So now that the cats out of the bag, its time to get everyone up to speed on the latest with the show. First, let me give you guys a short history review just so we are all on the same page.
Once the decision was made to actually do a show (back around before Halloween) – you quickly realize that you need more than just a good idea and the best intentions to be able to produce something. So a fair amount of time was spent first, conceptualizing, and then working out the specifics of what the thing should look and feel like once all the dust had settled. To that end, I knew two things right off the bat. ONE: I wanted this to be cinematic in scope and feel. And TWO: it could not follow any of the already established and over used formulaic formats that already exist. What do I mean by that? Well, I give you as an example 80’s porn. Anyone who has cared to take the time and examine adult cinema from that era realizes pretty quickly that no matter what the pretense was to get one girl and one guy together, be it a pizza delivery man, or a pool cleaner or what have you, once the bad music started you could look forward to 5 things. Oral on him, oral on her, two positions, and a pop shot. That’s it. No matter what else happened or what else took place it was; cue the looped bowbowchichabowwow music and you saw oral, oral, two positions and a pop shot. TA DA! Porn. Same thing exists today, when it comes to automotive programing. Shows are either a D I Y format, with some dude talking to you from inside a shop, showing you how to build yet another SBC. Or its some stupid lame assed competition show. Now, certainly there are variations on those themes, just as there was in porn back in the day. (ok, this week its TWO girls and a guy, or *GASP* we throw in a black chick) Teams compete against each other, they compete against a clock, or some artifical deadline and turn the thing into some kinda goofy game show with welders. Whatever. Point is, its been done, TO FUCKING DEATH. The reality is these shows weren't that compelling in the first place. And some 4 or 5 years in they have beatin that dead ass horse beyond death and into glue.
Ok, so we want it to look like something different. Fresh concept in place (and I don’t want to describe it too much detail at this point, so I am, for now, still going to be a little secretive about it) it became readily apparent in short order that I was going to need some help with all this. At the bare minimum I needed a director of photography. I know, I know, a DP?! You only use those on MOVIES. Right. I know. Remember what the first thing was I wanted for the show? “cinematic in feel” – well your only going to get a cinematic feel if you shoot the show LIKE A MOVIE!
Enter Travis Haight. One look at his body of work, and you see that he gets it. I wanted to shoot in a highly polarized way, with what they call a “skinny shutter” . He was already doing that. I wanted to be a little darker, a little more atistic, a lot more compelling from a visual standpoint. He was already doing it. I needed someone who had experience shooting video. He had it. I needed ( for budgetary reasons ) someone who already had his own HD equipment. He did.
After a flurry of emails and more than a couple of phone calls, we had arrived at an agreement to work together. All that was left now was to establish a show outline and set a date to go shoot it.
Again for budgetary reasons, and for the fact that Portland, Or. is re-pleat with correct kulture and a host of folks that are doing it right, we decided that we would shoot in and around Portland. I made some calls to a few people to see if they would be interested in being on the show, and once we had those details figured out, it was time to establish a show outline and get a shot list figured out. Again working with Travis, by early January we had a really good handle on exactly what it was we were going to do, and how it was we wanted to shoot it. We set a date, and got ready to get down to the business of shooting a TV show.
Ok – so that is the back story….next time, what happened in Portland, and needing a soundtrack who the hell was I going to get to make music for us? Well guess what, I found the PERFECT band. Details on them as well next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment