Paint 2006 · Short Film

3.1.1 Inspiration

While attending CSU Chico working on his Computer Science Degree Gerald Martin Davenport met Adam James Veseley a Paradise residence and computer, musical, and film enthusiast also working on his degree. They became friends and hung-out before and after classes at the main hall to study together. It was during one of these times that Adam mentions an idea for a short film where a young person, out of their element on a paintball field during a game, happens to win by accident. A sort of David meets Goliath type of beginners luck story.

Not having a completed story, Gerald encourages Adam to write one. Over the course of six months, Gerald kept asking Adam if he had written it, the answer was always no. Gerald could not get the story idea out of his mind, so on Monday, September 27, 2004 8:32:53 PM, Gerald wrote in his journal that he is thinking about the Paintball story Adam mentioned and began writing it. In a week, Gerald wrote a thirty page story and sent it to Adam.

From: Adam Vesely
Date: October 10, 2004 8:48:24 PM PDT
To: Gerry
Subject: Re: Screenplay

Hey Gerry,
WOW. I just read your script and I absolutely LOVE it!! As I was reading it,I could clearly see a vision in my head of how it would all look. I really like the dialogue and the characters; they seem very real to me. Overall, I really like the story idea, and the way the story is told, using flashbacks and cuts between past and present. I have a few ideas/concerns to share.

First off, as I said, I love the idea of telling the story the way you have with flashbacks and present cuts. However, we need to be sure that if we take that approach, that we make sure the audience can distinguish the flashbacks from the present time. I know that there are several different approaches to this, so I'm sure that won't be a problem.

The other concern I had, and although it may sound stupid. I was hoping we could pull this off without any major vulgar material including swearing and the like. Name-calling, teasing, nagging, etc is great. But I really want this to be something that anyone could watch and feel comfortable. I realize you only have 2 swear words in the script period at the moment (although what does the Spanish say?). Hopefully we can come to a compromise on that issue.

Something else I'd like if you could, is translations of the Spanish so I know what's going on. I don't know if you want to sub-title those quotes for the audience, or if you just want to leave it to the non-Spanish speaking audience's own determination of what it means. Both leave interesting impressions on the audience. So, let me know what you think about these ideas. Again, FANTASTIC job on this script and I look forward to working on it SOON!
Cya for now!
-Adam

There were a few 'S' words and some 'D' words, but nothing really vulgar or foul. After taking them out, the story read and flowed better as the focus was on the action not the shock.

3.1.2 Post Production School

After CSU Chico, Apple called Gerald to see if he was ready to come work for them, and as much as he wanted to because he loved to write code and debug, he was inspired continue his education and skills in the arts, mostly Film. So he attended Video Symphony in Burbank, California from 2004 - 2005 where he met Dan Nelson, Kristien Gabriel, and Kevin Church instructors at the school.

Gerald increased his knowledge about film and tv, and mostly the post-production process — how to finish and deliver a video or film project. He became so skilled that he was one of few new students asked to help out in the Dungeon, as they called it, and work on actual film or video projects and get actual working experience as an editor. List of projects either credited or not, but the experience was worth it, coming soon.

After graduating with very high marks, Gerald returned back home to Grass Valley, California to look for work and wait for the phone to ring to go down to Hollywood to be an editor. Meanwhile wanting to edit something to keep his skills honed he remembered the short story Paint and wondered if could or should; and if he could and should, how would he make his own movie to edit?

3.1.3 Pre-Pre-Production

Discussing it with his wife Tamara Maureen Davenport, and she supported him and his hair-brained idea — might not have been what she said, but it sounds good now, and she was not truly sold that anything would come of it. So knowing how a movie is made from start to finish with camera angles, lights, sound, editing, and such, he was ready to movie it forward. The only thing he did not know much about was directing, but he knew how to manage people and projects, so he started with that in mind.

Tamara Maureen Davenport took over the wardrobe department by making camouflaged-head-coveres for the actors to wear when they were playing the characters on Roscoe's team. They acquired several military type jackets for them to wear. Robert John MacGregor was a paintball player and came equipped with his own top end gear and attire.

When looking for equipment, such as, cameras to record onto, gerald searched all over Sacramento and nearby cities, but there was no place that rented professional cameras that he wanted to use. His search led him further south into the San Francisco Bay Area where he found Studio B Films in Berkeley, California. David Collier and Aaron Berry suggested the Panasonic AJ-SDX900 (24p) recording onto DVCPRO50 tape, using wideangle lens, high capacity sticks (aka tripod), and a high end microphone on a boom that connects to the camera to capture the audio. Gerald drove down and procured the items at a price of $2,500 for a week's use.

3.1.4 Screenplay/Story

The initial screenplay was 32 pages^{[^1]} that consisted of a scene that was a tense battle of wits and composure between Trevor's and Roscoe's teams before the championship game. Roscoe's team came into Trevor's team's base camp and tried to start an altercation, as well as, strike fear and doubt into the guys minds. This was also the scene that would reveal that Aria had to take Garrett's place because Garrett badly twisted his ankle in the last game. Unfortunately, this scene was not produced due to lack of actors to play the roles^[3].

The screenplay went through many rewrites after final casting was done and adjusted for the changes in the amount of cast. To have an opponent meant there needed to be people playing those roles, so early on it was proposed that Robert John MacGregor, Justin Mosier, Patrick Donald Wheatley, and Connor Decker Ring would play characters on Roscoe's team.

Paint², called Paint Squared, and Paint³, called Paint Cubed were written as 30 minute stories each. In Paint² the story would esculate to a rematch of Paint between Roscoe's team and Trevor's team with an emphasis on Roscoe and Aria meeting up at the end. And Paint³ is where members of each team combined to make a team that Aria puts together to play arena-ball, or speedball, where they play inside a small area with boundaries and obstacles to hide behind and the game is over in minutes. When watched one after the other would be a sort of short film Paint trilogy^[4].

3.1.5 Sponsors

Slate for Paint 2006

Slate with Kettle^™ Brand chips, Stonewall's Jurquee, and Whitewave Silk Live Smoothie

Photo by Gerald Martin Davenport - © 2005 Aria Pictures

3.1.1 Equipment

Before Production for Paint 2006 began on October 17, 2005 — Tamara's birthday, Gerald had to find quality gear: A camera, Microphone, Boom pole, Audio Recoding Device, and a slate to record it the action.

After an exhaustive search for places that rented equipment in Sacramento, Gerald found a few that rented mediocre consumer grade equipment, and for too much. Gerald searched for places in the Bay Area and found Studio B Films in Berkeley. David Collier set Gerald up with all the equipment he needed for a week for $2400.00.

Talked with Studio B in San Anselmo and in Berkeley about camera rentals.

Studio B, talked to Eli eeelye, called him ellie, oops.
The camera I want is 600 a day, + audio.
Says if we were to do it on the weekend, he would love to help. He has a brother-in-law in Placerville.

Went to Swenson's for equipment reservation and it is $409 for 3 set ups (mask, gun, tank, and some paint), 3 extra masks, and 3 extra tanks. OUCH!

JF wants to give 3 set ups, 3 extra masks, and 3 extra tanks for $100. Beats $409 FROM SWENSON'S

3.3.2 Locations

On Wednesday, September 7, 2005, Gerald contacted Homewood resort for their paintball field.

Once again, thank you for considering Wolf Mountain Camps for the filming of your movie. We will not be able to accommodate your request to film on our paintball fields, but we all wish we could since it sounds like fun. Have you checked with JF Paintball concerning the use of their field or to get information about fields in the area? Hope things go well with your filming! Sincerely, Jeff Biggs

Gerald secured Camp Augusta for the location for the paintball action. On Thursday, October 6, 2005, Gerald went to Camp Augusta to get the location agreement signed by Dr. Grayson. “It was a crisp clean morning out there; love the smell, but there was construction going on at a house nearby — pounding, saws, and annoying noises like dogs barking.” Dr. Grayson signed the contracts and gave Gerald a map and told me about an area past the horses. Gerald walked there to see a perfect spot. Gerald saw a guy loading hay bails onto a truck, but he did not see Gerald or look is Gerald direction. When Gerald went to say goodbye to Dr. Grayson, Justin and Casey were there and were interested in the movie.

3.3.3 Rehearsal

On Sunday, October 16, 2005, Gerald worked on storyboards and Tamara worked on the slate and head covers for the other team before the cast was to show up for rehearsal. The rehearsal went well. Gerald believed Reid could be good, Patrick was over doing it, and Robert was under doing it. Of course, Aria was on the nose.

On Tuesday, October 18, 2005, Everyone arrived early at Gerald and Tamara's. They ate breakfast, then got on the road to the Young's house. Justin showed up with Casey around 11AM. Maureen made cheese sandwiches for all.

3.4.1 Production Photos

View Paint 2006 Behind-the-Scenes Production photos gallery.

3.6.1 Editing

Final Cut Pro 5 arrived on Friday, December 9, 2005. It was updated to Final Cut Pro 5.0.4, which was the latest at the time of post, was used instead of Avid, because Gerald owned Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, and Soundtrack Pro. The DVCPRO50 tapes needed to be taken back to Studio B Films to use a very expensive tape deck connected to the Mac to import/digitize them at real time. An Imac G5 and a 17" Powerbook running Adobe After Effects and Photoshop which were used for the effects and graphics.

Post-Production began on January 6th, 2006 with the assembly of the toughest scenes put together first — “Do the hard stuff first and the easy stuff for last.”

Gerald finished a few scenes that were roughly put together to show people.

[4:49pm] Connor: Definitely need some voiceovers. Some of the transitions fell kind of weird. Can't hear Robert.
[4:50pm] Gerry: At the end?
[4:51pm] Connor: When Robert is yelling at the players on the other side.
[4:51pm] Gerry: The audio is not set images are 90%.
[4:52pm] Connor: When robert says "What are you doing?" And then the scene changes and he says "Aria what are you doing?" Again.
[4:52pm] Gerry: The thing is for everyone not to be so critical yet. It is a work in progress, and I know all that needs to be done.
[4:53pm]Connor: Paintballs splatters look pretty sweet.
[4:53pm] Gerry: Remember it is in crappy mode. It looks awesome here.
[4:54pm] Gerry: The audio is the last thing to do once Picture-Lock is acheived.
[4:56pm] Gerry: A dedicated audio person next time. No actors doing it.
[4:56pm] Connor: yeah.
[4:58pm] Gerry: We have to add new dialog.
[4:59pm] Gerry: "Guys, we do not have our masks on."
"Rick started it."
"Did not."
"Someone is gonna get hurt, it was time out."
[5:00pm] Gerry: That is why it is all weird at the end with dialog, but the picture is close.
[5:01pm] Gerry: I said it is a first cut. Rough, very rough, but it is close to what the scene is to be.
[5:02pm]Connor: It's cool, the sun was shining just right so you can see the paint really well when it hits the branches.
[5:02pm] Gerry: That was luck. No wait. I planned it.
[5:05pm]Connor: Robert gets so close to getting hit when he is telling us to stop. There is a paintball that flies right past his shoulder. Cant wait to see the final product. I wanna see the scenes where i get hit.
[5:57PM] Connor: Are you gonna make a bloopers reel?
[5:57PM] Gerry: No, I don't like funny things.
[5:57PM] Connor: Ahh, ok.
[5:57PM] Gerry: Of course I am.
[5:58PM] Connor: Sweet! I noticed what you were talking about with something being in the way of the camera. It's not very noticeable though. I didn't even see it till like the 10nth time.
[6:01PM] Gerry: well, that is not too bad, but.
[6:01PM] Connor: no, not at all. too bad robert wasn't any more dramatic when he was yelling at aria.
[6:06PM] Connor: when i return fire at Patrick, it looks like he just drops dead.

[10:49am] Connor: Do you think it will be finished by next month sometime?
[10:51am] Gerry: Well, Picture should be. I mean it is only the 10th of January and I started editing on the 6th. Four days and 50% done. I figure next week I will have a finished rough picture cut of the movie. Watch it, make notes, change, view again, and then go from there. End of month should be picture lock, then we do audio for a week or so. Dialog, music, song, and so forth.
[10:52am] Connor: Have you a song written for it?
[10:52am] Gerry: Watching it gets me the feel and flow of the music what it needs.
[10:53am] Gerry: The song has gone through many changes: lyrics and music, but it might even be newer now.
[10:55am] Gerry: We will be gone till Friday. Going down at Macworld expo in San Francisco.

On Saturday, January 14, 2006, Gerald wrote in his journal that he opened up most of the scenes to let them breathe by letting the clips play longer, and putting some space in between the dialog. Vikie and Jerry Young came over to pick up Matthew. Gerald showed them PAINT and they loved it. “They both said the title should come in with paintball shots, or disappear with paintball splats, right after the quiet and the loud RUN.”

After fifteen days of editing a rough-cut of the film, it was ready to be reviewed and critiqued by the cast, crew, and their parents, to show what they did for four days — something that never happens with most films because the filmmakers want people to see the final product the way it is suppose to be, not a rough-cut; however, there were concerns and questions about the film by the parents since it ended over three months ago “Do we get to see the film yet? ”

On Saturday, January 21, 2006, Gerald worked on refining the rough cut. He took out the color correction, which was terrible looking. He had just finished the DVD burn about an hour before they had to leave for the Young's House. Reid, Ashley, Wayne, and Lynette were the first to arrive. Justin and his son Alex were next. Patrick, his dad Sandy, Mother, and two brothers showed up. Connor, Keelene, Cathy, and Chris show up a little late while Gerald was telling everyone about the screening process. Gerald reminded the attendees that some dialog would be heard more than once, and other audio sounds that normally would not be in a film might still be heard and to ignore the audio issues but to focus on the story. Does the story and visuals flow? Does the story make sense? Is there a story?

Gerald watched the viewers reactions to see if they laughed, cringed, and any other emotions when they were supposed to happen — and he took notes. There was applause and a sense of awe afterward. “It looks like a real movie.” Came from Patrick Donald Wheatley and Reid Allen Young. Everyone agreed that it did. Gerald asked “What did you think you were going to see? ” A few said a home movie or something, “but not this good.” Other than mentioning the issues with audio, the audience was confused about the actors playing two characters. They understood the need, but it was not clear enough that they were different people or characters.

The following month, working day and night fine-tuning each scene, Gerald could not make a few issues with the story and the actions on the screen to fit to his liking — Rick (Patrick Donald Wheatley) took his mask off during a scene and Chad (Conner Decker Ring) and Garrett (Justin Mosier) shot a few paintballs toward him, as they were supposed to, but they had no idea he had taken his mask off — it posed a dangerous and unsafe situation and was not in the screenplay for him to do that. Gerald immediately cut the take and reminded everyone not to take off their mask unless told to do so. Several other takes were captured, unfortunately the acting by Patrick Donald Wheatley was not as good as previous takes; most likely because he was unhappy and/or embarrassed about being told not to take his mask off for safety reasons.

Gerald, unhappy about the story, dialog, and visuals were not working and there was no chance of doing any pick ups. There was one option, but that meant rewriting the story using ADR (Automatic Dialog Replacement) — put new dialog over the existing visuals. Gerald set up a time for the actors to come into the recording studio to redo new dialog. New lines were given to Robert John MacGregor's character Trevor, Justin Mosier's character Garrett, and Patrick Donald Wheatley's character Rick to at least acknowledge that Rick took off his mask when he was not suppose to, but that did not make the scene any safer for John at JF Paintball.

Casey Edenfield, who played Steve, could not be located to read new lines. There was no deadline for the film to be finished by a producer or studio executive, not for a 19 minute short with a few minor flaws; however, once a location was set with a date to premiere the film, then post-production became the focus to finish the film on time. Unsure of when and if Casey could be found, Gerald made a decision to replace all of Casey's dialog in the film with Gerald Mathew Young.

Once the new dialog was completed by the actors, it made the story a little more cohesive, not perfect, but much better than it was. Gerald worked ion making the actors voices lower than they normally are when they played the characters on Roscoe's team, but again, with time running short, he moved onto other things the film needed before it was completed. A “Picture Lock” for the film was achieved on February 14, 2006. The ending credits were in a rough form because there was no music to know how long to make them or how long they should be.

3.6.2 Music

“Painted” song recording

Aria Davenport during the recording of the song Painted

Photo by Gerald Martin Davenport - © 2005 Aria Pictures & World Next Door Music (ASCAP)

Gerald spent many months thinking about story, actors, locations, equipment, and such, that he had no time to think about creating the music he wanted for the film — a very odd thing considering he was playing drums since the age of three and by twelve he wrote music on the piano and guitar. So he felt very weird and frustrated when his mind would not be creative about music like he was used to — he was depleted and exhausted, plus the time frame was not helping.

His son, Aria Leven Davenport, came to the rescue and wanted to help. They both sat down and worked on a rough idea of the music structure, then wrote some lyrics — Vikie Young, Gerald Mathew Young's wife, gave them a line for the song, but they do not remember if they used it or not. For several days they would work on it till they felt they had something that was at least decent to add to the film.

Moved my music equipment to the living room. Connor came over to work on Painted, the title of the song for the movie. We spent a few hours completing the writing process. Aria was more involved than Connor.

I told them to get more lyrics while I worked on the drum parts. Recorded the drums while Connor tried his first time at playing the bass. We did practice and it looked like he got it, but when it was recording it was not good. After four tries, I asked him to let me try it with his bass and show him. I recorded me playing, and that is what is used in the song. Nothing on the song is Connor, except the use of his bass guitar.

Jerry and Vikie came by as we were completing the recording process. Vikie asked why it was forest instead of woods. She actually inputted more than anyone else did. Although Aria picked up the song better than Connor did. Aria tried recording the mellow part but put way too much into it and could not get it down.

Aria still wanted to play the quiet part on the song. We tried and tried, and after several hours, I did it. I gave him another part to play — the power chord before the picking part of the guitar — he got that down.

Once the music was recorded and exported, Gerald finished the ending credits exported the film three days before the Premiere. The Total Run Time of the film was 19:12 — Nineteen minutes and twelve seconds.

4.1 Website

Designing websites was another fun form of coding and programming for Gerald with a bit of creativity and artistry, Aria Pictures' website was started on July 21, 2004, so to have a website for Paint was extra money considering domain names were cost more than they do now; however, a page was created for the film to showcase and thank the actors, sponsors, and locations for the generosity and support.

4.2 Poster

Looking at thousands of film posters from the early days of movies to those coming out in 2006, Gerald saw there were patterns and standards that made the film poster a film poster. Unfortunately, there are no credits for the film poster itself, so knowing if a person or persons were involved in the design and layout of any one of the plethora of film posters is an unknown, at least for Gerald. Either there was one or two main people or companies that did them, or the mass of film poster designers copied each other, because there are similarities in many posters inside their genre. Something a similar to a template everyone used and they just changed faces, backgrounds, and names.

Gerald wanted to follow the standards that let people know this was a movie poster, but as always, he wanted to add his own style and flare that set him and his future list of films apart from the rest. The above poster was created from 88 different layers using the standard 23" x 35" size, the poster started with several pencil sketch ideas.

Ryan Veseley, brother of Adam James Veseley, a photographer/filmmaker took over eighty photographs of Aria in his paintball outfit in the front yard of the Young's House with the visual direction of Gerald using Ryan's high end Canon camera on Friday, February 10, 2006. These photos became the base for the poster. The image of Aria's eyes through the mask and pointing his paintball marker are two separate elements. And the main background image of Aria looking behind him were taken by Ryan. The images of the rest of the cast on the right are screen grabs from the film.

The credits on the bottom are basic, for such a basic film, with the actors taking up most of the billing since Gerald was the only credited one to do the crew positions, although others did help, but not on a consistant basis. Some actors were not listed because of the little screen time they had or their role status as not a lead or supporting role. Not every name is listed on the poster for Star Wars.

Paint is the first self produced, written, directed, and edited film by Gerald Martin Davenport and it set the standard for how he credits himself in any film he is involved with both on screen and off. Writing, Producing, Directing, and Editing credits are always grouped together, last, shorter, and smaller than any other Above The Line credit. The only up front credit that is more predominant than any of his other credits on a film are “a film by Gerald Martin Davenport” or “a Gerald Martin Davenport film”. Because he knows that the film would still be in his computer if it was not for the talented work by everyone involved bringing the story to life so everyone can see it.

4.3 Apparel

Gerald found an online source of customizable products to be the outlet for custom designed shirts, hats, and other items with Aria Pictures logo and Paint title. They also could print posters in several sizes.

The Aria Pictures Collector shop for Aria Pictures logo and Paint 2006 items has shrunk over time as it was meant to be for a limited time to keep the items unique and special —' the items given to the cast and at the premiere are no longer available, which makes them more valuable and special.