This will be the last time I ever mention NURF Wars, and before you click to play the video below –
WARNING!!! NURF Wars would probably have been given an R rating for graphic violence and strong language. DO NOT click on the link below if you are offended by any of this!
Can’t say I didn’t warn you 
NURF Wars, a movie I shot so very long ago, back in the old days of DV tapes (remember those?) is now finally done!! And it’s the reason I’ve been so quiet on here. Because the last part of making a film (in my workflow at least) is to make the music.
And I worked on the last portion of that original score for two weeks straight… I knew it would take about that long, and that’s why I put it off as much as I did; because I find it hard to chip away at music-making.
Instead, I have to lock myself up in my basement and stop seeing daylight for a couple of weeks, just so it doesn’t lure me out of the house, never to look back at my project again.
So I’ve been working relentlessly on what ended up being a score that ran all 18 minutes of the film. By the end of those two weeks, I was really tired of making music.
What I’ve found exceptionally hard to do in composing a score for movies is that you have to hit specific marks. The music has to swell and quiet down in just the right places. That’s fine on its own, but you have to anticipate those peaks and valleys far enough ahead of time that you can ease into them and make them support the actual film. Not to mention mood changes, weaving in a recognizable theme, multiple things going on at once, scene transitions, etc…
It’s pretty exhausting.
But in the end, it was well worth it. I can tell the progress that was made from the first song I made to the last one. I learned to handle the software and I learned to improve the craft.
I’m still no musician by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m no longer falling on my face, wishing I could just get myself to quit trying.
So without further ado, I hope you enjoy the last portion of the movie’s music. The file is 17MB and 12 minutes in length, so if it doesn’t load right away, give it a moment.
Enjoy!
WARNING: Music starts kinda loud
Beyond just being an actor with whom I’ve worked on five short films (including the endlessly delayed NURF Wars – still in the works, naturally), Jerramy is another one of my close friends.
Strangely so, I think, because we’re so radically different. Yin and Yang I suppose. I’m all about controlling my environment, he’s all about going with the flow. I have a hard time letting go of precise planning, while he lets things evolve however they will.
So my first struggle with him when trying to setup this shoot was pinning down what exactly we were gonna do.
Me: “What defines you, Jerramy?”
Jerramy: “Living life, filling it with love and dreaming.”
Me: “Dude, I can’t shoot that…”
Love, for example, simply as a concept, is too broad and abstract to capture in an image. I shoot the consequence of love when I shoot a couple, I shoot the expression of love with a kiss or hands clasped together, but I can’t shoot love. And I can’t shoot life. And I can’t shoot dreams.
So I kept trying and trying to pin down something tangible to shoot. This proved to be very difficult with him. We did come up with some ideas, but nothing I was crazy about.
So when I decided to meet him by a park, still without a solid plan I felt confident about, I called…
Me: “Hey where are you?”
Jerramy: “I’m in the north parking lot. I’m sitting on the curb next to my car, playing my guitar.”
Me: “Don’t move!! This is you!! This is our shoot!!”
Screw the park; we shot this in the parking lot instead! And this is my best representation of Jerramy. Easy-going, filled with hopes and dreams, and loving life however it comes at him
Oh and here’s the NURF Wars poster Jerramy was the star of. See? It’s making SOME progress! And yes, the “One Man. One Last Job. Lots of NERF Guns.” tag line is obviously meant as a joke. Otherwise I think it would mean I’m currently stuck in the 80s.
Remember? Last year in February, I talked about a film called NURF Wars that I was about to shoot.
For those who don’t wanna bother going back and reading, NURF Wars was an idea that originated from trying to figure out how I could have actors running around with guns in the middle of downtown without getting shot at by the cops. NERF guns were the solution. And I misspelled the title because… Well because I can. It was a combination of NERF Wars and Turf Wars, but there’s not really anything in the film to help you understand that… So I don’t know…
Anyway, so I did shoot it, but then my camera got stolen in March and I got really busy in the summer with weddings. The whole project got put on a perpetual backburner and I couldn’t touch it until I could find some time again.
I found some time again.
Now, although the film has a way to go (a ton of special effects, animated title sequences, sound design, music and all the DVD authoring stuff), here’s my favorite frames coupled with some commentary without giving away any of the story twists.
Walking against the flow.
The beautiful and talented Dani Jae. She apparently lives in a place with unbelievably dramatic lighting.
He didn’t have a clear shot.
One of the prettiest scenes in the movie. But see, if I’d had my new camera, I’d have thrown that distracting background out of focus.
Bad guys looks awesome!
A link to Every Day the Same will be coming soon. Probably next week but I’m not sure. Are you salivating yet? Yes, I’m a giant tease.
Day 31/365
Jaylene (yes, shameless plug – again) came home after doing some make-up work tonight, so she had some toast with a slice of bologna.
Here’s our creepy toaster light:
Here’s the sandwich before:
And here it is after:
Behind the Scenes on NURF Wars, Part 3:
We got lucky at the 24 Hour Fitness parking lot. We picked a car that stayed right where it was until 1am, when we decided to call it a night. So to whoever owned that white Chevy in desperate need of some cleaning, thanks! We were almost tempted to write on there, although instead of writing “Wash Me”, we’d have written “Thanks for being so serious about working out this late at night and giving us the chance to finish working on the scene for our short film. We probably couldn’t have done it without you.” Well, it was a really dirty car, there was plenty of space to write!
But too wordy, I know. So we decided against it. 
I’ll get back to writing about the experience soon. For now, I need to focus on actually wrapping up the shoot. No, I’m still not done with it. But almost. Like the last little bite of bologna sandwich.
I can’t fit inside the Lamborghini, but I can still say I own one. I could have wiped off the dust and tried to pass it off as the real thing, but where’s the fun in that? Keeping it dusty gives me a chance to say “Can you imagine if I took care of a real Lamborghini as poorly as I do my scale model? I’d be a Hollywood celebrity!”
That’s more fun to say.
Plus I almost forgot to post today and I had to slap something together in a big hurry.
Anyway, on with yesterday’s show!
Behind the Scenes on NURF Wars, Part 2:
So we walked over to the Carl’s Jr. in the same parking lot, warmed up and starting re-thinking how to approach what was quickly turning into a disaster.
I decided that it might work to finish the shoot in a completely different parking lot within the same area. We would have to keep from exposing in the shots that we were elsewhere and we’d have to move quickly if we were to get remotely close to finishing the scene.
Fortunately, a friend of my actress had shown up with a truck just before we stopped to eat. I didn’t realize how crucial his truck would be until I remembered that I had written somewhere that I should tell my actors to follow me down to the parking lot from the initial location with their own cars. Why? So I could have a couple extra cars should I need to fill up a parking lot that would surely and quickly empty out as the night wore on. I forgot to remind my actors of that and we all came down in just my car… Big mistake.
Every parking lot in sight emptied out fast, including the one we settled on.
Tic, toc, tic, toc.
We settled on shooting at the 24 Hour Fitness parking lot. So we shot as quickly as we could with the cars that were there. Any new car that parked near us was golden and we assumed that it would give us access to the new car or truck for maybe 15 to 20 minutes, depending on how serious that person was about working out that late at night.
Inevitably though, the parking lot got emptier… and emptier… and emptier… And we still weren’t close enough to finishing the scene we needed.
So we started improvising.
Depending on the angle of the shot we needed, we would move my actress’s friend’s truck around to a new parking spot. Sometimes facing it forward, sometimes backwards. The assumption was that if I cut from one shot to the next fast enough, nobody would notice that we were filling a parking lot with the same truck over and over again.
But we still needed other people’s cars and they were slowly trickling out. So we kept re-thinking the action to match how many cars we had left.
Fssshhhhh… The doors to the gym would slide open… and we’d all stop and stare at the person casually strolling out… and we would plead quietly… “Oh please don’t take this car… We still need this one…”
Tic, toc, tic, toc.
To be continued…
Day 29/365
There is absolutely no way to describe in words the degree to which chaos overruns the set in the mind of a director, but the words “tic, toc, tic, toc” are a good approximation of the sinking feeling that you’re going to fall short of your goals no matter how hard you try, at least based on your own impossibly high standards.
So given my recent jump back into directing short films and the short explanation in the preceding paragraph, I think this image is in order.
Behind the Scenes on NURF Wars, Part 1:
On Thursday the 5th, we were set to start at 6pm. I made it out to the shooting location at 5:30. By the time we setup camera, lights, audio, ran through lines and blocked out the action for the scene, not having recorded a single shot yet, it was 6:35. And we had to head out by 7:00.
Remember, I don’t have a crew. I’m in charge of everything except the acting.
So we finished half the scene that I thought we’d finish in a heartbeat to head down and work on the really big scenes. We get down there in time at 7:30. Cool. But that’s where we found a blistering cold, humidity in the air and surprisingly hard wind.
Now, I don’t mind a little cold. I do live in Utah. It wasn’t pleasant, but that’s ok. It’s just that hard winds mean crappier audio. So we focused on the scenes where the audio could be more easily added in post-production. I had four actors that had very short parts with no lines, so I needed to get them outta there ASAP.
By the time they were gone, it was already 8:20.
By the time we finished a scene with audio (inside my car – no bad winds to deal with), it was 9:30, and I was mentally spent. I couldn’t think straight anymore, the cold wasn’t helping, I couldn’t make sense of my shot lists, the parking lot was far too empty for the scenes we needed, and on and on and on.
My 2-year break from shooting short films was taking its toll, as was everything else I had no control over.
Tic, toc, tic, toc.
To be continued…
Day 25/365
I don’t have much time. An ECU, for those of you not familiar with camera placement and terminology, means Extreme Close-Up.
Today is the biggest part of the shoot. I’m gonna be up until early next morning. Wish me luck!
