Shot this for our friend Arpit a few months ago and finally got around to putting it all together. Just a fun little promo for him to use on his site.

Now that it's summer and most of our big projects are out of the way, it's time to once again get the creative juices flowing. Peter's writing a script for a short film, I'm doing my best to write one as well. What have you guys been up to? Ready for a productive summer?

• Canon 7D Body (original box and warranty included)
• Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 L II Lens
• Canon 50mm f/1.2 Lens
• Canon TC-80N3 Intervalometer
• Steadicam Merlin
• Zoom H4n
• Sennheiser MKH-60 Microphone
• 1500W JTL Lighting Kit
• Set of 2 x 500W China Balls
• Scion xA
• Vespa ET2

Let me know what you guys thought of this post. I actually shot a vlog where I recorded myself editing the vlog that I shot (whoa). But unfortunately, for some reason Premiere kept crashing. I think it had something to do with the fact I was using Camtasia. Or maybe it was because I was in an infinite loop. Maybe next time.

Peter here: sorry kids, no shorts this Halloween. Oh we tried and tried, but our creative juices have all but dried from the well-springs of our minds.

In it's place is an actor reel. Yes, these actors are new to L.A., flavored by European accents; but they ain't bad. From an outline provided by our actress, I wrote the script in three pages; about one page too many. The shorter the reel, the more likely casting directors will bother. I managed to pare down the cut to a swift two minutes. To some agents this is still one minute too many.

The location is a private bar in L.A. We had to wrap in three hours, minus the combined hour it took to set-up and then clean-up. Outside, it was a Sunday night in full swing; if Sean and I had social lives we might have envied the twenty-to-thirtysomethings downstairs in the public bar, busting seams of laughter, flirting and spilling drinks as baseball looped on the screens. We might've, but we didn't. Maybe in another lifetime, when my fixation isn't in the telling of a barfly pimped out by her lowlife boyfriend.

One main criticism I have of the reel is that the exposure is uneven. There's a story to that: as we were hauling the equipment out of the Scion, a block away from the bar, Sean lifted out the pre-assembled softbox and out tumbled the lighting head. It had come loose from the fixture. I heard a sound like crunched glass. Sean muttered "Oh no!" The lighting head had tumbled onto the asphalt and landed on it's fifty-dollar bulb. A minute prior, I was telling Sean how the three-point lighting should be arranged. "Guess we'll have to make due with two," he added, not without a hint of irony.

Thankfully, the reel helped our two actors land an agency.

That's the kind of news you hope for. But enough about boring old actor reels. Bet you're all wondering about Take Zer0. While I'm not typing this from a homeless shelter (yet), we've all run afoul of hard times. (I'm at a coffeeshop typing this on my iPhone, sipping coffee paid with quarters and dimes I scavenged around the house) The autonomy Sean and I shared in earlier times---like a full tank of gas to drive where we pleased---is a liberty we're very, very nostalgic for. Thus we have decided that when we do make videos it will be for professional reasons. Believe us when we say that when we've made a few bucks to get ahead, we'll be sure to cook up a few new videos for you all.

But creativity is king. As Joke and Biagio allude to in their blog, creation is the key to success. Those of you who remember Jaemin Yi will be happy to know that he intends to write and direct a feature film. At least that's what Sean tells me. And Drew (remember Drew?) has finally posted a video after a long hiatus. As for Sean and I, well, the truth is that we did try to shoot a short for Halloween. I wrote it quickly, and regrettably I think it needed at least one revision. And then we didn't have time to finish the shoot. It's a ghost story, of sorts. Here's a screen cap of Anna (that's Sean in the foreground checking his watch, which figures into the story).

Well, I guess this phrase was going to be inevitable: Hope you all had a safe and happy Halloween! What did you all do? I sat around and revisted They Live (what I consider an influential low-budget genre film) and Freaks. And so, until next time...

So our friend Socrates is coming to visit! He works for the Visalia news crew and for some reason wants to interview us (I guess he thinks we're popular or something, heh). Him and his friend will be here this coming Saturday with a pair of Panasonic HVX200's. I guess that means we'll have to see how they compare to our Sony PMW-EX1!

Anyway, if you guys want to have your questions included in the interview send an email to CreativeQuestion@gmail.com with the subject "Question?"

And try and get your questions in by this Thursday, March 12th (we need a little time to prepare everything for the shoot on Saturday).

Everyone wish Soc a good trip! He's coming a really long way just to meet us, Peter and I are very quite honored.

So, we were in the middle of shooting the next episode and before we could get to the outdoor shots it started raining. And it's been raining the past week. Peter showed me part of what he shot so far (he was directing, I was acting), though, and it looked really good. I think you guys will be surprised. The new format of episodes is going to be quite different than they were previously, but it's definitely for the better.

In other news, I've been working on my short film script. I haven't had as much time as I'd like, but you can check for updates over at my personal blog: esotericsean.com. I'm hoping on showing everyone my final outlined treatment soon.

In other news, we now have a P.O. Box (those of you who were sent buttons or t-shirts probably already know this). I don't know what we're gonna do with it, but it's cool to have. Send us some postcards or letters or whatever you want! We'll write or send something back to you! Just make sure you address it to "Take Zer0" and not one of us (the post office was very specific about this for some reason).

Here's our address (in case you want to copy & paste it someplace):

School just started for me while Sean is hard at work with life in general, I suppose. But no fear; the next episode is on its way. We considered the topic of Japanese lanterns and diffused lighting, and at one point even chroma key---but it occurred to us that all this production-stage mumbo-jumbo is sorta bells and whistles next to a recurring problem: writing.

The writing process is a subjective realm made of opinions and no reliable facts. We've avoided it for those reasons. Technical details, like lighting and camerawork, are far easier to grasp.

So be it, then, that the next episode will dig deeper into the pains of writer's block. It's a little unnerving wrestling this particular topic. Yet who knows. Maybe something useful can come out of this attempt. Plenty of books and tutorials teach structure and pacing, and I've been there and done that. And at the end of it all, I still struggle, just like anyone else (you people do struggle, too, right?).

You see, it's not that I don't know how to build a skyscraper; it's that I don't know what kind of skyscraper I should build. That sums up my stance on writer's block. I'm not sure if you all see it the same way.

Peter here. It is two-thirty in the morning.

About, oh, I don't know, twelve hours ago I sat down in the downstairs study, threw down a copy of M.R. James' The Haunted Doll's House and Other Stories, and rotated the spine of my wire notebook to a blank page. Two hours later I made five scribbles and one scratch. Hmph. I wiki'ed J.S. LeFanu, the guy who tailored neo-Gothic horror; and I read 'Green Tea': a man sees a monkey-ghost and seeks psychiatric help. In time the monkey grows more pervasive, and more malevolent.

Yes: I spent the afternoon and the evening pounding out a story, a scary one. Between coffee, a hamburger, and some spaghetti, I scribbled and scratched what I could. But I did not like what I had. Ghost stories are all remarkably simple. Take the story 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' by M.R. James. A young professor finds an ancient whistle while on vacation in the countryside. He blows into it, and soon, from his motel window, he sees a deformed silhouette stalking the beach. What happens next, well, it's implied in the title.

Simple, no?

Yes, all too simple. Much too simple. While I get a kick out of reading the crap out of them (I stay up with them every night in bed, thanks to Stanza and the joys of public domain), the same cannot be said about telling them, let alone writing them. The one thing to know about writing is this: "Write what you know." That's Hemingway. Ray Bradbury would have said a similar thing: "Write what you feel." Well, I did not feel like writing a simple ghost story. That is the reason I did not like what I had. I do not prefer to tell simple stories. M.R. James and J.S. LeFanu did good work, and I enjoy digesting them in bed like a fatty; but, brother, that field just ain't for me.

It's funny. All this talk of sensors and stabilizers and rigs, when the hardest thing to do is write a good script. Writing is about ideas, pure and true; you cannot hide behind technology.

Wait. So what is this crap story for? Sean and I need to be more productive. Those Halloween shorts two months ago got us off our butts and we liked how it felt. It was exercise. Stretching the muscles of our filmmaking calves or whatever. Not that we never wrote or shot stuff before. It was that we never mobilized so dang fast.

Some people sit around at home and say, "Hey, lets go to the mall!" or "Hey, lets go fishing!" Well, we're like, "Hey, lets make a movie!" That's how we roll; that's how we think everybody should roll. Two hours ago (one in the morning) Sean gee-mailed me his story concept:

Okay, so the idea behind "Late Morning" has, no doubt, been done before (kinda). It's about a girl who wakes up to her alarm one morning, except it's not morning. It's still dark outside her window. Her neighbors are all outside in their pajamas, panicked and confused. The news claims scientists aren't sure what's happened. She lives alone and decides to go for a walk. That's the major premise. I'm not sure if I want it to open with this or maybe it happens in the second half. I want it to end with everyone losing 12 hours and they have to switch all their clocks from pm to am. There's also the bicycle story. Maybe it could start with her falling asleep in a restaurant and getting locked in on a night that stays night for 12 more hours. I don't know. Maybe that should be a separate story. We'll see.

An intriguing idea. He is sure that he wants to shoot it, in time. I expressed my concerns over the phone: an entire neighborhood out in their PJs? Do-able, but a big-time idea for a small-time short. Sean made it clear that the story would be a low-key drama, full of ennui (you'll have to look that word up). It will not be a sensational genre piece. "Write what you feel," no?

I felt like writing a story within a story within a story. The "frame" story has a group of people gathered at a table in a dining room. A man tells a story to the group. In this story a young man takes financial refuge in his parent's house. But his parents are away on a retirement vacation, circling the globe. They forgot to pay the electric bill, and so the place is without lights. The young man has a friend come over; they sit around an electric camping torch. In particular, his friend relates a story about a glass jar. That's the setup. The rest is a merging of the three stories, culminating in one climax.

It's far from a complete treatment, but it will be an improvement over The Thing at the End of the Hall. I wrote that little problem child in one hour, because my other script was too long and I didn't expect to finish anything alongside Sean's and Drew's segments. Yes, it was going to be just two Halloween shorts, not three. (And, y'know, maybe all three of our shorts were written, shot, and edited a little too fast. Quality and planning had to be sacrificed.)

I run the risk of writing a convoluted mess, I know, what with three different stories crescendo-ing into one. But I want to accomplish three things:

1. I want to scare people.
2. I want to tell a multi-tiered story about friends and rude confrontations.
3. I want to satisfy this Neil Gaiman phase that I'm going through.

I want to write what I feel. Ironically, all I know are turn-of-the-century Gothic horror and what S.T. Joshi calls 'weird stories.' So there goes Hemingway out the window. I figure I could ask Sean why he wants to do a story about a neighborhood in their PJs in the midst of a chronological cataclysm. Sorta has a 'The Happening' vibe to it, which he liked.

Well, anyway, it's going on four-thirty in the morning. Expect us to mobilize this material sometime in the coming weeks (hopefully), alongside our usual stuff like, you know, episodes and stuff.

"What camera should I get?"

In this day and age, even for anyone who's completely involved and surrounded by the film industry, it's practically impossible to keep up with every single new camera from every single company. It's just as well that many companies release new cameras all the time. And even as much as I like geeking out and doing a bit of research on new products, I really do get asked this question more often than you might think.

So that's why I'm writing this little guide. I'm not going to suggest actual brands or specific models; instead I'll talk about the different new technologies that have come out in recent years, and what to look for when choosing a new camera.

Now, I'm writing this from the perspective (or at least for the perspective) of the amateur filmmaker: someone who'll potentially use it to create "art" in the form of a steady narrative, and nothing too experimental.

Features That You Absolutely NEED

These features are ranked by priority. Flash memory is the most important, manual focus is the least.

Flash memory - Trust me, this might be the most important thing when choosing a new camera. When we switched from our old camera to our new one, the flash memory stick was one of the best new features. We were using Mini-DV for so long that we hadn't noticed the huge amount of time it ate up in post. Flash is as easy as sliding the card out of the camera, plugging it into your computer or a card reader, and dragging and dropping your video clips. You can quickly and easily review what you shot, and delete clips or portions of clips. It's super productive. Once you try flash, you'll never go back.

At least 1280x720 - Standard definition is dead. You want a camera that can record in HD. Even many of the cheapest cameras support at least 720p; even better if you can get one with 1080p. Despite what you've heard, most of the new HD codecs are very easy to work with; or at least they're easy to convert to meet your needs. They're also very good at compressing your footage while still keeping it sharp and at a high bitrate. So at the very least, you'll want HD to future-proof your videos.

24p - If you're serious about filmmaking, you'll want progressive mode and 24 frames per second. This is the closest representation to actual film as you can get in a digital camera.

Manual Focus - Auto focus is bad. Manual focus is at least really, really useful.

Features That Some Of You Might Care About

Focus ring - While many consumer cameras do have manual focus, it can only be accessed via a menu system, or a slider, or something else that's not very intuitive. A focus ring is important if you care about being able to move from one focal point to another, in a single shot. If you can't find/afford a camera with a focus ring, well then, you can always mod your camera:

Photo courtesy of PadawanGeek

Overcranking / Undercranking - Sure, this is only used as a stylistic device, but I've found it to be one that I like to use a lot with our new camera (even if I'm only pushing it slightly faster or slower than normal). Even better would be the ability to ramp your fps during a shot (as in, gradually change from one frame rate to another, thus causing your footage to move from normal speed to slow motion, or fast motion, all in-camera!), but cameras with that ability can be expensive.

Sensor size - This is a big one and definitely a deal breaker for those of you who care about low light, less noise, and higher dynamic range and color space. But this is also one that will cost you money. As a bit of cautionary advice, many lower end camcorders squeeze the same amount of pixels onto a smaller sensor, causing your image to not appear as sharp as it could be.

Hey everyone! Guess what? We've teamed up with the guys at Rootclip.com!

Rootclip is a very original site for filmmaking. They provide a short film (a "root" clip) with a cliffhanger ending. People can participate by continuing the story with their own submissions. It's a really fun concept and everyone over at their community is nice and friendly.

Our partnership makes a lot of sense because while we teach people about filmmaking, they get people to contribute with their own films. Oh yeah, they also give out prizes to the people who make the best continuation!

To start off our partnership, we created our very own "root" clip (I wrote and directed it) with its very own cliffhanger [see included video]. Rootclip's users will be competing for t-shirts, a book, and a few other neat things. And now we want to invite you guys to compete with them as well!

We were about to post an ordinary tutorial this week, but...it's Christmas! What with some of our usual crew visiting family out of town, thus leaving Sean and I all alone, we decided to shoot this saccharine candy cane of a Sinatra song. It's not quite a music video, and it's not quite a skit. It's also not that good (but good enough). It's called The Present.

As to whether or not the present that's shown in the video is real or made-up, well, who knows, yeah? One thing is for sure: that first draft is one thick burger. That'd be one epic, three-hour movie or something; split into a trilogy nine-hours long (and I haven't even mentioned the four-hour Director's Cuts). Mmmmm...

Merry Christmas everybody!

Hey boys and girls! Just a little update on what we've been up to lately. Hope you're liking the new website!

Kssssht. Regular scheduled content will resume next week. End of transmission. Ksssht.

Happy Take Zero Halloween! Happy Take Zero Halloween! Happy Take Zero Halloween! Happy Take Zero Halloween! Happy Take Zero Halloween! Happy Take Zero Halloween! Happy Take Zero Halloween! Happy Take Zero Halloween!

For those of you paying attention, our super secret episode ended up being so secret that it wasn't posted until today! Oh and don't worry about the title. We'll still be here; but as the video (and the playful subject matter) implies, we wanna have fun on small creative projects we've had in mind. It's only fair that, for all our tip-giving, we should get our own hands dirty...

This is only a temporary hiatus. And, yes, TZ v2.0 is still around the corner!

Best Picture: "There Will Be Blood" Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis for "There Will Be Blood" Winner! Best Actress: Marion Cotillard for "La Vie en rose" Winner! Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem for "No Country for Old Men" Winner! Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett for "I'm Not There" Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson for "There Will Be Blood" Best Original Screenplay: Diablo Cody for "Juno" Winner! Best Adapted Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson for "There Will Be Blood" Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins for "No Country for Old Men" Best Editing: Christopher Rouse for "The Bourne Ultimatum" Winner!

Best Picture: "No Country for Old Men" Winner! Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis for "There Will Be Blood" Winner! Best Actress: Julie Christie for "Away From Her" Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem for "No Country for Old Men" Winner! Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan for "Gone Baby Gone" Best Director: Joel, Ethan Cohen for "No Country for Old Men" Winner! Best Original Screenplay: Diablo Cody for "Juno" Winner! Best Adapted Screenplay: Joel, Ethan Cohen for "No Country for Old Men" Winner! Best Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey for "Atonement" Best Editing: Christopher Rouse for "The Bourne Ultimatum" Winner!