Inspector 42 -- Emmy Winner

Last night, "Inspector 42" won two College Television Awards (aka, the student Emmys). It won the 1st Place Award for Drama, as well as the Directing award--I believe those went to my friends Lyvia Martinez (the producer) and Nathan Lee (the director). A huge congratulations to both of them! The film also won a Bronze Award for Excellence in the Craft of Filmmaking last year, which was for the outstanding cinematography of Derek Pueblo.

Nathan Lee -- on the set of Inspector 42

And I realized that I should probably talk a little bit more about the actual production. I am even going to post some behind-the-scenes pictures (I uploaded them onto Facebook last year, and I completely forgot to post any here on the blog).

As I said in my previous post, the shoot was extremely ambitious, but it paid off in the end. At the time, I just remember thinking how insane the production was going to be, and being on edge leading up to the shoot, wondering if everything was actually going to come together. And I was just the transportation coordinator--I could only imagine how nervous Nathan, Lyvia, Whitney (the production designer), and the rest of the key personnel must have been.

Just to give you an idea: the film is set in the 1950s, which required a lot of work to make everything feel authentic. The film follows a shirt inspector (hence the title, Inspector 42) who begins to use defective shirts to fill quotas. The shirts then cause havoc in the community, as loose threads get caught in machinery, on window ledges, and so on. This results in some serious repercussions with friendships, a romance, and the lives of the people around Inspector 42. It's a nice metaphor that is played subtly: how often do we have "loose threads" in our lives, little secrets that come back to hurt ourselves and those around us? Things unravel and tear apart, exposing the fragile creatures underneath.

Alexis Wardle - "Seamstress 61"

Notice the colors of the outfits here--the designers had to look at things tonally, trying to determine how things would translate to black and white

The film was shot for black and white. I don't know the exact workflow, but I believe it was shot on color film first and then desaturated in post-production (I think...I know they talked about it during the production meetings, but I wasn't absorbing every detail about the cinematography).

Now for the fun stuff. An entire shirt factory had to be created, involving shirts, sewing machines, workstations, and costumes for everyone (not to mention the background props like chalkboards and signs with the company goals/quotas). The scene also had to be carefully lit, especially since the camera would be moving around at times, weaving in and around the workstations, following the storage bins and racks as they moved around the factory.

One of the extras -- sadly, I can't remember his name

And as I said in my earlier post, an entire city block in downtown Salt Lake City had to be turned into the 1950s, which led to one of the craziest days of filming. The buildings themselves were already period-ready, but then cars needed to be brought in, some stationary, and others moving (that was my job, coordinating the cars). It required dozens and dozens of phone calls to track down classic car owners in the Utah area who would be willing to volunteer their time and vehicles (it was a student project after all--so apart from lunch and gas reimbursement, there wasn't much we could offer). On top of that, schedules had to be coordinated so that the cars showed up at a specific time, and hoping like crazy it didn't rain that day.

One of the classic cars -- a 1947 Ford Super Deluxe

One of the scenes also required a process trailer, where one of the antique cars would be loaded on a trailer, allowing the actor to play his part without having to actually worry about driving. We couldn't afford an actual process trailer, which sits low to the ground (one company had a trailer that came just six inches of the ground, with enough room for the camera to be placed around the vehicle). It would have cost around $700 for a single day, plus insurance, plus a police escort (the companies required a police presence to direct traffic).

Instead, we used a U-Haul trailer. It sat higher off the ground (around 20 inches, I believe), but Derek Pueblo worked some cinematographic magic to create the illusion that it sat lower. I will say too, there was a moment where my heart skipped a beat, when we were loading the antique car onto the trailer. As the car was being loaded onto the trailer, the actor that was driving (I was going to drive it, but I needed to focus on making it secure) accidentally gunned it a little too much. Imagine my sheer terror seeing a 1957 Ford Thunderbird ride up out of the wheel well, mere inches from sailing off the trailer. I don't know how it managed to stay on the trailer, but it did--we nervously laughed, secured the wheels, and kept right on shooting. We tried to get twelve cars, but only ended up with four (a fifth car--an antique police car--was used on a different day). Once again, with some careful placement and rearranging between shots, those few cars seemed to multiply.

Our process trailer -- that's me driving the truck. It was a narrow street, and after each take, we would back the entire rig up the street and do it again...Have you ever driven a trailer in reverse? Yeah, we did that again and again until we got the shot right--

There were actually two camera units filming for awhile on this particular day, because there was so much that needed to be covered. If I'm not mistaken, Nathan acted as both director and director of photography for one of the units, while James Alexander was 2nd unit director, with Derek Pueblo as DP for the 2nd unit (I think that's right...I might be slightly off on that). We even had an RV rented for the day to use as a wardrobe and makeup area, as well as the production office.

That same day, a car wreck needed to be simulated (scary...considering the antique cars we were working with). It required the crew to move to another part of the city, including the transportation of the RV, trucks, generators, and antique cars. I even got to drive the '57 Thunderbird for a couple of takes while the actor was changing wardrobe. Nathan's direction to me for the take: "Go tearing through the scene as fast you can..." Trust me, tearing through on that car was absolutely exhilarating.

After the car accident -- the haze is actually smoke billowing through the scene. I can't remember why fuller's earth wasn't used

Luke Drake - "Inspector 42"

And this is mostly detailing one particular production day. Hopefully that gives you an idea of the scope of this project, and how hard every single person had to work to pull it off. I know I posted it before, but still check out the trailer for the film on Youtube. Don't forget to leave some comments, especially if you happened to be involved in the production (feel free to say what you did, or describe some part of the production!).

Inspector 42

Cool -- so a picture I took last year on the set of "Inspector 42" took seventh place in a weekly photo contest. I don't know how many people entered, but when I looked on Wednesday, there were 900+ entries.

Anyway, the blog was http://www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com . From their comment, it looks like they thought it was an engagement picture.

And I was really surprised this shot came out the way it did. It was really difficult to focus, because everyone was moving--the actors were moving towards me, while the extras were passing in front of me, and I was shooting wide open at f/1.8.

Anyway, the film was a student project done by several of my friends, but it was one of the most intense shoots I've been on. The film was shot in downtown Salt Lake, but the block we were on couldn't technically be "shut down." So the crew was having to deal with cars passing through the set occasionally, and it was a big shooting area. At one point, there were two camera crews filming different things simultaneously on the same block. The film follows a shirt inspector (aka, Inspector 42), who begins to use defective shirts to meet a quota. But then the defective shirts start wreaking havoc in the community...You can see a trailer for it here.

Like I said, it was a big project, but it was so much fun. I was in charge of transportation, which meant coordinating the vehicles for equipment, the crew, and parts of the cast. It also included driving an RV a couple of times (yes, an RV! It was a really big project), and coordinating all of the antique cars you see in the film.

Tunnel

I just wanted to post this picture I took last night. I came across this ridiculously long subway entrance. The art on the walls may or may not be graffiti--I don't really know. Some parts of the tunnel had actual art sketches on the wall, but it blended in with the walls so well that you could barely see it. Anyway, the picture is slightly off-center. I was standing just left of the middle of the tunnel because there was a swarm of people right behind me and I was trying not to block the tunnel. But the lights weren't flush with the piping either, so it makes it look a little bit "off."

Rain

The weather is starting to get a little nicer here in NYC, and I've been itching to take a lot of pictures. So in the past couple of weeks, I've taken somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 pictures. I did get a flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/jon_foto if you're interested), and I've been having fun uploading. I think I've only been able to get like 25 pictures up (it takes awhile to upload), but I'll be trying to update it frequently.

So these are just a couple of pictures I took earlier today. The subway ran a little faster than normal, so I had half an hour to kill before class. I thought I'd take a stroll through Washington Square Park, since it tends to deserted whenever it rains.

I wanted to take some pictures of the chess tables, but that part of the park is closed due to construction. So I took some pictures of these benches instead. I've really been wanting to take more black & white pictures lately, and I'm trying to "train" my eye to see more tones and textures, and to work a little harder with composition.

So it's kind of random to show a picture of a half-eaten fruit, but I accidentally scared away the squirrel that had been happily feasting away--you can see some of the scraps on the bench from the squirrel had been eating.

Meh, just a bicycle. I was going to play around with composition a little more here, but I was standing in the rain and I was starting to get cold--

Sorry this post is kind of short--I'll be posting more later this week, and hopefully some more pictures. I don't have work for a week and a half because the middle school where I work is on spring break, so I'll have plenty of time to explore different parts of the city.

Spring Break

Well, I don't know how much of a coincidence this really is, but I realized that the last time I wrote, BYU had just been beaten by TCU in football. And last night, the men's basketball team lost to Kansas State. I don't even know how the game was--as much of a fan of BYU as I am, I was actually watching Wicked on Broadway, 4th row. But hey, at least they made it past the first round.

I've really been enjoying my classes this semester. I'm still really busy with papers and assignments, but I feel like they're helping get a better grasp of the material. For instance, in Television History and Culture, I had to research a trade journal from 1957. This meant sifting through about 1500 pages worth of material, formulating a narrative based on my research, and then preparing a report on how the research could be helpful to historians. As nerdy as it sounds, I really enjoyed reading about the changes in the television industry during the 1950s, and how it rippled down through the decades to give birth to the cable and satellite broadcasting available today. As far back as the 1950s, people were theorizing about premium movie channels and sports stations that a user could subscribe to. Like I said, it's totally nerdy, but I'm still having a blast with it.

As for more recent stuff, my sister went on a mission to Rancagua Chile, my brother is here in the city visiting for the weekend, and I'm still trying to figure out the dating scene here (I was totally thrown off recently--a girl I had asked out met me at the restaurant, payed for herself, and then just got off the subway when her stop came up...I don't if that's just considered normal for NYC or not, but I feel like I failed with everything I'm used to: picking the girl up, paying for dinner, and then walking her back to her apartment).

On a side note, I finally submitted a story proposal to This American Life. I had made an audio documentary several years ago for a class at BYU (you can listen to it at this link http://www.handsonacamera.org/Uaudio4.html), and I kept meaning to send it in.

And finally, this past week was spring break. I was able to go up to West Point on Thursday with some friends, and we just walked around the campus and enjoyed our time out of the city. My brother came into town yesterday, and we walked around Times Square for several hours and then ended up going to see Wicked (fourth row seats!). Today we walked around the Financial District and took the Staten Island Ferry, and tomorrow we're going to visit the Guggenheim. Here's some pictures from the past week or so--

One of my friends found this nut starting to blossom. It was tricky trying to take this picture because the depth of field was so narrow--

Part of a tree on West Point. We relaxed on the lawn in front of the museum for a little while, and I wanted to play around some more with depth of field.

The Cathedral at West Point

I don't remember what field this was next to, but it was still on West Point

One of the buildings on West Point. It was pretty cool seeing how a lot of the different buildings looked like castles or something--we're going to try and go back during the spring or summer

As we were heading home from West Point, we stopped at this outcropping to take some pictures.

We thought we were getting into a sketchy situation at the outcropping, because it looked like a motorcycle gang was surrounding the place. Of all things, they were trying to throw a paper airplane off the cliff edge and into the river--so yeah, it wasn't a gang at all, just some friends out for a ride. They let me take some pictures--

Just another sunset pic

On the Staten Island Ferry--I tilted the camera on purpose just to play around with perspective a little. This is right as the ferry was getting ready to dock back in Manhattan. Everyone ran to the windows to take pictures of the NYC skyline, so I thought I'd take a picture of them instead

My brother Pere -- Staten Island Ferry

Some random wall in the Financial District -- everything else was sparkling clean, but this one alleyway just didn't match

Anyway, sorry it has been so long since I last updated my blog. I've just been pretty busy with school and everything. Hopefully I can post more pictures soon--

Central Park

Okay, sorry if you kept checking my blog to see more pictures--I kept running out of time to update everything! So here are a few pictures from around Central Park. Nothing spectacular, but I had fun exploring more of the city. On Halloween Day, a couple of friends and I walked through the park, taking pictures of whatever we could. Sadly, a large part of my pictures were slightly out of focus (I think the spot focus got shifted), and I didn't notice until after I got back.

But today I got back from church a lot earlier than normal because of stake conference. After a much-needed nap, I decided to go read in Central Park. I was able to find an open bench next to the Pool on the north end of the park, and I just sat and read for almost two hours (the "Pool" is a small pond, in case you were wondering).

In other news, I was sad to see BYU lose to TCU, but thrilled to see Utah do the same. And wearing my BYU hoodie around New York City has led to some interesting comments. On Friday night, some random guy stopped to ask me, "Is BYU that school with the women's soccer game? That one that's been all over the news?" I knew exactly what he was talking about (the slapping, punching, hair-pulling game when the BYU women's soccer team played New Mexico), so we talked for a couple of minutes about sports (and BYU in particular--I felt bad that I didn't have a pass-along card).

And I can't believe I'm almost done with my first semester here at NYU. It has gone by a lot quicker than I expected. Right now, I've finished all of the mid-term assignments, so all I have left to do are the final papers in each of my classes. I am going to try and get at least a rough draft done for one of my final classes--if I can spread things out over the end of the semester here, I won't get slammed with having to turn in three big writing assignments on the same day. Hopefully, I don't get too distracted with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up...

A tree

(ha, okay, I couldn't resist being just a little bit sarcastic...)

Hmm...I don't remember what statue this was. It's a little bit south of Bethesda Fountain.

This picture is really strange to me--I have no clue who this guy was, and I don't even know when the last time the stage was used. I just thought it looked kind of odd.

I don't know if you can tell, but the woman was having a hard time going up the stairs--it looked like they had been walking around for most of the day

This is what the trees looked like in Central Park--I'll try and get some more pictures before all of the leaves come down

Okay, this probably isn't going to be that interesting to everyone, but I was pretty excited that this picture came out. It was a little after 5:00pm (the sun set at like 4:45pm), and I was getting ready to head back to my apartment. The leaves were almost completely dark. Anyway, an ambulance was cutting through the park, and I did some quick guesses on ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. I didn't have a tripod with me, so I propped the camera on the bench and hoped like crazy my hand didn't move. If you look closely, you can see several bright starbursts in the ambulance's light trail--it's from the rotating light hitting the camera lens at different intervals.

Greenwich Village

Well, today was an entertaining day. First off, I recently got a job through the AmericaReads program. Basically, I tutor at a local middle school. It works out quite well because it is only about a twelve minute walk away from my apartment, and since it is above 100th Street, it puts me in a higher wage bracket. I've been working one on one with several students, helping them with their homework and reading things with them. During class today, the teacher asked her students, "Who wants to work with Mr. Ventura today?" Almost half of the class raised their hand--I couldn't tell whether they actually wanted to work with me, or maybe they just wanted to get away from the other students at their table. I still thought it was pretty cool.

A mechanic that works across the street from the school. I asked if I could take his picture, and I like the fact that he didn't smile--he laughed immediately after I took the picture and said he wanted to see a copy

And one of my friends (Brittney) is in town for the weekend with several of her friends from Washington D.C. We walked around Greenwich Village for a little while before someone realized that nobody had any idea where we were going--every one just assumed that someone else was the leader. We decided to cut through Washington Square Park and try to find some place to eat.

Brittney -- all of us were sitting on the steps inside the fountain at Washington Square Park

Some random performers in the park...


But I like this picture even better. This elderly man just stood there listening for awhile. He would talk to the musicians between songs, listen to them perform, and talk to them again. He wasn't rushed, and he seemed to be thoroughly enjoing himself. I wonder if this is something he does often.

The sun was setting as we were leaving the park, and I liked the way the clouds were lit. The only problem is that the best angle was shooting through one of the streams of the fountain--so if you see any random dark globs that look like they are flying through the picture, it's just huge drops of water

And in case you're wondering, yes, I am going to try and post on my blog more frequently. I am also going to try and post as many pictures as I can. One of my recent goals is to try and take my camera with me as I walk around the city. There are several reasons for doing this: I want to take in and record as much as possible; I want to improve my photography techniques; ha, and take this as you will, but I was looking at new cameras and lenses online recently. After a little while, I realized that there was so much I could do with the camera and lens that I already have. I looked through the pictures I took recently of musicians playing on old, scratched, and fading instruments--my camera isn't any of those. In fact, if you didn't look at the model number, you'd think it was a new camera. More than anything, I just need to practice and make the most of the tools that are already at my disposal. Which leads me to the last picture for this post, and one of my favorite shots of the day.

We cut through the park to get back to the subway, and I saw this trumpet player by the fountain. He was facing towards the fountain, so I set up behind him and just waited, hoping he would turn so I could get a profile shot. Luckily he did, even though I made the entire group wait just so I could get a picture. It took me a little bit to realize that he wasn't necessarily performing for the people in the park. He was facing the fountain, and he wasn't accepting tips. I don't know why he was doing it. Maybe he has to practice there because it bothers his neighbors. Maybe he was cooling his nerves before an audition. Or maybe he was simply winding down from a long day at work. At least he was enjoying the fact that he had an instrument, and that he knew how to play--and that's something I can learn from.