Interview at Mizna's Twin Cities Arab Film Festival

Here's an interview I did for Martha Low and Ismail Ouassaddine while at Mizna's Twin Cities Arab Film Festival.

Mizna's was one of the best experiences I had on the festival circuit. Lana Barkawi, Rami Azzazi, Marya Morstad, and their team played excellent hosts, and I met a lot of very talented filmmakers, including Tania Khalaf and David Hamilton, who have been supportive allies ever since.

I often get asked about festivals in terms of what possible deals you might get out of them. Sell your film, sell your feature, get an agent, etc. But though To Rest in Peace has been very fortunate, the best rewards you get are the people you meet along the way.

One such ally is Lisa Robertson, who I met at the Breckenridge Film Festival with her short film Commerce. Lisa made a big impact on Exitus Roma. She gave notes on an early draft, helped us find our leading lady, Teri Reeves, and gave notes on an early cut that led to a lot of positive changes. The best aspect of the festival circuit is the opportunity to do better work, by seeing other films, and meeting very talented filmmakers.

To Rest in Peace continues its festival run, on its own momentum. I've shifted focus onto Exitus Roma, and other projects on the horizon, but will continue to update the blog until my new, not project-specific blog is up and running.

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.

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!

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

Awards at the Kuwait International Film Retreat

To Rest in Peace won three awards at the first annual Kuwait International Film Retreat! We placed second in editing and directing, and first in cinematography.

If you attended the screening, and missed Leah Curtis's award-winning song for the end credits due to the technical glitch, you can listen to it here:

Congrats to the other winners, Dawood Shuail, Meqdad Al-Kout, Marwa Marafie, and Jude Chehab. And, of course, Mousaed Khaled and Mansour Al-Mansour, who won special jury prizes for acting. There were also some great legends of Kuwaiti and Egyptian cinema who were honoured at the event. It was wonderful to see them in person.

Congrats also to Hasan Abdal for his excellent film War Zone. I've had the great pleasure to see several films by Hasan over the years. This one starts off as an action drama, but turns into an Abdal-esque comedy of the imagination. There is such a quality of childlike wonder to his vision, reminiscent of E. T., Hook and Indiana Jones. If his career fulfills its promise, I imagine some future Drew Casper will be lecturing on his oeuvre as the arab Steven Spielberg.

The picture above is of me with Ali Younis, the talented cinematographer for War Zone, who was indispensable for the Kuwait unit of To Rest in Peace.

Unfortunately, my friend Vachan Sharma's film Tokai was not screened, but you can see it on YouTube. The film was co-directed by Abdulrahman Alaskar, and Abeer Tebawi.

This was a great beginning for Kuwaiti cinema. Thanks to the visionaries who put it together. And a personal thanks to Sheikh Nasser Al-Sabah, Sheikha Al-Zain Al-Sabah, Yousef Al-Malik and Abdul Sattar Naji, who very generous with their hospitality and praise of the film. Thanks also to Abdulreda BenSalem and Tarek Jammal, who went above and beyond to organize the events.

I look forward to what the next year will bring!

Kuwait International Film Retreat

To Rest in Peace will screen at the first annual Kuwait International Film Retreat on three consecutive days, April 6-8th. Check out their website for the schedule and location.

We have the great joy of screening with three talented filmmakers who were very generous in their support of To Rest in Peace.

Ali Younis, who was the 1st AC and production manager on the Failaka Island shoot, is the director of photography for War Zone.

The writer-director of War Zone, Hasan Abdal, was also very generous with his time and advice in making To Rest in Peace.

And Vachan Sharma, a fellow USC Trojan who consulted with me in the early stages of pre-production, and appeared as an extra in the hospital scene, co-directed TOKAI (Street Cleaner).

This is the first of a series of exciting updates we will post in the next couple of weeks. To get advanced notice of our progress, before it becomes public, you can join the facebook group.

Best of luck to Ali, Hasan, Vachan, and the other Kuwaiti filmmakers represented at the festival.

Ridley Scott

DGA Quarterly has a great interview with Ridley Scott in their Fall 2010 issue. The bit about his early directing days is particularly interesting. I won't spoil it with a summary here, but look for the advice he got from actor Ian Hendry. "From that moment on, I just changed gears."

Ridley Scott's work was an inspiration for To Rest in Peace from the very beginning. Sean Conaty and I watched Body of Lies and Black Hawk Down. And Leah Curtis and I listened to the score of Black Hawk Down and Gladiator.

Going way back, it was Gladiator that inspired me to study history in undergrad, with the dream of directing historical epics. Which is why it was such an honour to have Mr. Scott as an Industry Mentor on To Rest in Peace. His guidance raised the film to a whole new level.

Enjoy the interview!

Failaka Video

In January of this year, To Rest in Peace went to Kuwait to shoot b-roll footage. Most of it was shot on the Island of Failaka, which was completely abandoned for twenty years after the Gulf.

As we were boarding the ferry back to Kuwait, we saw tow trucks arriving on the island. You might remember this story from the January post, "News from Kuwait". They were there to remove the abandoned cars, in preparation for a complete demolition of the neighbourhood.

We were haunted by the realization that the footage we had was the last visual record of this moment of history, frozen for twenty years.

With that in mind, I decided to make this video. Some of the unused footage of Failaka is intercut here with the song "Salamun Salam" from To Rest in Peace, which is nominated for Best World Music Track at the Hollywood Music in Media Awards (in a couple of weeks!)

The footage was color corrected by Sean Conaty.

Color Correct

It has been a busy week! Tuesday we recorded music, and color corrected. Today we mixed the music. Friday and saturday are the final sound mix. Expect several blog posts in the next couple of days.

Color correction was done by Ian Vertovec at LightIRON Digital. Compare the above image of Malek to the one posted right after production, in the 'Cast' blog post. We took out the greens, brought up the contrast, tweaked and finessed, and now it looks like a movie! I am particularly thrilled by how the climactic night time moment turned out, but I will save those images for you to discover in the film.

Sean wrote a great blog post recently for WonderHowTo: Cinematography about the process of shooting To Rest in Peace, from the decision to shoot the RED One and Canon 7D instead of 35mm film, to the necessity of using the Sony EX3 as a backup camera. He posted some great stills from the film, and behind the scenes.

The Pieces Come Together

After picture lock comes sound design, music and visual effects. The pieces are coming together.

Pictured above is the first draft of a green screen shot by our VFX Artist, Michael Ashton. Michael's film, Lazy Teenage Superheroes, was also shot by Sean Conaty, and has some pretty stunning visual effects.

It's so rewarding to sit back and watch your cut take shape into a finished film. To think that it all started with some words on a page, and a storyboard! There are five green screen composites, and two other effect shots that will be coming in over the next month.

Next up on the blog: an update on sound design, music composition, and a poster painting that I'm thoroughly excited about!

There's always time for giant chess...

How can you resist a giant chessboard?

Sean and I stopped for a quick game of chess on Failaka. After a few moves, though, the novelty wore out, and the itch to go filming got too big. So, unfortunately, I can't report on a winner. (There was a moment when my king was in check, but we won't talk about that...)

The cut is coming along nicely. This week we'll be showing it to the project mentors for feedback. Once those notes are addressed, we'll be having a small test screening, before we lock. Updates to come.

Progress

Footage from Kuwait is being integrated into the cut of To Rest in Peace. I must say, I'm absolutely thrilled with it.

There's still work to be done on the cut. Once we picture lock, there's sound design, visual effects, music composing and, finally, the color correct and sound mix. But now that the footage is all there, we can see the finish line ahead!

Thanks to everyone who's kept up with the blog, and sent me comments. As of today, the blog will get a weekly update. This will include a progress report on the film, and maybe a little story about production or post-production.

The picture here is from the police station in Failaka. Sean Conaty (the DP) and Ali Younis (the 1st AC, and major producing help) stand under a blast radius on the wall. The building was riddled with bullets and debris from the first days of the invasion. It's haunting to stand there and think of what these marks meant for the people who fought there.

Until next week...

News from Kuwait

2nd unit production is wrapped!

We filmed for five days on the Canon 7d, capturing b-roll footage of Kuwait. This will mainly be used to replace greenscreens for the driving shots, but we also captured some establishing shots and transitions.

Two days were spent on the island of Failaka, which was like entering a time machine. The entire neighbourhood is a ghost town, left as it was during the occupation, twenty years ago. There were cars in the driveways, and houses pock marked with machine gun fire. One wall had graffiti declaring a "Free Kuwait". Another was marked by soldiers, taunting that "this will be the mother of all battles".

It was a strange journey, made even more haunting by what we discovered as we were leaving. We saw trucks towing the abandoned cars out to the ferry. The very next day, it turned out, they were going to demolish the old houses. We managed to film there just in time.

Thanks to everyone who made this trip so joyful and productive. Sean Conaty, who shot hours of beautiful footage. Ali Younis, who gave generously of his time and equipment, acting both as 1st AC and production manager during the Failaka trip. Abdullah Al-Matrouk, who managed our last day of production, and doubled as an actor. Esam Al-Kazemi, Mohammad Al-Qattan, Abdulaziz Al-Mobailish, Haider Al-Mosawi, my dad Faisal Al-Matrouk, and everyone else who gave their passion and support to this project.

Storyboards

Several months before production started, I sat down with Sean Conaty (the DP) and shotlisted the entire film. We had no locations yet, no cast. We were still making the decision of whether to shoot the entire film in Kuwait, or whether to shoot the entire film in Los Angeles. But I wanted to have a first draft of the visual design, to inform these choices.

Eventually, we made the decision to shoot principal in Los Angeles, and 2nd unit in Kuwait. To fully understand the division, I looked over our shotlist, and storyboarded the entire script. This was a second draft of the visual design, and it helped in choosing locations, and forming the production schedule.

But the storyboards also proved useful in a surprising way. For the second half of production, there were some off-set problems that made it impossible for Sean and I to properly plan our shots. The storyboards were a life-saver. They helped us keep focus, and we continued to read each other's minds each day.

Lighting Up The Night Sky

There it is, in all its glory. That beautiful light balloon.

There was some contention about whether or not to get the light balloon. Even after Josh got us a good deal, it was stretching our budget. But it was one of the best decisions we made.

The reference I gave Sean for the look of the final burial scene was Caspar David Friedrich's Man and Woman Gazing at the Moon. It has a soft, ethereal glow, the feeling of a solemn nighttime contemplation. That is exactly what the light balloon gave us. And the footage is beautiful.

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.

Toys

Little toy cars are very helpful when you've got a complicated set up to plan. (The red one has the two dead bodies in it).

While playing with... err... while seriously planning out the car moves, Sean and I figured out how to shoot our discovery scene in a much simpler and more beautiful way than previously planned.

The fun of making a movie is in all the little discoveries. (And in the toys you need to make them).