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!

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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!