profits that the studios make. So now with the internet and other forums of distribution the writers don’t want to get screwed over again. The studios claim that pay-per-view downloads (like iTunes) and ad supported players (like NBC’s website) are also a “new” form of distribution and that the writers should take a small share for now. Well these “new” forms of distrubution already make the studios huge sums of money, so in my opinion the studios just don’t want to pay the writers their fair share.
A really good article about the writer’s view on this can be found here (from Newsweek) and a hilarious, yet educational video by the writers of the Daily Show is below.

I’m pretty much 100% pro union, while my high school job was lame I did like being in a union and at KTVB I really did have better working conditions and better pay because of one. At KPNX I’d sometime bring up unionizing with the other operators, while I was never really serious about doing it (because we’d all have been fired) it was amazing how much resistance even the idea of it got from people. I don’t have a mortgage and a family like most of the people I worked with, but hopefully when I do have those responsibilities I’ll have the courage to stand up for myself if needed. In this world workers need someone behind them, it’s the yin to our country’s corporate yang.

If I had a job and was still in a union I’d be on strike,
David

p.s. i did a small photo assignment for my cinematography class and it’s at the tail end of the class album in the static section of my site.

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