But I thought she was American

Minnie Driver. I thought she was American. The few things that I saw her in, Return To Me comes to mind(sorry), she did not have an English accent. Turns out, she's from London. Found out about that when she was on Fresh Air, or something. She's also a very accomplished musician, which she did before getting into acting. She and fellow Brit, Eddie Izzard both have various accents on The Riches, since they're Irish Travellers.


Which leads me to this tangent: English actors who can mimic convincing American accents. I started noticing English Actors who are able to do good American accents a long time ago. Many, over the years, have done the southern accent. I can't refer to anybody specifically, maybe Roddy McDowell, in some movie, or TV shows. For some reason, in the past, English actors gravitated to a southern accent. Not sure if it's easier for them, or they just like the sound, or what.

English actors with American accents have built up over the years and now there's a bunch of them on American TV. And they don't have southern accents.


I started watching Bionic Woman and fell in love with Michelle Ryan. I'm a sucker for brown hair and blue eyes. So, when I check out her IMDB page, I find out she's english. Huh. Her Jaimie Sommers character is accent free. She's still teh hott, English, or not. However, I'm in agreement with my friend Bill about Bionic Woman, not great, but not bad and Katie Sackhoff is a great baddie. Ryan did get to talk in her natural accent in the last episode where she plays an English exchange student.


Before that, I started watching another NBC show, Life, starring Damien Lewis. I really like Lewis, but I'm not wild about his character in Life. I first remember Lewis in HBO's Band of Brothers WWII mini series. In Life, he's an American cop in LA. The stories are pretty good. I've seen him in more films with an American accent, Dream Catcher and the afore mentioned films, than I have seen him perform in his own natural voice. It was weird to see Lewis in behind the scenes footage for Brothers, speaking with his normal English accent.

So, yeah, there's a bunch of Limeys running around, that sound like Yanks.

This post may be my most linktacular since I started the blog. Dynamic links are the only HTML I know.

Triple 30

Indy rocker, Arthur Adams, of the San Francisco based band Blammos, is doing something very ambitious for the month of November: thirty songs, over thirty days and thirty music videos.

Wow!

Check out Blammos' Blog

ANNOUNCING:

BLAMMOS does November:
30 days 30 songs 30 videos

Each day Arthur will be posting a video on the blog. Each video will feature a different song. They will range from live performances to music videos to multimedia experiments to who knows what. They will be shot in various locations featuring members of BLAMMOS, friends, relatives, other bands and strangers. They will be shot the same day they are posted (unless he's REAAAAALLLY busy, in which case there will be two the following day).



Here is the video I shot for Bill and Arthur last year. Candleblog Captain and filmmaker Bill Simmon may fly on over and help Arthur make some groovy vids and maybe a song or two, too.

Watch Blammos Does November videos here. The first one is already up, so keep going back to the Blammos Youtube page through November to see and hear the fun.

Thanks to Bill & Arthur.

Hamptons International Film Festival

Tis The Season, a short film that I shot last year, is an official entry at the Hamptons International Film Festival. We had a great time shooting, despite the subzero temps. Our little star, Jayden, was a real trooper and even though she wasn't feeling her best, she turned in a great performance. Bern Cohen and Jayden's mom, Ann, also did a great job. Ann is a former Rockette and Bern has been in just about everything.


Bern puts on gloves between takes


Watching the monitor during playback. From left, Hila, Bob and his brother Tom.

Of course, during that whole winter, there was no snow. We shot on a weekend where it was threatening to snow, which would have shut us down. The first day of production started out not too cold, but then the next two days were below zero and of course, we were outdoors the whole time. People ran back to cars and vans to get warm and our lunch on the second day was at a friend of the producer's, just a couple of blocks away.


Me rehearsing with our Producer, Sarah.


I parked as close as possible to set (my car's bumper is at the far left of frame)and I made sure Camera World was right next to Crafty. Adam, left, and Matt wait for the word. Mat was my AC and got things together pretty quickly. I think we got there at around six, or seven.


Tom came to set to shoot behind the scenes footage. No doubt for extra features on the DVD :~) .


Ann, Jayden and Bob answer questions at the Domani Vision Film Festival this past September.


Adam and I with my XL2, CW's camera jib, my dolly and track.


So many cameras on set! Moto shot stills for us. Tom is in the background rolling on other fun happenings.

Mac

Thanks to a little help from my family, I am the proud owner of a brand new baby MacBook Pro. I will slowly be learning how to use FCP 6 and all the other programs in the Studio suite.


Thanks also to Rob G @ Tekserve who helped us with the sale.

Before I dig into all of that, I also have a little bit if paperwork to catch up on.

More Night Stuff

Alexis made me dinner a couple of months ago, because I lent her some of my lighting gear and a wireless lavs for a shoot she had. It was very yummy pasta and very yummy wine that we had with it. Alexis works in a wine shop, Mr. Wright, so she is able to get very good wine.


We went up to the roof of her building and looked at the cars, the GW bridge and pondered on some lights up in the night sky that didn't move, but stayed in place. Don't know what they were.

Nightscapes

Nightscape, Virginia, August, 2007.

I've always been interested in taking pictures at night. I'm not really sure why. Ever since I was in high school, when I began to do my own darkroom work. I enjoyed taking long exposures and then seeing what my experiments had brought. It's still fun, because I have a better idea of what things will look like, but you still don't always know exactly what you'll get and that's part of the fun.


Nightscape, Virginia, August, 2007.

I like the camera's ability to see into the darkness and the way the different colored streetlights create interesting pools of light and reflections. I also like the feeling of isolation and decay that accompanies these photos, because I'm in an urban area, or on some old bridge, or factory. Rochester was great. I did a lot of night photography and I even did some 8x10 night shots.


Here is my walk across the Queensboro Bridge last year:
http://mark-sasahara.blogspot.com/2006/02/night-ii.html
http://mark-sasahara.blogspot.com/2006/02/night.html

Other night shots:
http://mark-sasahara.blogspot.com/2006/07/francis-b-day-in-providence.html
http://mark-sasahara.blogspot.com/2006/10/random-pix.html
http://mark-sasahara.blogspot.com/2006/05/after-after-party.html

http://mark-sasahara.blogspot.com/2006/02/kentucky-and-tennesee.html

Near Houston St.

A few weeks ago, I was on my way to meet a friend in the East Village. While walking along W. Houston Street, I had to walk around some construction because the sidewalk was closed. There, I encountered this lovely color of magenta/red and had to take some snaps. The blob on the right is the shadow from this flag that was blowing in the wind and constantly changing shape. I think this is Thompson, or Sullivan Street, right near the corner of W. Houston

Not Sweating It, Bro.

This summer, Don't Sweat It went full speed and shot two seasons back to back. The crazy schedule, coupled with the really hot and humid weather made us all take naps every now and again. Here, during lunch, Ed uses his head as Jimmy double checks lumber measurements.

McCarren Park Pool, August 2007

I met my friend Lauretta at the McCarren Park Pool in 'Billburg for the weekly Sunday concert back in August. I'm now finally getting around to posting images. Here are some pix and yes, some of you sharp eyed visitors will notice that I have cropped a couple from the original.









I was sitting on the ground and couldn't see the stage, but the music was pretty good and I just enjoyed the beautiful summer day.

Midnight, this Friday, come and see my movie!

This Friday, September 14th at Cinema Village, is the Midnight screening of The Junior Defenders! Yes, me in all my B-Movie DP glory.



Well, I was a doubter at first, but Writer/Director and editing whiz Keith Spiegel finally has a cut of Junior Defenders that has been released. Warner Home Video has picked up the movie formerly known as Groupies.


The Junior Defenders cast take a moment, on set for a group photo. From left to right:
Justin Henry, Fred Hazelton, Brian O'Halloran, Ally Sheedy, Jason David Frank.

Come to Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street, between 5th Ave and University Place, a little before midnight, on Friday and watch the film that I shot, on film, lovely film, ten years ago. Directions to Cinema VIllage.


Keith spent a lot of time and money working on this, over the years, cutting and re-cutting the film, getting celebrity interviews and finally getting John Waters to narrate. Burlington College helped out by letting Keith use, the then, not so antiquated VHS editing system and then Steve Beattie helped out and for literally years, helped Keith with the edit. Sometimes they could only work once every three weeks. Kudos to them for their persistence and tenacity.