Dry Rain

Dry Rain on Vimeo

2011-05-02T11:48:00.000-07:00

Dry Rain has made the rounds around the United States and Europe. Finally, it is up on the web to check out. You can find it here on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/23054691

Dry Rain from Matthew J. Clark on Vimeo.

Dry Rain in Spokane!

2009-02-02T14:45:00.000-08:00

Dry Rain is headed to Spokane to screen at the Spokane International Film Festival. This is an exciting screening, not only because we have a great time slot, but because we have so many friends in Spokane. We're expecting a good turn out. So hopefully we see you there.

We are planning a get together after the screening to enjoy a drink and catch up with everyone. We'll let you know when that will be ASAP.

See you in Spokane on Friday, Feb. 13th at 6pm at the AMC Theater in River Park Square in Downtown Spokane.

Dry Rain in Missoula

2008-10-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

Nathan Gamble & writer Pete Fromm ham it up for the camera on the last day of shooting in Helmville, Montana.

We're in Missoula for the local premier of Dry Rain. We'll be screening at the Wilma Theater tonight. What a cool old theater to screen our film in. It is a place that holds lots of memories for me. I've lived in Missoula on and off over the years, my father grew up here and my Aunts and Uncles and cousins populate the town. Seems like around every corner I run into family or friends. Being in Missoula is special.

One interesting fact (or urban legend) is that famous film director David Lynch use to live in the Wilma when he was a boy. The apartments upstairs above cinema have always been interesting and weird. Seems perfect that Lynch lived there! His family later moved to Spokane and then out to the coast. Clearly living in such interesting places had an influence on the work Lynch would later create. In Twin Peaks, he makes several references to his former home in Montana. Then there is Inland Empire that combines many of his experiences, too.

A big highlight for Dry Rain is that we'll be on Montana Public Radio tonight. Producer William Marcus interviewed me and Pete Fromm last week for the story. If you don't live in Montana, you can check it out on KUFM's website. They'll have it in their library on-line for awhile, too.

The event tonight is apart of the Montana Festival of the Book. We're lucky to land in the prime spot of a Friday night at 7:30. We couldn't ask for a better spot. We're excited. We'll have pictures and thoughts posted here later this weekend.

James Le Gros, as Stil, and Nathan Gamble, as Joey, examine the road tar, pressing it into a little volcano during the 5th day of shooting Dry Rain.

Reviews in the Local Papers

2008-10-09T06:17:00.000-07:00

Back on Labor Day weekend, Dry Rain played at the One Reel Festival at Bumbershoot. We owe a big thank you to Beth Barrett at SIFF for taking Dry Rain in as one of the films on the schedule. I was out of town that weekend so wasn't able to attend. Luckily, we did get some nice reviews from a couple of the local papers.

The Seattle Weekly was very kind. They draw comparisons to Dry Rain and the work of Terrance Malick. We certainly looked at Malick's work and adopted a similar asthetic. It is interesting that someone saw that influence. Here's what they said: "Matthew Clark’s sparse, effective Dry Rain suggests Terrence Malick with a sense of humor, as a messy custody battle finds perennial hard-luck case James Le Gros and his (rather smarter) son dithering at the Canadian border. It could be a scene from a longer feature."

The Seattle Times had this to say: "Filmed in Montana, it features character actor James LeGros as a melancholy father who reluctantly returns his son to his mother's legal custody. It's one of the most professional films in the festival, but it begs for feature-length expansion."

One thing that comes from the newspaper comments is they both elude to Dry Rain being a longer film possibly being a feature. I have to admit, I never gave much thought to that option. I always felt that Pete Fromm captured a nice snapshot of the moment with plenty to think about that is never scene or told in the story directly, but, the story in Dry Rain is compelling and it could be an interesting exploration in longer form seeing how the two come to be in their current predicament. I'll have to think about that one!

The First Gig Harbor Film Festival

2008-09-29T22:23:00.000-07:00

On September 13th, Dry Rain played at the first Gig Harbor Film Festival. We were honored to be selected to play at the festival in a group of really great shorts. The collection of shorts, curated by Amy Dee and Beth Barrett of the Seattle Film Festival, were created by Seattle filmmakers including Dan Brown (Pierre) , John Hilde (Hello), Sean Pecknold (The Strange Hunger) , Mike Standish and Thom Harp (Fortune Hunters), and Douglas Horn (Full Disclosure).

Interestingly enough, Hello, Pierre and Dry Rain were all past winners of the IFP Spotlight Award and Full Disclosure and Fortune Hunters were finalists that didn't win, but went on to make their picture anyway. Just goes to show you that the award actually helps get things made and motivates people to create their film.

You got to check out Sean Pecknold's work. He has done a few videos for the up and coming band Fleet Foxes. The Strange Hunger is a cool animated short. Hopefully I'll be able to work with Sean one of these days. Sean's company is called Grandchildren.

Pierre was a fun film. Dan Brown asked me to shoot that film for him ages ago, it seems. It got good reviews and won the Golden Space Needle Award at the Seattle International Film Festival last year. You can see the film here on the South By Southwest site. Dan won an award there too.

A big thank you goes to the Gig Harbor Film Festival and especially Paula Lillard for putting so much hard work into getting it off the ground for the first year. Nice job Paula!

Palm Springs Baby

2008-09-10T22:16:00.000-07:00

Before leaving L.A. for Palm Springs, we made an out of the way stop to the Getty Museum in the Santa Monica hills. It was a great place to wonder around and take in the beautiful landscape, the interesting architecture and an amazing installation of photography from a turn of the century photographer and a mid-century husband and wife photography team. Both collections were inspiring. For me, when I go to a museum with such a huge offering of art, photography and sculpture, I find that I have to focus in on one collection or installation so I don't get over stimulated or burned out on way too much work. Taking in just the photography was perfect.

From the Getty, we rolled down the 10 to Palm Springs. The smog of L.A. gave way to sunny blue skies and puffy clouds just outside of Palm Springs. With the clear skies came the blistering heat. We didn't even get the brunt of it, but I think it was near 105 degrees F! So hot that even with a convertible, you wanted the top up so you could blast the cool air from the AC.

We immediately got checked into our hotel room and got settled. From there, we went to the festival headquarters and got our pass and got the lay of the land. Immediately, we felt welcomed by the staff. There were so many volunteers running around attending to the details. Clearly, this festival had their act together. We made an early night of it and sacked out early. We had big plans ahead of us: poolside lounging, screening films, seminars and more pool time.

Here's the funny thing, it is so hot in Palm Springs that if you want to hang out at the pool, you almost have to be in the water. The water is refreshing, but even it seems a little warm. And no, it wasn't a kitty pool, so not much peeing in the pool. It is basically super hot in Palm Springs and being there in the summer is kind of crazy.

Regardless of the heat, the hospitality and the organization at the Palm Springs ShortsFest was great. We got a chance to meet the curator of the festival, Kathleen McInnis. She was super supportive and very enthusiastic about having Dry Rain in the festival. Luckily, she was also the person moderating the Q & A after the screening, so we had some very good questions to ponder and try to answer.

Q & A's can be a funny thing. You don't know what kind of questions you'll get and then once you're up there, you just hope that you get some questions. In Palm Springs, we had a doozie. This one lady had nothing but negative things to say about all the films. Of the two of us up for the Q & A, she just bombed on both of us. It was actually a funny thing. Kathleen did a great job wrangling her and steering her away and letting other people chime in, but dang, I thought she was going to go for awhile tearing up our films.

Our time in Palm Springs culminated with a great drive up into the mountains for a nice sunset followed up by a party thrown by local sponsors and the film festival. It was a fun gathering with lots of networking going on of course. If any one ever asks about the Palm Springs ShortsFest, I encourage them to submit their work and attend. It was a great experience.

Oh, and lastly, we got invited to the Rhode Island Film Fest while we were there. I should clarify, we got invited to submit. So, hopefully another festival to screen our Film at and share it with a whole new group.

L.A. Shorts Festival - In Person!

2008-09-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

Editor Lee Gardner and me just after the screening.

We made the trek down to L.A. for the Dry Rain screening at the L.A. Shorts Fest. It was a perfect opportunity to see some good friends, take in L.A. and see what the festival was all about. We flew in the same day as the screening. We used our mileage plan miles to get cheap tickets, but less than perfect schedule. We flew out of Seattle at 7am. The early wake up and run to the airport hurt, but it was good to be in town early so we weren't rushed.

from R - L: Brittany, Elisa & Jordan with me on the end.

It seems to always take a little time to get accustom to the L.A. scene. I always notice it first when I get behind the wheel. The traffic moves fast, there is always congestion and then there's the hunt to find the fastest route to your destination. Arterial or Highway? Christine and I had fun with that and it was even more California with our free upgraded car: A convertible! Now we were ready to roll in style.
Elise with the thumbs up!

I think for us, the best thing about the screening in L.A. was to see old friends. We stayed with former Seattlites Jordan & Elisa Parhad. Jordan and I use to work together in Seattle. Last year, he and Elisa bolted for L.A. to take advantage of the booming film production market and nearly infinite opportunity for Elise. They were great hosts, showing us the sights, hosting a BBQ in their backyard and just all around good company. We also got to see Lee Gardner, editor of Dry Rain. It is always good to see Lee. My old friend from film school days, Hilly Hicks was in attendance. He and I haven't seen each other since we were roommates in NYC back in '92. So it was god to see him! Other good friends we hadn't seen in awhile were Doug and Jessica Cheney. Doug and Jessica got to know each other when Doug and I worked together. Doug is an inspiring Director/DP. Brittany Klaus was there as well. She joined us in Montana earlier this year for a fun bike trip.
Brittany & Me after the show.

Good thing we brought as many of our friends as we did. Between the late screening time (9:30pm) and the mid week position in the schedule (Wednesday) we didn't have best turn out. On top of that, the festival didn't really seem to be that supportive either. I'm not sure what was up, but we felt a little detached from the whole experience. The post screening Q & A was pretty weak. Thank goodness we found a good spot to have a beer afterward. Our little group had a good conversation about the group of films we saw and I was able to get some good feedback from everyone. The whole night was made just with the good company.
Hilly HIcks gives Dry Rain two, count 'em two thumbs up!

The remainder of our time in L.A. was spent kicking around at museums and hanging out with Jordan, Elisa, Brittany and Hilly. It was great just hanging out and having a relaxing time.
Jordan after the show with the thumbs up!

Saturday, we rolled out for Palm Springs for the next stop on the Dry Rain Tour.

Palm Springs International Short Fest - Screening Times

2008-07-30T15:09:00.000-07:00

Producer Brian Homman on location in Montana.

Just got word today that Dry Rain will screen in Palm Springs at 4pm on Monday August 25th. All the screenings will happen at Camelot Theaters. Dry Rain will run in a program, much like in Seattle, with several other films. Expect to see an eclectic mix of films with a similar theme. The theme in our collection is "Single Parenthood."

There's a good chance that I'll heading down as will Brian Homman, Dry Rain's producer. Any of you guys gonna make it? It'd be good to see some friendly faces there.

Speaking of friendly faces, we'll also be showing in L.A. the week before. I know there are several of you guys down there that will come, hopefully. The L.A. Shorts Festival screening is August 20th at 9:45pm at the Laemmle Sunset 5 Theaters. Here's a map to the theaters and here is a link to the theaters' website.

Palm Springs International Short Fest!!

2008-07-18T15:55:00.000-07:00

The Crew the day before shooting begins in the parking lot of the Super 8 in Conrad, Montana. From Left to Right: Ted Barnes (Gaffer), Mike Prevette (1st AC), Jason Puccinelli (Production Designer), Oscar Lofgren (Prop Master), Dave Hayes (Best Boy Grip) and Eddie Adams (Production Manager).

We got another under our hats ladies and gentlemen. Dry Rain is now an official selection to the Palm Springs International Short Fest! This is a great honor that we're really excited about. We just got word late last night that we're in! The festival runs August 21 - 27, 2008 down in of all places, Palm Springs.

Now comes the challenging aspect to entering festivals: which one to go to and how to make it there! I'm really hoping to go to L.A. for the L.A. Shorts Fest. I might be able to combine two fests at once since L.A. and Palm Springs pretty much run back to back. Brian Homman, the Dry Rain producer, may go to Palm Springs...we'll see. Either way, we'll represent.

The next challenge is getting the print shipped to both places and dealing with logistics. Since we only have one print and it needs to be in nearly two places at once, we're in a bit of a bind. We do have HD versions of the show to screen, but we'd really prefer to show the 35mm print. It'll look so much better.

When we know more about Palm Springs, we'll let ya'll know the screening times and the goods on when and where. Rumor has it Brian will be hosting a party in his room. Should be really sweet.

Screening Time for LA Shorts Fest

2008-07-16T15:48:00.000-07:00

Christine McBride keeping the rain off Nathan and James. Luckily the storm didn't last long.

Just got the word today from the LA Shorts Fest. Dry Rain will be screening with a group of films, much like in Seattle, on August 20th at 9:45pm. Typically in these short film festivals, they group a number of films together to get to about an hour and a half or so. It is always interesting to see the other films and who you are up against. Hopefully the 9:45pm time slot will allow lots of people to see it and especially the jury.

So who's going to L.A.? We gotta meet up before hand. I know there are lots of people we know in L.A. We hope to see you all out there.

L.A. Shorts Fest!

2008-07-09T12:02:00.000-07:00

I just got the email today. Dry Rain is an official selection to the 2008 L.A. Shorts Fest. The festival runs August 15th through the 21st in Hollywood. L.A. Shorts Fest is one of the premier short film festivals in the world. In past years 30 participating films have earned Academy Award nominations, with 9 filmmakers actually taking home the Oscar.

We don't have exact screening times and location just yet, but we should know within the next couple of weeks. We'll keep you posted on this festival and the many others we've submitted to!

Recording Session Photos

2008-07-01T15:22:00.000-07:00

I just came across these. I took some photos during our recording session at The House of Sound back in March. Chris White assembled a great group of musicians to put the score together. Here's the photos: Chris White and Jamie Maker work on a sketch of one of the tracks for Dry Rain. Maggie, my black lab, recovers from a long day on the floor.

Jamie working the pedal steal.

Aaron Saye is the percussionist behind the tracks in Dry Rain. He put an amazing spin on it and really added some great energy to the mix. Aaron's skills as a drummer/percussionist are amazing.

Chris White, the man himself, at the keyboard working his magic.

Jared Dunn jumped into the booth for an improptu stint with us on the acoustic guitar. Jared just came by to talk with Chris about recording an album. We put him in the booth and he rocked. Nice job Jared.

One Reel Festival

2008-06-23T14:51:00.000-07:00

Dry Rain was just recently invited to screen at the One Reel Festival here in Seattle during Bumbershoot 2008. The music and arts festival runs from August 30th through September 1st at the Seattle Center.

The One Reel Festival will be the second chance to see Dry Rain in Seattle. Dry Rain first premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival back on May 31st. You'll get a chance to see Dry Rain in HD rather than our preferred 35mm format print, but the HD version looks stellar.

Exact times and dates of the screenings at the One Reel Festival will be posted soon. Keep an eye out here on the Dry Rain Blog or check out the Bumbershoot website.

A look back at SIFF

2008-06-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

May 31st was our first public screening of Dry Rain. It was great to be able to sit with a big crowd and hear, feel and see people's reactions to the story. It was a surprise at some moments when people laughed and it was poignant when people sighed or felt uneasy. It is hard to predict those reactions, but I was please by the vibe I was getting from the crowd.

After the screening, we had a Q&A with some of the other filmmakers joining up front. I think that's always pretty cool to be able to hear people's interests and curiosities about a film. The down side was that there wasn't much questioning going on. At one point, I asked questions of the other filmmakers! So the next time you go to a screening and the Director, Producer, Writer or Cast is up in front of everyone, ask a questions! There's always something to learn from the people that have gone through the process of making a film. Just my two cents worth.

One of my more memorable Q&A's with a director was with Oliver Stone. He screened THE DOORS at our school when I was in college. It was intriguing to hear about the heartaches of making that film. He was engaging and funny and insightful. People asked a lot of questions and he obliged with great thoughts on his process.

One of the Q&A's I wish I had seen was when Cinematographer Christopher Doyle (The Quiet American, Rabbit Proof Fence, Hero, Paranoid Park). He's an amazing cinematographer and a very enthusiastic presenter. He speaks his mind and often has hilarious tales of filmmaking. He's passionate about his craft and you feel that when you hear him speak. Of course, I've only witnessed it on Youtube, but I also hear he's great in person!

SIFF didn't recognize DRY RAIN for any acheivements other than placing us in the film. No Jury prizes or anything like that. We did gain some interesting acknowledgement from some other festivals. We've been invited to submit to a couple. More on that as the details unfold.

For those of you that made it out to the screening, thanks for coming! We'll have another at Bumbershoot. Stay tuned for more info on that.

Thanks!!

Props from the Stranger

2008-05-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

(Nathan Gamble on the set of Dry Rain in Helmville, Montana waiting out some weather.)

Just opened this week's Seattle Stranger. We got our first newspaper reviews! The Stranger's Annie Wagner paid us a double edged compliment. I guess that goes with the territory. Thanks Annie!

Here's the blurb: "...One of the better locally produced shorts in the festival, Matthew J. Clark's Dry Rain is in...it's about a noncustodial parent (James Le Gros) spiriting his unusually bright kid (Tacoma native Nathan Gamble) across the Canadian Border for a "vacation." The acting is great, and the little prodigy isn't even annoying"

Like I said, we'll take all the props we can get!

The Film runs at SIFF on May 31st at 4 p.m. in the SIFF Cinema in Seattle Center. Dry Rain runs in a program of other shorts. So you'll get to see it stacked up against films from South Africa, Scotland, Australia, the UK and other U.S. Films.

Annie went on to say that the program, All in the Family, is the darker family-themed shorts package (if you want kid-friendly fare, see The Family Picture Show). I for one can't wait to see some of the other films. Should be cool.

See you there.

SIFF Official Selection

2008-05-01T11:21:00.000-07:00

Dry Rain is an official selection to the 2008 Seattle International Film Festival! We're really excited about being in our home town fest. The screening will be Saturday, May 31 4:00 pm, SIFF Cinema. Go to the SIFF Website and buy your tickets now!

Final Answer Print

2008-04-24T11:32:00.000-07:00

Today, we sat down with the crew at Alpha Cine to screen our first answer print of Dry Rain. An Answer Print is a release print that is created to look at all the technical things to make sure they've come together on the screen and look right. Things like color, lip synch, and other details get reviewed to ensure it looks right.

I tell you, looking at the print on the screen was so awesome. Finally! To see it big and not on a video monitor or worse, on a small computer screen in some low res Quicktime. It was great to see all the subtle details in the image and performance. So we're on to the next step....getting it into the festivals.

At the screening, we had, amongst a couple of friends and some lab employees, Jeff Tilotson, our colorist from Flying Spot Film Transfer, Shane Dillon, the final conform and EQ artist that put the together in its final form at Flying Spot, Mark Brown, the artist that does the film out from digital files, Lisa Cohen, the lab's producer and the lab owner, Don Jensen. It was great to have everyone there and put eyes on the finished print. And my first audience. It was a little intimidating to have an audience of such discernible people, but it went over well.

We'll make a few tweaks to the contrast in a couple of scenes, but we are nearly there!

Final Mix

2008-03-04T12:55:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I made my way down to Clatter and Din to do our final mix on Dry Rain. Usually in this session, you review the work, make some minor tweaks, ensure the mix is good (the balance of music and sound efx and the actor's voices) and your all done. Tonight, we had to bring in the music from the music we just recorded at the House of Sound (HOS) and tweak some sound FX. Most of Monday and Tuesday, Chris from HOS mixed the music tracks and engineered them into the final form. He posted the tracks on the Clatter and Din website. Now all of this sounds complicated, but it was super easy. The only thing I feared, with our tight deadline, was that a file might be corrupted or something was just plain wrong. Well, it all worked out really well.

The tight deadline was driven by two factors: 1) we have the opportunity to submit to SIFF by mid March and 2) I am leaving the country to shoot a TV show in Nepal and Bhutan...more on that later, but needless to say, we have to get stuff done!

I sat in with the good folks at Clatter and Din to do the final mix. Vince Werner was the lead designer and engineer with Thad Wharton doing the heavy lifting and final mix. These guys are totally on their game. I sat in with them multiple times over the course of the winter working through the details of the sound. The great thing is I didn't have to spend a lot of time with the guys. They got it dialed in fast, took great direction and we're super collaborative.

Tonight, Thad and I brought in the final mixed music from Chris White. We laid that in and then just attended to a few minor tweaks. Thad and Vince had done so much work up to this point, we hardly had to do anything. The mix went super smooth. I'm looking forward to hearing it and seeing it all on the big screen!

Burns Like Hell Fire

2008-03-02T11:46:00.000-08:00

This weekend, we did the final recording of the score for Dry Rain. Chris White, from House of Sound, brought together brought together a fantastic group of musicians to make it all happen. Burns Like Hell Fire is a Spokane based band that has been around for awhile now. They're western flavor and alt country sound merged with Chris' sensabilities was perfect for the score. We recorded over two days at the HOS studio in Downtown Spokane. It went super smooth and we managed to get it all done. Chris had already recorded some of the tracks, so we were just focusing on two or three tracks and touching up another.

It's funny how projects like this always feed on past experiences and relationships. Jamie Maker and Aaron Saye played on our tracks, but they are also members of the band The Makers. A couple of years ago, I directed a music video for the boys for their new album "Everybody Rise." The clip turned out super cool and of course, they were great to work with. Have a look at it here: http://www.loadedpictures.com/themakers Fast forward to 2008, Jamie works with Chris White regularily. When Dry Rain came up, Jamie was stoked to jump on board and help out. Aaron manages to crawl into the studio quite often too, and he was down. The rest of the Burns Like Hell Fire crew volunteered too, so we had a band to play out what Chris and I had in our minds.

It was a fun weekend of just working out riffs and sitting back and letting the band run with the ideas. I was fighting a cold that had gotten ugly. I was on a roller coaster of a fever than chills than back to a fever. I managed to pull out of the funk by Sunday afternoon, but I was hurtin for sure!

Special thanks go out to Chris White for putting it all together and making it sound so good! Also, the band. Thank you!

Aaron Saye - Drums
Jared Dunn - Guitar
Jamie Maker - Guitar and Pedal Steal Guitar
Bill Barrington - Bass
Cameron Norton - Drums
Brian Young - Guitar

Trailer

2007-11-27T00:14:00.000-08:00

Just want to make sure if you haven't seen the trailer for Dry Rain yet, go to the StraighEIGHT Films website and check it out.

What Writers do on Set

2007-11-16T22:38:00.000-08:00

Do you ever wonder what writers do on set? You know, their work is done, they've written the script, time to sit back and watch it all happen right? Wrong. If you are Pete Fromm, you sit back every now and then. Sometimes you get after the director, sometimes you hassle the talent. Sometimes, you even teach the crew how to throw rocks and then get them all to do it at once. Hmmm.... maybe we should start a new crew position for a guy like Pete: Set Jester. He was so good at keep everyone entertained!

Ok, he did some writing right before we started shooting. He earned his keep. And, the addition of having his two sons on set was great. They became indespensable for standing in and working and being body doubles. What a deal.

Christine shot these stelthy photos of Pete behind the scenes. She captured the essence of the writer in his element.

Looking Back - Thanks Vitamin Water!

2007-11-15T22:14:00.000-08:00

I was looking back at photos from the shoot. There were so many cameras on set, it is no surprise that I keep seeing new pics all the time. This series of images gives you a little insight to the crazyness and boredom that can make the crew go sideways. Of course, there was very little time for being bored! Our creative team of photographers managed to find some interesting subject matter and a little time to actually snap a shot or two.
This particular set is from my fiance, Christine McBride. (oh yes, fiance...that's another story) She was out to portray our sponsor, Vitamin Water, in a realistic fasion on set. She tried to show it in all the different settings she could find.A big shout out to Virginia LaForte for her support of Dry Rain through the donation of Vitamin water for the cast and crew. The thing I love about Virginia is she is a make it happen kind of woman. She saw a need and just called us up and said where can I drop ship a bunch of Vitamin Water. She just did it and took charge. Thanks for helping us out Virginia. And, btw, Vitamin Water was a big hit on set!

Check out Tom's site

2007-11-14T23:55:00.000-08:00

Tom Taylor, location soundman for Dry Rain, has compiled a nice set of images from Dry Rain. Check out his site www.taylormadeaudio.com and go to the current projects page. Bonus: you get to see a photo of Tom and Snoop. That's pretty dope, Tom.
This image of Tom's is called: "Losing Light" As he points out on his website, it was about 3pm and it was getting dark! On a hot August day in Montana! That was all due to the fact that there was a huge forrest fire raging about 40 miles away dumping smoke and ask on us!

Finally...a new post!

2007-11-01T21:06:00.000-07:00

I'm so far behind on the blog. I have to apologize. As soon as we wrapped shooting back in August (yikes, August) we dove right into post. I spent a great week in Santa Monica editing with our famed editor Lee Gardner. It was awesome. We made a ton of progress and really shaped the story. Then October came and went and we continued to work out the kinks and smooth it all out. Lee continued to plug away at the project and really made some great progress.

Now, after some paying work took me away, I'm back on Dry Rain and we're really seeing some daylight. We locked picture last week. (that means the editing is done and we're moving onto finishing the color and music and other details...the icing). We need to work out the details of finishing the film, but we know for sure by the end of December we'll have a complete film.

We even have a trailer to share: If you go to the StraighEIGHT Films link, you'll find the trailer. Just a little something to get you excited about the entire film.

Take a look and enjoy.

Sundance & Slamdance

2007-10-15T21:58:00.000-07:00

I think the top question I get lately is: "when do you hear from Sundance?" or "Did you get into Sundance?" Well, we did make the submission deadline for Sundance. It was a long week of editing, but Lee Gardner and I made it with some long nights of editing. We submitted the rought cut, which is totally normal for films in production so close to the submission deadline. We are keeping our finger's crossed to find out.

The other big festival we submitted to was slamdance. Slamdance started as an answer to the seemingly mainstream fare at Sundance. It takes place as the same time as Sundance but is mainly in Salt Lake instead of up on the hill in Park City. It is equally as important in terms of getting your film seen. We would be thrilled to be at either. You just can't be at both festivals. You gotta choose. Now wouldn't that be a great problem to have: choosing between the two dances.

PARTY!

2007-09-30T21:14:00.000-07:00

We had a party and it was so much fun. The goal of the night was to have fun, thank everyone that worked on the film and to rasie some money to help defray costs. We were successful on all fronts. We managed to pull down over $15,000 dollars and there is still money coming in. It was an amazing out pour of love and support. Thank you all.

A big shout out goes to the food crew for pulling together some amazing eats. Bridget from Lovin' From the Oven was the one in charge of that. She did an amazing job and oh wow was the food good. I wish I would have eaten more!

Jessica Hostetter was the brains behind the whole event. She coordinated it all and made it happen. And yes, her husband Doug shot the film. We're all for nepotism.

Special thanks go to Jimmy from USnaps. Check out the shots from the photo booth. They're a gas. You can find more at Usnaps.com and the special code word is DryRain.

There were lots and lots of people that helped out in so many ways including all the folks at the doors, the bar tenders, the props people, the DJ. The list goes on. We got a great crew. Thank you all for supporting us.

Highlights:

150 people showed up!

The big auction throw down for the phone booth. The guys at Seatte Grip and Lighting took it home after some heated bidding.

Pete Fromm....Need I say more.

Three kegs of beer from Silver City Brewing

Great Falls Tribune gives Dry Rain a Nod

2007-09-06T09:03:00.000-07:00

Check it out. We're really gaining some momentum here with the press. The Great Falls Tribune just printed a story about Dry Rain. Nice article. Its interesting to hear the side of locals about our production being in their town.
Everyone out there including Scott, the owner of the Home Cafe, and Doreen from the Rose Room, were great and very supportive of our project. One funny story about Doreen, and I'm sure there are more! Doug and I were shooting second unit stuff after we wrapped the main unit. It was a Monday. We stopped by to say hello to Doreen and have a beer. But she was closed! Of course she was there and came out and talked our ear off. She just wanted to chat. She even offered us a beer...on the house! We couldn't even give her any money. "Nope" she said, "the till is closed up and don't have any money to make change. Its on me." And what a good beer it was. We sat out on the bench where we had shot James and Nathan and enjoyed the warm afternoon and Doreen's chatter about forrest fires and what not.

Thanks Brian for the photos. Check out his stuff on his flickr site. Links are to your right or go HERE to his flickr site

Dry Horror

2007-09-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

Pete said he could probably write these guys into the film. Changes the tone of the whole thing, but we know Pete's got the skills to work it out. Despite what Pete says, I have confidence in him. His quote about the rewrite after having a look at the image below: "Working on the rewrite now. Shit, it's a horror story."
Actually, that's Ted Barnes, Gaffer and Dave Hayes, Best Boy Grip, in the car being our stand-ins for some driving scenes. These guys were great. They'd throw in where ever...didn't matter. If it needed to get done, they were there. Thanks guys!

Here's Dave's homage to the Unabomber. We did go to Lincoln, Montana, home of Unabomber himself! Ted Kaczynski hunkered down in a small log cabin and banged out his Manifesto on an old type writer. Brought about 15 minutes of fame to the small town of Lincoln. I think Dry Rain and Pete Fromm combined out did the Unabomber in terms of noteriety!

Dry Rain Gets Some Media Coverage

2007-09-05T00:50:00.000-07:00

The media can really make or break a film. We knew that having the local Conrad paper on our side would be a huge feather in our cap. It would probably mean some serious momentum for the project. We were lucky enough to make it on the front page of the Independent-Observer. They put us in front of the leading headlines of prior issues like forrest fires and wheat prices!

You just can't pass up good press like this, even though some of the facts might be a little off.

Second Unit Takes Over, Dusty Goes On Strike

2007-09-04T23:21:00.000-07:00

Often times, on big feature films, the main unit (comprising the camera, grip and electrical department along with other important departments) will need help getting all their shots done to keep on schedule. Many times, a second unit will come into take care of some shots where the main actors aren't involved like stunt work or scenic shots. It just helps speed up the process to get work completed.On Dry Rain, we had a second unit, too. We had a lot of shots to get that didn't have actors in them and shots that were best acquired with a smaller crew. We has some shots of the car driving through lonely landscapes. We had some shots of Virga. We had some shots to pick-up that set the scene for the road trip. All perfect for a smaller crew.

Dry Rain's second unit was Matt and Doug. Yup, just the two of us. Doug continued shooting and I directed some and mainly drove the car, got in Doug's way and played on the walkie talkie's. Doug managed all the important details like film, exposure, gear inventory and packing and repacking the truck. I made sure we had coffee, got snacks (from our lovely craft service crew! Thanks Jessica!) and lined up our locations and tried not to get into trouble.

Basically, the company wrapped on Saturday August 18th. On Sunday the 19th, the Second Unit, (Doug and I) headed out in search of the right light and the perfect setting for all those extra shots, not to mention always being on the look out for Virga. Our crack team of forecasters (Pete Fromm and his two sons Aidan & Nolan) kept an eye on the doplar weather radar in search of potential Virga producing storms.

The weather turned sour on us on Sunday, so we decided to head east towards Pendroy to start shooting out pick-up shots. Our plan was to drive Dusty, the hero car, up and over Roger's Pass from Lincoln. Go easy on him and not ride him too hard so he makes it at least a few days. Well, Dusty didn't make it a few miles. He just up and quit. He was running very poorly and just didn't want to go over the pass. I pushed him but he pushed back. No going.

We quickly and nimbly changed our plans. See that's what a 2nd Unit can do: move fast. Unlike the fat first unit too cumbersome to do any thing other than plow forward on a predetermined course, our 2nd Unit moved like a cat, ok, maybe not a cat, but at least like a somewhat fast animal of some sort. Anyway, our new plan was to get my truck in Missoula (left there prior to the end of the shoot), get a tow dolly to pull Dusty around and away we go. Of course, all of this takes time and we finally got back to square one and moving east like our original plan late in the afternoon on Monday. Dusty runs just well enough to get a couple of shots off the same day. We crash in Chocteau for the night and find ourselves in Pendroy on Tuesday.

This is where Dusty really decides to go on strike. All we asked of him was to peel out a few times, drive up and down the road a few times and that was it. But NO, he has to dig his heels in and demand some love and attention. All of this comes to a head just about lunch time. We've diagnosed that Dusty really does need a new alternator and probably a battery. Doug heads in to Conrad for some food and fuel and picks up a battery too. I stay back and give Dusty the love he wants. I put in the new alternator we had bought a few days prior, realize the automatic choke is broken and drop in the battery when Doug gets back.

Now, you have to remember that Dusty was a great find, but not the most well loved car in the world. He got some attention before leaving for Montana. We put a new starter into him after day one of shooting. We carted him around on a car trailer like some kind of king. You'd have thought he was gonna be OK for the duration of the shoot. Today, I found out that the little bit of love was all he needed. With all that I did for him on this day, he fired up and was ready to go. We even hit 70 flying down the highway outside Pendroy!

Of course, we still hauled him around for fear of another revolt. I'm sure we were a sight driving down the road. Picture this: Me driving my Bright Red Right Hand Drive Land Rover pulling a tow dolly with a 77 Dodge Volare Station Wagon followed by a white Nissan truck with a camera rig strapped to the front and a bashed in in front fender with deer hair still sticking to the grill. And all of that only going 60mph or so down the "Montana-Bahn" where speeds average 80 or better.

At the end of Tuesday, we rolled into Great Falls to stay with Pete and Rose and the boys. I'm sure the neighbors are still in shock at our ragtag parade of wierd cars rolling into the neighborhood. I wonder if Pete got any hate mail or rocks in his front window 'cause of us? Well, despite visually polluting the street, Pete and Rose took great care of us. They didn't even try to throw us out after the first night. Instead, they fed us and fixed us up with coffee in the mornings and of course, the help of the crack pot meterological forecasting crew was at our beck and call.

Doug and I moved out at the crack of dawn for the next three mornings, at least on the road by 10 a.m., in search of high plains vistas and scenes of isolation and lonliness on the prairie. At times, it was harder to find than we thought. Finding just the right look, with the right clouds and all could be challenging. It was a lot of fun over all. We back tracked over many roads we'd been on in the spring. By Thursday morning, we had checked off everything but the shots of Virga. That was our goal for the rest of the week: Get Virga.

Our meterologists suggested that Thursday had all the right components for Virga formation: low humidity, light to no winds, temperatures in the 70's or above and a new system moving in. And my word, they were right! Doug and I got into a patch of Virga that lasted for at least an hour before it started to really rain. It was great. We got a bunch of different versions of it as it crept across the valley. It was beautiful. Getting that really capped off a great shoot.

Friday would be our day to head back to Seattle. We had to repack and clean gear and sort out the mess we had created during the week. Once we had everything together, we hit the road in our own cars. Doug hit it right back to Seattle. I had to return the tow dolly and put Dusty to bed in a safe spot, just in case we need him again for more pick-up shots. Dusty now resides on the back part of my Aunt & Uncle's property in Alberton, MT, just west of Missoula. I'm not going to give you the exact details of his location. We don't want a lot of people milling about trying to get a glimpse of him. But, don't worry. He's safe and sound and just might make a return!

Crazy Border Crossing Agent

2007-09-03T01:17:00.000-07:00

If you see this man at any border crossings, real or fake, don't show him anything. Don't give him anything. Just proceed forward and ignore him. We can only hope that you don't have night mares after your encounter. And let's also hope you don't run into him on a hot day. You've seen Reno 911? We'll just imagine Lethbridge Border Crossing 911...those short shorts just don't work well with the big ranger hat. That's all I'm sayin'...

How all this started

2007-08-22T23:33:00.000-07:00

(Christine, James, Matt & Nathan)

There is a huge list of people that I need to thank. I can't start here just yet, but I do have a special thank you to pass along:

About two years ago, I started talking to Christine about Dry Rain. Now, it needs to be noted that Christine is not only an excellent listener and my girlfriend. She also has a knack for remembering important details, filing those details away and then bringing them back up at a later date. Dry Rain stuck in her head with our many conversations about it. She went so far as to get the book from the library and read it just to know what I was talking about when I'd ramble on about how cool I thought it would be to make into a film. Of course at theat time, I was just day dreaming, but I knew it would make a compelling short film. Christine brought the story up every now and then, asking me questions about how I saw it unfold on screen and what the locations were like or what the characters were like in my head. She was persistant in keeping it simmering in our collective minds. Finally, Christine brought it up that it seemed like it was time I make it into a film. She basically kicked me to get me going on making it all happen. She lit the fire that got this whole thing going.

(Christine helping with that location scouting!)

I just want to give a big shout out to Christine, not only to tell her how much I love her, but to thank her for being patient and being persistant with me. Ever since this thing started moving forward, she'd been with me on numerous trips to Great Falls and Montana location scouting, meeting with Pete, more location scouting and dealing with me being distracted by the whole project. This summer, she took a big leap in supporting the project by turning down paying work and jumping on board as Costume Designer. She was awesome. It was so great having her there attending to details and thinking it all through.

(Christine & Eddie in Conrad, MT)

Now she's back to another paying gig (hopefully we all will be soon) with hardly a rest from working her self ragged on Dry Rain. Thanks Christine for all your hard work! I love you!

Day 5 and that's a Wrap!

2007-08-18T23:03:00.000-07:00

Today was our last day of principle photography. All I could hope for was good, clear weather without the persistent smoke lingering in the hills and valleys. Let’s just say we got lucky. Very, very lucky today.The art department, with me and Pete in tow, got to location at 7 a.m. to get the set built and everything ready for shooting to start at 10:30. Doug also met us out there so we could review the day’s work.Today, we built a border crossing where our two main characters have their last moment of the story. Stil, the father, drops his son, Joey, off at the border to be picked up by his mom. Since Stil is paranoid about his ex-wife possibly calling the cops on him, he decides to have his son walk the last quarter mile to the crossing into the U.S.When we started location scouting for the border crossing, I thought we could find a park entrance or similar location that would be the basis for our border crossing. The more we looked, the more we realized that we might need to build our own crossing. Jason Puccinelli, our production designer, stepped up to the plate and made a faux crossing happen. With the help of Oscar Lofgren, they built a set and created signage that really sold the whole idea of a border crossing. The trick is that we just can’t get close to it or it’ll look fake. Jason built it all with the idea that the camera would always be a quarter mile away. I think he nailed it. The border crossing set had real people just driving by ready to show their IDs!We got going on time with today’s shooting. We marched through the work pretty steadily. I was getting great performances from James and Nathan, feeling good about everything. We moved from interiors of the car to exteriors of the two in front of the car. Just as we were wrapping up insert shots, the clouds decided to open up almost like a warning. We decided it was a good time to break for lunch. We returned to get back at with an ominous cloud over head, but it never rained again!As we got into the last of our shooting, we noticed a ribbon of smoke forming off in the distance. That little ribbon turned into a full-fledged forest fire as we continued to shoot. We saw flames shoot out of the wooded hillside when the winds gusted. Luckily, it was out of our shot and the smoke was not an issue. We dodged another bullet!At the end of the day, we raced back to our location from the day before and picked up a couple of shots that we didn’t get Friday due to weather. With the sun slipping behind the horizon, we pulled off the last of our shots with Nathan and James. We called Wrap at about 7:30 p.m. on principle photography for Dry Rain. What a fun ride. We sent James, Nathan and Nathan’s mom off with hugs and well wishes. It was a pleasure working with them.
Of course, the work wasn’t over. We still had gear and vehicles to button up before we could dip into the infamous Dry Rain Pale Ale that Doug and Jessica Hostetter brewed. In the midst of all the work, someone that will go un-named put the Motorhome in an irrigation ditch. Brian, I mean the un-named one, got some friendly locals from the bar to pull him out with their backhoe. They saved the day and we bought the house a bunch of free rounds down at the Copper Queen Saloon.I’m sure I’ll have time later to reflect on everything. Right now, I need a beer and my pillow. Doug and I start Second Unit work tomorrow shooting all over Montana.

Thanks to Jake Warga and Mike Prevette for the photos.

Day Four

2007-08-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a nice break between some hard days. Wednesday was a marathon with all the pages we had to cover. Today was challenging with several pages to shoot, but it was all exterior and pretty easy to cover. At least in theory, it was easy. Today was all about dealing with changes. We had changing weather that kept us on our toes until we wrapped.
We started off with a beautiful day with little smoke in the air. It all quickly degraded into a day with two major storm clouds moving over us. The first one moved through and just dumped rain and zapped lightning in all directions. The second one pushed the first one out and brought just a little rain and a couple cracks of lightening. The light shifted from full sunshine to overcast to an amazing filtered light that snuck through the ominous rain clouds.

The changing weather and changing light kept Doug on his toes as he worked to keep it all consistent. He had all kinds of things going to make the light feel right. In the end, it was Mother Nature’s light that was just right. We just had to wait for it.

Dusty started his day with promise. The little picture car that could just couldn’t. He died repeatedly, he stalled, he smoked and he hesitated. Amazingly enough, we got our shots off with Dusty, but not with out a lot of tinkering. The last shot of the day, we had to push him into shot! He wouldn’t go under his own steam.
We wrapped on time, today. I think I would have shot more if the weather would have cooperated, but we got it all in the can and it looked amazing. Our next challenge with this scene is to color correct it all so the varying light all looks the same and consistent.
After we called wrap, we all went into the Copper Queen Saloon for a tasty cold one. I learned my lesson from Wednesday night and only had a couple. I didn’t want to wake up on the last day of shooting with a headache!
If you are ever in Helmville, you got to check out the Copper Queen. It isn’t much of a place, but the people are great. Say hello to Tami, the owner.

Day Three

2007-08-16T08:14:00.000-07:00

We were up at the crack of dawn packing and getting ready to move the entire company two hours down the road to our next location. I started regretting the extra beer or two I had last night. As a thank you, we took Scott, the owner of the Home Cafe, to his local watering hole and bought him a few rounds. It all quickly escalated into more rounds. I escaped at Midnight, but not before at least 5 rounds.
Today, we shoot the driving scenes with James and Nathan in Dusty "driving." We basically put the car on a trailer and tow it down the road. This allows the actors to perform while not worrying about driving. Our road is a lonely stretch of tarmac between highway 200 and I-15. It sees little traffic save for the random Harley and farm truck, perfect for shooting. We owned the road with official flaggers on either end of our mile and half stretch. Our trailer is about 6 feet wider than a standard trailer. We've made a poor man's process trailer adding wings that stretch out from either side making a platform for Doug to operate the camera from. Tom, the sound man, stays in the tow vehicle and monitors his wireless mics from a safe distance. I hide in the back seat so I can listen to the performance and give input where needed.

As we headed down the road to location, this morning, the weather didn't look great. Over cast skies with smoke mixed in wasn't our preferred look for the day. We'd hoped for sunny, clear weather. You could tell it was smokey when the sun poked through the clouds and cast the ominous orange glow over everything. The sun did make a showing now and then while we shot.

Today, we had my Uncle Chuck on board with his son Jake. They were the tow rig/process trailer guys and in charge of moving the whole shooting match down the road. My Uncle has years of experience operating heavy machinery making him the perfect candidate to drive. He moved that trailer around with no problems...like a pro.
We shot for most of the day, but got shut down a little early. The clouds really starting moving in around 5 p.m. and made the day turn into evening faster than we expected. We were able to finish most of the shooting we had planned. The rest of the work that went un-shot will have to be picked up in the second unit work next week.
At the end of the day, we all rolled down the road to Lincoln. Home of the Unibomber. Oddly enough, the guy that owns the hotel we are staying in owns the land where Ted Kazinski lived and cranked out his manifesto.

Tomorrow, we shoot in Helmville. Let's hope the weather is sunny and the smoke is gone! Thanks go to Pete Fromm for the photos.

Day Two

2007-08-16T00:31:00.000-07:00

Today was our biggest day of shooting in terms of sheer number of pages to cover in the script. We managed to knock out six pages. It was a lot of realestate to cover, but we plowed through it and got it done. Everyone was extemely patient as we covered the scene. It looked great. Doug did a great job of capturing a naturalistic look that felt right for the interior of the Home Cafe.

One of the main reasons we chose this location was the look. The interior styling in the place probaly hasn't changed in 20 years or more. It offered all the things we needed in a location including close proximity to other locations, great windows, easy access and a cafe that was only a cafe. Many small towns in Montana have cafes, but they tend to be combinations of cafes, bars and other businesses all rolled into one. We wanted a cafe that was just a cafe as to not confuse the viewers as to where we were or what kind of place it was.

Highlights of the day include: amazing performances by Nathan and James, Jodie Harwood on set today playing the role of the waitress (she was great), and Pete Fromm's kids, Nolan and Aidan, on set helping out both on and off camera as stand-ins, hand models and body doubles for Nathan.
My mom has been on the shoot. She's our official Set Teacher. She's been hanging out with Nathan, keeping an eye on him and reading books with him between takes and set-ups. I think she is having fun. She's always wanted to come hang out and see how the crew works. She might have gotten her fill after this job!
We pack up in this morning and roll to our next location and to our next basecamp in Lincoln, Montana. Lincoln is famous for being the home town of the Unibomber. I doubt we'll see any hooded madmen on this trip.
Another great day of shooting went down. We tackle all the driving stuff tomorrow. That will be fun. Thanks To Christine McBride for the on-set photos!

Day One Complete

2007-08-14T22:36:00.000-07:00

We did it. We pushed through hot sun, semi-trucks and smoke and ash to complete day one of our shoot. We had a beautiful morning of sun and clear skies. By about 3 o'clock, a huge smoke plume poured into Pendroy the tail of a dragon. At first the smoke hung together in the plume, then it dissipated as if a blanket drifted over the small town. Ash rained down on us as we moved as fast as we could to get the last shots we had planned out. The quality of the light was highly affected and yielded this unworldly amber glow to everything. It actually could work really well with in the story.We always thought that Pendroy would be ideal for shooting with no noise or traffic. Well, it was quiet, but when a truck or car was coming, you'd know for miles before they showed up. Its so quiet, the smallest unnatural sound like a vehicle stands out on the sound landscape. In addition to the sound of vehicles, we also had to just deal with cars and trucks coming and going. At least everyone was very nice out there.James and Nathan really out did themselves today. Between a long-ish day, hot temps and just the fact that it was the first day, it was a hard day. They proved their skills as talented actors. They bonded well and had a great energy on screen. It was a pleasure to work with them. Most importantly, we got some great stuff today. I love the look we've made and the performances were great. We're on the right track so far in telling this story right.Our crew really hit the ground running today. Every department is running smoothly. The only thing not really running smoothly is Dusty. He's going to get a new starter tomorrow. The old one finally up and quit. That is going to be a problem if we don't get him running properly. Tomorrow, we shoot in the cafe. Its a big day with about 6 pages of script to cover. It'll be a long day, but at least Dusty has the day off to get that starter fixed.

The smoke will hopefully dissipate for us in the coming days. Our last two days are the days of most concern where I really want no smoke and big beautiful landscapes. I glued to the weather reports at night. I'm trying to make a prediction about the smoke which will impact where we shoot. We have a back up location where the smoke might be less of an issue, but the location is just not as cool as my first pick in Helmville. I'm keeping my fingers crossed about the smoke.
If you haven't already checked out Mike Prevette's Flickr site, than go see it. He's got a great collection of images going from the shoot including these two up above and below. Thanks Mike!

We Shoot Tomorrow!

2007-08-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day. Everyone got here for our final prep day. No one got lost (not really), no one got bumped from their flights(OK, just a little), no one had mechanicals preventing them from showing up and we all made it to Conrad in one piece. The gang's all here and we'll start shooting tomorrow.

The day started with several of us eating breakfast at the Home Cafe. Not only is the cafe one of our shooting locations, but it is also our go to spot for Breakfast. Great bunch of people down there at the Home Cafe. They've been taking good care of us.

Nathan Gamble was first into wardrobe fittings this morning. He was so fired up and ready to get to work. His great attitude is a shot in the arm. He's already blending in well with the crew.

James LeGros arrived today. His original flight plan had him coming in last night, but delays out of LAX kept him from us until this afternoon. He was eager to get after it and get things done. He's super easy going and totally on board. I think he's already been slinging the jabs at Pete Fromm already. So he's fitting in well, too. Rose, Pete's wife, would be proud of James.

While the crew did final tech scouting and prep work, Nathan, James and I worked through a rehearsal and visited our location in Pendroy. It feels like we're all on the same page.

Jason, our production designer, was out working on prop phones today. One of the central props is a broken handset from a phone booth. Jason worked on crafting those. Funny the little things you have to do for a shoot.

You gotta check out Mike Prevette's photos from today. He's our camera assistant and focus puller, but he's also an accomplished photographer, editor and cinematographer in his own right. He's a great asset on our crew. His photos are cool.

So here we go... We shoot Tomorrow! I can't wait to get the first shot off tomorrow. What a fun ride this will be!

Here's some more action from today:

Two Days and Counting

2007-08-11T23:21:00.000-07:00

We are looking at just two full days left before we start shooting Dry Rain. I think I've been working on this thing for at least a year and a half. Needless to say, I'm ready to get going! The crew starts arriving tomorrow, our cast comes in tomorrow, we have a final pre-production day on Monday and we hit the ground running on Tuesday.

Our only concern right now is the oppressive smoke that is choking the sky in Montana. I got out here on Thursday the volume of smoke was depressing. You could hardly see a mile down the road. We've got a contingency plan in place if it gets bad on our production days, but we hope we won't have to do anything drastic. The smoke has been pretty scarce the last couple of days. The winds and temperatures have been on our side. I just hope it stays that way. We'll be glued to the weather reports the next week.

Matt checking out the weather and smoke

Here's this NOAA site that I'll be checking regularily. Of real importance is the wind direction. If it starts blowing west, we could be in a world of hurt. There are a bunch of fires burning west of Helmville. The westerly wind would blow smoke right at us.

Yesterday, Brian and I went out and found some alternative locations. We got lucky to run into the rancher that owned the land adjacent to where we want to shoot. He's a friendly guy that was willing to let us use his land for parking and a basecamp. We were lucky he drove up as we stood around wondering where we'd start to look for the rancer. Good timing.

Pendroy, Montana

2007-08-07T00:51:00.000-07:00

Doug and I found Pendroy by luck. We were at the end of our location scouting rope. We'd put a couple thousand miles on the car already on the trip and we still didn't have our little town. On our way home on the last day of the trip, we made a last ditch effort to find something. We did a big loop starting in Great Falls, heading North to Carter and Fort Benton, up to the Highline and as far East as Kremlin and as far West as Shelby. Nothing. There was plenty of cool stuff out there, but no little town with the wheat fields coming up to the edge of the road. A town with no curbs. It was harder to find than we thought.

We stopped in Dupuyer, had a beer and stared vacantly at the wall behind the bar. We were stumped with no good options. It was late in the day and time to start heading west and get to Seattle. The road took us south before we could turn right and follow the same path as the return trip of Lewis and Clark. It was only May, so we did have time to find the right town. It just felt daunting.

On that south bound leg, we passed a sign that optimistically pointed us to Pendroy. We took them up on their offer and visited the little town. A handful of buildings, no curbs, run down store fronts, two remaining businesses still open and a post office. We found it. Every where you look and you see fields. Here was our town.

I've been back to Pendroy several times since we picked it as our location for the first few scenes. We met Debbie, the post mistress first. She introduced us to Joann, the local insurance agent. Between the two of them, we had all the access we needed, except for the bar owners. We met them next.

The Rose Room stands out in the little town. It use to be the local bank when the railroad still ran all the way out to Pendroy. There's no railroad any more and the bank gave up, too. The Rose Room is really all there's left for commerce in town, except for the farmers and the mechanic. Bob is the mechanic and he's married to Dorene. She owns the Rose Room. See, it really is a small town.

Dusty got some love

2007-08-06T10:30:00.000-07:00

When Dusty came to us, he had been long forgotten about in an alley in Seattle's Greenwood Neighborhood, wedged between the neighbor's overgrown bamboo and the crazy jazz musicians little house. When I saw the pictures of him on Craig's list, I knew he'd be perfect.

Well, we got him home and he just didn't run like he should. I had hoped for a car that could spin the tires and kick up some dust. Dusty was only making dust out his tail pipe.

In comes a friend of mine, Christo Corzatte, with loads of mechanic experience. He immediately diagnosed the problem and jumped in to fix the problem. The diagnosis on Dusty wasn't great, but Christo figured he could get him to run for the shoot. He called me when he had completed the tune up. I think his words were something like "I think your actor can fully realize his part and rise to the challenge." Dusty was back!

I took him for a test drive on Saturday. After he was all warmed up, I stuck my foot in it...the tires spun, the dirt flew and I was a happy man.

Another challenge to the whole film making process checked off our list. Total cost for the picture car: $500 Value in seeing the musician get his cash for an old clunker: Priceless!

Deer 2 Doug 0

2007-08-05T19:33:00.000-07:00

Of all the years I've been driving in Montana, I've never hit a deer or any other large mammal. I've hit some squirrels and I've hit some birds, but never anything larger. I haven't even been in a vehicle as a passenger in a car vs. deer accident. My brother Ben, amazingly enough, has never hit any large mammals in Montana, or for that matter, any where else in the world. I don't know how we've managed to prevent that from happening. I've probably jinxed us.

My Uncle Stan had a job for years that had him driving to every corner of Montana. He put crazy miles on his cars in those years. (Ben and I have guessed at about 60,000 miles a year. I'll have to confirm that...) Not once in all that time, did he hit a deer. That is amazing. Even though he never had "deer on the grill," Stan did develop a philosophy about hitting animals. After watching another motorist in front of him swerve to miss a couple of elk then go into the ditch and roll, Stan figured it was best to keep the vehicle going straight down the road. In the event of an immanent collision with a large four legged critter (or even a small one) never, ever swerve to miss it. Chances are, you will hit it straight on, but you won't go in the ditch. Going straight keeps you in control and keeps the vehicle moving properly down the road. I've always adhered to that advice, in my head. Never had to use it, luckily.

On our last trip to Montana to tech scout locations and discuss camera angles, Doug Hostetter and I had lots of time to talk as we drove from one location to the next. Our talks in the car are always productive, mostly. We tend to laugh a lot and talk about our time working for a small time production company in Montana, among other things film related. This trip, I mentioned to him my Uncle Stan's Anti-Swerve Philosophy. Doug cracked up, but figured it was a good idea, but not first with out some convincing. We debated the subject for miles and I managed to set him straight. I had no idea he was going to use the philosophy on this trip!

Doug's truck before the collision.

We left Missoula on Tuesday evening arriving at our first location to take in the strange light filtering through the smoke from the Rock Creek Fire A.K.A. the 124 fire. The rays of sun filtered through the smoke creating this magical and mysterious light that was orange. Interesting, but alarming since we'd be shooting in that very spot. Hope the smoke clears! We then got to two other locations and headed to Lincoln to sack out in a little hotel. (And yes, we got two beds, just to silence the rumors.)

Wednesday, we finally got on the road after a comical search for espresso. The lone espresso stand in Lincoln was closed. We drank "gourmet" coffee from the gas station and a fresh donut to dunk. Being a coffee snob from Seattle is hard in the smaller towns of Montana. I'm sure they'll just laugh at us when we go back to shoot, packing our own coffee and french presses.

Our first stop for the day was Pendroy to walk through shots and check in with our local contacts. Everyone in Pendroy is super nice, helpful and willing to work with us. Very refreshing from a locations stand point. Next stop was Conrad to scout the Home Cafe, the location for the cafe scene. Scott is the owner of the cafe. He has the same eager personality as everyone in Pendroy. My next stop was to talk with the police and city hall to get the okay to hold parking spots on Main Street and to block the sidewalk with gear on the shoot day. You gotta love one stop shopping. I hit city hall and in 10 minutes, talked with everyone that cared to know about our production. With all that complete, we started back for Missoula.

Doug in the Home Cafe, Conrad, Montana

We were making good time. The sun was setting behind a cloud of smoke making the westward travel pretty easy. Temperatures were getting back to normal in the evening and we were enjoying the drive. We had one side trip to make back to one of the locations to confirm drive time and mileage from Conrad. Just as we rounded a bend, out of the left bank came a deer. She tried leaping over the road, but Doug's truck caught her hind quarters. Pieces of the truck flew like shrapnel from a grenade. The loud thump was, well, loud. Doug didn't even have time to swear.

Through all of this, Doug remained calm and stayed his course, adhering smartly to Uncle Stan's advice. The truck didn't fare too well and neither did the poor deer. We pulled over immediately to look over the damage. Bent metal, broken plastic, a missing marker light, a head light pointing wildly out of true and some deer fur lodged into the cracked grill were all we had. Not bad, but I figured at least $2500-3000 worth of damage. Dang.

So that is one for the Deer. Doug's other incident with a moving car and a deer happend last year on a rainy night on I-90 west of Spokane. Doug plowed right into that sucker, but it hardly made a dent. Luckily, in both cases, Doug was OK and walked away with just a good story to tell.

The word from the auto body joint is that Doug's truck will cost about $3500 bucks to fix. I made a pretty good guess. Good thing Doug has good insurance.

Now, I'm not sure how he's gonna get those points back from the deer...

Montana is on Fire

2007-08-04T22:33:00.001-07:00

I woke up on Friday morning and peaked out the blinds of my Aunt's basement guest bedroom in Missoula with hopes of seeing all the way up Pattee Canyon to the east. The sun struggled to punch through the dense smoke that settled in like fog over Seattle's Elliott Bay. In my bedroom at home, in West Seattle, on foggy days, I can hear the fog horn of the passing ferries calling out to other boat traffic. It is kind of a soothing low, guttural sound that prompts me to hit the snooze button. I bet I could only see about three quarters of a mile of the Pattee Canyon. Not good for air quality and wildlife and human life in Montana but what was really going on in my head was the scare that it will impact our shooting days.

Many times on shoots, I've used smoke (fake smoke) to bring atmosphere to a set. You can actually light up the smoke to create shafts of light or to make a bar really feel like a smokey bar without the nastiness of cigarette smoke. The effect is great and really looks cool. I just can't imagine, though, the look of smoke clinging to the hills around Helmville while we shoot several scenes for the film. The forest fire smoke would just look wrong.

There are several substantial fires burning in the vicinity of our locations. We are nearly boxed in by fires in Helmville and in Pendroy, the big fires burning in the Bob Marshall Wilderness are blowing smoke right at us. We may be jumping on the task of finding a few new locations in the coming days. We'll have to just get back to Montana and evaluate how it all feels.

Let's just hope they get rain and very little wind in the coming days out there. Let's also hope the fire danger subsides enough to take all the homes out of danger.

I'll be watching the National Incident Information Center's Website seeing what is happening as well as the National Interagency Fire Center website for up to date info. Montana has a good fire website too.

I have to admit, the idea of fire in the forrest has always seemed like a good thing to me. Biologically, it cleans out the understory and allows new growth and fertilizes existing or surviving growth. There are many species of plants and trees that depend on fire to open seed pods and pine cones to jump start germination. The fire can be a good thing. Even after the fires back in 1988 in Yellowstone, the immediate results were horrific, but the out come is some amazing new growth and life.

Obviously, fire comes at a price and the wildlife and people living in those wooded areas take the beating. Hopefully, they all dodge the fires this year.

And the photos above...they are shots of smoke. That isn't a big bank of clouds rolling through. It is smoke. The last shot is smoke coming out of the mountains and pouring out into the plains near Augusta. When the sun shines through the smoke, it creates this amazing light that is warm and romantic like a sepia toned photograph.

James LeGros signs on to Dry Rain!

2007-07-29T23:44:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to say that James LeGros has signed on to play the part of Stil. We got the word this weekend that he's on board for the project. James brings a huge amount of experience and talent to the film along with a collaborative spirt. I'm looking forward to working with him.

With schedules aligned and plans in concrete, we are now slated to start shooting on the 14th of August and run through the 18th.

I slept with the bobcat, twice

2007-07-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

After a long day of driving and scouting locations and as Pete put the boys to bed, I went to sack out for the night in the basement guest bedroom of the Fromm house. I could hardly wait to go to sleep. Just as I was about to crawl into the covers, I saw it for the first time. There, hanging on the wall in the guest bedroom bordered by 60's wood paneling, was the legendary Bobcat. Here was the creature that confronted Pete and did it's best to try to hurt him. The scene laid out in Indian Creek Chornicles is fascinating and becomes a turning point, of sorts, in the story for Pete. Touching the fur of the animal and seeing the skull perched on top of the file cabinet brought some sort of proof to me that Pete actually was there in Indian Creek.

Long before John Krakauer's "Into the Wild" there was Pete Fromm's "Indian Creek Chronicles." This is Pete's story about a winter alone in the Bitterroot Selway Wilderness. Pete set off on the solo adventure, but it wasn't a race or a dare and it wasn't "extreme", really. His whole adventure and existence, for that 7 months of winter, was to watch over a million or two Salmon eggs to enusre their safety from predetors and ice build up on their cold watery home in the creek.

Idaho Fish and Game hired Pete to spend the winter in the wilderness to dote over the eggs they optimistically placed in hopes they'd hatch and make it to the ocean and then to return to populate the ravaged rivers of Idaho. The challenge for Pete was that the eggs took all of 10, maybe 15 minutes a day to attend to. He was left with entire days to fill with anything else, he just couldn't go anywhere beyond where he could walk because he was snowed in with frigid temperatures. He had a 10' x 12' canvas tent to call home and a gangly pup to keep him company. Unlike Krakauer's book, Pete's singular existense, away from the world, was successful and ended happily. Pete didn't die, although at times, he made some decisions that lead him to the edge.

It seems like those skills Pete learned out there translate to his work ethic in writing. He attacks writing with a dedication that is impressive, to say the least. He's weathered through the hard years of being a writer and continues to create interesting and valuable work. He has monk-like tendancies when he retreats into his work, but when he comes out, he turns into a 15 year old and falls in with his boys and plays and explores side by side with them.

Last October, I went to Montana to shoot location photos for my grant proposal. I was going to stay in some flea-bag motel during the trip and try really hard not to impose on Pete. I wanted him along for the ride, of course, but I didn't want to tax him. Afterall, he'd was giving me so much by allowing me to make his story into a film. I didn't want to make more of an impact, but Rose and Pete insisted I stay with them and make it a home base for my scouting trip. I immediately felt at home. The easy going nature of the whole family made it comfortable.

The boys, Matt and with Pete looking on.

Pete had warned me about Rose and how I better not get out of line with her or I'd be had. At first, I thought he was joking, but I wasn't sure. He made her out to be some sort of a task-master. What I found was a wonderful woman that easily navigated a chaotic household full of boys, orcs, midevil knights, wringraiths, trolls and wizards (depending on which day it is). I quickly saw how she managed to keep it all together around there and actually enjoy the sense of wonderment that the boys (including Pete) brought to every discovery and invention. Rose is intelligent, funny and pretty much a smart-ass, but I guess you'd have to be to keep up with Pete. I think she just barely tolerated me and that's because I helped her gang up on Pete when we were making fun of him. Clearly, Pete was pulling my leg about Rose and I've quickly found out that he is pretty much always pulling my leg some how.

This spring, Doug, the cinematographer, Brian, the producer and I all crammed into the Fromm basement for a few nights when we went out to scout locations again. Doug quickly recognized the prize on the wall: the bobcat. He had read the tales of the demise of the old cat and knew instantly what we had hanging there on the wall. He took photos to prove it and to share with his father in law. The father in law has become a huge fan of Pete's and was excited to see the bobcat still hanging around. We're trying to slowly pay Pete back for Dry Rain by getting family and friends to buy his books. I think we are up to at least 30 books sold, so far!

Doug's photo of the Bobcat Skull.

More on Indian Creek Chronicles

Buy the book!

My Hair's on Fire

2007-07-25T21:24:00.000-07:00

It is an amazing process, this casting thing. All I want to do is put a face to my character, to Stil. I've seen him in my head for years now. He's been rattling around in there as I've planned, scouted locations and talked with Pete Fromm about the story. I see him in the car. I see him talking to Joey (Nathan Gamble). The weird thing is I just can't really see his face. I know a lot about him, but I'm still missing that important detail. It's as if he's always standing in a shadow.

Stil is a likeable guy. He's 40's-ish, rough around the edges and has worked, most of his life, in hard jobs. None of them have ever panned out to be more than a few months here and there, but people like him none the less. Stil is a schemer and keeps trying to find something better, but that something better alludes him. He's basically his own worst enemy.

The one thing that Stil has used to his advantage most of his life are his good looks. He's no model, but he is attractive (even with the scar on his chin that he probably got from a little brother wacking him with a golf club or some odd blunt instrument) and can sweet talk like nobody's business. That sweet talking has gotten him into some good predicaments. It probably made him a dad before he was ever ready to be a father.

I don't want to jinx myself, so I won't go into any detail right now, but we have a great actor that is ready to jump on board. We just need to work out some scheduling things. Putting a schedule like this is minor compared to a big movie, but our hair is still on fire trying to line it all up to meet everyone's schedule and to make this happen.

I think I'll have something new to report very soon. For now, check out the pictures below. This is from our location scouting trip in June. Christine and I came around the bend near Helmsville and saw this big fire. The tractor had blown a fuel line or a haydraulic line starting the fire. No one was hurt, but the tractor burned to the ground and most of the hay was lost, not to mention all the work going into bailing, loading and growing it all.

Dusty

2007-07-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

When you are shooting a road picture, you need the right vehicle to transport the cast down the road. The car becomes another chracter that speaks volumes about the film or person driving it. I gave the car special thought knowing it would have such a big impact.

My first thoughts on cars always lead to Station Wagons. The station wagon is an American icon. They've faithfully hauled families all over. Marketing types tried to make them sexy, but let's face it, they are just utilitarian work horses meant to haul stuff, kids, dogs, bikes, mattresses and miscellaneous junk.

My family never had one while I was around (I take that back, they owned a purple station wagon when we lived in Portugal...I was 18 months old), but many friends of mine have recounted tails of piling into the family station wagon and enduring long hours on the road. My buddy across the street, when I was growing up in Illinois, was from one of those famlies. Their cool Caprice Classic had the ever popular "way back" seat that faced backwards. We loved to sit there and make faces at on coming traffic. We only got in trouble once or twice for it, but we had fun.

My girlfriend Christine and I started to shop for the right station wagon back in early June. We looked into a 72 Olds Vista Cruiser (leaked oil like a sieve), an 84 Ford Country Squire (too Clark Griswald like), a 1963 Buick Special (too cool), another Olds (was hot rodded) and finally the 77 Plymouth Volare. It was a great adventure meeting people.

We met the guys at the transmission shop in Puyallup that swore their Olds was a barn find. There was the guys in Deer Park that really wanted to sell me their Caprice Classic, but it was pretty beat. The Vista Cruiser was alledgedly the guys grandfather's car and in perfect mechanical condition, but, what about the big puddle of oil under it?! And then their was the nice old guy that was on the car lot. He loved to talk and probably was a little lonely. We spotted the Buick on the old guy's lot in Helena as we drove through on a location scout. The coolness of a 1963 Station wagon turned us off, not to mention the steep price tag: $3900. We had to test drive it just for fun, but I had to remember how to shift with Three on the Tree. It was pretty sweet and all but just not what we were looking for in a picture car. Our car needed character but it also needed to look less like a hipster car and more like some dad's car that was making an attempt at being a family man.

In the end, none of the cars we'd seen yet felt right until we stumbled on to Dusty. We found Dusty in Greenlake, just north of Seattle. A musician had him. Dusty lead a good life hauling around band equipment. Apparently, he'd even been to NYC and points in between while on tour with the band. He was well traveled and well loved, but another car came in to the musician's life and Dusty was left to rot in the alley. The musician seemed pretty anxious to get the cash plus, I imagine it was time to get Dusty out...the landlord was sick of seeing an old car rust away, I'm sure.

Dusty sputtered back to life with just a little effort, cleaned up (but junk was still in the back) and put up for sale on Craig's List. I took a brief test ride in Dusty. The musician was a little worried about me driving Dusty too far with the expired tabs. "Don't get me busted, man, that would be a raw deal." I promised not to get caught so I kept it short. A deal was struck and I now owned a sweet station wagon. That was Saturday. Christine and I came back for him on Tuesday. Problem was, Dusty would not run. Maybe he didn't want to leave the alley, his home and the love of the musician (he really did love Dusty but clearly, at this point, was jonesin' for the cash)...who knows...but we got to bottom of the problem. Dusty was out of gas.

Now Dusty is sitting in my alley and is pretty sweet. He's got a funny grill that was repairded with some sort of fencing to simulate a grill. There's the vice grips for a window crank. There is the odd smell that only an old car can have...kind of musty. And the steering wheel is sticky for some reason.

Dusty is about to be treated to some love: oil change, air filter, shocks, brakes and whatever else he needs to be safe and sound and he'll get some fuel. He might not know it yet, but he's gonna be famous, sort of....

Casting Update

2007-06-30T14:53:00.000-07:00

We are currently working on casting for the lead role of Stil. We've been searching for the right person now for the last three months. We should have our guy in the next two weeks or so. We are aiming at shooting in early to mid August.

Other elements are lining up nicely. Locations are nearly locked up, the art department is working away at set dressing and some minor building and we have one phone booth. Let's just say that the phone booth came to us rather curiously. Phone booths are pretty rare these days. Luckily, a friend of a friend had left one behind at his old rental house in a rather nice neighborhood...a neighborhood that probably doesn't like trash build up in front yards. Jason and I did everyone in the old neighborhood a favor by taking the eyesore of a phone booth out of the front yard and into his van. It now happily reisdes at an undisclosed location in North Seattle.

If you ever need pay phone parts or accesories, you might want to check out this Link

Nathan Gamble on board to play "Joey"

2007-06-15T11:33:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to say that Nathan Gamble is on board to play the role of "Joey" in Dry Rain. Nathan comes with an impressive background. He has a long resume of work with one of the hightlights being his role in "Babel" with Brad Pitt.

I spent a few hours reading with Nathan and was confident in his ability to take direction and bring something new and fresh to the role. Hanging out with him and his family at their home was a great moment. It made it clear that Nathan is a down to earth kid with a great family. It'll be fun to work with him!

Nathan is off on another exciting project this late summer and fall. For now, we can't share what the project is, but let's just say it is a big one. Nice work Nathan!

Road Trip Montana

2007-05-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

There's nothing like a road trip. Get out on the highway, see new places, meet new people, maybe speed a little and enjoy the open road. We did just that in early May. Producer Brian Homman, Cinematographer Doug Hostetter, Writer Pete Fromm and I took off from Great Falls with the hopes of finding our locations. We drove all over the place. We found cool places and drank a beer or two in some run down little hole-in-the-wall joints. Like most road trips, stories start emerging and we learned a lot about each other. Pete always had the best stories. I can't even begin to share them with you here, but we laughed until our guts ached.

We quickly began to realize the real challenge of location scouting in Montana would be to keep our locations close together. It is very easy to find one spot to shoot, then find the next place 200 miles down the road and, you are still in the same county! We felt a little stumped. Nothing was either fitting the bill or with in a reasonable distance from Great Falls, our chosen base camp city.

Highlights of the trip: Stopping for Brian to make a call. He was working on a spot for Citibank. The agency producer had to talk to him right then so we pulled over and waited for him to finish the call. We had cell service, so he had to do it right there in the middle of the road some where between Coffee Creek and Stanford. The call seemed to take forever. Some fire was burning at the ad agency and Brian was trying to put it out. Pete, Doug and I waited on the side of the road killing time by throwing rocks at signs, posts or whatever was a challenging target. Pete, never exposed to silly production behavior before, asked if Brian's producer call was par for the course. Doug and I laughed. Yup. Get use to it, we said. Pete couldn't believe it, so he started hurtling rocks at Brian. Brian scrambled into the borrow pit and ran trying to miss a direct hit. We're still laughing at that one! Brian is still a little pissed.

The other "highlight" and now funny story is about Maggie. Maggie is my black lab. She's a real lover and probably likes road trips more than most people I know. She came along on this excursion and fit right in. At Pete's house, his boys immediatly took to her and loved playing ball in the back yard. On our first day of scouting, we had room in the car since Doug hadn't gotten to town yet, so Maggie came along. We had pulled off the road to survey a particularily stunning section of road just west of Hilger. The road stretched out for miles in the middle of a beautiful prairie like a black snake winding through fresh green grass. Maggie ran off into the pasture and explored. We took pictures and enjoyed the view. When it was time to load up, Maggie came running back with a big smile on her face and a stink that followed for miles. She'd found something dead to roll in. I tried cleaning her up. It was that or leave her behind 'cause the guys couldn't stand the stench of her in the car. As I cleaned the goo off by dragging her through the grass and pouring seltzer water (that's all we had for liquids) on her, it began to rain. And I don't mean some lame Seattle rain...this was full on Montana kick your ass rain and it came down hard. I got her fairly clean and off we went. Of course, the guys were laughing at me and my dog, but you could hardly help but laugh!

After two days, our location scouting was not going as successfully as we had hoped. Of course we had found some interesting locations, but nothing was reasonably close to make things effecient during the shoot. Brian had to leave and Doug and I had one more day to kill before heading back to Seattle. We made a big loop from Great Falls up to the highline, down to Valier and through Dupuyer. As we motored down State Highway 89, we were feeling frustrated. The right location had eluded us. Then, the town sign of Pendroy appeared. On the map, it was represented by a tiny dot...it must have something there! We pulled into the tiny town. It was perfect. We'd found our town for the first several scenes of the movie. It was desolate, right in the middle of wheat fields and it was close to other potential locations.

We stayed for awhile in Pendroy talking about where we'd shoot, blocking the scene and thinking about how it all will work. It finally felt like we were making progress and a whole lot closer to shooting the picture. As we stood there in Pendroy, one of the locals walked up to talk. Jim has lived in Pendroy for ahwile. He insisted we take a photo of him and his pets. He was hoping to submit his photo to the paper and get publised! I guess we are now just getting to know our new "neighbors!" Apparently, there are about 75 people or so that live there. We'd met one so far. I bet we meet the rest by the time we finish up shooting in Pendroy.

Out on the Highline

2007-05-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

Back in October of 2006, I went to Great Falls to do my first location scout. It was more of a study of the towns and landscape of Eastern Montana and less of a full on scout. I wanted to get a feel for the place with the film in mind. I stayed with Pete Fromm and his family in their home in Great Falls. We put lots of miles on their car as we drove all over. We went from Augusta to Shelby to Havre, Big Sandy, Judith Crossing, Coffee Creek, and back to Great Falls in one long day. We saw some amazing stuff while out on the road.

I was able to put together a group of images that gave an impression of the types of things we'd see in the film. The landscape, the buildings, the clouds and the texture of the Montana landscape. These are just a few of the images I captured.

The small towns on the highline are getting smaller by the minute. They were once happening little towns along the railroad, but today, they are quiet places just hanging on. Names like Inverness, Kremlin, Rudyard, Chester and Galata were some of the ones we explored.

Always keeping a mindful eye on the weather, we'd see some interesting formations, but Virga always alluded us on this trip. Seems like an event more suited to summer heat, than cool autumn days.

One thing we found is that many of these small towns have cafe's and bars and other businesses, but all of them under one roof. You can get away with that in a small town. Espresso, tanning salon and oil changes aren't unheard of in one establishment. We were on the search for a cafe that was just a cafe, not a bar/cafe combo. We found that these kinds of singular businesses were only available in bigger towns. Like this cafe above. We found this one in the town of Big Sandy.

Our mini road trip had us through some of the more scenic areas of central Montana. I hadn't been to some of these places before. Many of these wide expanses are untouched, unmolested. One place that I can't get out of my mind was Judith Crossing. We headed south out of Big Sandy on a high-speed gravel road. After the road plowed through a large bluff, the Missouri river appeared and stretched out in front of us. It was amazing to see. This must be how Lewis and Clark saw this very spot, minus the bridge, of course. The light was gorgeous and the shadows falling perfectly. We had to stop on the bridge and take it in.

mjc

Corvair in Denton, Montana.

Virga

2007-05-01T17:41:00.000-07:00

Virga: –noun (used with a singular or plural verb) Meteorology. Streaks of water drops or ice particles falling out of a cloud and evaporating before reaching the ground.

Virga or Dry Rain is a funny event out on the plains. The clouds bring the expectation of rain, leading to growth and rejuvination. Then, Mother Nature tricks the thirsty earth with a depressing show of evaporation. Just when you think its going to rain, the wind blows away all hopes of precipitation.

Pete Fromm's story, Dry Rain, is a fascinating journey of a father and son traveling through the Canadian plateau. I was struck by the simplicity of the story and how well he was able to capture the complicated moment with ease. Every page I read of the story took me further on a cinematic journey. I knew that Dry Rain would be the basis of a great short film.

In late winter 2006, I called Pete out of the blue to ask him if I could make Dry Rain into a short film. I got his number from a friend of a friend. Pete had sat on some writer's panel with my friend Jess. Seems as though they realized that they had friends in common. With luck on my side, I talked with Jess about Dry Rain and how I could get to the writer without dealing with the agents. I didn't have any money to offer Pete, I could only offer the opportunity to collaborate on a film project. Jess nonchalantly brought up the mutual friend. Give him a call he said. I called the friend, then called Pete.

Pete listened to me ramble about my idea of making his story into a film. He tried to sound interested, but he probably thought I was some crack pot. Some how, I convinced him to think about it. We exchanged emails and a few phone calls. Then, when I finally had a break in my schedule, I called Pete up and said I was coming to see him. Could we get a cup of coffee and talk about Dry Rain? I think he was surprised that I'd drive all the way to Great Falls, Montana to see him. Well, we met and immediatly got along. Our conversation was productive and we struck a deal. That was March 2006. Later in the spring along about May, we had a first draft.

Working with Pete is like working with an older brother. It is never boring and he knows how to crack a joke or tell a story. He's thoughtful and listens to input, but sticks to his guns when it comes to the backbone of the story. He's a smart ass, but that didn't surprise me. I think the one thing that did suprise me about Pete was how dedicated he is to writing. He doesn't mess around. He's up at the crack of dawn, sometimes even as early as 3 or 4am, (and that's with out an alarm clock) because he has a character beating his way out of his head that needs to live on the page.

One thing to remember about Pete is to never get in a rock throwing fight. You won't win.

Matthew J. Clark

**Top Photo: I shot this photo near Helmsville, Montana just recently on my last location scouting trip. The second image is from a location scouting trip this last May with Dry Rain's Cinematographer Doug Hostetter.

Searching for Phone Booths

2007-04-15T15:08:00.000-07:00

One of the main "characters" in this story is the phone booth. Our lead character travels from phone to phone to call his ex-wife in an attempt to extort money from her. Now adays, with cell phones and all, phone booths and pay phones are an anomoly on the landscape. Try finding one and you could be out of luck. It is even harder to find them out in rural settings.

In my initial research, I tried finding phone booths in Montana and I did some research on line. I found a curious site called the The Pay Phone Project This guy has collected pictures of pay phones and their numbers from all over the world. He also has pay phone advocacy info and up to date news about pay phone legislation. An interesting hobby for sure. I'm gonna see if I can get some of the pictures from Dry Rain on his site. That would be cool.

These are photos I took from a couple of different location scouting trips. The top one was found in Canyon Creek, Montana just outside of Helena. The other one was found in Rudyard, Montana just off Hiway 2 on the "Highline." Regrettably, I didn't get the number for the Canyon Creek phone. You could be calling it right now! I'll get it when I'm through there next, whenever that is...

Shooting Tests

2007-04-01T10:38:00.000-07:00

When I decided to make Dry Rain, I knew there was only one person to shoot it for me. Doug Hostetter and I have been friends for ahwile. His easy going demeanor would prove to be a great asset on set. He's got a great eye and thoughtful feedback that's both useful and critical. It is great having someone on your team that you fully trust in all aspects. Doug also use to live in Great Falls back in the early 90's. He knows Montana and understands the proportions of the huge state.

For the past year, we've been meeting over coffee. We tend to meet around 7am so he can sneak out before his twin kids wake up in the morning. It is easier on everyone that way. We talk shop, gear and dream of the next big job or the chance to shoot something meaningful. I presented Dry Rain to Doug and he was immediatley on board. He was excited at the chance to shoot the short after he read Pete's story.

Early morning coffee meetings quickly became pre-pre-production meetings for Dry Rain. We schemed on things like how to shoot the car sequences, times of day, locations and logistics. We also talked about what we'd shoot on. Since we are both cinematographers at heart, we knew film would be our choice of acquisition media. We've both shot HD, DV, Mini-DV and P2 based video formats, but Dry Rain needed film. Big landscapes and intimate moments demand the richness and subtlties of film. We now had to start picking the right film format.

Through research and conversation with our peers, we quickly turned to 3-perf 35mm as our preferred format. The savings on film with 3 perf would be great and the huge negative area of the Super35mm frame would be perfect for the scope of the project. 3 perf 35 uses one less perforation than the standard 4 perfs in "normal" or Academy 35mm. When shooting an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 or wider, it is perfect since the top and bottom of the negative get cut off anyway in 4 perf 35. Here's a basic overview, if you are so inclined: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35_mm_film#3-Perf

Our next dilemma was where do we source a camera. In the Northwest, 3 Perf cameras are non-existant. L.A. was our next obvious choice. Doug approached Robert Keslow of Keslow Camera in Culver City. Doug has been using Keslow as his preferred camera rental house for several years now. Luckily, Robert was very gracious and was willing to give us a camera for our tests. He'd also loan us a camera for the week of shooting in the summer. We just needed to prove to our selves that 35 3-Perf was the way to go over the cheaper, but good looking Super16mm.

With the support of Oppenheimer Cine, here in Seattle, we built out a Moviecam Compact and an Aaton XTR Super 16mm Camera. We set out with the goal of doing side by side comparisons of the two formats. We headed east to Vantage, Washington to get something simlar to the open spaces of Montana. We shot several shots matching the field of view with both camers. We chose Cooke S4 primes and matched up lenses to get a similar frame in 16 and 35. We also shot the same stop and used the same exact filtration. We shot Kodak's 5205 and 7205 films to keep the apples to apples comparison as close to possible.

The one bonus of shooting in 16 is the package size. Overall, the 16 camera package is smaller, more compact and easier to shoot in a car. What we loose in image quality, we gain in costs (16 being cheaper for film) and camera size. On the other hand, the 35 gives a much bigger negative area to work with and more resolution. It looks amazing. It is just bigger and harder to squeeze into a car. Not impossible, but challenging none the less.

In Telecine, Doug saw a substantial difference between the two formats. 35 was the clear winner. 16 looked good, but didn't hold up in resolution, color space, lattitude or grain quality. For now, we'll choose 3 perf 35. If we can't afford it, we know that 16 will make a great looking image.

Wide Shot: 35mm 3Perf

Wide Shot: Super 16mm

Close-up of Matt: 35mm 3Perf Lucky me getting to stand in.

Close-up of Matt: Super16mm

Close-up of Doug: 35mm 3Perf, he's a better stand in than me.

Dry Rain - Synopsis

2007-03-01T09:37:00.000-08:00

Dry rain, or, technically, “virga,” is a common summer phenomenon of the Great Plains--rain drawn down from the clouds, but evaporating before reaching the ground. Visually striking, like tattered, gray drapes dragging beneath the clouds, it gives the hope of rain, but, really, little else.

Adapted from the title story of Pete Fromm’s award winning collection, DRY RAIN takes place over the course of an otherwise non-descript afternoon on the high plains of the Montana/Canadian border. Stil, a man in his early forties, is caught up in his own drought--his family, his financial means, and his power to do anything about either, have evaporated. This afternoon, he’s crossed
the line, stealing his nine year-old son, Joey, from his ex-wife, Tracy. The question is whether, as Stil insists, he has taken Joey on a “vacation” across the border into Canada, or has abducted him with the intent to receive a ransom for his return.

As the film begins, they’re stopped at a phone booth in a tiny roadside Canadian town, calling Joey’s mom to assure her of his safety, and to negotiate his return. The conversation boils over, and Tracy hangs up on Stil. Too late, he slams down the booth’s phone, breaking it in two. Left with what his father has broken, Joey picks up the half phone, and speaks into it, quietly repeating the words his father had shouted. “You owe me. I had a life with you.”

With the finely tuned perception and wit of a nine year-old, Joey “hears everything” in his parent’s series of phone booth conversations, and by repeating it back to his father, he takes the lead in helping Stil face reality, bringing him face to face with what is left of their own displaced relationship. As Stil decides to return Joey to the U.S. border, where he’ll be picked up by his mother, without any ransom paid, there is no doubt about the sincerity and affection between Joey and Stil, despite all that’s been broken.

Dry Rain wins IFP Spotlight Award

2006-11-15T21:13:00.000-08:00

Dry Rain is a short film based on the short story by Pete Fromm from his collection of short stories called Dry Rain. We were lucky enough to win a grant to make this film from IFP ( http://www.ifp.org/nav/about.php ) called the IFP Spotlight Award.

Here's the official press release on the win:

*********************************
Matthew Clark Wins 2006 Spotlight Award
*********************************
Seattle-based filmmaker Matthew Clark and his short film
project "Dry Rain" has been awarded the Fourth Annual
Spotlight Award, a production grant featuring over $100,000
of in-kind goods and services from the leading Northwest
production companies. "Dry Rain" will be produced by Brian
Homman and the cinematographer will be Doug Hostetter.
The following is a brief description of the project:

"Dry Rain" takes place on the high plains of the Montana /
Canadian border. Stil is caught in his own drought - his
family, financial means, and power to do anything about
either, have evaporated. This afternoon, Stil has crossed
the line, stealing his son, Joey, from his ex-wife. The question
is whether he has taken Joey on a "vacation" across the
border, or has abducted him to receive a ransom for the boy's
return.

IFP/Seattle Spotlight Award grants one Seattle-based
filmmaker comprehensive production resources to complete
one 22-minute (or less) short film. The filmmaker must
reside and the production must be completed in one of the
following areas currently served by the IFP/Seattle, namely:
Alaska, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Oregon or Washington.

This year's IFP/Seattle Spotlight Award is being sponsored by:
Alpha Cine Labs, Clatter + Din, Complete Casting, Eastman
Kodak, Jungle Software, Modern Digital and Oppenheimer Cine
Rental.

Past award winners include John Helde's "Hello," starring Eric
Stoltz and Susanna Thompson; Dan Brown's animated "Pierre,"
and well as Cheryl Slean's "Diggers," starring Phil Davis and
Marie Matiko.