Not Afraid! » News

Preparing for Battle

Not Afraid! — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:57:27 +0000

I know I’ve been fairly quiet lately with the blog and Specimen updates. The reason is that I have a particularly demanding day job, designing, managing, and deploying one of a kind large-scale digital audio, video, and projection systems for Universal Studios Theme Parks. In 2010 it was the award-winning King Kong 360 3-D, and now its Transformers The Ride 3D.

I can’t give out any details, but this attraction is a lot more complex than King Kong, and I’ve been working nights, weekends and holidays with my Universal Creative compatriots pulling it together. Universal has a released a website (www.prepareforbattle.com) and teaser trailer for the attraction which opens this spring that will give you a glimpse of what’s in store. Enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Clinique Happy

Not Afraid! — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 18:20:39 +0000

Taking a break from The Specimen I collaborated with my wife, Dara and her friend and writer Cheri Waterhouse on a spec commercial for Poptent.net. This ad in particular was for Clinique Happy, and was a fun and short project. With my wife producing and making her directorial debut, it was liberating for me to simply execute her vision as the Director of Photography and Editor. While I don’t necessarily recommend people working with their significant others (for obvious reasons) this project went great, and we had a lot of fun, which I think comes through in the ad.

Our particular spot wasn’t chosen though it was a “Staff Pick.” Looking at the nine spots Clinique chose and recently debuted on their facebook page, they were looking for more of a slice of life piece than an actual commercial which is what we delivered.

If you’re an aspiring film-maker and you haven’t checked out Poptent yet, do yourself a favor and sign up. They a have a lot of different assignments available, with better odds of earning some money than say the Doritos contest I’ve done the last two years. Even if you don’t sell an ad, the deadlines and creativity that stems from these projects are good practice to hone your skills.

Let me know what you think.

Directed by Dara Cuoco
Concept by Cheri Waterhouse
DP/Editor/Graphics/Colorist: Paul Cuoco
Music by Sue Paine

Featuring (in order of appearance)

Carol-Ann Plante (& family)
Dara Cuoco
Gina Chai
Susan McCord

Specimen Trailer 2

Paul — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:00:26 +0000

The biggest compliment I received when I released the Specimen Teaser, was that it was just that. A tease. Now here’s a new trailer that doles out just a bit more, and hopefully gets you all excited for our imminent on-line premiere.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s in High Definition by default, so If you have trouble viewing it, please click on the “HD” in the bottom right corner to lower the resolution for easier playback.

Please share this with your friends, click on the “like” buttons, post it on facebook, and retweet the links! The bigger the audience we build now, the bigger the impact the film can have when it premieres in a few weeks. Composer Peter Tinari and I are finishing up the music and sound, and the film will be complete soon.

For more frequent updates follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or the film’s website.

Thanks as always for your support.

Sincerely,
Paul Cuoco
Writer/Director – The Specimen

The Specimen is in the Cup

Not Afraid! — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 20:59:15 +0000

I mentioned a few weeks ago our new film The Specimen was in pre-production. After weeks of script revisions, rehearsals, and planning we finally shot the film this past weekend. You can check out a quick blog post about the shoot as well as some production stills over at specimen.notafraid.com. In this blog I’ll talk more about the tech (as most readers have discovered me from my 7D articles and Z-finder review) than the film-making itself, and keep those posts on the dedicated Specimen site.

It was a longer shoot than anticipated but we got all the shots in the can, and used just about every piece of gear in my arsenal. The entire film was shot on the 7D with the 17-55mm f2.8 IS lens and the plastic fantastic 50mm 1.8, and D|Focus follow focus I picked up from Express35.com with some rails. One workhorse that was used a lot more than I anticipated was my igus based camera slider.

I did rent the Marshall LCD50 5″ Monitor to assist with focus, but I have to say their choice to use AA batteries is unfortunate. We were constantly changing batteries in that thing, and it’s peaking function for focus assist was really inaccurate.

All in all the shoot went well, and I’ve been laughing my ass off at the dailies. It’s going to be fun to edit. You can keep up with more production updates on the film by subscribing to its own web feed, liking it on Facebook, or following it on Twitter.

Casting The “Oh Face” for The Specimen

Not Afraid! — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 18:17:20 +0000

We’ve updated the website for our new short film The Specimen, and blogged our first post on the production, Casting The “Oh Face.” Check it out, and be sure to subscribe, follow, or like the film for more updates.