The End of October

This month is wrapping up, which means we need to wrap up our shooting. We have 2 locations left to shoot-- Glenwood Pines and possibly State Street Diner.

I'm ready to give up on the Kickstarter account. It's been ready for weeks, but creating a "business account" for the site through Amazon is not working. I tried and tried until they blocked me from trying any more. Chrissy tried and the site was giving her errors. If we have to pay for food at the last two places, OK. Kickstarter has been such a source of stress and aggravation for me that I'm either going to have to twist someone else's arm into trying to get it up or let the dream die.

I've reviewed the footage from our shoots. There seemed to be some slip ups at Rogan's with the 100 camera. While we're watching the owner make the calzone, there is clearly a light with an umbrella on it in the background. I'm going to work around that footage by using a two shot most of the time, and using the zoom in FCP to try to eliminate it from the shot.

Shoots 1 & 2

This weekend, we had our first two eating challenges. HUZZAH!

Saturday was Purity ice cream day, which started at 9am. Our crew was small, just the 4 team members and Alayna, our scriptwriter. We began with our outside shots, watching Sean approaching Purity and giving a little background about the establishment. While he was being shot outside, the other half of the group was setting up inside Purity, to have the space lit and ready for the eating challenge. One of the co-owners, Heather, actually came into the store while we were there and we were able to have an interview with her while she created the Expedition Sundaes our contestants would be eating. Both our contestants put up a valiant effort, though neither one could finish the 8 scoop sundae with sauces, candy toppings, whipped cream, and by far the toughest part, the fudge brownie and cookie.

Sunday morning we arrived at Rogan's before 8am to make quick work of the shoot that lay ahead of us. We had a larger crew coming to help us, so we wanted to get the equipment inside, and give everyone a job to do. Jessica Van Dousen, Kelsey Snelling, and Alayna Gervais were to lend a helping hand. Jake Lifschultz was there to take production stills for us, which is especially important as they are one of the rewards we’re offering to those who donate through our Kickstarter account. The lighting was harder to do at Rgoan’s because of their shiny wall menus causing glare and because the eating area was so small that in order to eliminate shadows we used quite a few lights and they all seemed too powerful. With a few diffusions and a little bouncing of light, it seemed to work out. My favorite part was watching the owner, Mike, make the calzone on the counter so that we could have a better shot of it. Sean’s challenger hardly ate any food, which was disappointing, but I felt that was better than a production error.

I'm looking to get the editing for these two shoots started over fall break and am generally very excited to make this a final product. All in all, I felt we had a successful weekend and I’m really looking forward to our next shoot at Glenwood Pines!

Location, Location, Location

The biggest news for Platter Pushers this week is the closing of Crespella Cafe. Apparently there is a sign on their door saying they will not be reopening... ever. Lisa sent an email to Jess to let her know that they would not be in business and are no longer going to be a part of our show. The next move we're looking to pursue is creating our own breakfast competition at State Street Diner.

The Kickstarter account has a graphic and a video, but setting up a business account with Amazon to receive any donations has proved to take longer than expected. Chrissy is working to set up the bank account and then we're ready to launch!

Over the weekend the group went out to take advantage of the weather to get exterior shots of our restaurants as well as footage from around Ithaca to use as b-roll. This upcoming weekend, we will have our first shoot. We will be shooting at Rogan's from 8am-11am on Sunday. They are creating a special food challenge item for us and I'm excited to see what their pizza size Bomber calzone will look like. Also, we're waiting on confirmation from Purity to shoot that competition on Saturday morning before noon. Our eaters and host are ready for both days. We have some of our crew working on getting our scripts together for this weekend with our host, Sean, meeting with them as well to add his own quirky sense of humor and one liners.

Our equipment is reserved and we're ready to roll!

Kickstarter

Ok, so we really need to have the Kickstarter account actually launched so we can start getting donations. In order to do that, we need a picture and a video. I was working on using photoshop to create a photo for the group but I hated the way it came out and want to take an actual photograph myself. I planned on doing the video this weekend, but the cold weather gave me a cold, so I postponed that too. It's my goal for the beginning of this week to have both of these completed. Once the Kickstarter group is up and running, we can create flyers and send them to Crespella to better advertise.

It looks like we have all of our eating competitors. The next step is to work on scripts for our host, since we're looking to begin shooting next week. We're meeting with Pete tomorrow afternoon to discuss new updates with the project.