TODAY (Nov. 15th) is HEATHER COUTTS' birthday

So who the hell is Heather Coutts? Well she is my gorgeous, amazing, sassy, sexy and downright wonderful girlfriend. Besides being my backbone and helped cast and produce Tremble & Spark, she also plays the key supporting role of Annette. I don't know how the hell she was able to keep her shit straight, but she did.

I always knew that Heather (she likes to spell her name hthr) was going to play Annette (who is Veronica's assistant in T&S. ) I wrote the role for her - mousy, insecure, and a little bit nuts - all the things Hthr is not. For someone who has her background in theater - she nailed it! Hands down I get more compliments about her performance than anyone else in the film. Make me pretty proud as a director, producer and girlfriend.

As a producer - I couldn't have asked for anyone else to pick up in the areas that I couldn't handle. I got a lot of advice, and offers for help, but many of that all fell through. People are busy - I get it - especially when I didn't have money to pay a producer. There were many nights when I would call her up on the verge of cracking and she just picked up the ball and ran with it. She handled all of the casting, paperwork, and - well I don't really know everything she did because I was so busy I couldn't pay attention! I don't know how she did it all AND learn her lines.

So on her birthday - baby this is ALL FOR YOU! I love you and thank you so much for making this happen! (and I promise you will get that tattoo as payment!)

What's new?

I'm heading out to LA this weekend for a really short trip. I arrive on Sunday around 1pm and then fly out Tuesday at 2pm. Reason - going to plop Jessica and Cathy in a sound booth to re-record their audio. I feel like I am spending too much money on this film, but I believe in the end it's the right thing to do. I could try and bullshit my way through it and use the existing audio, but that would just be a bad bad bad. Well that's about all i have for right now...really busy at the job that pays me money to fund this darn project!

WE ARE CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD!!!!!

Yep. The last time the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series I was 8 years old. I watched the game with my dad, brother and mom and jumped for joy as the Tugger won the whole damn thing in 1980 with a fierce strike out!

Now we just won it again - 28 years later and as fate and spooky superstitions would dictate we did it again with a fierce strikeout. I can't believe it. Not because I didn't believe in the Phillies, but because I just was sooo anxious that I was afraid. Somehow though, i knew we would do it. All of the players - Howard broke out of his slump at the right time - back to back home runs. Brunlett and pitcher Blanton with solo shots. Chase and J-Roll in their brilliant defense. Ruiz and Feliz with their clutch hits and the flyin' Hawiian Victorino with balls-out brilliance on the field. Then Mr. Ice - Brad Lidge just shut the shit DOWN. Perfect all season - hats off to you.

But seriously we would not have won without Path the Bat. I have not been a fan of Pat Burrell for a long time, but tonight Mr; 0-13 that Joe Buck (who should die) kept reminding us of. But Pat did the best thing he ever could do - hit a double in the gapper and get on base and start it off.

So raise it up!

Because we are... CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD!!!!

and this is what Broad St. looked like last night. One word: INSANE!!!

Cathy DeBuono on Tuna Talk - What??

The fabulous star of Cathy DeBuono hit the air...er... internet waves recently and was interviewed for the popular youtube show Tuna Talk. Check it out and be prepared to laugh because this is funny as hell.

And because I am retarded and I haven't figured out how to imbed video in my posts, you have to see it the old fashion way > click the link

Busy busy busy

It's been awhile since I have posted anything. Sorry bout that. We have moved into the next phase of sound mixing/design and composing. We also need to have another fundraiser to pay for all of this. If anyone has any ideas, please toss them my way. I'm not in desparate mode, but close! Check out the awesome sound designer who is working on Tremble & Spark. His name is Rob Hunt > http://www.roberthuntmusic.com/. He's awesome.

Well that's about it. The Phillies are playing in the NLCS championship series and that's my focus righ now. Go Phils!

Read it!

Some might call it lazy, other's might call it boring, but I call it - "I'm too freakin' busy today to write a blog!"


Seriously though, the fine folks at PGN recently did a feature article in their "Detours" section of the PGN. (Currently there is a wonderful and exclusive Barack Obama [please register to vote] article on the home page.) I was absolutely tickled pink (and not the singer).


They originally were going to do the article on one of our stars Cathy DeBuono who was in town to play the lead role - Charlie Forest. Then I get a call from Larry Nichols wanting to do a follow up interview because they wanted to expand the article - and boy did they!! I am very excited about this so please check it out!

Cover Page 1 Page 2

10 things I learned shooting my first film in no particular order

1. Never try and produce a film by yourself.

2.Always get a master shot - a couple of times.

3. ALWAYS get close ups. You can't rely on master shots.

4. Don't forget about the reverse shot. (I did that a couple of times.)

5. Multiple takes are a good thing.

6. When your AD (assistant director) is screaming at you to move on, take TWO more takes. When your crew spent 2 hours setting up lights, roll the fucking camera as much as you can because in the end you will need the coverage when editing.

7. No matter how much preparation you do, it's never enough.

8. When shooting on location - make sure there is a bathroom.

9. Always have caffeine on set even at 4am when packing up lights.

10. I should have eaten more. My close friends know how important it is for me to EAT!

And the bonus point: Always clean up the glass before your "dead" actor lies on the ground.

I have this obsession...

It's the Divine Lorraine Hotel.

When I moved to Philly in 1996 I used to live in East Falls... and hated it. I know it's a lovely little nestle in this great city we call Philadelphia, but it felt (and still does) that it's like the suburbs - particularly where I grew up in Allentown, Pa. One day I was driving from work and I just could not stand sitting on the Sure-kill we call the Skuykill Ave so I took the scenic route of Kelly Drive and headed through the city. It certainly didn't take me any less time driving through the city, but as I was cruising down Fairmount Ave there it was. A beautiful and magnificent building was just sitting there opposite me as I waited at the intersection of Broad Street and Ridge Ave to change. Cupid's arrow struck me and I totally fell in love with this amazing and behemoth building. I had to know about it.

See I'm a lover of history and I had to find out about the Divine Lorraine. I am also slightly obsessed with religious imagery (I have 2 tattoos that prove that) and seeing the word "Divine" clearly tickled my fancy. And here's what I found out...

A reverend from NY was looking for a new place to settle his congregation (International Peace Mission) back in the 1940s and by 1948 Father Divine has purchased this fine building and set up shop. Everyone had to obey by the rules - no drinking, women and men where not allowed in the rooms together, and he imposed strict curfews.

Many years had past and the Divine Lorraine was opened up to people who needed to rent the room for a short amount of time like a week. Patrons did not have to become a member of the Mission, but needed to adhere to the rules of the establishment.

After reading all of this I was completely hooked on this hotel. For some reason I love buildings. There is just something about man-made eyesores that I am attracted to. So I basically changed my route to work just so I would drive past this building every day. When I eventually moved to center city, I would hop into my car on random occasions and just drive up to the intersection of Broad, Fairmount and Ridge to snap some photos. From time to time I would find very facinating articles like the one from the Philadelphia City Paper in 2005. This is such a touching and sad story of the shape of the hotel and its only gotten worse. About 1 month before I was to shoot the exteriors the hotel got vandalized pretty badly. So I had to shoot around it all making me very very sad.

You may ask what the hell does this have to do with T&S. Well it's simple, the Divine Lorraine is the backdrop of my little noir film. It's has the perfect blend of religious background from the past with the seedy happenings that unfold in Tremble & Spark. In my film Veronica Anderson (played by Jessica Graham) is the owner of said hotel and she runs a sex trade out of the hotel and thus why the hotel is the perfect backdrop.

I tried to get into the hotel to shoot some interiors and was able to befriend one of the owners, but the lobby is covered up with contruction plywood. It would have cost me $10k (oy!) to take it down and put it back up. Most of the rooms upstairs have been demolished to be remodeled into condos so they are certainly not safe for my cast and crew to be walking around. (And actually the building lies dormant because the owner ran out of money to complete the job.) It's certainly a sad state of affairs, but I will leave you with this. But one last bit of trivia... the hotel sign is the inspiration for the title treatment of Tremble & Spark so here's a close up.

and here we go...

Blogs are not my thing, but instead of constantly updating myspace and facebook every other day, this is probably the easiest. Am I brilliant or finally catching up to 2008? Prrobably the latter of the two.

We shot T&S during 5 grueling days. I keep getting asked the question as to why it was grueling. Simply put... going into this production I had no fucking clue what the hell I was doing. Now that I am on the other side of the proverbial tunnel, I at least know a little bit about making movies. (If you don't know me, I like to down play a lot.) Thankfully I did have a lot of great people (and not so great people) that certainly helped educate me while on the firing lines. One lesson that I did learn is that my executive producer is a great, great person. He told me going into this thing... "Kelly just remember that you are going to make mistakes." And when I picked extremely difficult locations to shoot in (especially the one without a bathroom so we had to go to a hole-in-the-wall strip joint); was rushed, but still went into overtime to get the shot; missed key shots; ordered too much food; ultimately spent too much money - yeah, I realized that i certainly made too many mistakes. All through production I kept remembering what Joe said to me and it all felt ok. Mistakes occured, issued swelled, tempers flared BUT (and that's a big BUT) we all pulled it together as a team and shot some great images (Jason Herrick, my director of photography is extremely talented and one to watch.) The actors pulled some great moment visually with their facial expressions and body language as well as delivery. See?

So all in all - everything is turning out fine. Well at least my attitude has subsided. I was really depressed after we wrapped. Luckly for me everytime I was down, some stepped in to pick up the slack especially producer (and wonderful girlfriend) Heather Coutts (who also plays Annette in the film) and co-producer Lori Hobart. I worked for so long - almost 2 years to write and produce Tremble & Spark and when production was over, it hit me like a Mack Truck (shout out to my peeps). I couldn't get off my couch. I kept reflecting over and over the harsh conditions I put everyone through and that I missed some key shots or didn't get enough coverage. In the end though, it is what it is. And right now, Tremble & Spark is shaping up nicely.... of course no one has seen it yet!