Gabriela Manrique: Set Photographer

Born in Perú, Gabriela’s parents moved to the United States in August 1988, looking to start a new life in hopes of new opportunities for their 2 children.

They settled in Jamaica Queens, New York.  With little English, Gabriela made friends, went to school and was able to adapt to her new environment easily.  The opportunity of seeing the world was through her friends, who all came from different parts of the world.

Making her parents proud, Gabriela finished with a Bachelors on Communications, focusing on Multi Media at Marymount Manhattan College in the upper east side of Manhattan.  She liked questioning and learning and so it was easy for her to graduate with honors, earning her to be part of the Communications Honor Society, Lambda Pi Eta.

Gabriela has an affinity for color and urban life.  She functions with a spontaneous spirit.  Most of her childhood she felt misunderstood, and because of it, she felt mostly confused of her randomness. But through time and circumstances, she was able to explore mediums in which she could express herself.  She is now a solid artist making a name for herself in the midst of the NYC grind.

Gabriela Manrique is currently self-employed and works as a Graphic Designer, Illustrator and Photographer.

 

Now I have had the pleasure of knowing Gabby for a long time, she is an extremely talented photographer and NYC artist.  She has a very unique eye and will be in charge of taking all the set production stills.  She will also be creating a beautiful production book as a reward for some of our backers on Kickstarter.  I can't wait to see the final product. I am sure it will be amazing!

A few of years ago I was invited to a gallery show called Bicycles NYC down in Brooklyn.   I saw this piece and instantly fell in love with it.   A couple of weeks later, she personally delivered it to the house and it's been hanging on the Humungoid Films studio wall ever since.  It is quite something to tell you the truth.  It's the first thing I see in the morning when I open the door and puts me in the right creative frame of mind, when I work.  I am extremely proud to have her on our team.

So please take a moment to check out some of her stuff.  She is artist that deserves a closer look!

Website:  http://www.gabrielamanrique.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/gabbymanrique

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/gabrielamanrique

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/gabrielamanrique

Goose is aboard!

John "Goose" Siragusa has just joined the team for the "Gas Mask"  as Assistant Director.  His experience is going to be invaluable to this production.  We are so happy to have him aboard. 

John Siragusa has been in the film and television business since 2001.  He graduated from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts: Filmmaking Conservatory in 2009, with a focus in Producing.  He has attended countless workshops and given a few himself.  John has Produced, Directed and Written shorts, commercials, independent features and several viral pieces.  He currently lives in Connecticut with his Wife and two kittens.

Cat Torres is our Production Designer

 

From the beginning I knew that the world that these characters would be living in, would have to be believable for this story to come to life.  It needed to be rich and realistic.   I knew that I would have to find someone with the talent and the experience to do just that.  And guess what we did.




Cat Torres is an ambitious new york city based production designer for Monstar films in music videos, commercials, reality TV shows, and more.   She has worked with numerous music artists and has recently completed two short films.  Her work reflects her professionalism and innovation cultivated from more than production design but also her background in photography, graphic design, and journalism.  The work put into gas mask, between everyone at Humungoid Films and herself, is sure to be expressive and action packed.

Cat is a young and extremely talented and we are really lucky to have her on this project.  She has been hard at work combing through the script and using everything at her disposal to create a world that reflects each and every character.   She is filled with energy and is excited about bringing this world to life. 


Make sure you check out her website for and some of her work.

Here is the link.  www.cattorresny.com

We got ourselves a Director of Photography!

Victor Tadashi Suarez has agreed to come aboard the project. We are all so excited that he has joined us on this adventure in storytelling. One more piece of the puzzle has fallen into place. I am sure that his talented eye will really make "Gas Mask" shine.

Check out his reel below and see the the beauty of Victor's work...



Victor's work as cinematographer has won recognition in festivals all over the world, winning a SILVER PALM at the MEXICO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, Best of Festival at OPEN APPERTURE FILM FESTIVAL, BEST SHORT FILM at NAPERVILLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, and BEST PICTURE at the CUNUFF, among other awards. His portfolio includes commercial work, narrative and documentary shorts and features, and music videos. He has worked for MTV INTERNATIONAL, KOCH RECORDS, SONY, and THE DEVELOPMENT PRODUCTIONS.

He has worked with Final Cut Pro creator Michael Wohl as his storytelling mentor.

Victor will be shooting the project on a brand new SONY NEX-FS100. It shoots 2k images at uncompressed 8-bit 422 RGB, with a film-like shallow depth of field.

The project keeps gathering talented individuals. It's so awesome. This is exactly what could have hoped for. Victor is overflowing with ideas on how to shoot this story.

Swing over to Victor's Vimeo page and check out of the other videos over there. You will not be disappointed, it really is some wonderful stuff.

Here is the link http://vimeo.com/victorsuarez/videos

Jeff is scoring "Gas Mask"

This is my good friend Jeff.  He is an incredible musician and has agreed to score my project.  I feel so lucky that so many talented people are coming together for this and I feel confident about the music now that he is involved.

Jeff and I have been talking about working on a project for a long time.  We discuss film on a regular basis.  The conversations we have had over the last few years has really taught me a lot about just how important sound is to a film.

Right before I had taken a break from this project, to produce "The Housesitter"  We had a meeting and talked about the script.  I loved the questions he had about everything.  I told him the emotions I wanted to get the audiences to have and what i wanted to accomplish.  We were on the same wavelength.  He has given me a rough sketch of a piece the he composed for a scene... It was absolutely incredible.  It was more than I had expected and is in tune with what I want it to be.  I will be using it for our Kickstarter campaign. 

Back on Gas Mask

Today got up early and got together at the Humungoid Film studio in White Plains with Thomas and Helio to record a little blurb for our kick starter video for The Housesitter movie, we shot last month to raise money for post production. That went really well, Thomas hit all his marks and we got it done quick. We should be posting that up soon.

We also went over some of the dialog changes that Thomas made in the Gas Mask script. Working with him is really making it shine. The response to the initial script has been awesome. It seems that the uncomfortableness and the visceral aspect of the script really is shining through. Later we went over some of the head shots of the actors that responded to my ad for the audition casting call. Yesterday we booked a room in the city of 36 Street Studios room B for casting call to be held so I sent out e-mails in the morning to the various actors that I thought would fit the part and that had an interesting look. Guess what, we got overwhelming response from all of them and all the time slots for the room completely booked within three hours of the original e-mail I sent out. That was completely awesome!

Last week John had made some sketches for the design of the gas mask that the main character James wears. A couple of days ago, he surprised us by making a sculpture of the of the design so we can look at it as reference and actually hold it. It was really really cool just to have somebody actually do that for us. Now that little model is sitting right on my desk looking at me everyday. I love it!

Also on Tuesday I have set up a meeting, after the auditions with a cinematographer that hopefully, will agree to be the director of photography on Gas Mask. So we are excited about that. So cross your fingers.

It's funny how everything is just rolling now.  We are all excited about the progress and the possibilities. Wish us luck on Tuesday.

Coming up....Kickstarter

48 Hour Film Race

Sorry We haven't been around to chronicle anything recently but it has been a crazy ride in the last month or so. We will try to put aside some time to write everything down. I guess it is a good thing, right?  We have been so lucky in the past month, meeting new filmmakers and having the opportunity to work with such great individuals.

In May, we decided it was time to try and collaborate with some more filmmakers. So I put in a call to a couple of people about meeting up and having some conversations on film and film making, goals and such. Juan Pabon was one of those people. He is a filmmaker in CT, who loves shooting, editing and knows a lot on the process of film. In these conversations, he mentioned how he had registered for a film race, he had no crew but some friends that he could ask. Our response was "We're in!".

And so it began.....

THE 48 HOUR FILM RACE 

Humungoid Films and Nutibara Productions teamed up to compete in a 48 hour film race competition. We had done something like this before, a contest sponsored by Apple called the Insomnia Film Festival and had the same basic rules. It was simple, we had 48 hours from Friday afternoon till Sunday afternoon, to write, shoot, edit and drop off a finished short film that was 7 minutes long.

They gave you three elements:

1. A Prop; In this case it was a coffee mug (simple really)
2. A Character: A criminal named Mickey Sellers
3. A Line of Dialogue: "Do What You Want To Do"

Beside the 3 elements which you didn't know until it was announced. a representative of your team had to pick a genre out of a hat, which ranged from silent film to western to musical. We got comedy, which believe you me is very difficult to do, comedy is all about timing and just so subjective.

So Juan and Diego, drove down to NYC to receive the info that we were to use, Anthony and I stayed up in Westchester, laptops open and ready to write and research.  We got the call from the guys letting us know what elements our team got and we were off to the races, typing away.

Rodney, our resident illustrator came by after work and between the five of us we came up with a screenplay based on an idea that Anthony had.  We took the buddy cop structure used in comedy and applied it to the crime world.





A mob boss calls in his most trusted, veteran thug Mickey Sellers to locate Vinny the Fist and the package he was supposed to deliver.
One catch, Mickey has to take the mob boss' nephew with him, Skids.  A young, out of control, fly of the handle punk but Mickey is used to working alone.  We follow them as they must learn to work together to find The Fist!

We wrote all night and never went to sleep. We were lucky enough to have access to a restaurant (thanks to our friend and supporter Christian Burn) as well as a couple of other locations. Everyone met up at 8 am that Saturday morning and right off the bat we were in for an uphill battle. One of the actors, who was supposed to play the lead cancelled on us at the last minute. We had written the part for him and now he wasn't there. We were on the clock, so we made some calls.

After a few people not answering and us leaving a bunch of desperate messages, one guy called back. Our good friend Mark Lissauer. No experience acting. No problem. He came through, ready to rock and roll. The guy was a rock star.  He drove to the restaurant and jumped right into character. Mickey Sellers, at your service. Chris Saave, from CS Filming was on board to help out. He filled in the part for Skids perfectly. Oliver Rush came in from Brooklyn. A very talented Director of Photography. Juan and Oliver own the same camera so we had Two Panasonic AF100. We were very lucky to have access to those because they produce gorgeous images.

We finished shooting at the restaurant and went next door to our friend's apartment, after that we hopped in a car and shot the car ride scene as well as some exteriors.  At about 4 pm.  we ended up in a beautiful house that another great friend, Joe helped us secure.  It was very big house and perfect for the mob boss' estate, where he sends Mickey and Skids on their adventure.  Time was against us still, the hours just melted away and as we rushed to get all the shots we needed as we lost light.  At about 10:30 we finished and the actors and  crew said their goodbyes and the principles went back home for a shower and a change of clothes.  then it was time to meet up in  the studio and begin the editing process.

Unfortunately that is where things went a little haywire.  We had a major hardware failure that wiped out hours of editing we did.   We tried to save the work but it was gone.  It was early morning and we decided to start again.  Three editors on three different computers worked at a frantic pace, We had a timer that would go off every 30 minutes announcing how much time was left till we had to stop and make a DVD, but no matter how fast we worked we just couldn't overcome the loss we faced earlier that day.
 

We pushed it to the limit and when the last timer went off.  We hit the lights, turned up the volume and watched the movie we had in our hands.  It was good.  but it just wasn't complete.  We discussed it for a few moments and watched it again and discussed it some more.  The festival guidelines said you could turn in an incomplete film but we couldn't do that.  Instead, we decided to not submit and work on it some more that week and submit a completed version of the film to one of the many short film festivals around the country.

It was Sunday night by then and we had woken up Friday at 7 am, to take this challenge on.  60 hours had gone by in a blink of an eye.  We were beat up and half delirious.  We shut off the computers and decided to look at the bright side.  It was the first time we had worked together.  We had gone to war together, in the trenches of film making, endured through an extremely tough situation.  Instead of folding like most people might, we had decided to go down swinging.  It was time for a beer and a burger.  So we went to Dunne's Pub and there we talked about everything that went bad and everything that went great.  We spent a few hours and by the time we said goodbye, I knew we would work together again.


It's funny how thing work out.  Right after that film race, I got a call from another filmmaker that I met with and he asked Humungoid to produce his first feature, an extremely low budget horror film called Demon Cross: The Housesitter.  He was shooting in less than three weeks, but there was a lot of prep to do.  I knew it was going to be difficult, so of course I said Yes!  I picked up the phone and dialed up the people that would go down swinging with me.


I'll tell you all about that movie in the next post, its been one hell of a ride so far and it is far from over.  The Gas Mask is moving forward as we speak.


Pabs

Photo shoot in the B.. the R.. the O.. the O.. K

We went out to Brooklyn this weekend to a photo shoot for some promo pics for "Gas Mask". It was so much fun.  We packed the car up with props and the fam, hit Dunkin for some coffee and hit the road in the morning.  We all got there around 11 am and we were off to the races.  Setting up the lights, picking out wardrobe,  testing out the gas masks. 

Shadi Best, a gentleman and a great friend, agreed to take the pictures in his studio.   He has a cool set there.  He is a great photographer and we were lucky to have him aboard.  He was the DP on "Desolution" and is professional in every sense of the word.   He has a very keen eye and knows his stuff.   He had his monitor connected to his camera so we could see the pics come in as he took them.  Let me tell you right now,  the pics are freaking awesome.  he took about 400 shots, so we have to still go through them all and sort them all out. 

Special thanks to Coby for being a trooper and driving down on just a few hours of sleep (he tends bar till like 4 am)  I'm sure it was a pain in the butt to do it.  He never complained and was great.  He let his beard grow so he definitely looked the part and he got to have to guns (even though they were props) so he had fun.

Renzo came up with a great idea for one of the pics, towards the end of the shoot that I think is the best of all the pics we took.  using the lights to create a creepy dark look to it. 

It was fun and we got some awesome pics.  what more could we have asked for.  The project is coming along.

there are many elements coming together.  The storyboards, the designs, concept art and all the social media we are incorporating.   This is the most ambitious project to date.  We couldn't be happier with everything so far. 

Don't forget to check out all the pictures on our Facebook Fan Page

As soon as we have the promo pics sorted, we will post up some examples.   So come back soon!

Concept Art: BLAM!!!

We have been hard at work on the storyboards for our new film short The Gas Mask (working title).  Some of those will be posted soon, but for now I thought it would be nice to share with you our first piece of concept art.  We will be posting these as we finish them.  I gotta say we really love this piece. 

The work that is going into this project can be overwhelming at times but when you see the end result, all those hours are totally worth it.  The crew in the studio are putting their all into it and it really shows!

Hope you like this as much as we do!

P.S.  If you are interested in seeing how he made this, then make sure you check out Pablo's blog (click on the link on the right) because he will be posting up a video next week.....

First script reading

Today we did our first script reading for Gas Mask. I set up shop in the dining room and got a video feed up via ichat on the laptop for Chris to join since he is in Chicago. We also set up the HVX on a tripod to tape the whole thing. That way we can watch it again this week and take even more notes. I had a feeling something was not going to work but it went very well.






I sent a Facebook update asking for volunteers and got a lot of responses. It's good to have friends that are willing to drop what they are doing and help out.






Glenda read the narration. My son, Shawn read the part of James, Samantha was Lucile and Jerry played the villain, Larkin.






Everyone did a great job. The script is only 12 pages so it went pretty fast. After the read, we opened it up to questions and got some great feedback. I wanted them to read it out loud cold turkey because I wanted to hear the dialog without them having any preconceived notions, to see the if the dialogue works. For the most part it did, with a note here and there. I definitely feel like we are right there with the script.

While we finished up the read. My wife, Marianella went and scored us some awesome Peruvian food from Misti's. We all ate and drank and filled our bellies, making the night a great success.

Tomorrow, Rodney comes to the studio at 1pm, together with Chris, again via video chat, we are tackling the storyboards, which will be tough. I do have faith that between the three of us, we will figure it out. I am still trying to figure out how to get us all on a digital workflow and make everything as easy as possible.

Sometime in a future article, I'll write down the workflow, but that will be after I nail it down myself, as we are always trying out new apps and programs.

Pablo

Storyboard apps on our iPad

Well, we have an iPad ladies and gentleman. I have been looking forward to getting my hands on one since last year and I do have to say that after about a week with it, I am very happy. It definitely facilitates my workflow. I have downloaded a few apps to test out just how capable they are in this filmmaking journey.

Today I wanted to test out a few different methods of making quick storyboards on the iPad and really see just how practical it was to create and communicate my ideas because practicability was one of the main reasons for getting one.

I first used Upad only because it was already open. It is a nice note taking app that recognizes your handwriting. I bought a stylus and have been messing around with it. I definitely recommend upad. I like it do far. I can draw thumbnails very easily, but it isn't a drawing app and doesn't have many of those features. I like the fact that I can email the page with my handwriting. I know that Evernote (an awesome cataloging app) can read handwriting and will be exploring using them together.



Next came Clip Sketch app from Celtx. We have recently come to use Celtx. They make a quality pre-viz for the desktop. I cannot say the same for the ipad app. It might be good to use for basic over head diagrams for floor maps or something. I didn't like the drawings really, the characters seemed a little too cartoonish too me. I did however, liked the overhead drawings of camera crew equipment.



I had read about a cool little app called storyboards a few months ago when I started some iPad research. It had intrigued me from the video I saw, it had a large library (characters, props, etc.) that you could manipulate easily. I found the free version to tryout. It was cool and simple enough to use. The only problem was the speed at which it renders. It was terribly slow, to the point of frustration. Hopefully they will fix all that in the coming updates. It does dish out some nice boards with having actually drawn one element.



Last I tried drawing with sketchbook express first mainly because I use the desktop version with my cintque in the studio and I love it and I found that the the iPad experience does meet up to my expectations but only barely. I think the controls are a little hard to navigate through. But I am sure after a few more tries, it will be easier. I definitely like the possibilities it offers. I am going to upgrade the app.



I think I'll be using sketchbook to draw and maybe bring them into Upad to make notes. This will be an ongoing process as I find new tools to work with on this iPad. Oh and by the way. I made this post completely (pictures, text and all) right from my iPad as I watched the Masters, while sitting on my bed. Pretty cool I think.

This week coming up we will Be trying to storyboard the shots for Gasmask. So I'll post up some of the work Rodney and I do next week.

Pabs

Gas Mask: a little backstory

For about a year and a half we have been tossing around ideas for films we want to create and produce.  There were two in particular that I worked on, they were close to being finished, to the point of having all the index cards up on the board but in the end, they didn't work for many reasons but mostly the ideas had various structural problems that were too blaring.  They were interesting ideas but it just wouldn't work.

We love film.  It is obvious when we have our meetings every week and I think that was why we were putting too much pressure on ourselves to create a masterpiece.  So much so, that it drained the fun of the process.  I'm sure some of you guys out there know what  mean.

It's very difficult to put aside a project that you have invested a good chunk of time and effort into.  I always try to stay positive about things and think the breakthrough is just around the corner, but at one point you have to be realistic about the what you have and know when to let go.  I spent eight months working on them.

I decided to put everything aside, yet again and write down an fun idea a day for a week and see what happens.  I got up every morning and wrote down anything that came to mind.  It didn't matter how crazy or strange it was.  I thought of things I liked and geek me out.  I came up with five.  "Gas Mask" as I first named it, was one that just kinda stuck with us after a meeting where we discussed the five story ideas.  I like the image of a gas mask.  It's kinda weird. 

I placed the characters in a world where some great event  has happened that has made people and food very scarce.  The main character James is a scavenger, just trying to survive.  The story is about what happens when James comes across a family that hides in a farm and invite him in to break some bread. 

I've always been curious about how people act toward one another.  You really never know who or what kind of person you might bump into.  What are the rules of civility, when the world as we know it ceases to exist.

The script has taken a little over a month to write and rewrite and rewrite and... I believe it there have been maybe 10 - 15 revisions.  Chris Buddy is the man.  He is relentless.  I would finish a version up and email it out at 1 am and his notes would be back by 1:30.  This story is as much his as it is mine.  

By the way, please check out his Awesome Documentary film "Absinthe"

So the script is now ready and we go on to the next phase of this production.  We are hoping to raise funds for the project.  It has been a very exciting month for as at Humungoid Films.  More to come...

First Poster Mock Up

So I was on the mac today just throwing together a few images and seeing what sticks.  It's just the first mockup.  The story has always been called "The Gas Mask" but we have been throwing other names around.  One of the names we've been talking about is "Civility" although I think it needs a lot of work.  I believe it's a good place to start.  There is a lot of work ahead for us.  Will continue posting the progress as we go.

First Post Ever

Well here we are people.  Today April 1st, 2011 our blog will be going live. It will be a record of our projects for us, our friends and anyone out there that might be interested in our journey into what we love most....film.

Subscribe and come back periodically.  There is a lot of cool stuff on the horizon.