Updates...

Went to Montauk, New York to shoot at Camp Hero with Mike. Still have to look over the tapes - will do so when I finish and make a copy of "Mr. Mullen" onto Mini-Dv tape. Almost done with the film and am very happy with the direction of the score. This week should be the week of scoring/mastering and then I will send it to Sundance Film Festival. It's a $50 fee which isn't terrible but still, when you have little to no money, it's hard to part with it.

I have a rough finalized shotlist that we'll slowly cross off over the next two months for "The Militia 15" - I have some really cool ideas as far as the storyline with there being a rift in the mindsets of the militia members. For those who do not know, "The Militia 15" is a film we're working on right now that is about a group of militia members who are sick and tired of government control. So there are different characters and even though they all believe in freedom, they all see it differently. One wants violence, the other doesn't and so on. So there's this one scene where one of the character decides to get violent where as the other members are not into stooping down to the level of the corrupt thugs who run the country. They'd rather continue to make a change through posting video blogs and reaching out to people and waking them up since a lot of them believe that a lot of the general public are not yet awake. So I like that even though they all are in this for a common goal of freedom, they all have different ideas as to what it is - so that is fun to have where we can branch out to different areas and different ideas for the characters which I feel can make this film a very deep film.

Slow...

Things are going slow as far as shooting scenes since Chris Margaritis has been very busy with his day job so I've been shooting pick up shots for various scenes as well as scheduling an upcoming Montauk shoot with Mike (who I've known through Chris since 2008 but had not met til recently). We need to get this scenes out in Montauk as he searches for clues to Paul Kratka's characters death with other members. When we venture out there, we're focusing on Mike's scenes out there and still have to shoot another day out there with Chris. I attemped getting some crane shots yesterday but was missing a screw for the crane so the shots might have not come out - still have to look over the footage. Most of the time I was there, it was sunny which doesn't match the previous shots we filmed but clouds came about an hour later and shot some pick up shots.

Paul is coming out in early September to finished his scenes in the film for "The Militia 15" which is now what the film is called. A lot has changed since we planned to focus the film on Mind Control as it's now mainly about the militia and their quest to inform people of the lies of the government and mainstream media. I want to get some more audio with Paul for the film as well as shots of him actually out at Camp Hero, which we had not gotten due to time issues as he had to leave to go back to California later the day we shot the scenes that we masked as "Montauk".

One issue has been the noise issue at Welwyn - due to the heat, the cicadas are in full force so I've been focusing on shooting scenes that are away from the "compound" in the film so in the next week I should be working with Mike on his scenes. One idea is shooting a scene at his shop where in the back he has this shed and underground area that I'd like to make a scene out of. He sent me pictures via e-mail and I think it would be an interesting scene to shoot for the documentary part of the film (which is shown in Black and White to seperate the film and Chris' documentary in the film) where he talks to the camera about silver and gold, as well as his "hide-out" that he has (Chris' character films all the documentary scenes and shots in the film).;

Back on a roll...

Shot some scenes for The Project with Chris Margaritis as well as an interview with him which is up on YouTube.com under the account 'ScottGoldbergFilms'. It's entitled "Scott Goldberg interviews Chris Margaritis". We talked a little bit about our experience of making the film
"Mr. Mullen" and will continue to make videos like that which will hopefully give people insight to what independent filmmaking is all about and to focus on your own way of making films and not how the mainstream is doing it.

We shot at North Shore High School at the track area and got a few shots but I still feel we need more so we plan on shooting more since the scene is a voice-over where we hear Chris talk about how his friends death woke him up to getting into shape and being stronger both mentally and phsyically.

Might shoot again either Tues, Wed or Thursday of this week to extend that scene and shoot another scene or two.

Updates...

Chris Margaritis has been slammed with work in the past seven days so we have not been able to trek out to Montauk to shoot the final scenes at Camp Hero that involve Chris and the other characters. There is still a lot to get with the film and everyday I am getting new ideas.

So the focus has been on finished "Mr. Mullen" with Mark Nadolski which is coming along very well. The score is a retro 80's type of score through synth sounds and I'm really happy without the outcome so far. We've also been working in sections and that's given more freedom for both myself and Mark to really focus on certain scenes that are bunched up into each section and to have something that we can play around with when I still have an unedited scene or two that still needs a few shotes (for example, the dream scene Chris' character has - I'm planning on adding more to the dream scene and if I had sent Mark that scene it would already have been scored and no changes would have been able to be made).

Updates

We were supposed to go out to Montauk to get some more shots for the Paul Kratka sequence but due to scheduling conflicts the day before the shoot, we're planning on shooting scenes in Glen Cove today. Wanted to get a interview with Chris' friend Mike at the "compound" for "The Project". We recorded some interview dialougue with him a few days prior but I feel that we can really get some deep and in-depth conversations with him. He is very knowledgeable about the New World Order and many other aspects concerning the government and our country.

Then we might shoot another scene or two depending on the weather.

Mark has been compsoing "Mr. Mullen" and I'm very happy with how it's coming out - lot's of cool synth sounds, very retro 80's synth - nothing like todays standard mainstream sound. I can't stand that type of sound - ie: Friday the 13th remake type score. I never want to have any part in that type of music. I feel music is so important in both life and art and the more we expose ourselves to music that is generic, the more we are going to suffer both with our minds and artistically. I used to be into a lot of pop punk type bands in 2002 when I was making my feature length film "Dead End Massacre" and the type of songs I put into the film at the time were horrendous. The whining voices and same type of sound that every Long Island band has - that just annoys me to no end now. Back then I was such a different filmmaker and that's what
I find so interesting as the years pass - what type of filmmaker you become, as well as an individual.

It all derives from life I feel and the experiences you have living your own life. That's one of the most important aspects of filmmaking and from that comes the inspiration.

Music and film go hand in hand. The sounds, the feeling, the visuals and what the sounds remind you of - how they trigger a part of your emotions and memory. That is what I think a lot of people do not understand. The music needs to feel right and fit in the scene for the filmmaker. "Day of the Dead" for example. In my opinion that score was perfect for that film. The sad feeling through the synths and sounds of the score really gave that film a dark and creepy atmosphere. And I love how the walls in the underground bunker are gray and dirty looking. Simple things like that bring out the atmosphere of a film.

Mr. Mullen Updates

I am very excited since Mark is officially starting the musical score for "Mr. Mullen". I sent him half of the film (final cut) and am still working on a final cut for the second half and may shoot a sequence to go in between two scenes in the film that might need a sequence to space out the two scenes. I received a few e-mail replies from a Casting Call I put out and think I may have some good leads - just have to do some voicemail auditions.

We didn't shoot yesterday due to the weather conditions so hopefully today. Chris Margaritis has been busy with work which is good since the money is needed - so hopefully today we can shoot the cemetery scene and beach scene for "The Project" which will fill in more of the Scott Jordan death scene that came to be back in June when we shot Paul Kratka's scenes.

Updates...

We're shooting again tomorrow and Friday for "The Project" to finish up the Glen Cove scenes that involve the Scott Jordan / Montauk segments and have to trek out there atleast one more time to get visuals of Chris making his way out to Montauk to investigate the death of one of his friends and former Militia members who died out there.

There is something about Montauk and Camp Hero that I find so thrilling. The location reminds me of Welwyn Preserve in a way - it's vast and has interesting aspects to it. Camp Hero has this interesting Radar Tower which is very creepy and unsettling - Drew and I got close to the Radar Tower yesterday when shooting and it's such a breathtaking view being right under it and looking up. For those who do not know, the Radar Tower is talked about a lot in conspiracy blogs, videos / books - there are people who have supposedly had Mind Control Experiments done there and well as possible Alien Abductions / time travel experiments, etc - this is all explained in my friend Chris' movie, "Montauk Unveiled" which should be out later this year. Without knowing Chris I would have never known about Camp Hero.

I like how in "The Project", we don't really go into any of the Alien or Time Travel aspects, but rather feature Camp Hero as a place where Paul Kratka's death takes place due to elecontric waves that Mind Controlled him to kill himself - what is interesting is how it evolved to where I wanted to explain why he did it and how his friends went out to investiage it and plus there's a feature length documentary already being made about it so I'm not really interested in going indepth about it but just using it as a location to shoot some interesting scenes. I believe it was Paul who suggested shooting out in Montauk a few weeks back before we shot - him and I had went there in September 2005 because he wanted to hit some waves since he is an avid surfer.

Looking forward to finishing up the Montauk related shots and moving onto RFID Chipping / Martial Law segments.