Still Photography by Hutch Muselessmine

Actors, Olivia Applegate, Chase Joliet, and Matt Roszak (last) on the set of Visible Noise.

Visible Noise

As the writer-director of this short film, I'd like to express my deep appreciation and love for all those who helped us make this project. While it's still in post, the joy that's come along with being able to produce something that my heart is truly invested in is priceless.

I'd like to give a special thanks to our Executive Producer, Sam, who was able to view our vision, excitement and preparedness as a PLUS, and who was able to take a leap of faith with us. While it's not finished, yet, I'm certain, with every fiber, that the end result will be something we can all be proud of.



Screen grab of our beautiful actress, Olivia Applegate in Visible Noise. Courtesy of our DP, Greg Risley.

Olivia Applegate and Chase Joliet on set of Visible Noise

Beautiful people - Olivia Applegate and Chase Joliet - making us look cool on set.


screen grab courtesy of our awesome DP, Greg Risley

Visible Noise deals with grief

I'm so overjoyed and proud of our Visible Noise footage and talent. Although we're still in the beginning stages of editing with our editor, Hutch, our rock star DP, Greg Risley has gifted us more beautiful screen grabs to awe at in the meantime. Here's one of Olivia Applegate (AKA Story) confronting the thing that killed the love of her life for the first time.

This story is about grief and how she handles it within a 24 hour period. Our main character mourns the love of her life by taking on his bad habits.

While each of our experiences vary in story, there's a common bond we share, too. We all feel pain the same. This project is my attempt to isolate one women's process, with hopes that the final message will resonate with others.

At the end of the day, any close loss hurts like hell. Behind the complexities of our painful emotions there's a basic need to understand the why and how of things, so we explore that side of life in this short film.
J

Visible Noise

It's exactly one week until I land in Austin for our cast/crew meet and greet before we shoot our short film, Visible Noise. I'm elated. Working with my dream team is so satisfying. Equal to that of a Thanksgiving meal.:)



Featuring Olivia Applegate and Chase Joliet. Photography by Greg Risley

Film-industry hyphenates: Questions to ask yourself before making your film

Hi, Film-industry hyphenates!

I've said it a thousand times. A good producer is one that asks you the right questions to move things forward. Same with a script consultant. They don't tell you WHAT to do, they ask the right thought provoking questions and allow you, the screenwriter, to improve your story. Luckily, with Lorie, I have both. Here are some questions that Lorie asked me before my pre-pro weekend with my DP, Greg Risley, working on Visible Noise. My hope is that these questions will inspire you the way they inspired me and guide you in our journey to making the important decisions that will shape and enhance the story you tell on camera.

I've edited the email below so that it will make sense when applying it to YOUR story. :)

1) Do you have a vision or through-line for a compositional, pacing, rhythm progression?

2) Is there a visual progression? What is it? Is it static, smoother shots for the earliest segment, progressing to jumpier, grainier shots by the end...? Or, static-to-moving shots...? ECUs to WSs, or WSs to ECUs...? High angles to low angles, or vice versa? Or, are there any tropes from other movies that you might want to work with?

3) What about blocking within the scenes/compositions? Do you want to/plan to play with focus and/or physical obstacles within scenes?

4) Subtextually, what do you want the difference, or dynamic, to be between the characters in the scenes? Will it start off being his or her POV? Or, will the POV always be the audience's, of the "fourth wall?"

Obviously these aren't all the questions you'll ask, but it's a good place to dive in if you're just starting the process of figuring out which visual direction you want to go... and that will be a matter of style, experience, and interpretation of script.

For me, it's important to be able to experiment with shots, angles, and colors with my DP prior to our shoot.

Here's a bit of what we came up with for Visible Noise:

"It looks like a lot of our movie will be handheld, but we will use tracks and other techniques for select shots, as well as different lenses to achieve our mood. Tone wise, we came up with Requiem for a Dream meets The Notebook.

We will also be moving in slow at times, and getting footage for jump cuts where it feels right. The contrast between the two worlds will shift back and forth between our flashbacks (aka romantic, soft, brown/green) that are shot at a slower rate and Story's "real world" that's razor sharp (when on her). Although her world is increasingly out of focus by the time we get to the last scene. We don't reach levelness and clarity again until she has the moment/dialog with Ryan. We decided that this contrast is our visible noise, along with the sounds that will be over-emphasized along the way. We also are choosing a subtle spiral movement that we'll implement into our shots, and occasional tilt shots (dutch angle) to convey a disorienting effect and Story's spiraling.

All of the noises appear louder and more annoying to Story as she spirals. Our idea was that in addition to her phone vibrating while she's lying on the couch in mourning, we'd also hear a LOUD knock at the door. We cut to a mail guy who's knocking normally with the same rhythm to show the difference in our reality's noise and HER reality."

This was also the first time I was able to video the entire film (24 hour film style, without lights/all the actors) prior to shooting to obtain similar shots we wish to get on set. The video also serves as a storyboard, as it's easy to extract still images (thank you, Greg). This prep work is all a matter of personal preference, but having never used a storyboard before, I'm excited to try it. One thing is for sure - it'll never hurt to be over prepared. But the last thing you want your crew to do is WAIT ON YOU if you're not. And my stick figures were a disgrace to stick figures. That's all we'll say about that.

With doing all of this work in pre-production comes a sense of confidence and that's priceless. I highly recommend it, if you have the option. Happy filmmaking!

xo J

Welcoming our lead actress, Olivia Applegate

We're so excited to have cast the wonderfully talented actress from Austin, Texas, Olivia Applegate, in our new short film, Visible Noise. BIG THANKS to Gordy Hoffman (from BlueCat Screenplay) who connected us!!

She may look a little familiar... if so, it's because she can also SING beautifully, and made it to the far rounds of America's Got Talent. She was recently "Emma" in Terrence Malick's untitled feature, too. All I can say is watch out for this one, World - I've seen audition tapes - and beauty aside, this gal can ACT.

She'll be moving to LA in January, so I caught her just in the nick of time... lucky me.

SO READY TO ROCK THIS WITH YOU, OLIVIA!