New Film Released – TAPED

The last number of weeks have been incredibly busy, but we pulled it off! A competition is running right now, called My RODE Reel, and I had decided to try and submit to it. There were some requirements so we had to create something new. About 2 months ago, Nidal had pitched a simple idea to me that I quite liked, and saw it as possible for this competition. The result, as you can see above, is the dark comedy TAPED.

Be sure to head over to My RODE Reel to vote!

This is my first finished 4k project, every step of the way (there’s another one in the works, but it’s corporate and split between 4k and 5D RAW), so it was quite a challenge to get used to this much slower workflow. The quality and end product are worth it, methinks. Shot on the FS700 with the Odyssey 7Q that provided the 4k raw files. I won’t go too much more into technical details for now, but thought I’d some trivia.

From early in production, I decided to include as many callbacks as possible to my previous works, and some other references. Be sure to check out the film first, and then read this list for some trivia. In no particular order:

Nidal and Nyra make a cameo form our previous film Game of Chairs (2014)
The title “TAPED” actually has a triple mean. Bonus points if you can figure out the third!
An old fourth-wall joke from Pancakes (2003) is used. The one where they look up to acknowledge the camera.
The parody ringtone of one of my favourite group of films was first used in ELISE (2005).
Can’t see too easily, but it’s in the behind the scenes… my very first miniDV camera makes an appearance. I was going to feature it more but it didn’t fit and had to be cut for timing.
The above would have been a running gag since Pancakes which was also in Red Rock’It! (2013). The intentional continuity issue.
The Brain (Brent) is wearing striped shoes as a callback to his character of Ref in Red Rock’It!.
Lucky and Brain are wearing the inverse colours of each other’s costumes.
As is tradition with most of my films, the very first word and lines are swearing.
A lot of symmetry is used in the composition of the shots. I’ve done this often, but not to this degree.
If you pay attention, the camera specifically has a tendency to “adjust” itself so that the frame is symmetrical!
My wonderful wife Katia was able to included a documentary-within-a-documentary in her shooting.
One of my few films to NOT feature Glidecam work… instead I chose to create camera movement with dollies and sliders.
THE GLOW. It makes it not into just the final cut, but into the behind the scenes, though if you notice they have very different characters.
Mostly desaturated/cold look, but there are some very clear color choices of white, red and blue, in reference to Game of Chairs (2014).
I chose to use a Canon DSLR as the “camera” in the film as a reference to many of my previous films that were shot this way.
Something personal gear – every film I’ve made so far has featured either my Laptop, phone or most recently, iPad. No exception here, though it’s a bit hidden. Try to find it!
The fan is directly behind Lucky in most shots as the gang are “fans” of his work.
MOST dollies are left… I wanted to have all of them, but there were 2 shots where it would not have worked. Close though!
The film starts with sound setting up the story, instead of a shot. I’ve used this technique a number of times.
Although flat screens have straight edges, I’ve always used an “Old TV” effect to convey this in films, and this time it’s no different when we see the newscast and hostage video.
The runners at the bottom of the newscast/hostage video are all references to my previous works.
Greenscreenman from Red Rock’It! (2013) makes a subtle appearance.
Another single-location film, after Red Rock’It!(2013), Game of Chairs(2014), Apartment 104 (2012), Janitors – 48hour film challenge and countless others I did a decade ago. I’ve made quite a few of these and the challenge is always to show the space without being too repetitive.
CBN 24 actually stands for “Your Central Bullshit Network” and you can briefly see this.
There’s a Spaceballs joke. See if you can find it.
The original score is inspired by the Whole Nine/Ten Yards, which I still think are hilarious.