I’ve had several acts inquire about my creating a music video for them. We finally got such a project underway in the form of Two Eggs, Any Style by the Electro – Indie two piece rock group, Illicitizen yesterday, September 25. 2010 with the start of production. We shot primarily green screen and one additional location involving some graffiti and many scrambled eggs. This shot was a lot of fun and on hand for crew we had Jeremy Mullis, Eric Cook and Todd Britt. We finally got to employee the newly constructed MVP dolly and it worked like a charm. Todd’s modifications to the original design really paid off in ease of use and I cannot wait to utilize this amazing tool on future shoots. I am really excited to see what I can do with a music video and already have a high level of confidence in the footage we’ve shot. Now to work some post magic. As we all know, post can be a real Monkey Fighter! Never fear, Johnny Brento is here. Editor’s Note: I found this story abandoned in drafts when I wasn’t able to co-ordinate with the band to finish the video off in a further shoot. The video above is what we were left with and likely is all there will ever be since these folks have slipped off the grid like John Connor in Terminator 3! I also got a nasty comment from the bass player when I commented on this video on Facebook once, recently. I’m not sure if that was a drunk comment or whathae you, but it was deleted almost immediately. Anywho, I hope you Illicitizen’s are doing well and I hope they never catch you if you don’t want to be caught. Godbless,...
Read MoreBBFMP, Music Videos, Two Spies & New Art
I got a message on Facebook that sort of got overlooked for months due to it being from someone not in my friends list. It was a nice little message thanking me for doing Brento’s Budget Film Making Podcast. That’s the first such message I’ve received acknowledging the effort put into that little show. It was really cool to get that. That makes me think that I should do a show on creating no budget music videos. BBFMP was often overshadowed by it’s much more put together big brother show, MVP Mutant Radio, which is now, sadly defunct, at least for the time being. Anyways, great to be acknowledged and shout out to show listener, Krutin Amin, of Hanover Park, Illinois. Thanks for your message, Buddy. I’ll keep on making them if you keep on listening. At the current time, I’m working on a music video for Braden Harwood. Additionally, I have 3 other videos lined up to create as time allows, including one for Two Spies, though, obviously I’ll need help for that one. These things are like short films and as such, they make great anecdotes for BBFMP. It’s all great experience that I look forward to sharing on the show. I need to get a standard menu items for the podcast on this site, but for now you can access all the shows here or on iTunes. I’m up to #26 now so do check them out if you’re interested in film making for no money! Speaking of music videos, the one I’m working on now is for a southern rock tune called, “Getting Out of Here.” We’ve had two shoot days already and probably need one or tow more to complete capture the needed footage. I’m using a volunteer crew and often find myself being the only crew member on the set. The folks who have helped out have done so at some very serendipitous times and been of great value to the production. It’s hard to run a camera, direct and fly a drone all at once. I’m not above trying, but it’s difficult to say the least. I’ve also been working on pre-visuals for another epic multi-figure art piece. Here’s the loose concept not even close to being fleshed out. I’m resisting the urge to name it, “Stairway to Heaven.” You’ll be seeing a more fleshed out version of this work but it may be months as I want to create it at 4000 pixels wide and I’m using dynamic clothing on the figures making the climb. It moves things away from that Poser look I think, but it takes a lot of calculating memory and just time. When I start rebuilding this in the full size, I’ll need to have the look of my Seraphim, both male and female all worked out, so in that sense, this version is just a loose...
Read MoreAlways Remember. Never Forget.
As I waited for my wife to get ready this morning, I watched a few minutes of a program called, “Hero Dogs of 911.” I must admit listening to the stories from owners of those amazing rescue dogs that scoured the rubble saving only God knows how many lives and then when the survivors were no more, recovering the shattered bodies of those that remained really touched me. Still today’s anniversary didn’t occur to me until I got in and pulled up a web browser. There was that only too brief glowing period of brotherhood where everyone had a flag hung on their rear view mirror and people were kind, really kind to their fellow man. A decade on, I wish we could have held onto that. Bin Laden is dead having died at the hands of the US Navy Seals and Al Qaeda is essentially no more, though we have these ISIS jack asses to deal with now. In the grand sum of things, the attacks of 911 United us and indeed the world against terrorism. A vulnerability was removed and our preparation level to deal with such cowardly tactics has never been higher. 2,977 died on that day. Their deaths were a horrible cost to pay for our lack of security. Today I believe that those victims did not die in vain. God bless...
Read MoreWorking For Da Man
I was in the building quite early today, an hour away from home. I find that with our new bull pen seating concept, it’s good to get a little focus work time in before the rest of the troops arrive. All in all, this idea of putting us all at what is essentially one giant desk is a mixed back. It’s definitely more social which is great and instead of chatting someone on IM with a question, I just take my head phones off and ask them across the table. It’s when the separate meetings start happening at the same time that the efficiency kind of falls apart. Say 1 person at both ends of our table are on one call and the 3 other people are each on entirely different calls. It’s happened already and that’s loud. Still, I have team of great people who are all excellent to be around. I’m really just so glad to be here the minor inconveniences don’t matter all that much. This last week and this week have been exceedingly busy work wise, which I love. Next week looks to be the same. Bring it on says I. The parking deck under The Green has started an in before 8:00 AM $10 parking special. While I know that is a lot to pay for one days parking, when I do the math, it actually makes sense for me to park there the days I drive in. It’s literally the first time in my IT parking career that I’ve been able to park in the actual building I work I and that is totally rad. It’s a neat little area down there and though traversing to my takes requires 2 elevator rides, it’s so much quicker than walking from a block or 3 blocks...
Read MoreThe Strain – A Show you SHOULD Be Watching
It’s a great time to be a fan. The Strain, by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan is a thriller that tells the story of Dr. Ephraim Goodweather, the head of the Center for Disease Control Canary Team in New York City. He and his team are called upon to investigate a mysterious viral outbreak with hallmarks of an ancient and evil strain of vampirism. As the strain spreads, Eph, his team, and an assembly of everyday New Yorkers, wage war for the fate of humanity itself. A Boeing 767 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Ephraim “Eph” Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold. In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing. So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city – a city that includes his wife and son – before it is too late. That’s the IMDB synopsis. What it doesn’t tell you is how utterly butt kicking the main characters in this story is. Their Van Helsing archetype called, Abraham Setrakian is a total bad ass holocaust survivor. One of the servants of the master, “Eichorst” comes to bail him out in the guise of being his lawyer. In actuality he’s one of the Nazi’s who tortured him and killed his wife. I tell you what, he was calling the guy was calling him by his number and referring to him as “Jew” on the last night’s episode of the televised version, currently airing Sunday nights on FX Network. It really got my blood up. It’s so tense. These vampires are not your typical teenage angst glitter covered cliché’s. They are nasty. If you like your fantasy entertain with a splash of brutality, this is the show for you. As I just started on book 2 of the trilogy, The Fall, it’s just a neat thing to see it all fleshed out in live action. Guillermo del Toro, pffttt! What a genius that guys...
Read MoreHappy 4th of July
It’s been an interesting few weeks.Sometimes sticking up for what you believe in means either loosing a friend or breaking ties temporarily or even permanently. I recently had a “so called” music friend visit emotional hell on my soul. I’m not calling names, but if you follow my music projects you can figure it out. I’ve always had a bad habit of letting people get too close to me and my music, sometimes too fast. When you put your trust in someone who’s perhaps not the most trust worthy person or doesn’t have your best interest at heart. In my experience, if someone tells you that they are your best friend, or you are their best friend within a few weeks of spending time around them, chances are there is some emotional instability at play. It happened twice to me and I sincerely think the two folks in question have sociopathic tendencies. I’ve had a real “do nothing” kind of long weekend for July 4th. I took Nancee out to breakfast as her favorite restaurant, then to a shopping mall about an hour away and set her up with a bunch of spa activities, then bought her an expensive hair straightener. She seemed to have a good time, but I’m just not a big fan of crowded spaces. I also got my recently purchases iPhone 5s replaced at the Apple store. The one that they originally sent me had an issue with the glass separating in one corner. Of course dealing with AT&T’s sub standard service it was incumbent upon me to go and get the replacement in an Apple store an hour away. They want to put another $800 hold on my debit card to mail it which is total BS considering the phone didn’t even cost that much in the first place. Anyways, that was Friday. Saturday I pretty much hung out at the office and caught up on some episodic TV watching and messed with a few renders. Still pre-vising a flash back scene from my new script. That sort of led me to looking at the C For Chaos Web Series footage. I couldn’t seem to find the desire to work on it. That’s kind of the sad part of the whole thing. I care about finishing that project but when I feel completely dissed by someone, it’s hard to find the drive to work on their project. It’s not like I’m not still friends with JT, but it is a friendship I’ve had to redefine for myself and unfortunately, I think that at least for the near future we won’t be working together. I then decided to pull out some old footage I captured from one of the archive tapes. It’s a little skit originally created for our review of Terror In The Pharaoh’s tomb. Back in those days, we actually had fun working together...
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