A while back I received an email from a guy named Shem. He saw my Desert Skylapse on YouTube and loved it and wanted us to make a music video for his band, The Singing Pictures. The only problem was that The Singing Pictures was in a timezone that's eight hours away from where Peter and I live, quite difficult to shoot a music video that way. So this is what we came up with.

Any faithful followers of this blog will recognize the actress, Elaine Ramirez. I think we can all agree that she did a great job here (she put up with us using most of her free days) over the course of 5-6 days (I can't remember how many it actually was).

Some of the simplest shots actually took quite a long time. We shot about $60 worth of Polaroids. Peter devised a way to use our old tripod's vertical hand crank to do the vertical movements, while I push the dolly horizontally. We used about 200 pounds of sand bags to help make it smooth.

I just now got off a Skype call with Shem and Rhys (of The Singing Pictures). They absolutely seemed to love the video. This will look good on our portfolio, if I'm allowed to say so myself. Hopefully, we'll be working with them again in the near future!

Wow, we actually pulled it off. We successfully made an entire short film in 1 week flat. When I first heard about this contest, I knew I had to participate. It took a little convincing of Peter, but eventually we sat down and came up with a story together.

We shot the ending (as well as the Steadicam Merlin shot of the smoking trunk) the day this was due. Which pretty much gave us zero time to edit. Peter brought his portable hard drive and edited on my PC while I laid on my bed, occasionally talking to Marc Chester on the phone, going over the score.

My sister, Amy, made most of the skeleton, namely the skull. She's a ceramics student and has some pretty impressive work. She squeezed making this skull into her schedule by pulling an all-nighter the day before we needed it for a scene. It's made entirely of porcelain. I intend to fire the skull and jaw (at least) so I can keep it forever.

The actual "final cut" of the short film was nearly 5 minutes, but because of the strict rules of the contest, we were forced to cut out quite a bit. And because everything was coming down to the last second, some of it was a bit rushed. If the rules allow, Peter will most likely re-post The Funeral Date as a Director's Cut or something here on TZ. Relatively speaking, I think it actually turned out really well. And come to think of it, this was actually the biggest project we've ever taken on. It felt absolutely amazing. To wake up at 6am, dig graves, inhale homemade toxic ammonium nitrate smoke bombs, scramble to cast an actor at the last possible second. Most of the production days were very long and tiring. But it was the absolute best kind of tired, very satisfying.

Filmmaking is absolutely, hands down, a collaborative medium. I know we make it look easy (kidding, kidding) but really, there was quite a few people involved. Lily and Sandra's house was actually 4 different locations. The backyard was my own. Lily's bedroom was Anna's. We drove to LA to get the shots of Sandra's room at Francesca's apartment. The front of the house was my friend Sean Kao's. He was nice enough to give us free access to his house while no one was home. The truck and the guy who bought the trunk is the neighbor of my aunt, where we shot the garage sale scene. William Mas let us use his truck.

I was introduced to Marc, the guy who miraculously composed all of the music for the short in just a few hours on the last day, by an old friend from high school, Nikki. She was the senior clarinet section leader while I was a little freshman in marching band. I looked her up on Facebook and asked if she knew anyone who would be interested in composing for us. Oddly enough, Marc and Anna had taken an acting class together a couple years back. What a small world.

Sometimes, with enough effort, the stars just seem to align and everything works out. Oh how we struggled to find a little girl to play Lily. But then I posted a listing on NowCasting and there she was. The entire short film was almost ruined because the weather report said it would be raining on the one morning we had left to shoot the garage sale scene. We got up extra early that day and somehow the sun was out, shining bright as can be.

So, The Funeral Date may have flaws. Peter won't be satisfied with it until a month's time passes and he looks back at it. He'll watch it again and say, "That actually wasn't too bad." I feel incredibly lucky to be surrounded by so many friends who are willing to work with us on what it is we love doing. Thank you. I mean it with all my heart.

And now... time to go collapse in bed and sleep until noon.

Happy Monday morning. No vlog today. Real sorry; this will not happen often!

Instead I'll show you all that unfinished scene we shot. It's a bit rough and the audio isn't properly mixed, but here ya goes.

This was for the 'ghost story' I shot for Halloween. It's really more of a cheesy love story. And like a nasty habit that's tough to shake, I wrote it the same night we shot. Anna memorized the entire script at a glance. What you see is her performing with zero time to prepare. I'd feel bad for her if only she didn't do so well. As for Sean, well, he's a swell sport who plays himself better than anyone I know.

To avoid any confusion in the scene: Sean is a random passer-by who happens to see Anna crying in the car; curious, he approaches. This was set up in the opening moments of the script, which would have been shot if we had decided to follow through with the rest.

One afternoon Sean tells me he wants to go for a walk. We walk. I tell him I want to have a story by the time we're done walking. So when we reach his house, I have my story. Nothing special. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear it was made up of spare parts from The Twilight Zone.

Interior scenes were shot that same Saturday night. Exteriors were shot on Monday. No storyboard or rehearsals. The simpler the better.

Hope you all enjoy it. It's essentially a train set of Sean and I messing around, and the last third does diverge a bit; but let's hope that this is the start of a new trend.

Over a cheap lunch (or was it dinner?) of fried food at Carl's Jr., Jaemin and Mike reviewed their script and described the shots to Sean, the wizard behind the camera---literally. He'd be holding the Steadicam Merlin for the rest of the night, and yes his arms would be sore tomorrow. I was in charge of sound, not the clunky boom-pole type, but the kind you hold with one hand and point like a pistol. Lucky me. I just sat there in the booth and picked at my nuggets.

Of course I had to use the little pistol type. Anything more would draw attention. Recording video without a permit in the streets of L.A. is against the law; and of all the places, Jaemin and Mike picked the facade to the Museum of Art. This was their warm-up script, a silly shoot to test how we'd work as a team. But how would we get away with shooting without a permit, and with those guards dotted around the museum?

In case you ever wondered the difference between a policeman and a security guard, it's that a security guard isn't paid enough. Oh sure, they stared at us from their posts, folded their arms across their chests even. But only when Jaemin and Mike started skipping and twirling gaily along the poles did one of them tap me on the shoulder. He said it wasn't safe to twirl along the poles and that someone might get run into and hurt. The four of us considered this and nodded. The man was absolutely right. It isn't safe, you shouldn't run with scissors, and somebody could lose an eye. We'll be more careful, sir.

So he turns and walks away to sit on his folding chair.

We shot for four hours, from eight o'clock to one o'clock in the morning. What you see is not the final cut. Mike is still in the process of tinkering with it. Though it's not like it needs to be tinkered with much more. It is what it is. Depending on the take, you can hear the hum of traffic in the background. And in certain shots a tourist flashes by like a ghost in the periphery of your vision, like a trick of light. But I assure you there were indeed tourists. And bums, and teenagers, and what-have-you.

My guess is that, combined with the little pistol-mike I held, the DSLR camera attached to the compact Merlin may have disguised us from being plucked out as a filmmaking crew. Surly by now you can't say DSLR filmmaking isn't good for anything.

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...

You're all enjoying the weekend I hope! Now, a word about the totally unrelated video: it sent everyone in our class laughing.

I was enrolled in two very different classes that semester, Advanced Video Production and Field Video Production. This wasn't made for Advanced Video Production. Hopefully the guys who made it don't mind if I post it. It was a relief at the time to sit through something made out of plain fun compared to the art house fare from the advanced production class (though they were still quite good, and all made with considerable skill). The point, in a poetic Sullivan's Travels sorta way, is that people laughed.

We got a B. Is it me, or did my hair look like Anton Chigurh?

So to anyone who saw our recent two-part episodes, what do you all think of them? It was a prototype of sorts, designed to gauge whether not we were being too convoluted (and ambitious) with the filmmaking topics. Weighing the pros and cons, the pro is that this is perhaps the most hands-on demonstration we can attempt at the moment--to discuss storytelling techniques as we employ them. To those who found it to be too convoluted, worry not, for the next episode will be a more straightforward affair.

If we attempt another one these multi-parters, it'll likely be Sustaining a Narrative. So we'd love to hear all your input on the recent two-part "prototypes" before we push forward.

Sorting, cutting, and mixing 270 different clips is...fun.

Checking on Twitter, I see that Sean and Rootclip have now entered the final chapter of The Alien. It certainly has been a unique run so far, with perhaps the most disparate attempts for each chapter; so varied is each entry that the story could qualify for an anthology of sorts. Some look at this as a disappointment. I find it rather risky and refreshing. Sean made the unusual, off-beat story in an attempt to coax that unused, unspent, and otherwise most creative part of the brain into wakefulness. Personally, it's a shame that users have bent the focus of the story from its female protagonist, back to Rootclip's default masculinity. But not even that mindset could shake away the sense of variety at play. My favorite? "Jim's Been Drinking Again." The plotting is ho-hum, but the pacing, editing, and audio are accomplished in spades.

So here's looking forward to Rootclip's next story, the latest evidence of which was alluded to in this now two-day-old Tweet: Back to script writing. This next story on Rootclip is going to be a good one! Yes, Rootclip, I eyeball your Twitter with the profound yearning of an infant for Mother's milk.

In a broad summation of events, Sean has been trying to meet with several local actors and actresses. You know, networking; and, perhaps, a little passive casting for his "Late Morning," I suspect. Offhand, he assures me that the Lessons are not only prepped to be shot soon (meaning more sleepless nights), but that they'll also blow your mind away. Not precisely in those words, mind you. I believe he muttered something softly like "Pretty good."

As for Drew, school and work has been keeping him busy (Take Zer0 is, after all, our full-time job alongside our other full-time jobs). He'll likely make an appearance in future episodes, preferably ones in the very near future. He tells me he pitched his "Father Time" web series to somebody connected up-on-high in the television industry.

Speaking of television, props to John in the forums for introducing me to Garth Marenghi's "Darkplace," a British TV show that spoofs sci-fi/horror shows of the 80s. A shame it was canceled. If the title sequence doesn't convince you that this show is genius...then you probably don't like a lot of things, I guess.

Well, anyway, have a great weekend everybody!

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!

Welcome to the new Take Zer0 2.0! We hope you like it, because we certainly do; and we're even more eager to refill it each week with new content! As it stands, we're still in the process of tidying up around here.

Now are you all ready to learn the origins of Take Zer0? Ready to sit through seven-and-a-half minutes of mock French New Wave pretentiousness? Well then, click the Play button and try to enjoy it! Nah. We're just kidding; we love the French. In fact, this video is directly inspired by Matthew Lessner's clever short film 'By Modern Measure,' which we think is sorely underrated. Now, as a disclaimer, our video uses narration from a totally unrelated open source audiobook. So the subtitled "translations" will make absolutely no sense to anyone who understands French. Now for those who can speak French, we're obviously in need of voice-over talent...

And as a heads-up, we'll be posting video reviews of Adobe Master Suite later in the week!

Part 3 of our Halloween-inspired shorts is "The Thing at the End of the Hall," written and directed by Peter Men. Plot: a man's bizarre nightmare begins to manifest itself in the real world.

Written that afternoon in one hour and shot the same night, the shoot spanned four hours; and because it came after two days of shooting Sean's and Drew's segments, by the end we were all creatively exhausted.

Three nights for three shorts isn't too shabby of an effort. Hope you guys all had a fun and safe Halloween!

Part 2 of our three shorts for Halloween, "The Trick of the Treat" is written and directed by Drew Steck. Plot: an office worker passes out suspicious treats to unknowing co-workers; just what is his trick?

After finishing The Little Room, we had to coax Drew into contributing his own short. Three nights before Halloween, the idea for this materialized as a joke, then blossomed into a loose narrative. Shot the following night without a script and performed through improv, we wrapped in a mere three hours.

Hope you all enjoy it! And Happy Halloween!

Part 1 of our three shorts for Halloween, here we have "The Little Room," written and directed by Sean Duran. Plot: a worker-bee oversleeps at the office and discovers his briefcase is missing; his attempts to retrieve it bring on a Kafka-esque nightmare.

Sean came up with the idea during lunch, then laid out the narrative in-between shifts at the office. We shot the weekend before Halloween, sipping cans of Pepsi and snacking on Peanuttles, over period of three-and-a-half hours.

In a culture steeped in sponsored viral videos and SNL clips, we decided to turn our back on the "internets" and create a daring work of art. We dare you sit still for eleven minutes; we dare you to stop Stumbleupon; we dare you to forget about Pork and Beans.

Yes, YouTube generation, we dare you!

Just kidding, people. It was one o'clock in the morning and we had to post something. Here's part of the original film. But, yeah, ...anyway, we still dare you. If you want.

The moment we found out about a short video contest, we tried to think of something to submit. Sponsored by ForRent.com, the theme was 'if your furniture could talk,' and the prize was $10,000. The rules were simple: no offensive or copyrighted content, and it all had to be under two minutes long. Well, after we had shot it, our video turned out to be over two minutes long.

Hastily shot in about four hours, and just as hastily abandoned, here's a "for fun" cut of the doomed skit, now with music incorporated from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining; because anything from a Kubrick movie automatically makes everything better.

What's missing is an introductory voice-over, and so some of the meaning may be lost, especially at the end.

Sort of a long episode, as we decided to include Peter's old short film. It's about four minutes, and it's not really a true short film so much that it documents a random night out. And stay tuned for our editorial rambling at the end.

If you're getting started in filmmaking, one of the best ways to practice is to carry a point-and-shoot camera everywhere you go. And as Peter repeatedly states, writing is important, too. Be sure to spend an equal amount of time with your old pencil and paper.

Clifton, over at fusionfox, has agreed to design v2.0 of Take Zer0. When it goes live, expect weekly video reviews of movies, a shorter but more comprehensive series of tutorials, as well as our usual episodes. We also plan to start Clip Show.

Work and school, the fog has finally lifted out of our daily grind. Not entirely, but Sean and I can go back to being amateur filmmakers with overblown ideals. Oh yeah, we're back to our usual selves, naïvely waiting to have our cherries popped by the studio system. We sat down with Raquel in a Starbucks one night and dished out story ideas. Raquel pitched a semi-autobigraphical character study. Mine is called Night of the Intruder, a low rent mystery via The Twilight Zone. Eh.

You may recognize today's video. It was posted a few months back; but it was rough and incomplete. So if you feel like taking a spell of deja vu, the short is called Two Years Ago. I wrote it in thirty minutes, storyboarded in an hour, and shot the rest in the same night. The purpose of such haste was to illustrate the ease of short filmmaking; that if you felt like making something, then make it. (It also helps if your actor stands still and never moves anywhere...)

Look forward to regular episodes soon. We already shot a few.

Talk about busy. Sean and I have the sort of schedule that leaves us little time to smell the roses; and if we are smelling roses, it's only because we should be doing something else. We've been especially busy working with our friend Neil Patel, who on the off-hand might be able to provide us with a new place to shoot our episodes (Sean's beloved garage will inevitably run short of space). Concerning our own personal schedules, Sean has been haggling with a few web designers for TZ v2.0, as well as doing his darnest to squeeze in time for Zelda.

As for me, I only just started Zelda; nevermind the hundred-twenty page screenplay I have due at the end of the semester.

Without further delay, our apologies. As usual, here's a short from our "vault," called Sean and Peter. It was written, directed and edited by Sean, and pretty much shot over the span of a single evening. As always in these older videos, we had nobody else behind the camera. That moving dolly shot was accomplished with an electric screwdriver. That same shot also took us seven straight hours to get right.

Man, were we insane back then.

We know, we know. We said we would have a contest this week, but unfortunately we only had time to shoot half the episode. We'll still be giving away a camera. And trust us, you're going to want this camera. IT CAN SEE THROUGH CLOTHES.

We'll finishing shooting it this weekend.

Anyway, since we didn't have the contest episode ready, here's a "making of" video of our old short film, In Memory of CameraFace.

Peter and I were a little busy this weekend, so we decided to go through our archives and dig out an old short film we made. This is a few years old, so the quality might not be up to our latest episodes or shorts, but it still tells its story well enough.

Every single shot in this short was filmed with our home made fig rig.

Here is the short film (5:16) we made for Episode 05. The story is paper thin, as it was written in under forty minutes. Storyboarding took an hour. As for the shots themselves, we completed roughly sixty shots inside one night. I edited the next day.

We made use of the zoom lens, the dolly, the fluid tripod head, and static shots. Considering how quickly it was made, and with only two people (with little acting), this is something almost anyone should be able to do on a technical level.