Who Am I?

I feel like I put up a lot of posts talking about To Tony Productions which is obvious because this is what this blog is all about. That being said I feel like I never talk about who I am. Well let me take this time to introduce myself. My name is Daniel Hess, I started To Tony Productions two years ago with the vision to one day create films that share new ideas and thoughts. Back then I was merely a sophomore in college, just really getting my traction when it comes to film but I had a big dream. I named the company for my cousin Anthony because ever since he passed away from CF I always wanted to do my best to make him proud, so I named my production company after him. Now To Tony Productions is picking up steam as a full service production company, currently we are finishing our second music video, starting a third up in September, and soon to be releasing Voicebox.

What about myself...well I am just an average guy I guess. I am currently freelancing and working for different companies in the video field. In my free time I like to watch movies, exercise, play with my dog Lexi, and write. This year has brought about the most change in my life since probably 2008. In the month of May I finished college at Towson University and quit my job of five years at Oak Crest Village. I decided that the rest of this year would be committed to finding work in the film/video industry full time. My plan is to have something concrete before the winter, if not however I will probably just have to settle for a full time job somewhere which would suck but it is a means to an end. Yeah I consider myself a workaholic when it comes to video production but I love it too much not to pour my heart and soul into it.

Random Movie Fact: In the 2000 film Meet the Parents,  The scenes at the "Surf and Turf" restaurant were filmed at a Port Washington, NY restaurant called "Louie's". The car racing scenes between Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro were also filmed in downtown Port Washington. Also, the scene where Stiller and De Niro go shopping is in Port Washington at Salem Drugs.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Updates!

So I think it is high time to post some updates on what is going on over at my end of things. As of right now I am gearing up to do another music video for local rapper Kane Mayfield. I am trying to shoot the video on the 18th but things have stalled lately so I have to try to get that back on track. I am still going through the psuedo training run at the company that has hired me for production/post production help. I was suppossed to come in today to do an editing test, but it is being postponed until tomorrow. In addition I am still booking more stuff right now, I have been getting good bites but nothing is sticking, hopefully soon things will really start picking up for freelance stuff, but we will see. Right now is just that weird limbo time for the summer, but a major project will pop up sooner or later.

I am going to start spitting out random movie facts every day on my blog now I think...so here is the first random movie fact:

The inspiration for the Alien creature laying eggs inside of its victims and a new alien popping out of them comes from the braconid wasps which lays its eggs inside another insect. As the eggs grow they begin to hatch out of the insects body instantly killing it. Much in the same fashion as the creature does in Alien.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

A lot on the Horizon

So as I look out today I see a lot places I can go for a long term freelance goal. Today I made a call to a company a friend of a friend said might be hiring, I called today and the owner is on vacation but tomorrow he is going to look at my email and set up a time to meet with me, hopefully this can work out. I have re negotiated things on two of my three upcoming music videos to get enough money to not lose money on everything, so essentially I am just breaking even which is still ok at this point. In addition I have this job editing which gets me a cool hundred per video I complete which is a nice thing to have as well. Also I am really trying to push the concert filming/music video production end of things here which I hope picks up soon. Finally, I got approached by a guy who does high end concert filming that I hope I can work with soon on some gigs as well.

There are also some other things that are just in talks right now so I don't want to give out too much before I know more. However I think things are moving along nicely and with the money I have gotten selling stuff plus my last two paychecks at my job I think I will be safe at least for a little bit. I just have to spend like no money for a while.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Time is Coming Near

The time is coming near where I will not have an ordinary day job anymore and will have to rely on my freelance work to support me and that time would be May 14th to be exact. I am excited to be leaving my day job but at the same time almost extremely scared just because I have no idea what the future holds for me and the bills don't stop rolling in. Lucky for me I have some things in the works like a few music videos which I am hoping to get a little bit of money out of and I have an editing job which looks like I can make about a hundred a vid on which is kinda low but I will take what I can get right now to be honest. In the long term I am hoping to be able to get another day job that is either full time or offers just more to it. I mean I love video work but I also need to have a reliable pay check...but who knows maybe I will get enough video work in music videos or weddings or concerts to make a living off of. We will have to wait and see.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

I am Gone!

Well last night I made the brash decision to finally put in my two weeks at work. I was hating going back and dealing with that craphole place as it was, but I was willing to make a compromise and just work three days a week or whatever. However last night I get pulled into the office to get bitched at for having too many call outs, mind you this is the first time I have ever been pulled into the office at all for such a thing in 5 years I have been working there. So they are talking to me about that and then they start to bring up the 20 days I had off for making my movie (yes they kept count of the exact number of days) which I had people either cover for me or I just plain had off for so there is no reason to be bitched at for it. But alas they still decided to get on my case about it. They were acting like my career was at this dead end job and I should take it so seriously so after that I was really pissed, but ok whatever...then my supervisor informed me that they were actually trying to get me in some kind of trouble for it, yes get me in trouble for taking too many days off? What kind of bullshit is that, all I did was take off time to make a movie which is my career, the thing I love to do. So I was like screw it, so I got a blank piece of paper filled out my two weeks and handed it to my supervisor at the end of the night.

I know as of right now I have no other job lined up but I am hoping to kick back on some freelance work for a while and start looking for a full time day job somewhere. I don't know really what will happen at this point. All I know it is time to restart my life and start fresh somewhere. Film makes me so happy I just wish I could do it all the time somewhere...but the problem is finding that place.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Trying to Keep Track

It has been pretty hard to keep track of everything these past few days. Really just about scheduling everything and staying on top of everyone. For Saturday things have changed around a ton and they are still changing constantly, it seems like everytime I get online the way the photo sessions keep happening are different. I don't even know if everyone is going to be there, it is tough and I am just always sending messages like "Are you still down?" Then I get asked more questions about everything and then pause...ask it again...back to more questions lol. I just need straight answers from people.

Enough about that though, as far as other work I found out that I gotta turn in this corporate video to my teacher before the end of the first four weeks of the semester or I fail the class. That would suck so I gotta get on top of that. Plus I really gotta get Love is Undead finished up before the 10th if I want to get it into the Sacramento Horror Film Festival. Also after all those photo sessions I have to edit the pictures quickly because the actors need them for auditions that are right around the corner. So again I am going from a dull period to a busy one...I also have to see about doing my second music video which I wanna be able to shoot in February and get done by early March at the latest. Again...we will see.

A lot of work is coming my way again which is strange because I guess the whole semester starting and making me wanna work hard again is why I am booking all of this freelance stuff. Over break I didn't want to do anything but then again my mojo was gone then as well. Thanks mojo for coming back when the semester is here and I totally scheduled way too many hard classes lol. Nah I love it!

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess