UNTITLED Film Production 1 Project -- Craigoclassic 22

In fact it does have a title... sort of.
"Goodbye". Or is it "no time for Goodbye". That's probably a better one.
This was for film production 1. It was shot on 16mm reversal film. Anyone remember that?
This meant you shot it, they developed it and sent it back to you and that was ALL YOU HAD. No negatives, no reprints. You screw it up, it's screwed up. I still have this, and the other 16mm film prints in cases in my house. I haven't seen them in that format since college, which is too bad because they looked great (compared to the crappy video transfer here). Oh well.

I challenged myself to make a film that looked like it was sync sound, but we shot it with non-sync film equipment. There's some appearances of some of my college favorite actors, Nikki DeSalle and Mike Ford. Clearly influenced by Evil Dead, hopefully it gives you a bit of a creep out.

I remember the teacher saying I hands down had the best film in class. So that tells you something about how good the films were, I'd say. :)

The Joy of Cinerama

So in the past 6 days I have seen 5 Cinerama movies at the Cinerama Dome at Arclight Hollywood:

HOW THE WEST WAS WON, THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM, and THIS IS CINERAMA in full, 3 strip Cinerama prints.  CINERAMA HOLIDAY in a digital remaster of a 3 strip print.  And IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD in 70mm...

Yes, the titles are as long as the movies are.  They all have overtures and intermissions.  They all are 2 - 3 hours long.  And they all are AWESOME.

I learned all about the camera (It's 150 pounds with 3 interconnecting lenses, 3 film mags and a single shutter.  It captures 146 degrees of vision.)
I found out why the giant COOPER theater in Denver, where I grew up and watch Ghostbusters, Firefox and Return of the Jedi and other movies, existed.  (The screen was 110 feet across!) 

Or why the RIVER HILLS / RIVIERA in Des Moines (Cadry Nelson, remember that!) had that crazy curved screen.  All these theaters are gone.  Turned into Barnes n Nobles, TGI Fridays or Parking Lots.  In fact, only 3 theaters remain IN THE WORLD that can show 3 strip Cinerama.  How lucky that one of them is 10 minutes from my house?

It has been an absolute joy to journey through this once world famous, box office breaking, mindblowing -- yet now almost forgotten -- period of enormous widescreen cinema.  This is the reason we have widescreen cinema and Surround sound.  It all started here.

And to go back in time, 50-60 years, and see these movies larger than life itself, is a true treat.  It has been so inspiring, and has shown me a pure wonder and joy of cinema that I haven't seen regularly in a long time.  I only wish I could have shared the experience with friends or family.  So they could also have a giant childlike smile on their faces right now. :)

There's a few more movies tomorrow (Thursday) including How The West Was Won.  Treat yourself.  Go back in time.  See, hear and feel the power of movies.  It truly earns the word AWESOME.

And the next time you  watch something on a computer, or iPad or iPhone or iAnything, shot with a shakey, blurry, low res HD camera, you'll know what you're missing.

Bigger is better when it comes to movies.
Big film makes digital look like a toy.
And Cinerama was as big as it's ever been.

Filmmaking and Blogging are like Honey and Cherries.

So team, welcome to the first entry in my filmmaking blog. I thought about calling it "Craig Ouellette's Sing-A-Long Filmmaking Blog" in honor of that other popular blog we've all seen, but figured, even though I like to sing karaoke, we'll save that for the mic someplace.

What's it like being an independent filmmaker in Hollywood?

I can only answer that question by telling you about what I do and what I'm working on with friends and co-workers. I'm lucky enough to know a bunch of very good actors and actresses, make-up folks, composers, stunt people and other filmmakers, and we try to turn out movies on a regular basis. Sometimes for contests, sometimes just for the hell of it. After all, if you want to be a filmmaker, I say "make movies". Don't talk about it, don't sell how good you are at it. Just do it. Make movies and let your movies speak for themselves (sometimes in ways you never expect).

Hopefully this will all be insightful and amusing, that's my goal anyway. So let me know how I'm doing and please watch the films we've done or talk about here and let me know how we're doing there. You can see a bunch of them at www.trespassingonthelot.com, directed by my buddy Brendon Fong and myself.

As for now, its' 3:08am and I need to get to bed so I can get up and write my webseries/feature script for "When Zombies Attack!".

Talk soon
Craigo