SHIFT Kuwait & May Festivals

To Rest in Peace has continued its festival run, screening at four events since the DGA in April.

We're honoured to have screened at SHIFT, a charity event that seeks to shift your perspective on Kuwaiti cinema. I had a chance to see most of these films on the festival circuit, and to meet some of the filmmakers. From all accounts, it was a successful evening, and I wish I could have been there to celebrate.

We also screened with a showcase of USC films at the Newport Beach Film Festival, a few miles away from where we shot most of To Rest in Peace (at El Toro Airfield).

Our Italian premiere happened in Naples, with the Social World Film Festival. 

And we went back to the mountains for the Lake Arrowhead Film Festival in California.

LACMA Muse Young Directors Night

To Rest in Peace is being showcased at the Los Angeles County Museum of the Arts!

Saturday, March 10th at 7:30 PM, for the LACMA Muse Young Directors Night.

This will be one of the last major stops for To Rest in Peace. It's been over a year since we started our festival run, and the film is still going strong. There are a couple of festivals I haven't announced yet, and we get the occasional random screening request. But my main focus now is on other projects: the mini Roman epic I recently shot, and a new feature script I'm writing. More info to come.

Congrats also to my friends Michael Koerbel for In Captivity, and Isaac Ergas for Snow, both screening at LACMA's Young Directors Night. I'm looking forward to seeing those films, and their directors again soon!

The picture of LACMA above is by Sean Conaty, director of photography for To Rest in Peace.

Irvine International Film Festival

To Rest in Peace is starting 2012 at the Irvine International Film Festival! The festival runs January 12-16, and our screening is on Saturday, January 14, at 12:30PM.

We shot most of the film at an abandoned air field near Irvine. That's where we staged the car with two dead bodies, which is the story's center of gravity. It took months of location scouting, all over Southern California, to finally find a place that could double for Kuwait. And if you look at the picture above of the festival venue, it looks so much like a Kuwaiti mall!

We're looking forward to going back to Irvine for the film festival.

Two lectures on Art and Film

I have the honour of joining Luc Travers, of Touching the Art, for a double lecture on 'Storytelling in Art and Film' this Saturday, November 19th at 2PM in Aliso Viejo, California. 

Luc will be speaking on John William Waterhouse, and I will be speaking on 'The Cutting Room: How Filmmakers Shape Their Story," with reference to Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven.

Here are the descriptions of the two lectures:

2PM Introducing Waterhouse 

by Luc Travers

Waterhouse is beloved for his poignant and evocative visions.  However, he is a master "storyteller" as well.  In this lecture, we will discuss some of his masterpieces as well as some little-known works to gain a better understanding of how to "read" the "story" in an artwork.

3:30PM The Cutting Room: How Filmmakers Shape Their Story 

by Fawaz Al-Matrouk

Editing has been called "the final rewrite," when the various pieces of a movie are shaped into the story we see. Fawaz will discuss the filmmaker's art, using two very different versions of the same movie, Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven.

I first met Luc on his tour of the San Diego Museum of Art. He showed me a new and more enjoyable way of looking at art. I used to go straight for the information plaque, but Luc makes you really experience the art, and enjoy it without knowing anything about the history, artist, style or subject. 

I've been very excited by Luc's work in bringing this experience to people through his tours, and now his book. So it was doubly an honour when Luc asked me to give a lecture about storytelling in film. And I had the perfect subject in mind, something I've talk about informally, and have always wanted to give a presentation on. Kingdom of Heaven.

Ridley Scott's epic about the crusades was released theatrically, and later re-released with a director's cut. The differences between the two versions are astounding. Subtle changes make for two very different stories, with different characters, obstacles and themes. Comparing the two is a great way to understand a filmmaker's choices in building a story. 

For the lecture, we will watch the opening sequence from each version, and discuss the differences, and how they change our experience. 

If you're in town, we'd love to see you there. If you're not, you can see Luc's lecture by live or recorded webcast. And you can check out his book, Touching the Art: A New Approach to Art Appreciation.

Stay tuned for a report from Mizna's Twin Cities Arab Film Festival. 

SoCal Best Student Short!

To Rest in Peace won best student short at the SoCal Independent Film Fest! Congrats to the cast & crew.

The picture above is of me and Mir Waiss Najibi at the screening. Mir played one of the dead men that Malek buries in To Rest in Peace.  We were so grateful for his involvement, and for Ralph Lopez. They were both on set for several days, early in the morning, getting into dead man make-up, and always cheerful.

One of my fondest memories of set was a blooper that Mir and Ralph created. We were filming a close-up of the two dead bodies, and before I yelled 'cut,' the bodies came to life, looked around in a daze, and decided to leave. The whole crew had a good laugh.

Our festival run continues. More news to come.

SoCal Independent Film Festival

 

To Rest in Peace will return to Huntington Beach for the SoCal Independent Film Festival! The festival runs September 28th to October 2nd. Our screening is on Thursday, September 29th at 1:10PM.

I say 'return,' because we shot our last day of principle photograph on Huntington Beach. People often point to this scene as one they are sure was shot in Kuwait. The Towers of Kuwait appear in the background, as Malek is contemplating the water. But these were filmed separately by Ali Younis, and then composited by Michael Ashton. The scene itself was shot by Sean Conaty with our priniciple photography crew in Huntington Beach, California.

Incidentally, if you would like to see more of Kuwait, Ali Younis has some beautiful nature videos up on his YouTube channel. Check out Kuwait's Desert in Spring. And did you know that Kuwait has flamingos?

The beach scene is one of my personal favourites in To Rest in Peace. It is the moment when Malek, having struggled with his choice of whether or not to risk his life and bury the two dead men himself, has reached the end of the road. There is no where else to go, and he is forced to contemplate his decision in a communion with nature. Part of the inspiration was this sentiment by Lord Byron, from Childe Harold's Pilgrimmage:

     There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
     There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
     There is society, where none intrudes,
     By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
     I love not man the less, but Nature more, 

     From these our interviews, in which I steal 

     From all I may be, or have been before, 

     To mingle with the Universe, and feel 

     What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Michael Benyaer gave a layered performance, underscored by Leah Curtis's music. This is one scene that stayed almost exactly the same throughout the editing process, from Zachary Dehm's first cut.

I look forward to revisiting Huntington Beach. It was the end of our production, but not of our festival run. More festival news is coming up soon, including our Canadian premiere. And we're off to the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival tomorrow! 

Charles Anteby

Charles Anteby's latest demo reel includes a scene from To Rest in Peace.

The scene was shot on our third day of production. During the screening in Kuwait, several people tried to guess which local hospital we filmed in. But this was actually filmed in Santa Clarita, California. Kudos to our production design team.

The third day of production was particularly difficult, because of a big technical setback we had in the morning. We were not able to get our first shot in until after lunch, and then only because of some major problem solving by camera department, grips and electrics, and producers. Having a professional cast with a good attitude helped us rally and rescue the scene. My biggest concern when the crew is working against the clock is: will the stress of the day affect the performances? But I was very happy from "action" to "cut."

Congrats to Charles on your continued success!

LA Shorts Screening

We had a great screening at the LA Shorts Fest yesterday. Thanks to everyone who came out!

It was touching to see so many friends, who had already seen the film, come out to see it again on the big screen. And it was an opportunity to share the film with a new audience, and some talented filmmakers we met at the festival.

Pictured above are some of the cast and crew who came to the screening. Back row, left to right: producer Josh Clavir, star Michael Benyaer, producer Evan Cholfin. Front row: composer Leah Curtis, special thanks Julia Macri, director me, cinematographer Sean Conaty, star Merik Tadros, and first assistant director (and so much more) John Dion.

In the question and answer period, someone asked about the biggest challenge we faced in making To Rest in Peace. For me, it was definitely finding the right cast and the right locations.

We filmed principle photography in Southern California to match for Kuwait, which took almost a year of location scouting. Casting was equally difficult. We ran many auditions over several months. There was a time when, between location scouting and casting, I considered pulling the plug. The story is so important to me, it seemed better to put it on hold than to do it injustice. Then Michael Benyaer found us. And he introduced us to Merik Tadros. And our casting director, Cleo Valente, brought in her friend, Rajia Baroudi. And with that trinity in place, I knew I had a movie.

Moving forward, we were able to find the perfect person for every role, Paul and Andre Yousefian for the children, Michel Bayan and Zack Morad for the soldiers, Charles Anteby for the doctor, Hugh Mun and Anan Mallik for the Red Crescent workers, and, of course, Ralph Lopez and Mir Weiss Najibi for the two men whom Malek buries.

It has been such a long journey, and this festival stop is one of the brightest highlights. LA Shorts is still going on, so we look forward to more screenings over the next week!

LA Shorts Fest Tickets

Tickets are now available for the LA Shorts Fest. To Rest in Peace will be screening with Program 7, Friday, July 22nd, 5:30 PM at the Laemmle Sunset 5.

It looks like a strong collection of films this year, including several great shorts from USC. Check out their opening night program, with films directed by Terry Gilliam, Eva Mendes, Jessica Biel and Rachel Weisz.

This festival will be a highlight in our run so far. If you are in Los Angeles, we hope to see you there!

LA Shorts Fest

To Rest in Peace has been invited to the LA Shorts Fest!

We're particularly excited about this one. It's one of the largest short film festivals in the world, and since most of our cast and crew live in Los Angeles, it will be a great opportunity to reconnect, and to promote the film.

I'll let you know about the screening date and time as soon as we have it. In the meantime, if you're going to be in LA, mark your calendars! The LA Shorts Fest is July 22-30.

Some Assembly Required: A Collection of USC Thesis Films

Two short films I edited will be premiering this Sunday, May 15th, 6 P. M. at the Eileen Norris Theatre, University of Southern California.

Cupid, directed by John Dion, is a comedy about a disillusioned Cupid, who wants to quit his job and go home. He is tired of making people fall in love, only to see them fall apart. But before he gets a ticket back, he has to finish one final assignment.

Found, directed by Anthony Bushman, is a drama about an adopted young man, who discovers new information about his biological mother, and begins a search into his past and identity.

Both directors appear in the 'Production Metaphor' blog post, from August 2009. Cupid also appears in the Valentine's update from 2010.

They are showing with a group of six USC thesis films, including Matt MacDonald's GoldenBox, which was shot by the cinematographer for To Rest in Peace, Sean Conaty.

Here is the full list of films:

Children of the Air - Directed by Damian Horan

Found - Directed by Anthony Bushman

The Maiden and the Princess - Directed by Ali Scher

GoldenBox - Directed by Matt MacDonald

Mother's Milk (Sữa Mẹ) - Directed by Andy DeJohn

Cupid - Directed by John Dion

L.A. New Wave Int'l Film Festival

To Rest in Peace will be screening this Tuesday, May 10th, at the Los Angeles New Wave International Film Festival.

The screening will be part of the Short & Student Films Program 2, 9:15 PM at The Hayworth Theater. You can purchase tickets here. And check out the festival's full screening schedule here.

This will be the first screening in Los Angeles, since the private event at Paramount Studios last May. If you're in town, I hope to see you there!

Unsung Heroes of Production Design

To Rest in Peace is unofficially picture locked, awaiting a thumbs up from its faculty mentor, Amanda Pope. This is a good time to reflect on some of the great work that never made it into the final cut.

Films often have to cut out lines, scenes, or even entire characters. (Compare the director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven to the theatrical release, which is missing a key character in the story). Fortunately, To Rest in Peace has not lost any scenes or characters. But there's a lot of great production design that won't make it onto the screen.

My personal favourite is the 'emergency room' sign in the hospital scene, pictured above. The art department did an amazing job of transforming a drab Santa Clarita set, into a Kuwaiti hospital. At a test screening in Kuwait, several people in the audience were convinced that we filmed at a local hospital. Thanks to Katie Byron the production designer, Henry Alvarado the art director, Rebecca Eskreis the set dresser, and the art PAs Julianne Dome, Cynthia Fox, Monica Sender and Stephanie Wooten.

The scene ended up playing best in one continuous steadicam shot, beautifully operated by David Baldwin. But the shot never looks in that direction. So, dear 'emergency room' sign, we'll miss you.

There was a lot of great work by the art department that never made it into the final cut, or even into the dailies. But what it did was completely free us to shoot in any direction we needed. We were standing in the spaces of our imagined world, and every detail around us was true to the characters and the story.

Crossing the Gulf

There's a nice little high speed ferry to Failaka. It has luxury seating, and takes about 45 minutes to cross the gulf. It does not, however, take cars.

So... in order to get our 1989 black mercedes over for filming, we had to take this beast of a ferry, which took almost two hours. There was a long lineup of cars, and you had to get there early in the morning, to make sure you found a spot.

It was well worth it, though. The mercedes was both a good platform for getting the background plates for the green screen shots, and a perfect match for the mercedes we had filmed in Los Angeles.

This will be a busy week, with picture lock coming up soon. Next post will report on a small test screening we're having today. Until then...

Shots II

More stills. Not colour corrected.

Malek and Ali face the approaching Iraqi soldiers.

The green screen will be replaced by 2nd unit footage of Kuwait.

Joey's big screen debut! See the post from April 30th.

Shots I

Some stills from the film. These were taken from the dailies, and are not properly colour corrected. More to come!

Malek discovers the two dead men.

Haider sleeps on his father's lap. With a cameo from my stuffed tiger, original to 1989.

Malek contemplates whether or not to bury the bodies himself.

Day 10 of 10!

We completed principle photography today!

Our last day was a half day at Huntington Beach. We arrived at 5 pm. The sun set just before 8 pm. And we got all 7 shots we wanted.

It was cloudier than expected, but that may have come out in our favour. We could not see the setting sun, which would not have been accurate to Kuwait.

We will now spend several months picture editing, before going to Kuwait in October for second unit.

In the picture above, left to right, Sean Conaty the DP, Rich Prugh the set photographer, and Chloe Weaver the 1st AC. Mohammed Al-Kazemi is in the background. He is my cousin, and such a pleasure to have on set. He was the stand-in for our lead, Michael Benyaer. He also captured some behind the scenes footage, which I am look forward to see and expurgate.

Days 6 through 9 of 10

A goofy picture.

No... we're not making a comedy. But after 9 days of production, you need a bit of goofiness.

Left to right, our set photographer Rich Prugh, behind him our 2nd AD Kaveh Taherian, then three of our wonderful cast, Asad Durrani as the neighbour, Ralph Lopez as an officer, and Junes Zahdi as a soldier. Ralph also played one of the two corpses that the film centers around. Cardo Blas was another soldier in this scene, but was not around for the picture.

Days 6 through 9 have been challenging, but we made it through, and managed to enjoy ourselves along the way.

Day 6 was the continuation of scene 10, the "Big One" from Day 5. We got up to letter U in coverage. It was particularly fortunate, because this was both the most complicated scene, and some off set issues had prevented me from doing my usual prep the day before. Despite the obstacles, we made it through and shot a good scene, well covered.

Day 7 we stayed at El Toro Airfield to shoot the scene when Malek first sees the two dead bodies that start him on his journey. We did so well with that scene that we were able to sneak in a few more close ups from scene 10, before closing out the location. We also managed to have some fun with Ralph and Mir, who were playing the corpses. After a long shot of them in the car, they asked us to roll again for a surprise. We slated it "10 Z" for "Zombie", and I called "action"; to which Ralph and Mir slowly woke up, snuck out of the car, looked around cautiously, then BOLTED in the opposite direction. It was a great laugh.

Day 8 we filmed our neighbourhood scene, where Malek sees his neighbour arrested, and later brought back tortured. It was a rainy morning, so we shot our close-ups first, which was a good gamble. By the time we were finished, the rain had cleared, the ground had dried, and we were able to shoot our wides.

Day 9 was a green screen day. We had a slow pace, got more than we planned for, and finished earlier than scheduled. We shot various driving scenes, which we will then combine with footage from Kuwait.

Today is a day off. We have half a day left at Huntington Beach. Then we go into post production, and start seeing cuts.

Updates will continue to be posted. Thanks for following us on this journey.

Days 4 and 5 of 10

We missed a day of blogging! Monday was a day off. Sunday night was our overnight, to shoot the climactic scene of the film. That went enormously well.

Today was the first half of shooting our scene 10, commonly referred to as the "big one." It's 3 pages, with five vehicles and eight actors. That was very complicated and very fun to start on. Looking forward to completing it tomorrow.

Short blog today. It's almost midnight, and call is at 6AM. More to come!

Picture above is from our wonderful set photographer, Mr. Rich Prugh.

Day 3 of 10

A good day 3. We had some big technical set backs that pushed our first shot until after lunch. With only a couple of hours left, the team rallied together, pushed through, and was able to create a beautiful scene.

It was so lovely to see all the actors in Kuwaiti clothing, moving through a space that the art department had made completely authentic. We missed a couple of shots that would have really showed the full glory of the art department's work. But we have our scene, and a beautiful scene, with several options for post-production, which is exactly what we need.

I was moved by how many people we were able to get for extras, and Prasanna Iyengar, our costume designer, did a great job of dressing them all. Pictured above, left to right, are Vachan, Kamal, my dad Faisal and Mohammad, who was kind enough to bring Kamal and a contingent of seven or so people. Mohammad will also play a man who is stopped by soldiers and interrogated on Tuesday.

Rich Prugh, our set photographer, was not on set today, and will not be tomorrow. We missed him! Looking forward to having him back on Tuesday for Day 5.

Sunday night is an overnight shoot for our climactic scene. Then a much deserved day off for everyone on memorial day.