Backstage at the Lowry Theater Company

We are going LIVE!!

2009-06-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

Special Announcement:

The Event is Now being held at the MAIN THEATER
on the San Jose State University campus.

Available seating has increased tenfold,
TICKETS ARE NO LONGER REQUIRED!

Please invite, friends, family to the LIVE show.
Live chat with the cast & crew immediately follows.

www.exitstageleft.tv

Directions to the San Jose State University Theater:
See attached PDF - Main Theater is closer to 4th street,
on San Fernando, next to Martin Luther King Jr Library.

Public Transportation:
Transit buses and the lightrail line connect to downtown
San José and the campus from throughout the county,
the airport and the Amtrak/CalTrain San José depot.
Call 408-924-7433 for specific routes.

Parking:
Parking is free on the street after 6pm in downtown San Jose,
a public parking garage is available across the street from
the theater, on the corner of 4th & San Fernando ($3).

Twitter:
For last minutes updates on the show, to share the event with
friends and neighbors, please follow us on Twitter for the most
up to the minute news and announcements.
http://twitter.com/EXIT_Stage_Left

Greetings everyone,

Time for a Special Announcement concerning our Season Finale. Episode 12 is launching on schedule on June 10th, but the 13th episode will be a much bigger production.

So here it is, I'm excited to announce that our web series' Season Finale will be performed as a live streaming web event!!

That's right, live. Streaming to the world, June 25th.

If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, and would like to join our LIVE studio audience, just send an email request to: tickets@lowrythteatercompany.com

We'll be seeing you!

* S P E C I A L * * A N N O U N C E M E N T *

2009-05-11T20:07:00.000-07:00

Where's the new episode?
(Good Question)

EXIT Stage Left has successfully been releasing new episodes on the 10th & 25th of each month, and now with only four more episodes we have decided to move the most recent episode (episode 10) to the end of the month.

We apologize for those of you that were waiting for it, but the good news is that we will be launching episode 10 & 11 at the same time. Both will come out together on May 25th! And the final episodes will launch on schedule on June 1oth & 25th.

Plus before then, we will be announcing some special things for the final two episodes, so be sure to check back and check in with us (a very special announcement is coming May 18th).

Thanks for watching!

New Lighting on EXIT Stage Left

2009-05-05T20:28:00.000-07:00

In this previous entry, I talked about our simple lighting setup. We used Lowel Rifa lights for the actors and some fresnels for enhancing the background. Since I wrote that post, we have added locations to the show and have run into new challenges. When shooting in our original location we were challenged due to lack of space. When we added the new location to the show, we had the opposite problem. Too much space.

The new "Lowry Theater Company" is a massive space. A huge theater, big stage, large prop and wardrobe rooms, and a large black box theater, left us in need of more lights. Luckily Prompter People came through. We were able to use several of their new LED lights, called Flolights. We use three LED 500's and five LED 1000's

These lights provide a broad and long throw without the heat. The barn doors allow us to control the spill of the lights as well. The first thing you will notice is that on close ups, we finally have the lights to properly accomplish 3-point lighting. You can see in episode 8 how that tool changes the look of the show. With all of our lights, we now have enough light to accomplish the 3 point lighting for multiple cameras. And we no longer run the risk of throwing the breakers! These lights use considerably less power than equivalent "hot lights." In fact the lights consumer just one-tenth of the power.

If you notice the credits to Episode 8, you will see that Chris Faulkner is listed as the Director of Photography. Chris has been shooting with us since we moved to the new location and has been handling a lot of the gaffer duties during these shoots. I had a job that required me to travel to Germany for a week, and during that time, EXIT Stage Left had 2 shooting days. Chris took charge of the camera department during that time, and used the new LED lights to great success. Those two shooting days resulted in footage for all of one episode and most of the next one.

I resumed my duties as the Director of Photography a few weeks ago and have been delighted with the LED lights. These lights, when diffused with frost gel provide some extremely smooth and powerful light. The built in dimmers give us the infinite control of the light. The throw from these lights are several times more than fluorescent light fixtures as well, and are an excellent replacement for both Hot Lights and Fluorescent lights. This allows us to move the lights back from the actors and give them more space to move around. This is extremely important when we are doing the improv elements to the show.

Backstage Episode Two - Annamarie Macleod

2009-03-17T17:32:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the 2nd Episode of Backstage at the Lowry Theater Company.

The new behind the scene look at the cast and crew of EXIT Stage Left, with interviews, bonus footage and insights into the making of the show.

This episode spotlights Annamarie Macleod (of the clan Macleod) who plays Terry Nichols our resident star (and unofficial cooky-person). Take a moment to listen to Annamarie's insight in playing such a character and how she finds her, where she thinks she is going and how it feels to be playing a crazy person.

Inside Cinequest

2009-03-11T19:27:00.000-07:00

Sinohui and Joel Hinojosa have been hard at work not only on EXIT Stage Left, but they have also been covering the Cinequest Film Festival with Inside Cinequest.

To see the whole series of videos from Inside Cinequest visit http://insidecinequest.blogspot.com/

Good Day Sacramento Update

2009-02-11T10:52:00.000-08:00

Ilea hit the airwaves this morning in Sacramento to discuss her "My Grammy Moment" win and give a quick shout-out to the show, thanks Ilea!

Check it out!

After you watch the clip, go ahead and hit the white scroll button (on the lower right) as check out a second clip where Ilea and Wes discuss the making of the video.

Backstage: Episode One - Ilea Matthews

2009-02-09T15:08:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the 1st Episode of Backstage at the Lowry Theater Company.

The new behind the scene look at the cast and crew of EXIT Stage Left, with interviews, bonus footage and insights into the making of the show.

Our first episode spotlights Ilea Matthews who plays Violet Parker on the show and has just won the "My Grammy Moment" video contest, where her video played during a live performance of Katy Perry on the Grammy Awards and on the CBS Early Show was awarded a $5,000 check as the Grand Prize Winner.

Ilea Matthews of EXIT Stage Left to appear on the Grammy's

2009-02-08T14:03:00.000-08:00

If you are watching the Grammy's tonight you will see video featuring Ilea Matthews from "Exit Stage Left" on the screen behind Katy Perry as she sings "I Kissed a Girl."

VOTE FOR HER NOW!

Hollywood.com has a write up!

Matthews, Bauman and Wheaton will appear live on CBS News’ THE EARLY SHOW, on Monday, Feb. 9 (7:00-9:00 AM, ET/PT), when Dave Price will reveal the winning video.

Good Luck, Ilea!

Lighting made simple on EXIT Stage Left

2009-01-30T19:18:00.000-08:00

Backstage. What really does that mean? Will we share all of our secrets? Will we offer just a glimpse? Or will it be somewhere in between? I suspect there are certain things that we just cannot tell you about during the run of the show as they might give away secrets that will be revealed. The good news is that I'm more interested in the technical aspects of the production.

There is one important aspect of our production that dictates how we shoot the show. We are shooting this show with all the gear we own. Normally, we would rent whatever we didn't have but needed such as dollys, flags, lights, etc. Thus, we ran into a very first technical restriction to the show. No one in our group has an array of professional lights. By professional, I'm talking about Mole Richardson and Arri Fresnel lights, or banks of Kino flos. In fact, we only have a single Fresnel light at all. A Lowel 650watt light. What we do have, however is a basic Lowel light kit consisting of two Omni lights and a Tota. When Ted Setla joins our crew or lets us use his kit, we have double the lights.

But the thing that we have been using as our main lights are Lowel Rifa softboxes. This is ideal for space we are in, and the style of shooting we are doing. The softboxes allow us to cover a large area in soft light, allowing actors to move around the space and stay relatively evenly lit. With the Fresnel and the Omnis, we are able to throw targeted light on the backgrounds.

This is, in fact how we shoot as much of the show as possible. It allows us to set-up quick and gives us a nice look to the series.

I have received a fair number of reviews from colleagues and overwhelmingly they all agreed on one thing: they think the show looks great. With our lighting, we went for the most basic look we could get without looking bad. The lighting though, only highlights the great location that is the Lowry Theater. Take our softbox technique and put it into a white room and you'll have a completely different result.

I don't want this to sound like an advertisement for Lowel, but considering their price point and versatility, they are what we are using. I have my eye on some nice Chimera softboxes though.

Thomas A. Koch
Director of Photography
Series Producer
EXIT Stage Left

Quick Brief from the Main Office

2009-01-29T09:13:00.000-08:00

Blog Contributors

There will be posts on this blog by the entire production team from time to time, currently the series creator/exec producer/director (Sinohui Hinojosa), the show's producers (Bernard Fok & Thomam A. Koch) and the series editor/composer (Joel H. Hinojosa) will be sending in reports from the field. Giving us a glimpse into their side of the story and what it takes to keep this show running.

We will add profiles and interviews, updates from the rest of the cast and crew as well, plus we want to know what you would like - what do you want to see, here - Backstage at The Lowry Theater Company.

This is your blog, so send in suggestions and comments, or email us at: producers@lowrytheatercompay.com and we will be sure to get back to you!

Thanks.

No. I don't know when to stop writing. #1

2009-01-28T16:19:00.000-08:00

<<< - Yep, that's me!

Hello everyone, just wanted to send over a couple of thoughts on our brand-spanking new blog. This is going to be a great place to tell stories (can't wait to tell you about the GUN SHOW!, no, not what you are thinking of...), show off some really great behind the scenes pics (courtesy of Amy Puzia, photog extraordinaire) and soon enough, some video content from the show, other projects we are working on and anything else you might be interested in.

It's funny, but a few people have come up to me recently and ask me where the characters (from EXIT Stage Left) came from, and to tell you the truth, they came from all over the place. As to HOW they were created, well that's easy.

The way this all started goes back a few months to the American Film Market in Santa Monica, wait a second, it goes back even further than that, but I'll get back to it in a moment. I was in S.M. promoting a feature film project called The Last Job, actually let me go ahead and post a trailer here so you can catch up:

Trailer: The Last Job By Sinohui Hinojosa
View in HD Download 720p HD Version Visit Sinohui Hinojosa's ExposureRoom Videos Page

Did you watch it? Not too bad if I do say so myself (and before you ask, that's an investor trailer, shot in 24 hrs and is being used to solicit funding for a feature we plan on shooting this year), anything else, just comment back and I would be happy to answer any specific questions [especially if you have deep pockets], hey you, Mr Weinstein (can I call you Harvey?), ya got a minute?

Though I digress...back to the story.

So I was there working with my distribution friends the first week of November, discussing how hard funding independent films have become and lo and behold! I realized that this story started wayyy before that. Maybe I have mad cow or something, but I seem to be forgetting things, no matter....

So there I was on Sept 15th (give or take a few days) and I was chatting with one of my producers, Thomas A. Koch. A few things you should know about him, he is taller than most, has an incredibly even temper and is an amazing cinematographer, plus he has fun on our shoots. You wouldn't think that was a factor, but considering how many shoots become trials and hardships, having fun is a big plus. On this bright and sunny afternoon we met at a Peet's coffee (in Santa Clara) and after discussing a few things, most notably the state of affairs within the indie film scene and how we hated waiting for projects to be greenlit - he brought up something he had been pushing for over a year, "how about a web series?"

While I thought (and think now) that web content is in many ways the future of entertainment, I also believe that there were many web series that just didn't look that great. Scratch that, it wasn't even that they didn't look that great, it was more the style I didn't like, plus I really wanted to emulate shows that I appreciated, shows that spoke to me, be it a comedy, drama or whatever. Then again, if I wasn't going to be directing a feature film project, then what I really wanted to do was (yep you guessed it), direct television. So I told him I would work on a couple ideas and off I went.

Calling my other producer, Bernard Fok (one of the few people who has watched more television than I) on the way home, Bernard professed that while a web series would be a great possibility, he would prefer a polished script be delivered PRIOR to us getting anything started (actually Thomas said the same thing). He also wanted it to look more like a tv show than other web content we have seen, which I wholeheartedly agreed with...

Now Thomas has a script for a web series (that we will launch in the future), but he was still doing rewrites and it wasn't there yet. So I took both of their advice and filed away the idea and went on with my day, then my night and went to sleep.

THE PLOT THICKENS

24 hours later I sent them both an email, this email contained a rough outline of EXIT Stage Left, character sheets for 11 ensemble players, info on the websites we would maintain and how to possibly monetize the program in the future, plus I included a solution that would allow us to get started right away. To be fair, I'm not normally that proficient, but I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea. An idea about the theater and a way to tell a story loosely based on some of my experiences, while referencing some of the films I love...

...it's funny, I went back and looked at that email and a good 85% is there, in the show. True the lead was no longer the PRODUCER, true the character pages changed yet again when I brought on David Hoekenga to help write the show, but overall - the main story is still there.

So where did the characters come from? Partly is was casting, a few of the characters were written with a certain actor/actress in mind (a special OMG prize to the first person to guess correctly, whom was a perfect match for which character), then others were amalgams of people I know, but the story itself comes from an unlikely source.

Growing up I had a voracious appetite for the movies. I watched films long available on tv at the theater whenever possible, the first time I saw Creature from the Black Lagoon was at a theater, in 3-D no less (thank you Valley Art Theater). I love the screwball comedy, the love story, classic scit-fi, WWII films, the MGM musicals and so many more, but I have a soft spot for the Warner Bros. classic cartoons and anything that came out of Sid Caesar's Your Show of Shows (if you are scratching your head right now, that is what Wikipedia is all about) Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Imogene Coca, Larry Gelbart, Neil Simon (tonight's homework, watch My Favorite Year).

So it is no wonder that I love the writings of Neil Simon, his plays speak to me, just as the music of Gershwin evokes the essence of NYC and a certain nostalgia which is uniquely the Big Apple, but it wasn't a play that I am talking about, but the 1977 film, The Goodbye Girl starring Marsha Mason and Richard Dreyfuss (in an Academy Award Winning performance no less). This was an original screenplay, written for Simon's wife at the time (Mason) and co-starring Robert DeNiro...but when the material didn't work for DeNiro, Dreyfuss was brought in to read against Mason and something special happened.

When it was released in 1977, I was fourteen and living in Phoenix Arizona. The film opened at the AMC Town & Country Theaters and I went to see it ('ahem'), maybe too many times to admit here (just don't ask me about Superman, that's a completely different story), but I instantly recognized something in it, that I knew that I wanted to do...I wanted to be privy to unforgettable performances and watch characters come to life, to watch actors transform into something special, to be so real and honest in their performance that....ok, now you are thinking, this guy is crazy, but really I do have a point. Here it is:

Elliot Garfield (Dreyfuss in the film) comes from Chicago to star in an off-Broadway production of Richard III, but when an overreaching director changes the characterization and pushes his performance into an extreme direction (Richard III is now gay, has a thick slur and none of the traditional motivations), Elliot's play opens to dismal reviews. In response he get drunk and arrives sloshed to Paula McFadden's (Mason) apartment. Just as he is pushed into bed, he lies there while an astonished McFadden watches as he performs an excerpt, albeit brief, but a selection none the less that blows her away, "this is the winter of our discontent...."

That one moment inspired me to create the characters in EXIT Stage Left. That one moment when she watches him become Richard III, drunk and barely conscious, he IS Richard III. However fleeting, the actor in him, rose to the performance that he knew was inside him, and while I knew that Richard Dreyfuss was an exceptional actor, for that moment, at least for me, he WAS Richard III.

I have a bunch of ideas for EXIT that will keep until next time, kudos for the two people out there that have actually read this to the end, but while many of my characters are strange and awkward in their own way, I promise that after all is said and done, they will be real, they will be true to who they are, and in the end, isn't that what it is all about?

'til next time,

Sinohui Hinojosa

Creator/Exec Producer/Director
EXIT Stage Left

ps. So where did the scripts come from? Next time, I promise.

Our Official Blog

2009-01-28T14:28:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Backstage at the Lowry Theater Company, the Official blog of EXIT Stage Left, the new web series by Emerging Artist Productions.

EXIT Stage Left is produced by Bernard Fok & Thomas A. Koch and created by Sinohui Hinojosa, but without question this is a team effort (a big shout out to our show's editor and composer Joel H. and his recent screening at Slamdance).

This blog will allow us to provide a little behind the scene flavor to our show, give viewers the chance to comment on each episode and let us know what they are thinking, plus over the course of the series we will update you with photos, exclusive video content and more.

So sit back and relax, you are are cordially invited BACKSTAGE, how cool is that?