Voicebox

Please take the time to watch my latest short film Voicebox on Vimeo! It was a huge project with a lot of talented people involved. Any and all feedback is welcome and please everyone share this video, it would mean the world to all the great people involved in this project.

Voicebox

Thanks for all the support!
Daniel Hess

July is Over

So it is official July is over and done with. It is now August and every so often I like to look back at a month and reflect on how things went. July was interesting as I feel it is every year, it was the month of my birthday and also I think it was the first true transitional month for me. It was the first time I feel like myself and To Tony Productions really stepped things up and started asking for a bit more from our clients, to run a business and provide quality products we had to start asking for decent pay. While at the beginning of July I had a lot of work opportunities and chances to make videos a lot of it just wasn't for the right price. I was getting kinda lowballed and no matter how much I tried to make it work at the end of the day there was really nothing in it for me as an artist or business man. Those that just weren't ready to pay for the quality were I guess left to their own devices, I am just not going to operate like that. It is hard and gigs get passed by a lot but I will take quality over quantity any day of the week. Yes July was a month for me to grow and I think I finally have a great foundation for the future.

Random Movie Fact: The 1994 film Clerks was filmed at the same store in which director Kevin Smith was working at the time. As he was only allowed to film outside of business hours, and because bright enough lights couldn't be afforded, the plot included an explanation for the shutters being always down.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Photo Portfolio

So I have been wanting to do this for a while now and would like to present my favorite/best photography I have done so far.

Random Movie Fact: In the 2002 film Irreversible, Director Gaspar Noé only had a three-page draft before the movie was shot, so all of the dialogue was improvised.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Summer Production

So today I woke up (late in the morning of course) and couldn't help but think back on the past productions I have tackled over the summer months...wonderful times. Way back when in 2010 I was working on my True Docs series of shot documentaries facing subjects from the importance of dog care to family to heroin addiction, it was an interesting time for sure and without knowing it I captured two of the most important documentaries of all. The first one being on the subject of Family, which my grandmother did for me, only a few months later she would pass away suddenly which was heartbreaking but the interview she gave became very important. The next one I did was on the subject of Heroin Addiction and my cousin gave the most honest interview I think I have ever seen and even to this day people are still watching that video and finding some hope/truth in it. It is up to over 15,000 views on youtube.

The other production I did was Gas Guzzlers in 2010 which was a huge project which took what seemed like forever to make. Facing days where it was almost 100 degrees out myself, Jordan, Joe, Ashley, and Chad all went out to either North Point State Park or Fort Howard to film. We would mainly film from 10 or 11am to 3 or 4pm since at the time everyone except Ash and Chad worked at the same place. It was a cool shoot and taught me even more about making a found footage style film, I even got to screen it at Towson University that same December.

In 2011 that was a much slower season but one which was filled with praise I guess is the word. I am cheating a bit and counting May in this season since that is when I participated in the 72 hour film festival and what we got out of that was Spiritus. This film was the first project that I was a part of that won best in show, it was amazing. Then later on in June was the 48 hour which we got Nina out of, it didn't win anything but was a finalist at the screening. It was promising season in 2011 but a series of fallouts with friends ruined that...however what was to follow helped to shape me into the semi professional that I consider myself now.

This summer is proving not to be a summer for my productions or making a new film, but a summer of building connections and relationships. I am excited to see where this season takes me and I am sure the place I will end up is going to be better than I could have ever imagined.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Random movie fact of the day: 
In the movie Silent Hill the strange stumbling movements of the Dark Nurses when they first "come alive" was created by filming them walking backwards, and then running the film in reverse.

Filming Today

Well this is it, after what feels like a lifetime of preparation filming is slated to get started today at 10am. We have a long day ahead filled with the most intimate scenes involving our lead girl and father. It is mainly an indoor shoot today but we will be doing a little bit of outdoor stuff in Historic Dundalk. Hopefully no one minds us filming but you never know this is the most unnerving part of the day because dealing with cops is no fun when it comes to filming at all, not only that it looks bad because your actors tend to think you don't have your sh*t together. Otherwise things should go pretty smoothly, we have a whole house to ourselves and are getting a lot done today. Day one three...go!

*PS Be sure to check out Instagram for on set pictures today, I plan on trying to upload as many as I can, search for To_Tony_Productoins.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

In My Head

Today has turned into another day for figuring out my film. I believe I have the cast and crew 80% nailed down at this point which is getting rid of a lot of stress that I had at one time, and now that the stress from that situation is coaxed I am focusing in my shots. I have been toying with the possibility of making the prom scene a long take or not and after seeing Silent House I really don't want to do it handheld, so I am thinking of doing a tracking shot. Yes...a tracking shot close to the end of the film, I know it is going to be a huge pain but worth it if the footage is beautiful. I am just having trouble with it because I am trying to think of how to keep it one long action or trying to sneak in a cut somewhere along the way. I am just going to keep trying to visualize it in my head and see where I can take things. Other than that once I get my actors I will have to buy wardrobe for all of them and also find a few extras to sit in the squatter house.

In other news I have an experimental short film to get done by March 29th and I finally found inspiration from an unlikely source yesterday. I downloaded the album Want by 3OH!3 just to get all nostagilic. As I was listening I heard a pair of lyrics that really stuck to me for some reason, those lyrics are here:

Kill the lights,  
These children learn from cigarette burns, fast cars, fast women, and cheap drinks, 
It feels right,  
All these asphyxiated, self-medicated; take the white pill, you'll feel alright, 
Kill the lights,  
These children learn from cigarette burns, fast cars, fast women, and cheap drinks, 
It feels right, 
All these asphyxiated, self-medicated

For some reason I love this statement and I want to make a whole experimental video based around it. I think I am going to use a combination of film scratching, metric editing, and tint mixing to make this video pretty cool. I just want to see a visual to go along with this statement.


I totally failed my math test today...that is all.


Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Silent House Review

Yesterday I saw the film Silent House and it was one of those films that I am going to defend against all the negativity I am hearing from people. This film is 88 minutes of one long take that being said for a horror style film this is pretty remarkable especially considering the limitations of lighting for video. The story is seemingly simple but at the same time not at all, especially in the end which is something I will bring up in a second.

Anyway back to the main points first of all is lighting which as I said earlier I think was done fairly well in this movie although some of the points where there is pretty much no light was just a tad bit too dark and almost created a feeling of serenity for viewing which didn't help the tension build. The next point is score which to me was way too campy and kind of ruined the effect of the ambient sound. This film would have been way more engaging with just ambient sound, however I guess the filmmakers felt it would make the film boring for viewers or something. Next up is the acting which at times was good and bad, the worst point was the crying scenes for Elizabeth Olsen it almost seemed as though she was laughing which kind of makes sense if you take into consideration the ending but I feel is a small detail no one will really pick up on. The camera work of the film was a bit too handheld at times and instead of feeling engaging was a bit too jarring for me they could have used a preset in After Effects or something to help make the footage a little less shaky. Now time for the ending which is the most frustrating point of the film...not because it is bad but because so many people are not going to catch onto it. The ending is super duper pyschological and so much so that they average viewer is going to not understand it which will lead people to hate it. As I was walking out of the theater so many people were talking about how dumb the ending was...it is not dumb just as a heads up it is just something you will have to think about for a second, if you aren't willing to do that then don't go see it. Overall I don't think it is a must watch but is an enjoyable film with a good twist ending that to me makes the simple nature of the film even better. Check it out but be prepared to think about the ending.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess

Gearing Up

So I finally worked out things on my script and I have an official official final script done for Voicebox a film that I think can achieve greatness as long as it done well. I am very excited and watching the Oscars got me all thinking about the day that maybe I could go to the awards! That would be amazing. However I think they should totally have an award for best experimental film or short film at the Oscars but maybe that would make them too mainstream or something. I don't know.

Anyway I am very happy to have been featured in the Towerlight newspaper yesterday and it has been the first time since my first short film Abuse that I have had a story in the newspaper. So I have been having a lot of good fortune lately which I am very grateful for, I just hope it can keep going for a little bit.

Anything else...oh yeah I also sent the music video for Hello! to The Other Venice Film Festival out in California which has a category for judging music videos and I submitted it just for the hell of it. I think I may have mentioned it before but here it is again I guess. Otherwise things are just slowly building up to April when I hope to shoot the film.

Thanks for the support,
Daniel Hess