this is a completely different take on this collab, so know going into it, it is a much different style than anything posted so far...

(and the copyright notice in the credits is because it is being burned to dvd for those who worked on it.  it is fully under the HR terms of agreement here as well :))

we made it "finished" for the telling of this story - but i am going to try to get the raw footage uploaded as well for remixing - retelling - further creation :)

for those who are interested, as some back information - i saw tagooey's text RECord with a possible plot outline for departures...i happened to be with m-iris (madi) at the time and asked what she thought about making it into a short film.  her next door neighbor has an awesome backyard which could play for many locations, and he had a typewriter and was willing to act as the old man...  with the idea in mind, i emailed cinematic.audiophile (doug - who i met at a don jon's shoot) and tagooey (who i also met at dja) and rhys_richards (rhys - who i also met at dja), asking if they wanted to collaborate on it.   

madi, rhys, doug and i met up at a starbucks that saturday and worked out a basic story line.  doug then hashed it out further with me and madi over burgers at a diner afterwards...a few more phone calls and doug's friend alex (mr.scoops - who i also had met at dja) would be director of photography.  madi's brother was taking a lighting class and we could borrow some lighting equipment from the school, alex's neighbors were actors and could play the young man and the drug dealer...

meanwhile i emailed emma conner who i had worked with on another collaborated script and asked if she wanted to co-write this with me.  i sent her our story notes and sunday we worked the script out back and forth....

monday (2 days after the starbucks meeting...!) i met up with alex and doug to walk through the locations and work out the shots from a production standpoint. i met rob (the guy who was to play the young man - and who is now actahman808 here :)), and introduced him to madi who was to play the young woman.  alex and i blocked out the gist of our shot list for the next day, sent the pieces of script back to emma who had written the final sequence and smoothed out all the concepts into our final script format.

the next day we started shooting...calling in friends to stand in as extras and be helping hands around set...madi's mom put out awesome snacks and water to keep everyone going in the sweltering summer heat...and three days later we had all the shots done and were ready to to bring it into post production!

doug sorted and labeled all the footage to be ready to edit and gave me a quick overview on using final cut pro (i will say here i have always used avid as its what was used at work and i always found it more intuitive than final cut...but i will also say now that yes, final cut does pretty much do everything avid does ;)  though i still vote in favor of avid as far as simplicity in use :)).  doug then also met up with me after the initial cut was roughed in to bounce around ideas on polishing it out.

i got in touch with bell and through e-mail and skype she scored and we put together the music track for the full film as i got the final cuts together.

brandon (theserpentthecharmer) recorded and sent over clean vo files to mix in to the edit.

i also got in touch with sojushots and he made a perfect bumper image to end the film.

fast forward to now - and the film is above!! (note - i'm sorry but it is really low-res...the full file is huge...as needed i can upload a zipped version or something.  again, will try to get the raw footage uploaded as well).

i wanted to tell the story of how this film came to be as i think it is a level of HR that has not been explored yet as to it's full potential...  

i think having shows and events and such where hitrecorders can meet up and network is brilliant (though i know the don jon's addiction shoots were not for that purpose, it was a nice fringe benefit :)).  i in no way think this should take precedence over the internet site, as i know many are not near major cities where we would have these things and the whole point of the site is to be able to work together no matter where in the world we are!  but i do think there is something to meeting up "in real life" as well.  (note: i must say that i am one of the last few humans who is not on twitter or facebook and i know a lot of hitRECorders are...so maybe this point is moot and already covered by being in touch through there - but wanted to mention it...). [revised sept 12 - now on twitter :P  still think live events are awesome]

i think the resources available on hitrecord are ENDLESS.  thinking outside the box, calling friends and family and getting them involved with projects...we literally made this thing by asking "who do you know who can...?" and reaching out until we had everything in place to make it happen.  (and then getting those few non-hitRECorders involved to sign off on the terms of agreement of hitRECord so was still all legally-friendly ;))

with skype and email and everything else the internet has to offer - i see the possibilities of what we can produce here as limitless.  as it is, this was made across 5 countries and 6 time zones...!

as our boss-man joe says - "just make shit!" - i really think that is endlessly possible with what we have here!

one of the pieces from Koura Lillys Collaboration of Departures