Full On Production Mode

It's been a very busy few weeks in the social media circuit; cell phone signals cut off by BART police in San Francisco and new developments involving Facebook spying and security breaches. I'm finding it harder and harder to stay on top of everything myself. I am in constant hope of having a real assistant who can help with the research. It would also be beneficial to have someone as part of the film crew (which right now consists only of me), as well as a very talented and dedicated video editor who will work with me on post. A good post editor is extremely important, but it's also a bridge that I haven't gotten to yet, making that task last on the pecking order, however, I need to be actively thinking about it now, especially if I want to make my December deadline. Meanwhile, and seemingly unrelated, I have been working on The Break Up Notebook: The Lesbian Musical, assisting director Peter Schneider. It's an amazing show with an extremely original and talented cast. BUN, as we like to call it, is making its east coast premier in Asbury Park, NJ on September 8, 2011.

Aside from that, I met with my friend Dane, who happens to work as cinematographer for Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me) and after passing the Dane test with my new and improved trailer, Dane emailed Morgan and Jeremy Chilnick (producer over at Warrior Poet Productions) himself recommending they check out my project. Morgan responded to me personally letting me know that he will be out of the country until September 6, but asked me to send him a link so he could watch the trailer online. Wow! It took me over an hour to even find the words to respond to his email.

That was Thursday night, and today is Monday night and still my video is not yet online, although this time it looks promising with a mere 23 minutes to go on Vimeo. Last night, Vimeo gave me an estimated time of 15 hours, and I left my computer uploading for the day, but something must have happened because when I came home there was the dreaded 'error' label across where my video was supposed to be. I spent the rest of the night trying to compress it down to a reasonable size without losing the integrity of the HD quality and aspect ratio. Situations like these always remind me of the less than realistic expectations we have about technology-sure I'm only working from a Macbook Pro laptop and one firewire port, but still, between tweaking a project (less to do with technology, but it quickly becomes part of the painstaking rendering process), compressing, and uploading, the task of making a video watchable online is frustrating and time consuming.

Now that I've had my minute to rant, I'm really, REALLY excited for Morgan to see this new trailer. I'm assuming that if he and his crew like it and see the possibilities then maybe we'll meet up and have lunch and discuss it when he's back in the states, I'm hoping anyway, but I guess I'll find out when my trailer is actually uploaded and when Morgan has a time to watch it and get back to me. I just hope I haven't kept him waiting too long-since in this world of hyper speed a few days can easily translate into a few weeks (not to mention I live in NYC where they say the New York minute is 7 seconds), but I think I've been given a little good fortune here and I really think that "Tools of the Trade" has a fighting chance.

To see the trailer for yourself visit:   http://vimeo.com/kelleybrannon/videos

Preparing for Production Meetings and being an Assistant Director on "The Break Up Notebook"

I've been working out a new and enhanced trailer this week to prepare for a meeting/pitch with a production company which will hopefully occur by the end of next week. A production company is necessary at this point in my documentary as it will allow me access to additional funding, crew, and post production opportunities.

In the meantime I have gotten on board with The Break Up Notebook, commonly referred to as BUN. I will be assisting the director, Peter Schneider, for the three weeks of rehearsals before the performance premiers in Asbury Park, NJ. BUN will be performed September 8 through the 25 with a range of ticket prices. My first assignment with Peter is to maintain a daily blog called "Kelley's Korner" which is featured on the homepage of Peter's site. Visit: peterschneiderproductions.com for more information about BUN and to follow my daily (or near daily) blog of the production progress and my own experiences. I will also be taking photos and adding short video clips to the blog as well. BUN is a lesbian musical that first premiered at the Hudson Theatre in Santa Monica, CA in December 2005. It was winner of the Ovation Award and six Garland Awards and the L.A. Drama Critics Award fir best score. BUN is a smart, funny, honest, and forward thinking story that details the hardships and compromises needed to maintain any relationship and proves that regardless of each partner's sex troubles and delights are a given. I think this is something we can all relate to.

In other news, I recently uploaded a video to my vimeo account (vimeo.com/kelleybrannon) called Before the Funeral which pays a little homage to my grandmother,  Elizabeth Temple. I shot most of the video while in NH where I also edited it. There is additional footage of the Utah desert/salt flats and scenes from a train window in the video as well.

I am still keeping the ball rolling with Tools of the Trade despite the plummeting Stock Market and what looks to be another economic collapse for the US. Maybe Tools will be able to encourage people to take more direct action in what they want to see happen in the future... I am also dedicated to my December 2011/January 2012 deadline for completion and release. You can view a crude trailer (which is more like a sample of the information I've gathered) on my vimeo as well.

vimeo.com/kelleybrannon

peterschneiderproductions.com for my blog about BUN

And if you happen to be sitting on a few grand then please donate to my Kickstarter fund (the blue link to the right on my blog homepage)-my project will be expired next week and, unfortunately, it looks like I'm not going to make to cut...oh well, I didn't do a very good job with promotion. Hopefully a production company will get on board instead!