Posts tagged ‘film’
“Betrayed” – The Trailer
I’m very excited to announce the launch of “Betrayed“, a short thriller co-written and directed by Joshua Grossberg and starring Seth Gilliam (The Wire), PJ Sosko, and Cara Buono (The Sopranos). Betrayed, one of the first narrative works to be shot on the Canon 5D Mark II, follows husband and reporter James Vance (PJ Sosko) who mysteriously disappears, but not before leaving a cryptic video diary leading law enforcement to unravel the crime of his demise.
The making of Betrayed begins about a year ago when I shot my first video (a music video of my younger sister, Etana) with the 5DII. As I was sifting through the raw footage, my friend/filmmaker Josh Grossberg happened to be in my neighborhood and stopped by for a visit. Excited that I’d just finished shooting my first video, I showed Josh some of the footage and he was blown away with the quality produced by the inexpensive DSLR. It was at that point we began to discuss the idea of collaborating to create a film.
Together we reached out to our friends and suddenly we had dozens of talented and eager crew members willing to volunteer their time to make this film. It should be noted that the overall cost was kept quite low, especially for film standards.
As a still-photographer, I certainly learned a great deal from this experience. Making a film is far more complicated than taking a still image and requires far more time, patience, and persistence to get to the end. The ambitious 4-day shoot involved numerous company moves which meant dozens of crew members had to work together to move all gear, props, etc. to multiple sites to shoot additional scenes….at times moving everything/everyone to different Burroughs throughout NYC all in the same day. Needless to say, after four 16-hour days with little sleep and nonstop work, everyone was exhausted by the end.
After the principle photography was wrapped in the Fall of 2009, there were numerous pick-up shots and scenes that still needed recorded. I also led visuals as part of a smaller crew working with the cast to record the remainder of the film over the next few months.
As if shooting the film wasn’t enough, then came another hurdle, post-production. After many revisions, editing of the short was finished in late fall; subsequently the trailer was recently completed. The short itself is being submitted to film festivals worldwide with the goal of raising the financing needed to shoot the feature-length version.
The past year has been full of adventure, learning – and much stress. I’m glad to finally be able to give you all a peek!
Hope you enjoy the trailer!
Here are some production stills I took while working on the project:
Betrayed Behind-The-Scenes for Blog – Images by Robert Caplin
From The Archives: Director Jason Reitman; Juno
Jason Reitman – Images by Robert Caplin
Another dip into the photo vault finds the hot film director, Jason Reitman, currently in the news for his latest movie, Up in the Air, starring George Clooney. Check out this cool interview with Jason Reitman I caught on my NPR podcast.
When I was commissioned by the Los Angeles Times in Feb 2008 to take his portrait, it was for a critical essay by Dennis Lim discussing the ways in which the new crop of Oscar-nominated best directors are emblematic of the direction cinema is moving. I’d link the story, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere online!
Jason’s publicist squeezed the shoot into his schedule at The London, a fancy hotel in New York. I showed up about 20 minutes early in order to find the hotel room and set up a few different poses prior to his arrival.
The highlight was when I used one of my awesome jokes to try and get a smile from the director… ”So a neutron walks into a bar and orders a beer. The bartender sets the beer down and says, “For you, no charge!”…
…but I only got pity.
Hey Jason, if you’re looking for a production photographer for your next flick…you know where to find me!
From The Archives – Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Images by Robert Caplin
Some time ago I was assigned to take a portrait of Academy Award winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman for the Los Angeles Times. It was back when he had three films releasing in three months: Before the Devil Knows You re Dead, The Savages, and Charlie Wilson’s War.
Normally when I shoot celebrities it’s during a “press junket”, which is when the production company is promoting a new movie and they invite the press to interview/photograph the cast. They’ll typically rent out an entire floor (or more) of a fancy-pants hotel (this time the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue) and they give me a hotel room to set up some quick portraits. I usually get about 10 minutes to take a portrait….usually less. Also, the celebrities are usually flanked by their publicists who like to give me a hard time and tell me what to do and how to take the photo. Fortunately for this shoot, the publicist was extremely kind and corporative when I asked if there was a chance we could shoot on the roof of the hotel, rather than in a hotel room.
The hotel manager brought my assistant and me to the roof to scout it some good locations and I quickly realized it’d make for some good photos. Philip was kind enough to climb up to the very top and sit on the edge of the building…I actually think he got a little worried as when he was sitting on the edge, when I asked him to change poses, he said, “Um, no thanks”.
All and all, a successful shoot!
Of course I had to get a shot of myself on the edge!
