Malachi Rempen: Jack of Trades

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

"Silver Lincoln" Screens in Santa Fe!

I just got word that The Silver Lincoln was accepted to screen at the New Mexico Film Expo in Santa Fe this week! Now I have to find a way to get a copy from Orange, California to Santa Fe, New Mexico by the day after tomorrow...

In celebration, I revamped the Awards page. I'm not sure I like the new look.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

"La Nina" Location Scout

My DP, Boa Simon, and I recently went on a camping trip to scout some locations for La Nina del Desierto. We found some incredible places.

Click on the pictures to see bigger ones!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Korea Times and the Corner Store

A few weeks back, a lady from the Korea Times emails me for an interview, concerning the whole Korean exchange trip we did over the summer. I answer her questions, and she tells me where I can pick up a copy a few days later. Funny thing is, it's all in hangul, or written Korean. Still, it's worth putting online!

I've seen a few cuts of The Corner Store now, and it's looking like we're going to shoot some pickups. We never actually see the exterior of the store, and it might be good to get those shots to split up the film's scenes, which have trouble transitioning from one to another.

Other than that, I'm surprised how well it turned out. We were so stressed and unprepared when shooting it, due to the single week of pre-production we had available (the DP, Joel Remke, and I were making up shot lists an hour before the shoot each day), that I was worried it would turn out to be cinematic trash. But we got lucky! It's not half bad. Everyone else involved agreed, with equal surprise.

As for La Nina del Desierto, I'm working on procuring a certain Hollywood actor to play Javier in this reincarnation of my first short film. I won't say who until he says yes or no. Suffice it to say that you've definitely seen him before - this guy works like mad.

And I'm off.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

More Press and More

I've put up two more articles in the Press section. The first is an old one from high school graduation that I'd forgotten about. The second is more recent - it's in the Chapman University film school's magazine "In Production," and the article involves my trip to South Korea and the movies we made there and here in California.

Speaking of South Korea, I had a chance to watch dailies from The Corner Store, which is the movie that we made here after our trip to Korea. We made this when it was the Koreans' turn to have a cultural experience, and they crewed on our set. One of them even had a role.

Anyway, the footage looks decent enough (it was shot 35mm, it should look good), but it was hard to tell because we were watching it on this tiny screen, SD. I'm sure it looks great HD. It didn't look like there were many options, however, as far as coverage goes. Our editor, Robin Hartwig, certainly has her work cut out. It's hard to say at this point if it's going to be any good. I really hope it is! We all worked our hardest on it.

Pre-production on La Nina del Desierto is now in full swing. Producer Matt Sullivan and I have been working hard on casting and crewing up. Next weekend, cinematographer Boa Simon and I will go camping in the desert north of Los Angeles to try and find a few good locations. Should be fun.

In other news, I've had the wonderful luck of getting what is called the Hayde Scholarship here at Chapman University. It's not a financial scholarship. Basically, I meet once every two weeks with Chapman's filmmaker-in-residence, who this year happens to be Jocelyn Moorhouse. She directed Proof and a number of other films I haven't seen but definitely will! I'm hoping to talk with her about my forthcoming Albuquerque-related feature script, which I hope to have complete by the time La Nina is done.

Finally, The Silver Lincoln is 100% complete! I have a trailer up on its page explaining that I'm not putting it online because I want to submit it to festivals, and a lot of festivals won't accept a film that's available online. I also say on that page that a DVD of Lincoln (which is awesome, comes with sweet features) costs $5 plus shipping, but all I really want is money for the shipping, which should be around $5 anyway. In any case, contact me if you're interested in getting a copy and we'll figure something out.