tamasharangi.com

On Screens Tall and Venti

2013-11-03T14:13:00.001-08:00

Last week we were honored to be invited to show The Advocate on the big screen once again, this time as part of the 13th Hungarian Film Festival of Los Angeles. HFFLA has always been one of the annual events I look forward to as it’s historically been the best venue to catch the best flicks coming out of Budapest. Over the past few years, I’ve also been happy to see the fest expand to showcase and celebrate Hungarian Cinema from a global perspective, featuring the works of Hungarian filmmakers from around the world. Needles to say, I’m thrilled to be part of the 2013 line-up.

The Advocate will be shown Sunday, November 17th at 9:30pm at the Laemmle North Hollywood, with the cast and myself being on hand for a Q&A afterward. Click on the banner above for tickets and info, or visit: http://hffla.com

Then it will be time for our DVD release! After what has been a whirl wind two years or production, post work, and a great festival run, the special edition of The Advocate will hit shelves November 19th. It will feature a commentary track—really a conversation between myself and editor David Abramson on the various aspects of the roller coaster that was making of this film.

I will be posting updates on links, venues, and outlets of where the movie will become available for purchase and rental. As always, you can keep up with the latest news on our Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/TheAdvocateMovie

So, come check us out in sizes tall and venti if you can!

The Advocate Premieres in Hollywood

2013-06-21T13:59:00.000-07:00

Somewhere in a shoe box, there’s a picture of me taken a couple of months after I got off the plane from Hungary; I’m crouching on the pavement, placing my 19-year-old palm into the handprint of Steven Spielberg in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater.

That was a long time ago, but it was profound to remember that first trip to Los Angeles as I prepared for the LA premiere of The Advocate at what is now the TCL Chinese Theaters. So much has changed. The theater has extended into a multiplex, and none of the screening rooms project film anymore, having been converted to the latest digital wonders. And yet, a premiere at the Chinese ended up being just as much fun as I had imagined when I was a kid.

It was certainly an awesome way to see this movie with all our LA friends and all the wonderful people who worked so hard on it.

Many thanks to the Dances with Films Festival, Leslee Scallon, Michael Trent and Robert Mellette, for selecting us and hosting this special night for The Advocate, and to all of you who came to celebrate it. It was the end of one part of the journey and the beginning of another. As I announced after the screening, the movie was picked up for North American distribution and is scheduled to be released later this year. We look forward to sharing it with the world next.

Check out pix from the event on my Flickr stream:

DWF Premiere of The Advocate, a set on Flickr.

Dances With Films Opening Night

2013-05-30T11:53:00.000-07:00

A lot of excitement in the the air as the Dances With Films festival kicks off today at the Chinese theaters in Hollywood. As part of the festival, The Advocate will have its West Coast Premiere on June 8th at 7:15, and with all the craziness, our screening ended up selling out before I could even have time to update this site.

For updates on this other fun events coming up, follow The Advocate on Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheAdvocateMovie

The Advocate Los Angeles Premiere

2013-04-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

I was thrilled to find out this weekend that The Advocate was selected to have its LOS ANGELES PREMIERE at the Chinese Theaters Complex in Hollywood as part of the 2013 DANCES WITH FILMS FESTIVAL!

The festival will be running from May 30th to June 9th. Our screening date and time will be announced in the coming days and advance tickets and passes will go on sale in mid-May.

I will be posting more info as it becomes available.

For details about the fest see: http://danceswithfilms.com/

Hope to see you there!

The Advocate Takes Durango

2013-03-06T16:11:00.001-08:00

We just got back from what turned out to be the most unexpectedly exhilarating trip to the Durango Independent Film Fest. Long story short, our movie The Advocate premiered to two sold out screenings. And when all the ballots were counted, we ended up walking away with both the JUROR AWARD and the AUDIENCE AWARD for BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE!

To say that showing the film to an audience of strangers for the first time was nerve wrecking would be an understatement. Durango was our first test of a story that was shaped over two years of rewrites, many discussions on set, and agonizing trims in the editing room. Adding to the pressure was the fact that this was my first time in Durango and we had little indication as to what kind of turnout we could count on for our premiere screening.

We got our first encouraging signs at the Comcast sponsored kick-off party where several people started to recognize our lead actor Sachin Mehta from the printed festival programs, and I got to watch him give his first autographs as a movie star. The next day, we also landed an interview at local radio station KDUR, for their weekly film program, Reels to Radio. The stage was set for our debut screening on Thursday night.

It’s hard to describe the feeling of watching a line form outside the theater for your first screening, but it was as close to an out of body experience as I’ve gotten. People had told me before that the audiences here were enthusiastic for indie films, and fortunately, that turned out to be very true in our case.

Thanks to the great folks here at Durango, we ended up not only selling out the Gaslight theater, the local art house venue, but two days later—thanks to word of mouth—we also filled up the Durango Arts Center screening room which boasts an extra fifty seats. The audience’s response was amazing, and if you saw the premiere scene in the recent Hitchcock biopic, you’ll know exactly what I was going through during the screenings.

Many thanks to the sponsors and organizers of Durango Film 2013: Joanie Fraughton, Festival Director; Brandon Donahue, Head of Features Programming; Gregg Weiss, Hospitality Co-ordinator; Derrick Casto, Print Traffic Co-ordinator; Bo Sandine, Kristin Hopper, and the rest of the crazy and enthusiastic team over there who championed us!

I hope I have the chance to share other stories with the good people of Durango soon.

For a full list of award winners, check out: http://durangofilm.org/festival/awards2013.html

Durango Screenings Schedule

2013-02-15T12:46:00.001-08:00

The Durango Film Festival now has their screening schedule up on their site.

The Advocate will screen:
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28th at 6pm at the Durango Gaslight Theater
SATURDAY, MARCH 2nd at 12noon at the Durango Arts Center

Click on the image for festival info and passes. Hope to see you there!

Rocky Mountain High

2013-01-17T11:25:00.000-08:00

Today I'm happy to announce that The Advocate was invited to have its big screen debut screening at the 2013 Durango Independent Film Festival! The fest is being held from February 27th to March 3rd in Durango, Colorado.

With the invitation arriving in late December, our post team went into overdrive to finish the movie just in time to deliver to the fest. And deliver they did! The fim is now complete and we're heading to the Rocky Mountains to start sharing with the world.

I will post screening dates and venues as they become available.

For more information about the festival, check out: www.durangofilm.org

The Advocate Trailer Released

2012-10-12T11:51:00.000-07:00

With the movie nearly complete, today we released our very first trailer for The Advocate. Check it out via the link below and let me know what you think!

The Summer of Tweaks

2012-10-08T13:41:00.000-07:00

I spent the last months nipping and tucking on this thing as well as working on color correction and sound. We had some great discussions and feedback as a result of two test screenings of our various versions of the film, then an awesome note session with director Gil Junger who recommended some further tweaks. But as a result, I think I can say that The Advocate is finally locked now.

After all this, our first trailer is scheduled to be released this week, so watch this space!

Deadlines and Moving Parts

2012-05-24T13:56:00.000-07:00

Our new poster, designed by Dylan Hay-Chapman.

I’m sleep deprived and a bit delirious so I figured, how about a blog post? With deadlines approaching, I’ve been cramming to finish a preview cut of the movie for festival submissions. It’s exciting and exhausting times, with a lot of juggling of moving parts, but it’s all coming together.

Under the audiophonic wizardry of sound mixer Scott Jennings, we’ve enjoyed some all-nighters to get the first version of our sound mix into a listenable form. At the same time, Smart Post Video in Burbank is designing our opening title sequence, and judging by the initial renders, at least the first minute and a half of the movie is gonna rock. And as I write this, I’m listening to our new version of the opening music theme, composed by Frederik Wiedmann--it’s turning out really amazing!

Over the next few days, we’re scheduled to make our first festival submissions. That is, of course, if we manage to get over some last minute glitches with the output. There’s always something, always another bug to fix. But luckily we have the right team to fix them.

The First Picture Lock

2012-03-26T10:31:00.000-07:00

Editor David E. K. Abramson at the controls.

Having spent over a month sequestered in an edit bay, I'm happy to announce that the first picture lock is now complete on my feature. Though it's not the final version of the film, it is at least close enough that we can start mixing sound and working with music for it.

So far, editing has been the most fun part of this endeavor. After over a year of development and the pressures of the prep and the shoot, this is where the pieces of the story are finally put together—though in most cases this process resembles more of what I would call a Lego approach as opposed to an Ikea one. I mean a director might think he's handing the editor an Ikea furniture kit—the prefab pieces of the scenes, going with the assembly instructions laid out in the screenplay—however, what you really have is a Lego set. Provided that the pieces are all there, you could assemble the same thing that's in the instructions, but you can also get creative with it and take those elements to build something even better along the lines of the original concept. This Lego approach is where the fun comes in. There are cases where this can also be the director's nightmare, when such last minute re-imaginations of the story are absolutely necessary in the cutting room just to ensure the damn thing makes sense, but thankfully I was spared of that—well, so far at least.

With this movie, we were lucky enough not to have to get too creative with the editing; the pieces and the blueprint came together quite well if you ask me. But we were also fortunate to have enough material to have some fun Lego time as well, and build on what we originally planned—thanks in no small part to the talents of our wonderful editor, David E. K. Abramson. The result? It’s not a book case and it’s not a plastic Death Star, what it is, is finally, a movie.

I'm looking forward to sharing the results with everyone soon.

Production Wraps on The Advocate

2012-02-11T09:35:00.000-08:00

Well, it took a couple rounds of shooting, one in December and a second outing in February, but principal photography is now complete on my first feature. I owe many thanks to an incredible cast and crew, and our producer, Matthew C. Temple, without whom none of this could have happened.

The question that people ask me is: "What's the next step?" and to that my answer currently is: "Sleep." I need lots of it. Then it's back to the edit bay with our editor, David E. K. Abramson for the fun part, shaping all our footage into a story.

If you're interested in following the progress of the movie, you can sign up for email alerts here or on the official site www.theadvocatemovie.com, or follow me on Twitter @theharangi. The Advocate will soon make its appearance on Facebook as well.

Week Two

2011-12-13T15:28:00.000-08:00

A few pics from the second week of principal photography on The Advocate.

The First Week

2011-12-04T13:01:00.001-08:00

Sachin Mehta as defense attorney Ray Shekar.

Five days in, the production of my feature is proving to be a roller coaster ride. We have an amazing crew who saved my ass on a very tough day. I'm also fortunate enough to work with a great cast led by Sachin Mehta and Kristina Klebe.


Kristina Klebe (Halloween, Chillerama) as Allyson Daugherty in The Advocate.

Next week, the ride continues.

Counting Down

2011-11-26T09:12:00.001-08:00

After months of prep, principal photography on The Advocate is scheduled to start just days from now. We have a great cast and crew who have graciously signed on to be part of the adventure, so now it's on me to bring it home. I will surely have more to write about all aspects of this project—not to mention the time to do it—once it's actually shot, so check back, and I'll let you know how it went.

Locating Locations

2011-09-19T15:13:00.001-07:00

Okay, time for an update: I continue to juggle the many aspects of pre-pre-production on The Advocate, hoping to be able to set a shoot date soon. I met with several really talented actors during our casting sessions—so talented that they helped me shape my concept of the characters and, in some cases, sent me back to the keyboard for some further fleshing out. Though I haven’t made my final decisions for the main roles, I feel great about the choices we have right now.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been turning my attention to finding the locations for our film. Given our limited budget, I always felt that securing the right sites will be one of the bigger challenges for us. There seems to be two schools of thought on finding locations in LA: the one weary of the jacked up site fees of the jaded residents of “movie town” who have long burned out on film crews taking over their streets, and the other side who maintains that there is always a spot in the city that could meet your needs; it’s only a matter of time to find it. Looks like I’m about to learn which side is right.

Casting Begins on The Advocate

2011-08-08T11:11:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy month, rewriting and doing other prep-work for our feature. But the train is moving right along; I’ve been pouring through headshots and demo reels for the past couple of weeks, and now, we’re finally ready to go forward with the casting phase. This is always a fascinating part of the process, seeing and hearing the words come alive in different variations during the auditions. Our first session is later on this week and we’ve got some great candidates so I’ll definitely have my work cut out for me.

Hope to be back with more news soon(ish).

Holding my Script to the Fire

2011-06-23T10:23:00.000-07:00

No, not to burn it, though that is a tempting proposition at times.

I’m just in rewrite frenzy again. I’ve been developing this story for 18 months. It’s been shaped over various drafts and rounds of feedback, but it has not yet passed through the ultimate test: the pre-production process. And now, as we’re beginning to put the pieces of the actual movie together, the script I was so happy with a month ago is presenting me with some new challenges as it starts its journey from a semi abstract telling of a story, to an exact blueprint of a film production. Of course this is a good problem to have so I’m not complaining, just typing away—until the next round of notes comes in, and the one after that.

As the old saying goes: “The script is never finished. Only the film.”

The Best Test Short I've Seen

2011-06-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

Camera "test shorts" have been an interesting youtube trend over the past two years. With new digital recording products being released seemingly every two months, filmmakers have been eager to take these toys for a test drive, and in the process this new sub-genre of indy cinema was born. I've seen my fair share of them lately as we're looking into various visual tools for The Project, and last week I came across this particular test piece on Vimeo, done by John Brawley, comparing various film and digital formats under available light.

Out of the scores of similar shorts, the brilliance of this particular one is that he doesn't tell you which format is which until the very end, hence allowing your eyes to pick up the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle differences on their own. For this little conceit, I nominate this for 'Best Test Short' of 2011.

Brawley tested—not in this order—35mm, RED MX, Arri Alexa, 16mm, Sony F3, Cannon HDSLR with some interesting results. His Vimeo page and blog has more details as well, well worth the read.

Available Light Shoot - The Results from John Brawley on Vimeo.

Switching Gears

2011-06-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

To say I’ve been infrequent about my blogging would be an understatement. However, I had my reasons. I set up this site over a year and a half ago, when I started developing a new, low budget feature project. During that time—amidst writing that script, musing abut politics and shooting our practice short—it was my hope that one day I could use this blog to chronicle the process of actually making said feature. Did that time finally arrive? Well, it’s still too early to tell, but I feel I’m in a position to switch into gear on the project.

The gears have actually been turning for a while now; over the past six months I’ve partnered with my friend Sachin Mehta to form Astraea Films LLC, with the goal of making this project happen. As things are now starting to pick up speed, and we set out for this adventure in the coming weeks and months, I will also set out to give a behind-the-scenes look at the making of this indie thriller here on the blog.

Check back for updates about our progress, a look at the cast and crew, and other fun stuff.

The Pier Completed

2010-12-05T13:53:00.000-08:00

The little practice short we filmed this summer, The Pier, is now complete. It was a fun exercise in minimalist filmmaking shot at Venice Pier over the course of several mornings to catch the perfect light during the "June gloom" days. Thanks go out to David Abramson at DekaFilm for his help on the sound post.

Check out the The Pier HERE.

A Skeptic's Burden

2010-11-12T10:20:00.000-08:00

How an ill researched news article turned me into a card-carrying rationalist.

It all started innocently enough. On June 20, 2009 I was perusing the web in a fit of procrastination when I came across an article commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission and Neil Armstrong’s historic “one small step” in 1969. I was on CNN.com, a news source that’s infamous for their determination for presenting both sides of any argument regardless of how baseless, disingenuous, or flat-out asinine any one side may be. In true CNN fashion, this article was about the claims that the Moon landings 40 years prior may or may not have been faked (far be it from CNN to take a side in this “debate”). I was relatively uninformed about this controversy at the time. For some reason I thought that claims of mock-Moon-sets on vast sound stages in the Nevada desert died a long time ago, but I guess I was wrong. So here I was reading about the possibilities that the world was bamboozled by a set of elaborate special effects put on by NASA at the order of Richard Nixon.

There was only one problem with this claim that I could clearly see, and that was because, unlike conspiracy theorists and CNN anchors, I actually spent some time studying special effects and their history throughout cinema, along with basic photography and optics. In 1969, eight years before the premiere of the original Star Wars (the visual effects of which, on the original non-retouched print, look quite dated) we actually had the technology to send men to the moon, but not the capacity to realistically fake the footage they brought back. The only way to fake the massive amount of footage generated by the Apollo missions was to send a crew to the moon to film it. (I’m not talking here of the ten second clips people like to show on YouTube, I’m talking about the ten minute continuous shots of 16mm footage that conspiracy theorists conveniently forget about. )

But this CNN article was just ill researched enough to send me on a Wikipedia fueled fact finding mission which eventually landed me on BadAstronomy.com, the all things science and space blog of the best selling author Phil Plait.
Plait, an astronomer by training, has burnt some calories in his day debunking moon conspiracy claims and other pseudo-science, eventually turning his blog posts into his bestselling book, Bad Astronomy. As I found out, he is also among the leading voices of the skeptic movement on the web.

By “skeptic”, I mean the empirical sense of the word, described by those smarter than me as “a practical, epistemological position in which one questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence”. For a space enthusiast like me, it was Phil Plait’s blog that ended up becoming a gateway drug to the online world of skeptic activists, covering a wide array of topics from UFO’s (no proof), alternative medicine (not working), and of course god (not there). I guess the thought process of skeptics was always something I skirted without knowing exactly what it was or where I truly stood with it. But once it was defined and refined for me by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and the Mythbusters, skepticism as a world view became hard to kick. Unfortunately, it also has a way of turning a fellow into a social outcast.

Take for example the common conversation filler of horoscopes and astrology. Just about every dinner chat about relationships or career matters will eventually involve someone throwing out a “well, she is a Gemini so she’s hard to figure out” or a “my boss is a typical Sagittarius.” I used to give little mind to this before, never truly believing in the veracity of horoscopes, but never arguing with them either. However, after one becomes a card carrying skeptic, these types of utterances cause a different reaction. Once you spend some time reading about the prevalence of astrology in popular culture and contrast it with the amount of scientific evidence pointing to it being complete hogwash, it’s hard to stay silent when a polite dinner conversation turns to events caused by “Mercury being in retrograde.” One feels bound by a certain skeptic code of honor to speak up and become the stick-in-the-mud who points out that, for example, no, there aren’t more accidents during a full moon, and I do have the numbers to prove it.

Speaking up becomes the skeptic’s burden in a sometimes seemingly futile effort to move us toward a society governed by reason.

And nobody could use a resident skeptic more than CNN. The next time some seemingly paranormal event is caught on camera -- such as the “Mystery Rocket” this past week -- it would be great to have at least one news source where an anchor could look into the camera and simply say “Well, we don’t know what this is folks, but I’m sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation.” Because at the end, there always is.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood - Trailer Now Online

2010-07-20T12:56:00.000-07:00

The trailer for the new video game I worked on as a writer and creative consultant is now online. Brotherhood is Ubisoft’s new entry in their hit Assassin’s Creed game series that won numerous awards, including "Best Action/Adventure Game," from IGN, "Best Action Game", "Best PS3 Graphics"; from GameSpot and GameSpy.

Check it out.

Post-Production Continues on The Pier

2010-07-17T12:46:00.000-07:00

Having dragged Sachin and Dylan out for six mornings to catch the sunrise at Venice Pier, our little short film finally wrapped yesterday.

Now in the editing phase, The Pier is scheduled to debut on my site soon. Check back or hit our RSS for updates.

View from the Bandwagon

2010-07-07T15:45:00.000-07:00

I jumped on the bandwagon. I had to. Cannon made me do it. They practically forced me to join the HD SLR frenzy.

In my defense, I was on the lookout for a new digital SLR camera that would give me some decent pics but wouldn’t set me back too much. Just as I was doing my research, Cannon made the announcement of the EOS Rebel T2i. A digital SLR with a 24 frame High Def video function for under $800.

To put that into perspective, nine years ago, the hot new image acquisition device was Sony’s first 24 frame HD camcorder, the F900 which sold for upwards of $100,000 with a decent lens. Although true techies will argue with me on this, at first sight, this Cannon actually produces a better image than the F900 ever did. So, as you see, for that bang for the buck, I had to jump on the HD SLR bandwagon.

I’ve been putting my T2i to the test as both a still and a video camera, having shot my new short The Pier with it. Here are some of my initial reactions; my first views from the bandwagon if you will:

1. It IS a still photo camera. A pretty good one at that for the money. With 18 mega pix, it’s the still cam I needed for regular use with the video functions as an insane bonus to filmmakers, compared to what you would have gotten less than a year ago.

2. You gotta outfit it for video use. A range of aftermarket products exists to make this baby more suitable for videographers. The best ones are made by a company called Zacutto and can run you much more than the camera costs. But a very reasonable setup can be put together by utilizing just their pistol grip and their basic viewfinder -- an absolute must. With these additions, shooting video with my T2i became quite comfortable. As a matter of fact it took me back to the days of shooting my first Super 8 shorts with a Chinon camera sporting a pistol grip and a fixed angle viewfinder.

Cannon SLR outfitted with Zacuto gear. The pistol grip with the viewfinder does the trick, but as you can see, you can keep adding goodies if you want.

3. The “Look”: 24 frames/sec 1080p HD video from a CMOS sensor the size of a 35mm movie frame. Though there is room for improvement in the recording codec and compression, we would have killed to have this five or six years ago for ten times the price. But more on the “Look” later.

4. HD SLR seems ideal for shorts and student films, but its handling and interface shortcomings would become very old very quickly on a feature shoot. Monitoring is an either-or between an external monitor and the camera’s own LCD display, and sound recording is really for reference at best.

5. All of the above will be a moot point in a year or so.

Why? Because by next year, every manufacturer will have caught on and there will be a line of cameras designed specifically for filmmakers that will sport the same “Look.” 24p 1080 on a 35mm size sensor will become commonplace. That “Look” everyone was bending backwards to achieve just five years ago will now be the de-facto feature on a range of low cost camcorders.

This “Look” I think will finally put an end to the digital revolution that started ten years ago. It will finally settle the misconception that any of this technical stuff really makes a difference. What separated good movies from absolute crap 15 years ago was not 35mm vs. 16mm, and 10 years ago it wasn’t film vs. digital. It was always script vs. script and artist vs. artist.

The one thing that keeps going through my head as I look at the footage coming off my T2i is: “Dammit, now I have to get better at writing... again.”

The Chinon 60XL -- the same model my first short films were shot on.