With all the remakes going on today… I thought to myself, “What if they made a live action Captain Planet… a lot less cheesy… like Heroes.” So than I began writing things down like characters and storylines they had then… and how they could be revamped to today.  In doing all this I figured I would make a kind of teaser poster to get the feel that I am looking for. So I made this as a what if, but am definitely going to be working on a trailer to pitch the same idea.

Videos Below

Now much like the rest of the up and coming film making community, I hate to draw storyboards. Not because I think I am that bad, but because I know there are people out there who are that much better.  So when doing a production, and the time comes to set up storyboards, chances are you and me both are dreading it.  Normally it comes out to poorly made boxes with crude stick figures or our versions of people to hopefully help get across what our minds are trying to create. But what ends up happening is that you spend more time trying to explain what the actual shot is after you drew it. So after many of days trying get storyboards in any order so that people could understand the vision, I decided why not just do an animatic.

An animatic is pretty much a moving storyboard. You do all the things that a storyboard does, yet now, you can add the music and movements from both the characters and the camera to get across to your crew  your goal of your projects.  The best part about this is that you can pretty much have the idea edited down to a ‘T” so that you know exactly what you want to shoot, so your not spending time on shots you dont want or wont use later.

The Art Department perks are a given, you already have to show what your looking for.

When it comes to post production, youve already established your basic pacing as well as a test version of sound and music. So getting the project in is no more than a “putting the puzzle together with a guide”.

This was all created just hand drawing and finding pictures online that best matched what I wanted to show. I found the pictures and went back and drew the characters and whatever I needed to add as it came to my mind. After drawing, I just scanned the drawings into photoshop, colored and cut them out and then imported all my assets into After Effects.  There it is just the use of basic animation techniques that you can learn on any online tutorial. I would prefer you go to VIDEOCOPILOT.NET probably the best After Effects tutorials on the planet.

After animating the shots how I liked, I brought them all into Final Cut Pro. There I edited the project for pacing and sound. This whole process probably took me 2 days. Once done, the ability to show my Director of Photography Andrew Kurchinski and Camera Casey Chan provided both of them an excitement and full understanding of the project and made process of knowing what the final product would be that much better.

So all in all, this process can really add something to your project creation, and is really helpful for people like me who like to have everyone know what the goal is, so the work just becomes fun at that point.  Below is the Animatic/Commercial with the sounds from the animatic and the actual commercial is below that.  Naturally, youll notice they are exactly the same, because when on set you have to improvise a little, but the pacing and concept are still intact.  Let me know what you think and hope this helps any of you out.

Animatic/Commercial

[vimeo vimeo.com/7001171]

Commercial

[vimeo vimeo.com/5366248]

Special Thanks to Von Marie Donato, Dustin “Duck” Spain, John “Gunjack” Melancon, Andrew “AK” Kurchinski, Casey Chan, Thomas Mobley, and all the rest of the crew who came out and helped the day of the shoot.

-This is just a personal note-

Another Day, Another Adventure.  I remember once being a young man that sat in his room and pretended to be a man who traveled the world. Whether itd be a super hero, or a spy, or anything that my little imagination could bring up. I remember sitting on in my computer room at my father or mothers house… and teaching myself Photoshop and Windows Moviemaker, and thinking how much id love to do this for a living.  I remember Billy Jarrell and I watching Bad Boys over and over again, and got me thinking how much I love action.  I remember making home videos with my cousins, whether it would be music videos in PA, Wrestling Shows in VA, or Vanish. I remember sitting on a rooftop in Indiana with my cousin Scott, god rest him, and us talking about how we wanted to do something big in our lives. I have never forgotten that, and it has always been a part of my drive.  I remember my brother chasing after me around the track during soccer… just to make sure I didnt let myself give up. I also remember being a lost kid right out of high school, and talking with my buddy Nik Chrismon at the time, and saying, “Man… Id love to move out of here, to somewhere like Florida.” We always talked about it, but in passing because we never knew what could possibly get us down there. Then boom, the door opens and we crashed through it. We both went to Florida and lived our lives, graduated college, and went our separate ways.  During school, I would have visions of leaving Florida, to move on to new places like NY or CA. Wanting to just get out and see what the world has. Be creative at all times in my life. Be places I have never been. I ended up discovering a beautiful and amazing woman in my girlfriend Tabitha Sclafani, whos talent and my love grow on daily basis. Ended up working in GA for a bit, my first remote gig that I did not have to pay to travel or live.  Then boom, another opportunity arises in a place Id never thought Id be, Hawaii.  So here I am, in beautiful place that Id never thought id be. Then I finally get to do work in California, which is amazing. What happens next, now I am going to Tahiti. TAHITI?!  If you would of told me out of high school that I would move to Florida to learn film and graphic design, then travel to places like California, Hawaii and Tahiti, I would have looked at you and probably slapped you.  Not out of disrespect, I would hit you for making me believe dreams can come true, because at that time I did not think it was possible.

Now I am not saying this to brag. I am saying this because no one loves what they are doing more than I do or the joy I have. No one loves knowing where they were at one point in there life… to seeing where they are now. No one can say they have felt the same that I did in the situations I was… and then can know the joy I feel now knowing that it is possible to leave your past behind you. No one can know that I feel like I am fulfilling a silent promise to a dear family member whose picture I take everywhere. To family that has seen me through it all.Everyday is a brand new day, and it can all change at a moments notice. For good and for bad, so take everything as it comes. Always try to help others and be a positive impact because you never know who you effect. Remember that you can blame people and experiences for your past, but your future is your fault.

Thank You to anyone and everyone that has been a part of me making my future.

This week has been a creative week for me. I have designed rash guards/poster for the Waterman League Tahiti SUP exhibition event “STAND UP WORLD TOUR: CONTENDERS”  I am going to be down in Tahiti filming all next week and its going to be intense. Below is the design as well as the poster.

On Top of all this. I also entered into a contest for Hurley. It was to design a shirt for ALL TIME LOW, a band that Hurley has been promoting. I figured I would try something different thant the usual montage of randome images and make something dope and with a message at the same time. Below was my Entry.

And to top it all off, Pandora also has a Poster Design contest that I entered.  Its about supporting global education of music as well as promoting Pandora. So again I went with simple and effective. Below is the poster.

All and all I have been very creative and excited in these past couple weeks. I am also working on a movie poster with Murray Mile for “FOX HUNT”. I feel its starting to look great and hope to post it up soon. I will be back in Orlando for the month of September so will be looking forward to see what projects come up then.

“Jordan Prime”

Produced by Justin Connors/Lazan Banks

Directed/Edited by Justin Connors

Starring Lazan Banks as Jordan Prime

This was a project that Lazan Banks and I collaborated on. We wanted to work on something that really showed a new look on Blaxploitation. Funny thing is that Lazan came up with the name while we were working on creating another character for another project. Well something stuck with us after he said those words “Jordan Prime”. A vision, an idea that we had to do.  So on my trusty Salvador Dali notepad I storyboarded the opening for a tv pilot.  You couldnt ask for a better character actor than Lazan Banks. That is why you will see him in alot of my projects. The man is just talent. We shot this around Winter Park, FL. It was about 5 hours of shooting on a GY HD110U and about a day of editing and effects with Final Cut and After Effects/Photoshop. The song was created by mean in Garageband. Below is the opening we shot.

[vimeo vimeo.com/6097320]

Now we are looking towards completing the project and taking it to the next level. Lazan and I are collobarating to bring Jordan Prime to fruition. We are also going to be trying to market it to multiple mediums. Jordan Prime the video game?… who knows

Poster/Box Art by : Joe Siconolfi

The feature film I edited/graphic designed for, “I Love You 2″ had its premiere last week.  It looks like it was a fun time. There seems to be alot of people showing love for this film and I am glad to say I was a part of that. Below is the video of the premiere in Boca Raton last week and the trailer also done by me.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1474228/

Premiere

[vimeo vimeo.com/6066017]

Trailer

[vimeo vimeo.com/3285017]

It is 2009. Yes the economy is down, yes people are losing and looking for jobs more then ever before. During the great depression we had similar problems in the country. Yet somehow someway, more people per capita were flocking to movie theaters. Gone with the Wind (adjusted for Inflation) technically would have made more money then all of the top movies combined based on how many people saw it at that time. The reason why was because that was how people escaped the real world. Through the creativity of film makers. Through visions and stories brought to life by groups of individuals all working together to bring something new to the world.
Where did we go wrong. Where did creativity go. Now I am not saying creative films are not being made. I am also not saying that making a film about NOTHING AT ALL (I.E. a balloon flying around, or a kid looking a picture) is creative because its different. I am talking about stories. I am talking about characters. I am talking about bringing characters to life that we have NEVER seen before. Introducing a visual element to people and worlds we have only pictured in our heads. Every time I walk into a book store I look around and think…. there is a countless number of stories to be told right in this very room.
Yet for some reason, the “studio system” of Hollywood has lost sight of this. For some reason they only believe people will go see a film that is one we have seen before. Now they did not just start doing this over night, but there is an OVER abundance of it now. I am not even saying these films are bad, but lets list some off the top of my head ( and I promise Im not even gonna look) The Warriors, Tron, Logans Run, Taking of Pelham 123, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm St, Last house on the left, Clash of the Titans, Straw Dogs, Footloose, Red Sonja, Predator, The Evil Dead… and that is just this year.

Why cant we just make new movies. What if there wasnt these movies? No one from the 70′s or 80′s was really remaking films THAT much. I mean occasionally there would be a remake here and there but it usually needed it. No one remade films that just didnt need it. I mean Scarface took from the same premise but completely went a different route with it. Im actually happy comic book movies are starting to be taken more seriously so that we can hope to see more fresh stories and ideas on the big screen. We don’t need to see films again that enjoy how they were done the first time. Sure Tron looks amazing, but would it of been that hard to think of something else. I mean you’ve got films like Gamer coming out that just look fun. I mean yes it seems like the remake industry has taken over only blockbusters action ad horror films, but that is because people love it. Sure the occasional ridiculously funny film will come along… but where are the Back to the Futures, the Forest Gumps, The Castaways, The Indiana Jones, The ETs, The Pulp FIctions, The Clerks, The Terminators, The Things, The Star Wars of Today. I mean sure comic books and toys are finally getting real movie screen time and I love it, but dammit I want to go into something knowing NOTHING and being blown away, much like Avatar. To make matters even worse, they will give these movies 200million dollar budgets. WHY?! Why the hell does any movie need that much?  I think we should go on a film cap for a while and see what happens. Its possible to make an amazing movie for cheaper, many have done it, and done it better. If they made (Just talking effects) Spiderman 3 for 300 million and Transformers for 140 million, it gets you thinking WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING WITH THE MONEY!!!!
I know there is more like me out there, who really just want to be entertained by something other than something we have seen before. So god dammit Hollywood studios grow some balls and green light something for that we are not ready for, or that we don’t expect, I promise you people will see it. Or else just keep making the same movies from now till 2050.
Or it can be even worse and movies like Disaster Movie, Dance Movie, Not Another Teen Movie, Hottie an Nottie, or Meet Dave can just keep being made.  Dont even get me started on that.

Below is a collection of movie posters I have had the pleasure of creating for various projects ranging from HD-35mm film.

Again, while in L.A., Wuz Good (Founder/Producer/Director/Photographer w/Lution Media) showed me footage of an insanely funny mini documentary he shot along with partner Murray Mile (Director/Producer w/Lution Media) about their trip across the country with self proclaimed super producer Adam Fraum (….Mina?) . So after I watched this comic genious, I gave them a clever title in “FRAUM ORLANDO TO LA”.  Wuz Good then asked me if I wanted to make a make title image for the video, and being that It was so funny I had too. So while logging footage one day, I decided to create an image that really showed the personality of these two characters in Wuz and Murray. Below is what came from it.

Recently While shooting at Huntington Beach, I was staying in a house with some of my college friends. Oh did I mention that they just so happen to be some of the most talented people in the industry today?…. Take a Look.

Esteban Rodriguez
[vimeo vimeo.com/4897235]

Wuz Good
[vimeo vimeo.com/5722032]

Casey Chan
[vimeo vimeo.com/1285503 ]

“AK” Andrew Kurchinski
[vimeo vimeo.com/2430560]

Yeah… all of this talent under one roof…. watch out Hollywood, we are coming.