tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37564188299076647492011-07-28T19:54:19.077-07:00On making the documentary, The Ticket - www.theticketmovie.comRichard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.comBlogger351100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-89483843276169550622009-10-09T08:28:00.000-07:002009-10-09T08:51:38.174-07:00

The Ticket will premiere at the Virginia Film Festival on Saturday November 7, 2009 at 12:30pm We have a great art house venue - Vinegar Hill Theater in Charlottesville. For more details about the festival and tickets - which are on sale as of today - visit: The Virginia Film Festival

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-88332441239255429062009-08-09T10:14:00.001-07:002009-08-09T10:20:48.960-07:00

Italian Lottery Fever: Jackpot Approaches $177 Million - The World NewserHooray for the Italian Lottery. The prize money advertised is what you actually get after tax - not like in the U.S. where you end up with about third of the money.On the downside here is the lottery doing what it does best - when economic times are bad it acts as a safety valve. No matter how bad things get there's always

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-57029744261942334542009-07-22T06:32:00.001-07:002009-08-09T10:22:05.379-07:00

Went to 3 Shoddy T.V.s last night. I showed the trailer and discussed what changes needed to be made. Everyone at the meeting had great suggestions about how to improve it - thanks to all. Showed sections of the film from beginning to end and narrated with a sort of director's commentary style. The response was positive so I think it worked better than just showing a couple of scenes.

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-8237352582382494652009-07-18T07:12:00.000-07:002009-07-18T07:24:59.090-07:00

A new film group has started in Charlottesville and will have it's first meeting at The Bridge Public Arts Initiative on Tuesday, July 21. If you're in or around Charlottesville, Virginia come by. Local filmmakers will share and discuss current work. We'll be sharing a sneak peek of the film.

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-36759563149743396522009-07-13T12:36:00.000-07:002009-07-13T12:50:54.063-07:00

Bert Muhleman, self-dubbed "wayfarer" and one of our intrepid cameramen has embarked on a new adventure; the Mongol Rally. He's part of a team taking a pink ice cream truck from London to Mongolia. The Rolling Cones team is undertaking the trip for the charity Mercy Corps. Follow their journey at http://rollingcones.net/home/P.S. They still need donations to reach their goal so please help if

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-33895607174993892092009-06-27T11:12:00.000-07:002009-06-27T11:29:39.461-07:00

Just reviewed Sound Mix # 8 by Jon Schroeder at Ergopop. 5 more tweaks on the sound and we're ready for what's next.We recently applied to the IFP's Spotlight on Documentaries in New York (September). If we get accepted into the program it'll be a tremendous opportunity to network to show the film. It's extremely competitive so fingers-crossed, we'll hear that we get in next month.

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-9190212365138431872009-04-27T02:59:00.000-07:002009-10-09T08:48:42.315-07:00

Bad Kreuznach, Germany. I’ve been helping Dara Friedman shoot “Ohrwurm” ( Trans. "Earworm" – a song that gets stuck in your head) in Frankfurt for the past week. We’re currently halfway so I’ll be home in a week to get back to the film.It’s been a while since I posted anything – mostly because it’s been work to resolve some frame-rate issues and problems exporting project files – all a bit

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-45331149369483218262008-10-29T05:52:00.000-07:002008-10-29T07:27:43.544-07:00

Been up since 2:30 this a.m. We had footage shot/captured at different frame rates so when it went to the lab for color correction they say there were duplicate frames in the Quicktime.Anyway - to cut a long story short I've been recapturing footage and realigning edits to accomodate minor changes in timing. Almost done - so the film will be on it's way to the lab again asap.Right now I really

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-49050230242419610862008-09-17T14:44:00.000-07:002008-09-17T14:55:30.618-07:00

We're 95% done on less than 50% of our anticipated budget. We did take longer than originally expected to get to this point but here we are. Ready for the sound mix, color correction and up-conversion to HD. We got numbers from Crawford Communcations in Atlanta which has the very awesome Teranex conversion system. They've been super responsive and I'm sure they will be great to work with.

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-66660039968036214892008-08-27T07:03:00.000-07:002008-08-27T14:37:02.964-07:00

I submitted an inquiry to First Hand Films last week. I had seen a trailer for Corridor #8 (one of their films). It's a great looking doc. with an artistic temperament. It won the Ecumenical Jury Award at the Berlinale Film Festival this year. First Hand manages a ton of documentaries of this kind but they're - mostly European. As a U.S. based production we're definitely outside the box in

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-83944334589443581082008-08-05T07:44:00.000-07:002008-08-05T09:24:10.457-07:00

So this morning I get 2 emails. The first is from Darren it says "How's the music going?" The second is from George which says, "i don't think i will finish this week brother..." In short, George has bowed out of the project. He's going to send what he has but this leaves us short of music and well short of a finished film. From what I can tell we have 3 options. Fight to keep George on

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-24285240505291438132008-08-04T07:47:00.000-07:002008-08-05T07:43:27.494-07:00

Holy crap it's August!No The Ticket hasn't fallen off the face of the earth. We are working - at least George is... He's been sending postage-stamp sized Quicktime files with tracks for the score and I've been giving feedback. We're diligently aiming for quality instead of slapping something together just because we've given ourselves a deadline. Fingers crossed it's this week for having all the

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-12784401507051859762008-06-11T11:43:00.000-07:002008-06-12T06:22:03.049-07:00

Lottery News (Just had to drop this in here...)A Washington & Lee statistics professor, Scott Hoover is suing the Virginia State Lottery. The claim states that the Virginia Lottery continues to advertise and sell scratch off tickets after prizes have been won. The lawsuit requests that the state reimburse all those players to whom it sold "stale tickets."If this is true then a lot of scratch-off

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-2066483759458471392008-06-10T14:04:00.000-07:002008-06-10T15:10:13.228-07:00

Just spoke with George. He's working on the score in Seattle. He's composing on keyboard and then he'll transpose the music to guitar and other instruments. Once he's got some roughs he'll email them so we can see how they work.Darren has ideas about changing the order of certain scenes. I guess I lied when I said we had picture lock. This is the process... "hurry up and wait..."I feel like I'm

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-57525675044224917602008-06-02T09:05:00.000-07:002008-06-03T06:41:49.309-07:00

Waiting with baited breath for music from George.Darren's in New York and says he'll take a look at the new cut as soon as he gets home - which is today or tomorrow.Last night watched The Battle of Algiers Paul Greengrass referred to this film as a huge influence for The Bourne Ultimatum. It's a monster!

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-32068911108916153582008-05-28T16:23:00.000-07:002008-05-28T13:48:28.738-07:00

Space Commando: you faithfully read this blog and you regularly submit comments! With much gratitude (and excitement that someone may be reading this blog), this post is dedicated to you, my dear, cosmonautic friend. We play the lottery to get the sensation of risk. We're wired to want this feeling. For early man, hunting was risky and so was moving to new lands to find food. Man has survived as

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-3344339585521141952008-05-27T06:38:00.000-07:002008-06-12T06:59:49.160-07:00

7:29 am - Picture LockA good omen!7:29 = 7 & 11Over Memorial Day weekend TCM was playing some fantastic films so Virginia and I watched a movie marathon: Action in the North Atlantic - Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey (Must check out more Raymond Massey flicks)Favorite line: "I was shippin' out when your buttons were safety pins"Objective Burma - Errol Flynn - Terrific, suspenseful film (hmmm..

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-70821086800058059282008-05-22T03:26:00.000-07:002008-05-24T05:25:15.815-07:00

People often say that you have a higher chance of being struck by lightning than winning the lottery. Is this... ...Fact or Myth? According to the lottery industry it's a myth. I found this on the NASPL (North American State and Provincial Lotteries) site:"Is it true that the odds of winning the lottery are worse than being struck by lightning?No, even if we just consider the awarding of large

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-49656550038976116662008-05-20T08:23:00.000-07:002008-05-20T08:40:31.994-07:00

Wow - nearly 2 months since I last posted!"What's been going on with The Ticket?" you may ask. Well the whole thing has been reworked with cover shots and I rummaged to find gems that we'd passed over during previous versions. Picture lock is this week. Running time 84 minutes. On the money!

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-47679332920261848002008-03-17T12:27:00.000-07:002008-04-07T06:59:39.651-07:00

Edited until 2 a.m. then took Darren to the airport at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning.Over the last 5 days we completely changed two thirds of the film. Taking it in turns to "drive" we've done an incredible amount of work. I was hoping we'd be done but the changes have been huge and I'm really happy with what we've done. Up until now we were taking a more hands-off/verite approach but it wasn't

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-56343947432155594822008-03-09T07:39:00.000-07:002008-05-28T14:32:28.557-07:00

New trailer is up on our site. A lot of the feedback seemed positive but at the same time there was feedback that there should be more information about the characters and their stories in the film.I hate spoilers. When you see a trailer that gives the whole film away what's the point in seeing the film? A trailer should give you just enough to want to see the film. If it does then it's done its

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-49944861884086772262008-03-05T08:30:00.000-08:002008-03-09T09:52:19.688-07:00

Okay here it is the new trailer - this isn't even up on our site yet so you saw it here first. Thanks to The Beetnix for the music. There's also a brief piece of a track by The Charlie Brechtel Band the #1 biker band in the U.S. - if you're heading to Sturgis check these guys out. Thanks to Charlie for the track. (He also happens to be in the film. A great musician and a brilliant story

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-87057661095482613802008-02-27T04:34:00.000-08:002008-03-09T09:45:08.405-07:00

Been cutting a new trailer since 5 a.m. We need to have this done soon. Foreign markets are coming up so once we have it we can approach sales agents. So far we've cut two other versions but neither of them catches the film in the right way. This one should have a better feel. I'll get it posted once it's done.Cleveland: Decision in fight between Elecia Mega Battle& Veronica"Vicious Bee"

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-86024249450341141872008-02-24T06:20:00.000-08:002008-02-24T07:29:28.640-08:00

Since this is a blog for The Ticket I should be writing about my own project. But I just saw a short film worth your time. This one's for all you filmmakers out in the trenches figuring out how to make ends meet and how to make a film at the same time...Ruairi Robinson made an amazing short film, Silent City. He just went from wondering how to pay the rent to getting offers from L.A. Now he's

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-3994851105982409592008-02-11T04:13:00.001-08:002008-02-11T06:19:03.680-08:00

Saturday - had a great phone meeting with Darren to plan the next cut. We're going to move away from the current minimalist style. We're going to add interviews and characters back in and we're going to add a narrative as well so that the beginning. The opening will have a lot more going on and will give the audience a much better sense of where the film is going. Once we've got all that

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-60538266285010119372008-02-07T03:35:00.000-08:002008-03-18T08:59:11.898-07:00

Dara Friedman emailed last night her project Musical for the New York Public Art Fund is finished. Dara's an amazing artist and a dear friend. I was thrilled and honored when she asked me to help out with the shoot.In October last year we spent 3 weeks shooting 50 singers on the streets of New York. While we were there her film, Revolution, was hanging in MOMA. I was lucky enough to be

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-66308557310094326342008-02-05T12:28:00.000-08:002008-02-06T15:59:17.609-08:00

Photo: Christopher Buttigieg RedCoatHaven't heard from Darren. Must still be recovering from the Superbowl.Before we made this film I never considered myself a gambling man. No one in my family really gambles. We don't go to the track and we never play the lottery. I like the idea of poker - the camaraderie and all that. But it just doesn't do it for me. Darren likes poker but he's not

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-53440761543149526632008-02-04T22:03:00.000-08:002008-02-05T03:55:19.881-08:00

It's one in the morning. Couldn't sleep. Came downstairs to check on a project I've been compressing to a Quicktime for Melissa. It's a 6 minute promotional film for the Darden Business school and the Innovation Challenge.Darren just prairie-dogged by email to share his Superbowl news "I was in a bar at the stadium. Crazy!... Let me recover today and we'll hook up tomorrow... - D"Richard (

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-39074806789809366952008-02-04T17:08:00.000-08:002008-02-04T22:21:26.213-08:00

Cleveland - Elecia "Mega" Battle trains for a her next boxing matchElecia lied that she was the winner of a $162 million in the Mega Millions Jackpot.Just as we suspected The Ticket didn't get accepted to the South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW) We were too rushed to get it polished the way it should have been. While it's a bit bruising to the ego they're right not to accept it. We

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-42157122312058486362008-02-02T14:26:00.001-08:002008-02-02T17:45:33.180-08:00

Deacon Jones used to play trumpet in Baby Huey and the Babysitters. The Chicago-based band put out one album which was produced by Curtis Mayfield. After Baby Huey died Deacon focused more on playing the Hammond B-3. He's a master blues man.Dennis and Deacon have been great friends for a long time. Before he won his $30 million Dennis told Deacon that he was going to win so we went to L.A. to get

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-11118864624977868592008-01-29T17:07:00.000-08:002008-01-30T10:31:15.138-08:00

Above - Lou Eisenberg (Left) and Curtis Sharp (Right) in one of many commercials for the New York State Lottery. These guys are still recognized in New York today. We followed these guys but when another film had also followed their story so we decided to focus on other lottery stories. Whatever you do - there's always someone somewhere doing the same thing.Lou and Curtis each scored $5 million

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-75682937574334914082008-01-26T18:03:00.000-08:002008-01-26T19:34:59.814-08:00

Pulled more footage for the Elecia Battle story this morning...Elecia claimed she won $162 million in the Mega Millions Jackpot. She said she had bought the ticket but it fell out of her handbag. People hunted in the snow for the missing ticket (above left).The media went crazy. Above and to the right is a copy of her police report. (Sorry for the small print). In the report the police officer

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-46037026327512822272008-01-25T18:54:00.000-08:002008-01-26T05:18:05.246-08:00

Over the last day I've been going back through Elecia Battle's Footage pulling B-Roll from Cleveland. We've still got a lot of unused footage to lay over the film to tighten things up.Tomorrow we've got an informational meeting with Stacy Parks of Film Specific. She's a former film sales agent so hopefully she will have some great advice to help us focus our marketing efforts.Lunch with

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-48074947667426714272008-01-23T18:57:00.000-08:002008-01-26T19:41:05.189-08:00

Darren and I talked last night - why was the audience confused? What have we done wrong?The Ticket contains three stories each one concerns a winning lottery ticket. In our introduction we've been saying that the film is about three winners; Jack Whittaker, Elecia Battle and Dennis Sanfilippo. The trouble is that we've mislead our audience. The audience is expecting to see exactly what we told

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3756418829907664749.post-88977023976384142092008-01-23T01:26:00.000-08:002008-01-25T07:32:26.379-08:00

First post of first blog. Richard Needham here director and producer of The Ticket. Our documentary has taken 3 years to make so far we've had all the usual hurdles - raising money and all the expected obstacles with making a film and at long last we're done - almost.Darren Ingram (producer) screened the film for friends and colleagues who worked with him on King of the Mountain I got his email

Richard Needhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10138216372622015811noreply@blogger.com