Casting Update

We are currently working on casting for the lead role of Stil. We've been searching for the right person now for the last three months. We should have our guy in the next two weeks or so. We are aiming at shooting in early to mid August.

Other elements are lining up nicely. Locations are nearly locked up, the art department is working away at set dressing and some minor building and we have one phone booth. Let's just say that the phone booth came to us rather curiously. Phone booths are pretty rare these days. Luckily, a friend of a friend had left one behind at his old rental house in a rather nice neighborhood...a neighborhood that probably doesn't like trash build up in front yards. Jason and I did everyone in the old neighborhood a favor by taking the eyesore of a phone booth out of the front yard and into his van. It now happily reisdes at an undisclosed location in North Seattle.

If you ever need pay phone parts or accesories, you might want to check out this Link

Nathan Gamble on board to play "Joey"

I'm excited to say that Nathan Gamble is on board to play the role of "Joey" in Dry Rain. Nathan comes with an impressive background. He has a long resume of work with one of the hightlights being his role in "Babel" with Brad Pitt.

I spent a few hours reading with Nathan and was confident in his ability to take direction and bring something new and fresh to the role. Hanging out with him and his family at their home was a great moment. It made it clear that Nathan is a down to earth kid with a great family. It'll be fun to work with him!

Nathan is off on another exciting project this late summer and fall. For now, we can't share what the project is, but let's just say it is a big one. Nice work Nathan!

Road Trip Montana

There's nothing like a road trip. Get out on the highway, see new places, meet new people, maybe speed a little and enjoy the open road. We did just that in early May. Producer Brian Homman, Cinematographer Doug Hostetter, Writer Pete Fromm and I took off from Great Falls with the hopes of finding our locations. We drove all over the place. We found cool places and drank a beer or two in some run down little hole-in-the-wall joints. Like most road trips, stories start emerging and we learned a lot about each other. Pete always had the best stories. I can't even begin to share them with you here, but we laughed until our guts ached.

We quickly began to realize the real challenge of location scouting in Montana would be to keep our locations close together. It is very easy to find one spot to shoot, then find the next place 200 miles down the road and, you are still in the same county! We felt a little stumped. Nothing was either fitting the bill or with in a reasonable distance from Great Falls, our chosen base camp city.

Highlights of the trip: Stopping for Brian to make a call. He was working on a spot for Citibank. The agency producer had to talk to him right then so we pulled over and waited for him to finish the call. We had cell service, so he had to do it right there in the middle of the road some where between Coffee Creek and Stanford. The call seemed to take forever. Some fire was burning at the ad agency and Brian was trying to put it out. Pete, Doug and I waited on the side of the road killing time by throwing rocks at signs, posts or whatever was a challenging target. Pete, never exposed to silly production behavior before, asked if Brian's producer call was par for the course. Doug and I laughed. Yup. Get use to it, we said. Pete couldn't believe it, so he started hurtling rocks at Brian. Brian scrambled into the borrow pit and ran trying to miss a direct hit. We're still laughing at that one! Brian is still a little pissed.

The other "highlight" and now funny story is about Maggie. Maggie is my black lab. She's a real lover and probably likes road trips more than most people I know. She came along on this excursion and fit right in. At Pete's house, his boys immediatly took to her and loved playing ball in the back yard. On our first day of scouting, we had room in the car since Doug hadn't gotten to town yet, so Maggie came along. We had pulled off the road to survey a particularily stunning section of road just west of Hilger. The road stretched out for miles in the middle of a beautiful prairie like a black snake winding through fresh green grass. Maggie ran off into the pasture and explored. We took pictures and enjoyed the view. When it was time to load up, Maggie came running back with a big smile on her face and a stink that followed for miles. She'd found something dead to roll in. I tried cleaning her up. It was that or leave her behind 'cause the guys couldn't stand the stench of her in the car. As I cleaned the goo off by dragging her through the grass and pouring seltzer water (that's all we had for liquids) on her, it began to rain. And I don't mean some lame Seattle rain...this was full on Montana kick your ass rain and it came down hard. I got her fairly clean and off we went. Of course, the guys were laughing at me and my dog, but you could hardly help but laugh!

After two days, our location scouting was not going as successfully as we had hoped. Of course we had found some interesting locations, but nothing was reasonably close to make things effecient during the shoot. Brian had to leave and Doug and I had one more day to kill before heading back to Seattle. We made a big loop from Great Falls up to the highline, down to Valier and through Dupuyer. As we motored down State Highway 89, we were feeling frustrated. The right location had eluded us. Then, the town sign of Pendroy appeared. On the map, it was represented by a tiny dot...it must have something there! We pulled into the tiny town. It was perfect. We'd found our town for the first several scenes of the movie. It was desolate, right in the middle of wheat fields and it was close to other potential locations.

We stayed for awhile in Pendroy talking about where we'd shoot, blocking the scene and thinking about how it all will work. It finally felt like we were making progress and a whole lot closer to shooting the picture. As we stood there in Pendroy, one of the locals walked up to talk. Jim has lived in Pendroy for ahwile. He insisted we take a photo of him and his pets. He was hoping to submit his photo to the paper and get publised! I guess we are now just getting to know our new "neighbors!" Apparently, there are about 75 people or so that live there. We'd met one so far. I bet we meet the rest by the time we finish up shooting in Pendroy.

Out on the Highline

Back in October of 2006, I went to Great Falls to do my first location scout. It was more of a study of the towns and landscape of Eastern Montana and less of a full on scout. I wanted to get a feel for the place with the film in mind. I stayed with Pete Fromm and his family in their home in Great Falls. We put lots of miles on their car as we drove all over. We went from Augusta to Shelby to Havre, Big Sandy, Judith Crossing, Coffee Creek, and back to Great Falls in one long day. We saw some amazing stuff while out on the road.



I was able to put together a group of images that gave an impression of the types of things we'd see in the film. The landscape, the buildings, the clouds and the texture of the Montana landscape. These are just a few of the images I captured.



The small towns on the highline are getting smaller by the minute. They were once happening little towns along the railroad, but today, they are quiet places just hanging on. Names like Inverness, Kremlin, Rudyard, Chester and Galata were some of the ones we explored.

Always keeping a mindful eye on the weather, we'd see some interesting formations, but Virga always alluded us on this trip. Seems like an event more suited to summer heat, than cool autumn days.



One thing we found is that many of these small towns have cafe's and bars and other businesses, but all of them under one roof. You can get away with that in a small town. Espresso, tanning salon and oil changes aren't unheard of in one establishment. We were on the search for a cafe that was just a cafe, not a bar/cafe combo. We found that these kinds of singular businesses were only available in bigger towns. Like this cafe above. We found this one in the town of Big Sandy.

Our mini road trip had us through some of the more scenic areas of central Montana. I hadn't been to some of these places before. Many of these wide expanses are untouched, unmolested. One place that I can't get out of my mind was Judith Crossing. We headed south out of Big Sandy on a high-speed gravel road. After the road plowed through a large bluff, the Missouri river appeared and stretched out in front of us. It was amazing to see. This must be how Lewis and Clark saw this very spot, minus the bridge, of course. The light was gorgeous and the shadows falling perfectly. We had to stop on the bridge and take it in.

mjc

Corvair in Denton, Montana.

Virga

Virga: –noun (used with a singular or plural verb) Meteorology. Streaks of water drops or ice particles falling out of a cloud and evaporating before reaching the ground.

Virga or Dry Rain is a funny event out on the plains. The clouds bring the expectation of rain, leading to growth and rejuvination. Then, Mother Nature tricks the thirsty earth with a depressing show of evaporation. Just when you think its going to rain, the wind blows away all hopes of precipitation.

Pete Fromm's story, Dry Rain, is a fascinating journey of a father and son traveling through the Canadian plateau. I was struck by the simplicity of the story and how well he was able to capture the complicated moment with ease. Every page I read of the story took me further on a cinematic journey. I knew that Dry Rain would be the basis of a great short film.

In late winter 2006, I called Pete out of the blue to ask him if I could make Dry Rain into a short film. I got his number from a friend of a friend. Pete had sat on some writer's panel with my friend Jess. Seems as though they realized that they had friends in common. With luck on my side, I talked with Jess about Dry Rain and how I could get to the writer without dealing with the agents. I didn't have any money to offer Pete, I could only offer the opportunity to collaborate on a film project. Jess nonchalantly brought up the mutual friend. Give him a call he said. I called the friend, then called Pete.

Pete listened to me ramble about my idea of making his story into a film. He tried to sound interested, but he probably thought I was some crack pot. Some how, I convinced him to think about it. We exchanged emails and a few phone calls. Then, when I finally had a break in my schedule, I called Pete up and said I was coming to see him. Could we get a cup of coffee and talk about Dry Rain? I think he was surprised that I'd drive all the way to Great Falls, Montana to see him. Well, we met and immediatly got along. Our conversation was productive and we struck a deal. That was March 2006. Later in the spring along about May, we had a first draft.

Working with Pete is like working with an older brother. It is never boring and he knows how to crack a joke or tell a story. He's thoughtful and listens to input, but sticks to his guns when it comes to the backbone of the story. He's a smart ass, but that didn't surprise me. I think the one thing that did suprise me about Pete was how dedicated he is to writing. He doesn't mess around. He's up at the crack of dawn, sometimes even as early as 3 or 4am, (and that's with out an alarm clock) because he has a character beating his way out of his head that needs to live on the page.

One thing to remember about Pete is to never get in a rock throwing fight. You won't win.

Matthew J. Clark


**Top Photo: I shot this photo near Helmsville, Montana just recently on my last location scouting trip. The second image is from a location scouting trip this last May with Dry Rain's Cinematographer Doug Hostetter.

Searching for Phone Booths

One of the main "characters" in this story is the phone booth. Our lead character travels from phone to phone to call his ex-wife in an attempt to extort money from her. Now adays, with cell phones and all, phone booths and pay phones are an anomoly on the landscape. Try finding one and you could be out of luck. It is even harder to find them out in rural settings.

In my initial research, I tried finding phone booths in Montana and I did some research on line. I found a curious site called the The Pay Phone Project This guy has collected pictures of pay phones and their numbers from all over the world. He also has pay phone advocacy info and up to date news about pay phone legislation. An interesting hobby for sure. I'm gonna see if I can get some of the pictures from Dry Rain on his site. That would be cool.

These are photos I took from a couple of different location scouting trips. The top one was found in Canyon Creek, Montana just outside of Helena. The other one was found in Rudyard, Montana just off Hiway 2 on the "Highline." Regrettably, I didn't get the number for the Canyon Creek phone. You could be calling it right now! I'll get it when I'm through there next, whenever that is...

Shooting Tests

When I decided to make Dry Rain, I knew there was only one person to shoot it for me. Doug Hostetter and I have been friends for ahwile. His easy going demeanor would prove to be a great asset on set. He's got a great eye and thoughtful feedback that's both useful and critical. It is great having someone on your team that you fully trust in all aspects. Doug also use to live in Great Falls back in the early 90's. He knows Montana and understands the proportions of the huge state.

For the past year, we've been meeting over coffee. We tend to meet around 7am so he can sneak out before his twin kids wake up in the morning. It is easier on everyone that way. We talk shop, gear and dream of the next big job or the chance to shoot something meaningful. I presented Dry Rain to Doug and he was immediatley on board. He was excited at the chance to shoot the short after he read Pete's story.

Early morning coffee meetings quickly became pre-pre-production meetings for Dry Rain. We schemed on things like how to shoot the car sequences, times of day, locations and logistics. We also talked about what we'd shoot on. Since we are both cinematographers at heart, we knew film would be our choice of acquisition media. We've both shot HD, DV, Mini-DV and P2 based video formats, but Dry Rain needed film. Big landscapes and intimate moments demand the richness and subtlties of film. We now had to start picking the right film format.

Through research and conversation with our peers, we quickly turned to 3-perf 35mm as our preferred format. The savings on film with 3 perf would be great and the huge negative area of the Super35mm frame would be perfect for the scope of the project. 3 perf 35 uses one less perforation than the standard 4 perfs in "normal" or Academy 35mm. When shooting an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 or wider, it is perfect since the top and bottom of the negative get cut off anyway in 4 perf 35. Here's a basic overview, if you are so inclined: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35_mm_film#3-Perf

Our next dilemma was where do we source a camera. In the Northwest, 3 Perf cameras are non-existant. L.A. was our next obvious choice. Doug approached Robert Keslow of Keslow Camera in Culver City. Doug has been using Keslow as his preferred camera rental house for several years now. Luckily, Robert was very gracious and was willing to give us a camera for our tests. He'd also loan us a camera for the week of shooting in the summer. We just needed to prove to our selves that 35 3-Perf was the way to go over the cheaper, but good looking Super16mm.

With the support of Oppenheimer Cine, here in Seattle, we built out a Moviecam Compact and an Aaton XTR Super 16mm Camera. We set out with the goal of doing side by side comparisons of the two formats. We headed east to Vantage, Washington to get something simlar to the open spaces of Montana. We shot several shots matching the field of view with both camers. We chose Cooke S4 primes and matched up lenses to get a similar frame in 16 and 35. We also shot the same stop and used the same exact filtration. We shot Kodak's 5205 and 7205 films to keep the apples to apples comparison as close to possible.

The one bonus of shooting in 16 is the package size. Overall, the 16 camera package is smaller, more compact and easier to shoot in a car. What we loose in image quality, we gain in costs (16 being cheaper for film) and camera size. On the other hand, the 35 gives a much bigger negative area to work with and more resolution. It looks amazing. It is just bigger and harder to squeeze into a car. Not impossible, but challenging none the less.

In Telecine, Doug saw a substantial difference between the two formats. 35 was the clear winner. 16 looked good, but didn't hold up in resolution, color space, lattitude or grain quality. For now, we'll choose 3 perf 35. If we can't afford it, we know that 16 will make a great looking image.


Wide Shot: 35mm 3Perf

Wide Shot: Super 16mm

Close-up of Matt: 35mm 3Perf Lucky me getting to stand in.

Close-up of Matt: Super16mm

Close-up of Doug: 35mm 3Perf, he's a better stand in than me.