Snow White and the Huntsman

UMMMMM, well I didn’t know Bella was going to be in this movie, I thought it was Kristen Stewart. The movie was a little slow moving for my tastes but I sat thru it, as they introduced the adult version of Snow White played by Kristen Stewart, it reminded me of seeing Bella from Twilight. There was a part of the movie where she says the lords prayer, I was like really!?!?!? In Enchanted Middle Earth? Then the heaving of the chest seems to be her best moments but again they reminded me of scenes out of Twilight. Let’ see, she jumps off a cliff into the ocean, reminiscent of the scene where she jumps off the cliff just to see Edward again. Then there was a scene where she bit into the poison apple and guess what, she dies slow like when she writhing in pain when she was about to be dispatched and Edward had to save her. Ok I guess I’ve done enough Bella bashing but, come on now. She did her thing in Twilight only because they needed an awkward teen and she fit that perfectly. But a princess?, Snow White to be exact, not so much! Do I think that Kristen deserves a chance as an actress to grow…absolutely! But as Snow White, she does not convince me.  I think she is cute in an innocent sort of way and that’s why I admit, I liked her in Twilight, or should I say, I grew to like her.  Remember, like the Harry Potter Kids (as I like to call them), they grew into their roles.  You saw them “becoming”.

 As far as action it was cool. Loved the effects, especially the way they made Ian McShane and Bob Hoskins look like dwarfs. The troll under the bridge scene was climactic but Bella oops I meant Kristen, oops I meant Snow White soothed the savage beast with her eyes. She might have been thinking about Edward and that’s what actually turned the beast away.

 Chris Hemsworth is getting a lot of face time since Star Trek and has been pulling his weight.  I can see him having longevity as an action or fantasy hero.  He seems to own those roles well! Loved him in Thor and the Avengers if you didn’t see it, you must go now, stop reading this post and GO NOW!

Charlize Theron, ok, she’s HOT! I loved her role in Italian Job with Mark Wahlberg, and she was riveting in Devil’s Advocate as the simple wife going crazy after her husband played by Keanu Reeves, lands a great job in NYC as a hot shot lawyer with your boy Al Pacino.  Anyway, I loved her as this character Ravenna, but honestly she is so good, she could have played Snow White and had some unknown play Ravenna (the bad witch) who is seeking to stay beautiful and live forever off of the blood of the young and pure of heart Snow White…Okizay!

For me an actor should be able to pull you into the character he or she is portraying, making you connect with the character.  I remember HATING and I mean HATING Christian Bale as he played a racist guy in Shaft, that if I’d have seen him in person I’d probably would have jumped on him and beat him down myself….but that’s how good he played his role and now I love him as Batman, the DARK Knight, which by the way, to me is the best vision so far of Batman.  Anyway, I digress.  Great effects, visuals were stunning and believable.  We even get a chance to see some fairies.

If you haven’t seen Snow White and the Huntsman, well in my opinion, you can wait for DVD/Blue Ray but if you have nothing to do on Saturday or Sunday at Matinee time..lol, then go check it out! Oh it’s kind of dark, so not for the kiddies!

Ryan Connolly/Triune Films Presents TELL

Ok so we’ve been waiting and waiting and it is finally here.  I know most of you won’t know what I’m talking about but those of us who know the crazy wacky world of Film Riot with Ryan Connolly, family and friends, know what I’m referring to.  The Long awaited short film by Triune Films, TELL, I’m not gonna spoil it for you if you haven’t seen it yet! But, I will say this, I’m usually not predisposed to Horror Thriller movies, not my thing.  I’m more the Star Trek, Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter (Yes I’ll admit it here) type, but I loved the story.  Lead Character Taylor, played by Todd Bruno, had me sucked in from the start.  The intensity of his character was evident, yet he was vulnerable, corny sounding but true! Jenny, played by Shana Eva, gave us a nice view of a woman wanting answers from her seemingly inattentive and non communicative boy friend Taylor.  Ray played by Tim Connolly, is the friend of Taylor, who finds out the ugly truth.  Remember I can’t give it away if you haven’t seen it, so yes I’m being evasive…lol…also supporting actress Brigitte Kali Canales  who plays Terra and Adriana Pascual who plays Officer Diaz round off the cast of this well put together piece.  I will say this, Office Diaz took it like a champ and I felt her pain, just glad she was able to….oops, Oh well I guess your gonna have to watch TELL and TELL me what you think.

As a student of Film Riot and yes a student, I’ve grown to love the way they weave their stories and skits.  My favorite out the box short was LOSSES.  I felt like damn, I wanna be like them when I grow up! Check that out if you haven’t seen it but I blogged about it so hopefully you’ve been paying attention.

Let’s continue shall we, ok so Ryan originally had another person that he had mentioned before that was supposed to be doing the score at first but for whatever reason he ends with Hybrid Two a dynamic duo consisting of Daniel James and Aaron Frensley, who in my opinion are phenomenal at what they do. I must have been on their site for about an hour, easy before regaining my senses.

By the time you read this post it will be a few days after the official release date of Wednesday May 23rd, 2012.

Make sure you stop by and TELL ’em HI! Support the independent film maker.  They’ve got DVD/Blue Ray and the sound track available for pre-order.  I pre-ordered MINE!

The New Show Stopper Camera by Blackmagic Designs

So while we’ve been waiting for the 5D Mk III and the we’ve been playing with the C300 and the Scarlet by Red, another player has been making a lot of noise in the background! A company named Black Magic Designs have come up with a unit that places a lot of very high end features in a very cost effective package for ALL filmmakers alike.

Please say hello to the Black Magic Cinema Camera

Now this camera impressed me with the stats out of the gate and for such a reasonable price point.  Not to say anything but it’s almost what I expected from the C300 and was hoping for some in the 5D Mk III but that’s another story!

“The Blackmagic Cinema Camera features an amazing 2.5K image sensor with a wide 13 stops of dynamic range for a true digital film camera. You get a built-in SSD recorder, popular open standard uncompressed RAW and compressed file formats, compatibility with quality EF and ZE mount lenses, LCD touchscreen monitoring plus metadata entry, all packed into an exciting hand held design!” This was taken from the site itself.  From what I can tell the industry is a buzz with this new entry into the film world.  It’s compatible with EF lenses and since I’m with Canon already that helps me out.  Although I was planning to get the PL set when I get my Scarlet.  So the only thing I see so far is the lack of more FPS, it goes to 30, there goes my dream of super slow mo’ EFX without using a plugin…but again I digress.

For the money this camera, based on the specs, should produce some very stunning images.  We’ll wait to see the explosion of tests that will undoubtedly start to trickle in as some more people get their hands on this unit.

For more information please see the Blackmagic Designs website for all the juicy tidbits!

From what I can see from the information, it’s gonna be a pretty cool unit that will offer a lot of things to filmmakers! Oh I didn’t mention that it comes with Davinci Resolve and I love the color editing features in that application.  I had to download the light just to see it work!  I’ll tell you more about that later

HAPPY SHOOTING!

Big Stupid Liar Video Shoot

Ok, so I know some of you guys are wondering what ever happened to the SOLO video project, our editors are currently away in Venezuela, their jobs take them abroad. So it’s coming!

With that said, we shot a video for a new song called “Big Stupid Liar” off of independent artist, Neysa’s upcoming album called “Out The Box”‘ which will be a diverse musical journey! With the help Mark SQuared, who you should remember from a previous post and some unexpected talent replacements, we were able to have a great shoot and had a lot of fun and pull off Neysa’s vision!

Another spectacular thing was I got to work with my son Jaysen Jae B Stewart of WEARETHEPPL, who was D.o.P. or DP of this project. He, with the aid of the 1st and 2nd AD Dave Evans and DreQuan Medallion, respectively, was able to keep things together and get the shots needed! There was a point where we actually shot a scene both hand held together at the same time!

Now on to the talent, we had some last minute changes and aspiring actress and model Mona mia and Nicole Goolsby and then we have Erika Allen and Katie Aikins and of course NEYSA

Here is a first look behind the scenes of “Big Stupid Liar”|

More to come…

Business Lessons by Hip Hop Pioneer

Glen Bolton aka Daddy-O, founder of Stetsasonic

I know you all are saying “hey I thought this blog was about being a directory of photography and stuff about the film industry and junk”…well it is, but every once in a while I want to share some things that I’ve been learning about BUSINESS itself and share things that has inspired me and hope it will do the same for you.  So if this doesn’t excite you in any way then you don’t have to read it. But I dare you to anyway! 🙂

I was having a hard time with this title, because the person I’m speaking about is much more than a rapper! He was an innovator of styles. Glen K. Bolton aka Daddy-O started Stetsasonic back in the 80s and had a slew of hits and was instrumental in the shaping of hip hop music since then. I had the extreme pleasure of meeting him personally at Studioplex Atlanta on Auburn St and he was so down to earth and cool.  Most at that level seem to be unapproachable.  We had some small talk about some equipment we had in common by Open Labs and then he got back to work and I was wowed by the ingenuity of his team.  Lots going on, made me step my game up, if you know what I mean.  I ended up seeing him several more times since our initial meeting and the things he’s into continue to amaze me.  I like that he is not the normal type of guy waiting for things to happen, he goes out and makes things happen.  He epitomizes the slogan “Movers and Shakers” He along with another mentor of mine Francis Palacios of East New York Entertainment of whom I’ll be blogging about shortly!

Now he adds “entrepreneur”  and “business consultant” to his already long list of accomplishments. This vet has a thing or two or five, to say about Business…check it out, please take note and tell ’em Daddy-O said so!

1. Put your creative people on the front lines

“If you do not keep your business people in the back room, patching people up, they’re going to muck it up,” says Daddy-O. “You let them talk, you’re done.”

Daddy-O is a big fan of putting the creative brains of an operation in the spotlight and keeping business people in the background for support.

In the hip-hop world, the creative people are the rappers; the business people include the record labels, the managers and anyone else helping distribute and manage the rappers’ music. Daddy-O explained that many successful rappers started off as independent artists—Master P, Cash Money, P. Diddy, to name a few. “The big checks come, they run to the big checks,” says Daddy-O. “And then ultimately, you see some of them fall off.” When business comes before art, the art suffers.

Startups and small businesses face this same problem if the business side of the operation comes before the product. Startups should focus on developing sound products, just as rappers should focusing on creating the best music that they can. Once the product, whether it be an app or a new LP, is at the top of its game, it shows—and the business will roll in from there.

Daddy-O compared business and art to a war zone: You have your foot soldiers (artists and creatives) out on the front lines, getting things done, and you have M*A*S*H (the business heads) back at the base, making sure everything runs smoothly.

2. Don’t let odds get in the way

“Passion is the kid in his mama’s house with one Marshall amp and a guitar, and his mother saying that he’s a bum, and he’s still doing it. Passion is those kids in a garage with a piece of software,” says Daddy-O. “If you’re going to be passionate about anything, you better not let odds get in the way. Because you can just strip the word passion out of there.”

Daddy-O explains that nothing should stop your passion, whether you’re a would-be rock star or a hopeful startup entrepreneur. For founding hip-hop artists, such as Daddy-O, who started rapping in 1979, there were a lot of critics of the genre who were calling it a fad or listening in disgust as DJs rubbed records the wrong way. “You think we listened?” Daddy-O asked. “It only made us scratch more. It only made us rap more, because we didn’t really care.”

Everybody’s odds are different, and you may think that attaining your business goal is impossible. If you put your passion behind it, though, you’ll always win. Whether you reach that final goal or just get pretty dang far along the way, you’ll learn something that makes it all worthwhile.

“You’re not going to be sure about most things you do in life. As songwriters facing a high degree of uncertainty, we embrace it. It actually energizes us. It’s the same butterflies that Michael Jackson got every time before he hit the stage. That degree of uncertainty is healthy if you look at it the right way; embrace it, because that’s what makes winning exciting.”

3. Never stop practicing

“Businesses fail because in the beginning you’re always practicing, always using your gift—whether that’s writing code or a new rhyme. But after your program gets picked up or after the record company signs you, you stop.”

“That’s it in a nutshell,” says Daddy-O, and he points to inspiration as the driver to keep practicing. Whether you were inspired by someone else’s work or you feel that your talent is a God-given gift, your only option is to stay inspired. Here’s a fun anecdote Daddy-O told:

“You’re in the beginning of a startup—you subscribe to Fast Company, Wired, Inc.; you’re following everything Guy Kawasaki says online; you bought all of Brian Solis’ books; you’re talking back and forth with Chris Brogan all the time, cause he’ll answer anyone; and you feel like you’re getting it. That’s until someone cuts you a check, and all of a sudden you’re out the window. All of a sudden your inspiration becomes your competition, and you’re no longer tweeting. What happened to that blog you were doing every week? What happened? Oh, you’ve got a check now. You don’t wanna fail? You don’t have an option. Stay inspired.”

4. Use what you’ve got

“The golden egg isn’t winning—it’s usage. Usage is enough. That’s all you have to do; use what you’ve got,” says Daddy-O. “That’s what Jay-Z does. He never stopped rhyming. That’s what Sean P. does. He never stopped rhyming. Every engineer I know, every developer I know, every designer I know, that’s all they do; they just use what they’ve got.

“You will continue to be inspired if you keep on doing it. There’s no way to be a break dancer and keep dancing, and not be inspired—because you will evolve if you keep doing it. You aren’t going to keep doing the same four moves every time. You’re going to get tired of the same four moves. If you’re writing code, you’re not going to keep writing the same four lines of code over and over; you’re going to get better.”

In the beginning, rap was about keeping it new. Rappers were required to have a new rhyme every time they took the stage. Making rap albums was considered “whack,” explains Daddy-O, because it meant you were recording your routine, nothing was new. As a result, rappers were constantly writing new rhymes. To get better, you’ve got to use your mojo, says Daddy-O.

This lesson has stuck with Daddy-O over the years. His business motto is, “Your evolution is inevitable if you keep doing it.”

Using what you’ve got is just as true for equipment as it is for mojo. “You ask any guitarist, and they don’t want a crappy guitar,” says Daddy-O. “But I guarantee you, Flea plays just as well on a sucky bass as a good bass, because he learned to play on a sucky bass. Use what you’ve got, and it will get you to the next level.” Don’t be jealous of the shiny, new goods that other artists or entrepreneurs are working with; make the best of what you have. Whether that’s talent or equipment, use it until you’ve exhausted it, advises Daddy-O.

5. Find where you belong

When you listen to a hip-hop artist, it’s inevitable that he will give a shout-out to his hood—be it Brooklyn, Atlanta or the Bay. A rapper’s home turf is a part of his music.

Marketers would call this concept “knowing your market,” says Daddy-O, but rappers look at it as knowing where they belong in the music world.

For businesses, it is important to understand what cluster of people your product or service is targeting and then communicate and act accordingly.

He throws in a bonus…

 Do not handle legal work alone

Along your journey to being a successful businessperson—or rapper—you’ll get the opportunity to do a lot of the work yourself, learning about different aspects of your industry and business. The only thing you should never categorize as a DIY project, says Daddy-O, is legal work. If you’re negotiating a contract, always seek legal advice. But other than that, he says, get your hands dirty.

As a young man growing up in this business it was hard to find role models to fashion myself after because I couldn’t find any one that had my thoughts, for the most part a lot of them were excited only by the outward shows of wealth, such as fancy cars, jewelry and yes folks it JEWELRY not JEWLERY I don’t know where that came from but ok….let me continue, I was more interested in longevity, residual income and still enjoying what you love to do.  Well for me, after all that has just been said, I’m not gonna reinvent the wheel or even try to come up with some hair brained scheme to make money quick.  I’m gonna hunker down and go for it!

Thanks for an inspiring lesson Daddy-O may we all take it to heart!

The Bubble

Hey everyone, I have not written in a while and wanted to share my experience in “The Bubble” over the Thanksgiving holiday! The Bubble as it has been affectionately named, is a place in Rodeo New Mexico called “The Painted Pony Resort“! What do you do in a desert, you may ask? Well, absolutely nothing or absolutely anything. It was a brand new experience for me personally. I’ve never seen so much beauty in a place and history as well! Our guide Sky Gypsies‘ BAlvarius welcomed us and during our time there shared his experience and knowledge with us. Fascinating seems to fall short of what it was like to hear the history and certain lore of the area. At night looking up into the sky, reminded me of standing in a planetarium, I don’t think I’ve ever seen stars like I saw there. It was breath taking, during our stay we also witnessed two beautiful rainbows in which could be seen the many colors of the spectrum in detail!

I can go on and tell you how wonderful it is but you’d have to see it yourself to believe it. The colors, the air, the sun, the stars, the dirt, yes even the dirt. Ok so let’s get to the accommodations. 9 Bedrooms total on property between the 3 building, a heated pool and Jacuzzi flat screen TVs and yes even internet. But don’t think for one minute you’ll be connected to the outside world via cell phone, remember I said bubble. Well unless you have Verizon, there is no cellular service in the bubble, well not with out help from a repeater which get’s you a Verizon signal. There is a land line there on property as well. I can go on and on about it but, I’ll post a link to some pictures.  For those filmmakers looking for a place to shoot or writers who need a quiet place to put your thoughts together or y0u just want to unwind, this is the place for you…The Painted Pony Resort in Rodeo New Mexico.

The Painted Pony 2nd Unit

The Painted Pony Master Suite

The Painted Pony Main Suite

I’ll be posting more links to pictures and sights shortly! Enjoy!

My name is Michael Stewart and I approve “The Painted Pony Resort”. 🙂