Kevin Tostado – The Blog!

So Yellow Lights has wrapped filming for the fall semester. I looked back through the blog to see the last time we had done an update on the movie, and the last entry was on Nov. 17th! Definitely well past due for an update on how the movie is coming along.

Since November, we have started principal photography. We’ve filmed 10 out of approx 50 scenes and finished 2 out of 9 shooting weekends. The filming has generally taken longer than we expected it to, and we didn’t originally budget in time for costume changes, makeup fixes, or pizza breaks on the longer shoots.

We’ve filmed all of the scenes in June’s and Chris’ rooms because we’re trying to get as much filming done that takes place at one location at the same time (or at least the same weekend). The scene that has taken us the longest to film was the conversation between June & Chris over a game of pool. Although the scene itself is fairly short, the storyboards ended up having 23 different shots of the two characters, and we had to spend time having Amanda attempt to make shot after shot on the pool table until she sunk the balls.

It definitely is going to continue to be a lot of work to spend each weekend filming, not even counting the 1-2 rehearsals we’ll have each week. But in the end, I definitely feel like it will be well worth the effort and time put in.

Hopefully, the official movie site should go live in the next 1-2 weeks. You’ll be able to find it at http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com.

If you have any questions about how the project is coming along, feel free to leave comments on this site, or email me at kevin@yellowlightsmovie.com.

So I just started the process of setting up our official homepage for the movie, http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com. We have no content right now for it, but we’re working with a web designer over at Babson who is making us a site for free.

Once it is up and running, our movie updates will be going on that page instead.

My AHS Capstone Status Report for 11/3:

Reality Check: Progress and Plan of Work
As far as our current plan of work goes, we are a little ahead on finishing the screenplay. Our goal is to have a finished version by this Saturday (11/5), which will essentially have incorporated any feedback on the script that we have received. We are currently awaiting feedback from Mark Chang and from Connie Burge, a Hollywood writer.
We decided that for the sake of the movie, it made more sense to deliver a finished script to the actors sooner than later, so that they would have more time to acclimate to the screenplay and the lines. We’re doing a full cast read-through this weekend, and noting with them how we intend for scenes to come across and for certain lines to be delivered.
As far as the annotation goes, I am definitely a little behind. I have not spent enough time looking through my sources yet for the annotation. I plan to spend a fair amount of time over the next week and a half looking through the books and working on my annotation, so that I can have my annotation completed on time on November 17th.

Brief Assessment of Work Done
I have fallen behind on the reading simply because I have devoted most my time to reading the script. After talking with Tom about the film theory book, it doesn’t really make sense to us to try and incorporate that in because film theory is a huge subject, and the book that we chose does not lend itself very well for skimming.
We met with Gillian last week to go over Version 3.0 of the screenplay with her. On the whole, she was very impressed with the improvements that we had made on the script. She still gave us a lot of areas that could be worked on for Version 4.0, which I have already begun to incorporate into the screenplay. We expect to have the screenplay finished by this weekend, which will free up a lot more time to work on the annotation.
We also have finished our test shoots in the last two weeks. Tom has edited the material we shot together and for the most part, it has turned out looking awesome. Being able to see the actors act out the lines we have written really helps us to figure out which areas of the script still need work.

Big Picture
I am really excited about the fact that we should hopefully soon have a finished copy of the screenplay. Our plan is to have a cast read-through this weekend and then start the actual filming a week later. We are still definitely concerned about the time it will take because we have shoots scheduled every weekend from November 12th through Spring Break (with Winter Break off).
As far as the Capstone goes, I am concerned about the annotation, but if I make the effort to solidly read through the books we have purchased, I feel like I can do a good job with my annotation.

Today was a lot of fun, but a lot of work. We ran the first test shoot of a couple scenes.

Things I’ve learned today:

- Budget plenty of time for location set-up (furniture moving, camera set-up, etc.)
- Have a stage manager handy for line and blocking notes (Brendan would do this fine)
- Any line problems in the script will become very apparent.
- Having a tv monitor on hand is awesome for figuring out framing of shots.
- It’s very easy to forget about small details such as hair placement and character positioning.
- If a take is good on the first time, don’t shoot a second!
- The actors will get tired fairly quickly. We should take a break every 2 hours.
- We have plenty of people who are willing to be crew. Let’s figure out something for each of them to be doing so that Tom and I don’t forget anything.
- It’s fun to be calling the shots. (And…Action!)
- I should make sure my suitemates actually know what’s going on if we’re shooting in the room.
- 24 fps looks gorgeous!
- Having a behind-the-scenes cameraman makes filming even better.
- We’re making a f—ing movie!!!

Next test shoot will probably be happening next Saturday, either a day or night scene, but most likely an outdoor one.

We just finished our first full read-through with the cast, and it was extremely cool. The actors got to meet each other, and there was a lot of energy and laughter. We realized a lot of problems with the script, but we also realized a lot of ways to fix them. The message of the film is becoming a lot closer, and the detailed schedule is also becoming a lot clearer.

We now have a release date! The film is scheduled to premiere May 19th. Here are some other milestone dates:

10.15.05 – Test shoots
11.12.05 – Principal Photography
03.27.06 – Post Production
05.19.06 – Premiere

Stay tuned!

After two auditions and lots of deliberations, we have a cast! Congratulations to the following:

Brian Wilkins – Bennett Chabot
June Hartman – Amanda Hurley
Chris Myers – Andrew Tsang
Alex Daniels – Aja Munsell

We are having our first readthrough of the script as a cast this Saturday night. Hopefully we’ll get some good feedback through how the cast interprets their roles. Tom and I will then work their suggestions into the script in order to continually improve it.

This is actually happening!

So Tom was talking to Anita earlier about life at Olin and philosophizing about several things, and apparently during the course of the conversation Anita said “It’s amazing how much can change in 24 hours.” Surprisingly, this quote has kinda inspired both Tom and I, and I think it is definitely in the running for a tagline for Bay State.

So I’m not that web savvy whatsoever as some of you may know, but I needed to put together a page for Bay State, the movie that Tom and I are working on right now. But the page is up. Please don’t complain about it unless you want to make me a better one (I’d be extremely happy if one of you did volunteer to help with the page).

The link is www.kevintostado.com/baystate/. Once we decide on a final title, we’ll probably register a separate domain for the site.