Latest News 7/4/09 - TWO YEARS SINCE MY LAST UPDATE!!! ACK! Where have I been? Well, I had planned a move to another state and packed everything up . . . but due to the real estate downturn and other not so great financial surprises, I didn't move anywhere. With all of my belongings packed up, it was really depressing to unpack them in the same place. So that was a slow process. However, I have picked myself up. "Fearal" (previously titled "Sisters") has finally finished post production! YAY! It took a long time. I should be getting the movie back from the Director/Editor, Chris Nelson, to create a DVD copies for all those involved. We have tried to submit it to one film festival, however, it was not accepted. More festival entries to come. On some fun news, I used my ingenuity and tried to make a small make-shift sound proof area enclosing me and the computer to record Foley sound effects for my movie "Silence". Using tri-pods and stands, I made a triangle frame supported by crossbars of PVC pipe and wood. I then threw some heavy comforters and blankets over the whole thing that hung all the way to the ground. The dampening of external noise was minimal. But I did get a kick out of recording in it. I felt like a little kid in her own fort that she made. Well, it was worth a shot. 6/26/07 - Soothing Scenes has been launched! Soothing Scenes is Tygr Production's new line of videos and prints that promote relaxation and meditation. A variety of different prints are available online now for sale. Here is a sampling:          The video series will be released in August. Check for more updates in upcoming newsletters. 5/23/07 - Bubble Pop. My friend, Marianne, had a high school project due where she needed to come up with a commercial for soda (or pop, if you are Northern bred). The fun part about this project, is when you drink the soda, it did something amazing - anything we wanted. We came up with the idea of Bubble Pop! When you drink it, a bubble forms around you and you float up into the sky. It would also give me a project to play with green screen special effects. We ended up having Marianne fly all over in her bubble. You can view the finished commercial here. In order to accomplish the special effect of Marianne flying in a bubble, I had to shoot Marianne while she is standing in front of (and on top of) a green screen. The industry generally uses green because its color temperature is opposite that of most skin tones. Which is why it is commonly referred to as a green screen, but you can key to any color you want. Since the industry standard of a professional chroma key green screen was way out of my budget, I made my own guerrilla style. First, I tried spray painting two plywood boards. We found that this set up caused a couple of problems. Since the plywood was only 4 feet wide, when she would swing her arms out to the side, her hands would disappear. Also, she wore a pair of faded blue jeans, which light blue starts moving into green on the color spectrum, so her legs disappeared along with the background. I screwed up by using gloss instead of matte paint which made too much glare on the green boards from the lights. So, we had to shoot it again. This time I bought green fabric material that was 6 feet wide by 10 feet tall. Since the fabric only came 3 feet wide, I bought 20 feet which I then cut in half and safety pinned a double fold down the middle. Marianne also changed her wardrobe to shorts and bare feet which worked much better. I put all the special effects together in FCP's Motion. Motion made it very easy to fly Marianne around in bubble. I placed the background into one layer, and then the green screen footage of Marianne and the Grey Ball from Motion's shape library in the top layer. On Marianne's footage, I applied the Blue/Green Screen filter and cropped the bookshelves, ceiling and floor out. On the Grey Ball, I changed the opacity and added an extra thick line around the edge. Since both Marianne and the bubble (ball) were in the same layer, I was able to manipulate just the Layer and that kept the bubble (ball) around Marianne. I did discover that the interlaced video made Marianne look "wavy" in the motion project. I would suggest shooting your green screen subject in the progressive mode to avoid this. The first backgrounds you see has camera movement as she first floats up into the air, I shot those scenes at a couple of parks around here. Now, what's important to note, in the beginning when Marianne first starts floating up, I cut from wide, to medium, to close up shots. In order to accomplish this I had to shoot Marianne in front of the green screen in wide, medium, and close up shots AND I had to shoot the park background where she rises up in to the air in wide, medium, and close up shots also. Here I would advise to keep a timer with you, so that you can have the rate that she rises into the air consistent in all three shots. I did not use a timer, and it made a minor challenge in editing, but I think I covered it well.           The other backgrounds that she flies over are royalty free still shots. The only one to note is when she flies behind and in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. This I was able to accomplish because the photo had a clear blue sky. So I was able to "key out" the sky. Basically, this means that I used the sky as a blue screen the same way Marianne was in front of a green screen. It took more time, but I was thrilled that I was able to have her fly BEHIND something. All in all, it was fun playing around with green screen effects. Marianne also received an "A" for her high school project. I added a little something to the end for the "YouTube" version. 3/29/07 - "Sisters" has a new title "Feral". Production was finished on 3/3/07. YAY! We did it. The movie is now in the hands of the Director, Chris Nelson, who is going to do the post-production on it. The production was a lot of hard work, however, I had a great time doing it. And just to give you an idea of how hectic the weekends were for the shoot, click here for the recap. 10/17/06 - We WON!!! We won the Gold Bone award for Best Comedy for "Reaping the Girl" at the 2006 Bare Bones Script 2 Screen Independent Film Festival in Tulsa, OK. This production was made in partnership with The Actors' Circle and Tygr Productions. This was one of our "Shoot Labs" films, which I put these shoots together just as a learning tool, so it is wonderful that one of our little films won an award!! Yes, that's Chaplin (my dog) in the picture "helping" to accept the award. The Bare Bones people were so nice letting me take Chaplin to all the events, and to the awards ceremony. Chaplin was there to promote the movie that he had a small part in, "Love Thy Neighbor", which was also shown at the festival. Chaplin wasn't too happy with the festival events, but he loved camping out in the tent in Oklahoma. Chaplin and I also accepted an award for our friend, Michael Gavino, who was a runner-up for the Micro-Movie Bonehead award. 8/7/06 - We did it!! We completed a movie in 48 hours for the 48 Hour Film Contest. The challenge is to make a 4 to 7 minute movie in only 48 hours. That means the script has to be written, the shot list prepared, the crew assembled, the location secured, casting, lighting, shooting, editing, musical score, sound mixing, and credits (WHEW!) all in 48 hours. In order to keep the teams from cheating and writing a script before the official time starts, on Friday, July 28th, at 7:00 pm, each team was given a different genre and the same character, prop, and line of dialogue. My team, The Actors’ Circle, was given Romance, Al Cordova the circus performer, clipboard, and “Step aside, we’ve got to get through.” At the time we drew Romance, our team only had female actors committed to the project and . . . yes, we had to start running with lesbian love. Our director and writer came up with a great dramatic script complete with a dream/fantasy scene in it. You can view our finished movie, "Love Unfinished", by clicking here. I had a great time on this shoot just being the Cinematographer, because I could concentrate totally on camera work. I had to accomplish several different difficult camera moves and come up with creative lighting for the dream-like sequence. For one such camera move, I had to run in front of the robber as he ran frantically through the store. The whole thing had to be choreographed because I had to run backwards with the camera in front of the actor, keeping me from running into things was my “safety” running with me and was the one that actually saw where we were going. Behind the safety was the sound guy. So, the four of us (actor included) had to run through this store in and out of racks of clothing. During the first practice run (without the camera), my first safety ran me directly into a rack of clothes and we toppled over. I picked someone else for my safety after that. Thankfully, there were no other injuries the rest of the weekend. In other news, I am still in pre-production with Chris Nelson. However, we have switched our focus to another of his scripts that is more horror/psychological thriller. I'll have more updates when we solidify our schedule. 7/7/06 - Boy have I been busy. I haven't had time to update this site in months, but here it is. The big news is that Tygr Productions and The Actor's Circle are going to be entering the 48-hour film contest which will be the last weekend of this month. Not my kind of stress, but I will be helping out producing and running the camera. In other Actor's Circle news, I still have 3 of our mini-shoots to finish the editing on. And we have another scheduled for August. If only I can find time to get everything done. There will be a Tygr Productions movie shot this year. It will be a short, written and directed by my friend, Chris Nelson. The working title is "So Easy" and we are aiming for a November production. We are in pre-production right now. 2/14/06 - “Love Thy Neighbor” is finished. FINALLY!! I’m still putting the “behind the scenes” portion together and I need to design the DVD cover and case, but I’m so happy that I’ve finished one of my own projects. I had filmed this last March and had been so busy with client work, it just sat in my office for a good 7 months. I feel like I am accomplishing things now. I’m having a GREAT time with The Actors' Circle. I’m in post with our 3rd mini-scene, “Reaping the Girl”, and we are in preproduction on our 4th mini-scene, “Revenge by Shoe”. It will be a new experience for me shooting “Revenge by Shoe” since I’m only going to be the director and I’m going to have a cinematographer running my camera. A first for me. I usually run my own camera. The Actors' Circle had their own premier showing of the two mini-scenes that were completed, "Apocolypse" and "Dark Tea Time of the Soul", and we also showed Tygr Production’s “Love Thy Neighbor” and Mike Gavino’s e-incubator submission of “20 Spot”. All movies were received well. There is a new T-shirt design in the Tygr Productions Merchandise showing here: 12/01/05 - Tygr Productions is changing its business focus. Tygr will primarily be a movie production business from now on. I will finish up with most of my current clients through the beginning of 2006, then the rest of that year will be producing shorts. A few will be solely Tygr and the rest in collaboration with The Actors' Circle. Since I still love to watch other people's family home videos, I will still be offering the transfer to DVD service. Keep your eyes for more news and check out our current and past productions on our Movie Productions page. 11/23/05 - Get your official Tygr Productions Merchandise!!! T-shirts, golf shirts, hats, mugs, a wide variety of items with the Tygr logo plastered on it. There's even a shirt for your dog. Have somebody that's hard to buy for? They already have everything? I'm sure they don't have one of these items as they are brand new! Keep watch on the site as I will be adding film merchandise as I complete films throughout the year. Enjoy and thanks for your support.
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