Home of director and photographer, Daniel Finley dannyjive.com

One of the less exciting, but necessary aspects of producing films is tracking down and buying video production insurance. This is insurance above and beyond homeowner’s insurance and applies to equipment, general liability, workers comp, and errors and omissions. The city of Chicago will not give you a permit to shoot in public unless you [...]

Bah. Blogging is tougher than I thought. Hard to keep posting when the only “exciting” things I do are business plan stuff and meetings. Think I’m going to start including articles on filmmaking and the few movies and books I’ve read. In ScorpFrog news, things are good. Giau says he’s color corrected the first scene [...]

It was a big DVD weekend for me. I wanted to take a breather from last week’s shoot and create some distance from my memory of the footage. This allows me to re-attack the footage with a fresh mind. First up was Stardust, a story based on a novel by Neil Gaiman of most recent [...]

Ah, once again, another meeting for the mystery project. I’ve gotten some great news, but because it’s all hush hush, I can’t say anything at the moment. The business plan is coming along nicely and we’re about to work on the PPM. (If you know what a PPM is, then you’ll have a good idea [...]

Hoping to get all the footage color corrected today. Going to bring out the nice, lush color Adri the Art Director, put into the scene. Until then, here are more photos to tide you over: Oooo, this would be a fun poster or DVD cover.   Mike Simmer in costume and 40s make up.   [...]

Now we enter all the footage into the computer and sort, sort, sort. Things are looking good so far. I might even be able to have a rough cut together in two weeks. I’ve been talking with the composer about the mood and tone of the piece and it looks like we’re off to a [...]

Whew. What a long day… but we did it! The Scorpion and the Frog is in the can! After two and a half months of prep, rehearsals, make up tests, location scouts, hiring crew and preparing the shoot, we did it. Man, I’m tired out. Woke up at 4am, printed off my actor notes and [...]

Here’s an example of the age changes we’ll do for The Scorpion and the Frog. Aimee in her 20′s. Aimee 40s. You can’t see the grey hairs in this one and her hair will be up.   Mike 20s. We’ll shave the beard on set.   Mike 40s. We’ll add more 5 o’clock shadow for [...]

Wow, great night of rehearsals. Wonderful energy from the talent. I think we’re in really good shape for Saturday. Hard to believe it’s only a day away. Here’s some photos from this evening. I’ll post a few more on Friday. Mike Simmer and Aimee Algas reading over the script.   Richard Forkin running through his [...]

Been offered another gig! Awesome. I love to work. Not sure if I’ll take this one quite yet, though. Going to decide on it after the shoot.