E3 Productions

Random Acts Of Violence

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:58:00 +0000

Random Acts of Violence is about Gung Fu, the misuse of skateboards and good old fashioned action. This short was made for $75, which is what it cost to feed the cast and crew fast food for two days.

Director/Editor/Choreographer MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
Cinematographers MARK WATERBURY, MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
Camera Ops MARK WATERBURY, ZEKE PINHEIRO, MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
Original Score DERRICK VELASQUEZ

Cast
SAM BIRDSONG
MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
JEREMY SINCLAIR
TOM BAUMGARTNER
STEVEN DROUIN

Clarity x10

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:13:00 +0000

about 8 or 9 years ago, near the end of my college days, i was going through a breakup with sharon, and my little brother, derrick, who's musical tastes have always been years ahead of my own, gave me a few albums to help me through the trying times. one of those was jimmy eat world's 'clarity'. in the cliched way that music seems to define important moments of our youth, clarity was the soundtrack for every angry, heartbroken day of that breakup as well as my eventual recovery. unlike a lot of the music i listened to in college that seems embarrassingly silly and contrived in retrospect, clarity has only become more touching and insightful over the years, as if we were growing up with each other. it seems fitting then, that when i find myself going through another breakup with sharon, jimmy eat world is doing a 10 year anniversary tour of clarity and playing a show in our adoptive home, los angeles. this breakup has been vastly different in tone and drama from our last one, allegedly thanks to having become mature tax paying adults and growing apart slowly as adults tend to do, but it's still been an unexpectedly rough transition for me, especially during the last few days as she and i strive for that balance between being ex's, close friends and roommates. i originally wasn't even going to buy tickets. i had missed pre-sale and by the time they sold out, individual tickets were easily costing upwards of $100. but i figured i would regret missing out on my favorite band of all time playing my favorite album of all time more than i would regret increasing my credit card debt. i had purchased the tickets before sharon and i broke up and the concert happened two weeks after. i suppose it would make sense that we not go together, but our relationship over the years has always defied reason so it's not surprising that our break up be unique as well. and the music of jimmy eat world has as much defined our good times together as it has our bad times apart. so within the context of my love life coming full circle at the same time as this anniversary tour, last night's concert was perhaps the most significant musical experience of my life. as distant as sharon and i have been as a couple lately, once the music starts i instinctually take her in my arms, the closest we've been to each other physically in months. catching her scent off her skin, feeling with certainty that this is the last time she and i will be together like this, knowing that this ending is what's right and good and necessary for both of us, i'm in tears before the first song, table for glasses, even hits its stride. it's a good cry though. the relieving kind of cry that you can't remember why you were holding in so hard once it finally comes out. by the time goodbye sky harbor begins, i'm so exhausted inside i can barely stand. but sharon is still in my arms. when the show ends and the house lights and top 40 music comes back on, sharon and i return to our roles as roommates but perhaps not as far from each other as we were before the show began. it's as good a swan song as one could hope for to a relationship spanning over a decade. heres to anniversaries and endings. here's to clarity.

Wolverine review

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:12:00 +0000

expectations: very low
expectations met: mostly

I did not hate Wolverine nearly as much as i was expecting to. actually, i did not hate the first half of Wolverine as much as i was expecting to. the rest of the movie is like being forced to re-live all the parts of X3 that could have been great but ultimately ended up sucking. You would think making a cool film about wolverine is a no brainer. there's a ridiculous amount of material from his countless comic books to choose from and huge (yes, i wrote huge on purpose) jackman has shown that he can play the character with the respect and badassery he deserves. actually, the acting in Wolverine is the least of its problems. most of the actors do a credible job with the roles and lines they're given but none can overcome the general silliness that surrounds them. there's a cheese factor to the both the action and the dramatic moments in the movie that always stop it from living up to its potential and it feels like the filmmakers thought these moments were cooler and more important than they end up being on screen. the visual effects in wolverine are also worth noting because they are terrible and amateurish. the effects are so bad that they manage to make wolverine walking away from an explosion look stupid. and what was up with the crappy cgi on wolverine's claws? the cinematography is also pretty bland throughout, especially when you compare it to the first two X-Men movies, which i doubt anyone involved with this film actually saw.
i was surprised that i kind of enjoyed Liev Schreiber as victor creed. i think it's that voice of his, but i thought the way he runs like a gazelle when attacking looked ridiculous. gambit also didn't piss me off as much as i expected he would though he doesn't reach even a fraction of his coolness from the comics. my favorite performance, and it's a small one, is by kevin durand as fred dukes. something about the delivery of his lines is downright sincere. overall, this movie mostly sucked, was not quite good, and barely entertained.

here's something kinda fun to do: go to imdb and look up the resumes of the director, writers and cinematographers and tell me it isn't obvious that Wolverine was gonna end up being mediocre.

Your Mama

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:11:00 +0000

last week there were some fraudulent charges made to my ATM card, all to those swarmy internet businesses that typically advertise with web banners and spam. i filed a claim with my bank and it's in the process of being taken care of. today my mom calls me.
"hi, michael, it's mom."
"hey mom."
"soooo, is everything all right with you?"
"uh, sure. why do you ask."
"well, i was just wondering why we got all these packages in the mail today."
"they're addressed to me? what are they?"
"yes, um, body solutions, enhance and enlarge.com, quality health, hair growth direct..."
"oh my god, mom, there's a perfectly good explanation for all that."
"hmmm, this one says glow.com. i want to open it. can i open it? i want to see if it's a glow in the dark dildo or vibrator or something."

never underestimate how freaky your parents can be.

Watchmen review

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:08:00 +0000

expectations: low
expectations met?: i was pleasantly surprised

i may have underestimated director zack snyder and his crew. considering that snyder's last film, 300, was just a bunch of men running around and stabbing each other in slow motion while yelling about democracy, i was worried about his ability to tell a story of this size. i'm a fan of the comic series. it's one of those complex stories i can reread every few years and discover new things in. after a wonderful montage introducing the history of superheroes in the watchmen universe i was continually surprised at how well watchmen translated on screen, and knowing how much they had to consolidate into such a short amount of time i thought it was well handled. i saw this with sharon, who has never read the comic, and i asked her if she felt that anything was missing or if there was any confusion about the world the film takes place in and she had no complaints. this is not meant to be a full blown endorsement mind you. too many of the actors were giving B-Movie performances and it hurts the weight of the story. I think the exceptions are jackie earle haley (who voices rorschach the way christian bale should have voiced batman, minus the grammar), patrick wilson and to a lesser extent, jeffrey dean morgan. billy crudup also did a great job with the voice of dr. manhattan and i think the decision to go all digital with that character was a good one because he looks human but doesn't quite move, behave or emote like one. it's like watching those creepy digital actors in the polar express, but intentional this time. also, the old age makeup effects are distractingly laughable. i thought the soundtrack was interesting. very eighties feeling. it's difficult to separate myself from the comic and any plot points that were skipped, changed or glossed over might have been automatically filled in by my memory of that story, but i think the movie stands on its own. this is a very different super hero world that's been created here and just because it's not as grounded in reality as the dark knight, i think it's a fully realized alternate universe that is handled with seriousness and sincerity. opinions have been across the board on this film. fans will see it regardless but i hope non-comic moviegoers check it out because i'd like to see more alternate worlds that aren't just trying to recapture the feeling of iron man and the dark knight. as for the change in the ending, it didn't bother me. if you've got a studio breathing down your neck saying you absolutely cannot have a giant alien squid in this movie, then this was a well thought out compromise. though it still bugs me that dr. manhattan never tells ozymandias "nothing ever ends". in my opinion that moment is perhaps more important than the possibility of rorshach's journal being published.

Avatar review

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:07:00 +0000

UPDATE 04/17/10 - This weekend they re-released Avatar in 3D to promote the home video release (we don't really say "home video release" anymore do we?) and i went to check it out for my 4th time in the theaters. I came away with these thoughts. yes, avatar is a rehashed white savior story that has been told better in the past and with more nuance. the anti-corporation and pro-environment elements are about as subtle as a tour bus, but dammit, this is the kind of stuff i would want my kids growing up with so they don't turn into cynics who dismiss positive messages in the media unless they pander to our need to feel sophisticated and clever. avatar says something important about where we are, where we're going and what kind of mentality we need to adopt if we want to change. also, i still couldn't take my eyes off the screen. i wish i'd updated this sooner to tell people to see this at an AMC rather than the arclight dome. the arclight may have installed all the latest technology required to show avatar as intended but somehow the execution fell far short. the last 2 AMC's I watched this at, even at the overpriced "IMAX experience", have been a revelation to behold, with bright, sharp, nearly blur-free 3D. also, since i've seen it so many times i was able to focus on the background subtleties of the film and it's crazy how much thought went into the details. for example, you can see that the holographic maps of pandora are being projected by a series of tiny RGB projectors arranged in a circle, pointing toward the central viewing area and something about that just seems so plausible. my favorite character by far has become stephen lang's colonel miles quaritch, who's single minded badassery had me cheering out loud for the guy almost every time he's on screen. i'm curious to see how avatar holds up on home video and how much my enjoyment of this film will be tied to the awesomeness of its 3D technology on a giant screen. and for what it's worth, i think they should have split the best picture and best director oscars between this and hurt locker. it would have satisfied oscar politics because hurt locker might have deserved one award, but not both.

INITIAL REVIEW 12/19/09 - i'm pretty sure this is spoiler free. i was a little underwhelmed at the start of avatar. i'd made efforts to avoid most of the media hype but i still had expectations. i mean, it's james fucking cameron. right off the bat, and this almost always worries me, there's a lot of explanatory voiceover setting up the premise. it's intercut with some space sequences, the purpose of which is to get us to the meat of the story in the pandoran forest as soon as possible, and that is where the movie really takes off; once jake sully, our handicapped hero, enters his avatar body. i don't watch many 3D movies so the slightly blurred and washed out image took some getting used to. the use of 3D in avatar, while perhaps being more fully realized, is at the same time subtle and pervasive so it wasn't until my eyes adjusted that i found myself completely enthralled with the world of pandora. i know you're probably gonna see this movie anyway, but if there's one thing i want you to get from this review it's that i literally did not take my eyes off the screen once throughout the entire film. that being said, there's nothing original going on here storewise. this is basically just another retelling of the white savior myth and not a complex one either; but simple stories are easier for audiences to connect to and i'm not going to fault avatar on that. my girlfriend also made an apt comparison to miyazaki's films which tend to center on female characters and balance/coexistence/struggle with nature. i can see how people might think the characterization is two dimensional. there's no sarah conner, Ellen Ripley or even a t-800 here. that's not to say the actors don't do a good job. zoe saldana's na'vi warrior is wonderful and the main bad guy, played by stephen lang, is only two dimensional in the best and most badass of ways. the motion capture and character animation on display is stunning and you can absolutely see how much of the actors performances shines through their CG characters. even if the integration of live action and CGI isn't as completely seamless as advertised, it is completely integrated and at no point was i ever pulled out of the world of pandora because i thought something looked fake or to CG. i have a feeling i'm going to be spending a lot of money watching avatar in 3D several more times. next up is IMAX 3D.

Quarter Life Crisis

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:06:00 +0000

i wrote this a few years ago. it's frightening both how much and how little has changed.

On my way home from a family visit the city welcomes me with standstill traffic and thick, yellow skies
I'm not exactly sure when i started referring to this place as home
but it frightens me that i've gotten so used to yelling at strangers on the freeway

i talk to my friend on the phone as i drive and he tells me he's going through a quarter life crisis
26 years old, single, careerless, directionless
and seriously thinking about moving in with mom and dad so he can save up for a condo
nevermind that he makes twice what i do for half the work
he had wanted to be a musician
you're so lucky to be pursuing what you love, he says.
you are so lucky.

in high school you promise to make your first million by the time you're 22 so you can retire early
marry someone way younger than you and spend the rest of your days on the beach
sipping martinis and working on your tan
but 22 turns into 25 and somehow paying your bills becomes a priority over things like traveling, finding true love and changing the world
you make the worst mistake of your life by taking a job that requires you to wake up at the same time every morning
and suddenly you're 28
at which point you're no longer going through a phase you're just kind of a fuck up
and your family speaks in whispers at holiday gatherings hoping you'll at least marry into some money

you see, we are part of a growing social class with more opportunities than we know what to do with
where success is implied but never promised
and love means changing your profile from "single" to "in a relationship"

we strive for a better life, to make our families proud and achieve an acceptable level of comfort
but really, these are just nice ways of saying we need money to have happiness
as if one can't exist without the other
as if money not only makes you content, it keeps you healthy, sexy and young
with minty fresh breath and farts that smell like the first day of spring

but i remember the warm smile of the senior citizen employees at the walmart
who restock the snack shelves like it's the most fulfilling job in the universe
i remember the old man at the comic book shop who lights up like a child over new issues of X-men
even though he has to carry around an oxygen tank just to breathe
and i think to myself, what the hell do they know that I don't?
I'm not so patient i can wait another 40 years to understand the secrets of a happy life
and frankly, I know plenty of unhappy old people
so who can i turn to for advice?
who can i count on to give me a hug, hand me a beer and tell me that everything is going to be just...awesome?

because when you've lived a life of straight A's and merit scholarships, no one really wants to hear you bitch about your upper middle class problems
try explaining to your grandmother who had to evacuate her village during bombing raids that you're just not sure what to do with your life

tell your grandfather who survived world war II, the last male in his family line, that you don't think you're ever going to get married, let alone have kids

or complain to your aunt who was forced from school into internment that you haven't really used your college degree since graduating

i can never forget that struggle is nature's way of separating the weak from the strong
and having struggled for little, it is best to count my blessings and keep on my toes
because i may already be a happy person
I just don't know it yet

so i will make the effort to look forward to my car payments and the rent on my apartment because it beats taking the bus and sleeping on the street
i will teach myself to appreciate credit card debt because it means i've got shelves filled with nifty gadgets and a closet full of jackets
i'll call my parents and thank my mom for buying me my first set of paintbrushes
and for glorifying every single watercolor of she-ra, the thundercats and voltron on our refrigerator door
i'll thank my dad for making me play every sport he could think of and for showing up at all my matches
even after i told him it embarrassed me to have him there
and i'll thank my grandparents for proudly showing me off to their friends and strangers at the mall
and for making sure every girl i brought home saw those naked baby pictures of me that i thought i'd destroyed

I will never be unaware that it is my privilege to concern myself with bullshit like a quarter life crisis, my self esteem and whether or not I can really afford that vacation package to hawaii
I will endeavor each and every day to make sure
that the gifts my family fought so hard for me to have
do not go to waste.

Fighting review

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:52:00 +0000

expectations: embarrassingly kind of high
expectations met: sort of

Fighting is not the brawlfest i was expectiing nor is it as fluffy as something like Never Back Down. There are certainly good looking people beating each other up without shirts on but Fighting isn't trying to be the Fast & Furious of MMA. it's not Lionheart either (but then again, what is?). Fighting is an almost personal film. it's more about the relationship between the characters played by channing tatum and terrance howard than it is about the underground fight scene in new york. i've been anti terrance howard ever since he tried to put the moves on my girlfriend right in front of me, but i can't fault the man's acting. his character, harvey boarden, is reminiscent of Djay from Hustle & Flow and while i was chuckling about his demeanor and voice at first, i eventually found it to be endearingly effective in portraying a 2 bit hustler who just can't seem to get the respect he wants. channing tatum does a decent job as well but he's almost too good looking to be believed as a down and out homeless street vendor. down and out male model or gigolo, maybe. he does have a solid physical presence and that makes me a little hopeful for his role in the upcoming GI Joe. There's also a cute little romance between channing and the very fetching zulay henao. a lot of their interactions seem improvised and their growing attraction to each other felt natural. the fight scenes in Fighting are not overly choreographed or shot and edited very well, but as i said, this isn't really a martial arts action movie. to its credit, most of the real fights i've seen look pretty much like they do on screen in Fighting, where the opponents punch at each other a little wildly, go to the ground and then scramble around for dominance or a choke out. So i guess in that sense, the choreography is realistic. overall, i enjoyed Fighting. I don't like how neatly everything is tied up at the end but i happened to be in the mood for something not too heavy with a happy ending and some eye candy which is what i got.

This Is The Sound Of One Hand Clapping

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:42:00 +0000

when i'm depressed i wonder why people insist on continuing to make me feel worse. when i'm happy i wonder why people can't stop infringing on my good mood. i'm becoming more self centered, more socially needy and yet more internally closed off as the years go by. i think the world should change for me rather than me adapting to it and i'm so sure in my ways that the ground could open up right under my feet and i'd probably expect to float right along. i avoid being shaken up, skirting chances at real change. i take less and less responsibility for my failures because how could i possibly not have met the many expectations on my potential unless someone or something, an external force beyond my control, was acting against me. i feel like i'm owed something. that is the ultimate product of my education; that getting straight A's and having teachers give me high marks for being one of the good students somehow entitles me to success. despite my very privileged life, the many opportunities laid out before me, the complete lack of hardship, i still haven't been able to make it work. i'm a slacker. lazy at heart and so involved in my discontent that i still feel righteous when essentially complaining about my inability to just get off my fucking ass. i purposely avoid hard work that might result in a failure on my part, choosing instead to pour myself into other people's projects so i can use them as an excue to put off what i fear will be just another flop in a string of my mediocre creative endeavors. it becomes easier to glorify and polish up past accomplishment than it is to make new ones. but the growing awareness that people realize it's all just talk on my part burns at me. i look at the many individuals turning out great things from humble beginnings and i can't even muster up admiration or inspiration any more. just jealousy that i don't understand what keeps them hungry and shame that i had a head start and accomplished less. a growing number of unanswered correspondences tell me what a burden i've become to many of my friends, who have their own problems to deal with and shouldn't have to be bothered with my acting out for their attention. so i'm relegated to posting a note on facebook, the communication equivalent of salmon releasing their egg and sperm out into the water, hoping to get lucky. because a phone call would require too much personal involvement and a text message is somehow too impersonal. actually meeting face to face is out of the question because it might result in awkwardness at the cost of you having to drive in LA traffic and at the risk of me taking out my frustrations on you. if you really care, then the best thing you can do is ignore this. don't respond to my attempt to make you feel sorry for me. don't feed into my sense of self importance. no heartfelt i love you's, no pats on the back about how talented you think i am, no cleverly callous jabs or half jokes. don't say you're there if i need you because if you haven't heard any of this from me before then you obviously don't mean it. this isn't a test. this isn't me asking you if i look fat in my jeans. it's not me telling you i don't want you to call when i really really do. it's not a request for your advice on how to live happier. if anything it's an attempt to publicly shame myself into action. it is a declaration that my life is a self inflicted mess so don't try and set me up with your single friends because i will just use them to plug holes in the dam. this is me, telling you my problems while admitting that i've done nothing to fix them and that kind of apathy should never be rewarded.

Terminator Salvation review

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:36:00 +0000

expectations: low but hopeful
expectations met?: i should have kept them even lower and abandoned all hope

i'm having trouble getting over just how incredibly stupid Terminator Salvation is. i'm gonna drop some spoilers here while i rant about the holes in the plot, so if you're intent on seeing this like i was despite the bad word of mouth, just keep your expectations rock bottom low.

terminator salvation is bland. it takes no risks in its direction, storytelling, cinematography, action or production design. McG showed he had some flair in Charlie's Angels but that movie was supposed to be lighthearted fun and the director finds himself sorely mismatched here. no characters or plots are developed or pushed beyond what we remember from the previous films. using T2 as the benchmark, the "humanity" for lack of a better word, is completely absent from terminator salvation and the plot lacks focus, which is a huge problem for a story that's supposed to be about saving the human race. i won't fault the actors too much as they don't really have much to work with. sam worthington delivers the best performance. christian bale seems dimmed somehow. actually, anton yelchin as kyle reese bugged me the most because he acts like one of the wide eyed young postal carriers from The Postman. if you've seen that movie then you know exactly what i'm talking about. maybe we'll get to see him transform into a badass as the series continues, which it shouldn't.

and now on to the stupidity.

let's set aside all the divergent theories on time travel and follow only the logic laid out in the movie. skynet wants john connor dead because he's going to be the leader of the resistance. skynet wants kyle reese dead because he'll eventually get sent into the past and become john connor's father. kill kyle reese and reset the timeline. but the terminator/human hybrid, marcus wright, spends a good 30 minutes traveling around with reese, helping him survive. marcus is identified early on by a skynet tracker while being pursued, as is kyle reese i recall, and yet he's not activated somehow to kill reese? we know the machines can communicate with each other and near the end we find out that the machines can clearly identify marcus as one of their own. once reese is captured and again indentified, why isn't he immediately killed, thus securing the future for skynet? there's no point in using him for bait if killing him will really prevent john connor from ever being born in the first place. skynet is like a rube goldberg machine hatching this overly complex plot to lure john connor to skynet so he can fight a digital arnold schwarzenegger and pander to the series' fanbase.

we'll give the film the benefit of the doubt and say that marcus malfunctioned, could not transmit his whereabouts or be tracked and was not acting under any programming because he truly believes himself to be human. we can be even more generous and say that since he was a prototype he design was flawed, meaning they left him with too much humanity and not enough control, so it was by luck that he succeeded in getting to connor and reese. then why, when skynet gives him a new body/repairs him near the end, don't they simply reset him so he can't foil their plans? once connor and reese are trapped at skynet, marcus serves no purpose, right? Terminator Salvation tries to absolve itself of its own faulty logic by having the voice of sarah connor say that one could go crazy trying to figure out the paradoxes of time travel and john connor saying this is not the future his mother told him about, but it seems a lame excuse at best considering how often this movie insults the audience's intelligence.

and why the hell is it so difficult to kill john connor? skynet seems to be mostly unprotected during the finale but several terminators throughout the movie get the drop on john connor and instead of simply snapping his neck or crushing his skull with a single blow, they choose to throw him against walls and various other objects. my memory of the previous films in the franchise, even the underrated third film, is that the terminators do not fuck around like that. they might pause dramatically, but they have no intention of playing around with their prey before killing it. strangely, john connor seems to be able to take just as much physical punishment as marcus does and without the benefit of cybernetic enhancement.

did i mention that there is a pounding on the chest CPR scene to revive what is essentially a dying machine in this film? and marcus' sacrifice at the end? i can't begin to describe how asinine and meaningless it feels.

i think that's about it. if i come up with more ways to insult terminator salvation, i'll update this review.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince review

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 08:16:00 +0000

expectations: rock bottom
expectations met?: pleasantly surprised

holy crap, they made a harry potter movie that i actually kind of liked? harry potter and the half blood prince has all the same shortcomings as the previous five films in the series, they're just not as bad here. in condensing the events of the book, the half blood prince is still rushed, leaving out numerous plot points and criminally reducing many key characters' roles to mere cameos. perhaps i've just gotten used to this by now but i can appreciate a certain conciseness to the story - you don't have to have read the books to enjoy this movie, you just need to have seen the previous ones. editing the story down also had a much more important benefit in that it allowed certain events to play out at a better pace. none of the previous films has ever elicited any emotional response from me besides disappointment and boredom, but in the half blood prince there are some genuinely tense moments and building that kind of tension takes time, which the filmmakers would not have had if they were trying to cram every fan pleasing instance from the book into a 2 and a half hour film. seriously, i actually got chills a couple of times. the acting from the main three cast members has also improved. there are still some awkward deliveries but overall i'm pleased that someone stopped encouraging these obviously matured young adults to keep acting like children. i feel like the romantic overtones were handled very nicely as well, seeming more...realistic? at the least, they are at least less forced. perhaps because the actors themselves are getting older and more experienced in life. i've loved these characters in books since the beginning of the series but this is the first time i gave two shits about them within the context of the films. the cinematography is exceedingly beautiful and i'm disappointed to see that cinematographer, bruno delbonnel, is not listed as returning for the last two films. This was also the first time in the series that i noticed enjoying the soundtrack, but the composer is also not yet listed as returning. i've never had any desire to re-watch the first five harry potter movies...at all, but i may check this one out again when it hits blu-ray. and i am wearily optimistic for the last two, since director david yates is returning. by the way, i caught hp6 at an early sunday morning screening and it was packed full. this movie is going to make a bajillion dollars.

Bookie

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:11:00 +0000

At a raucous soul R&B nightclub in 1963, crowds from all over Seattle gather for a chance at alcohol, wild music, and easy money. Amidst it all, a gambling bookie risks everything he has for a waitress down on her luck.

Writer/Director TRAN QUOC BAO
Producer NICK RISINGER
Co-Producer MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
Director of Photography SHAUN MAYOR
Music Supervisor JOHNNY HORN

Cast
Bookie KEN QUITUGUA
Billie ANGELA ADTO
Jackson LESTER PURRY
Rogers JT JACKSON
Clerk BRIAN MCDONALD
Roughneck AARON TONEY
Shorty SAM LOOC
Busboy MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
Bombshell BRITTANY QUIST

For high-quality download (MP4, WMV, XVID), visit: http://bookiethemovie.com

2GB DVD Burnable Image file:
http://pov-films.com/video/BOOKIE_DVD.ISO

Project Michelle

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 08:06:00 +0000

This was a PSA created to promote awareness among Asian Americans of the severe shortage of ethnic minorities on the bone marrow donor registry. Unfortunately, the project was unable to save the life of the young woman who inspired it, Michelle Maykin, but it continues to draw support for her cause.
http://projectmichelle.com/

Co-directors/Co-producers GRACE SU and MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
Editor GRACE SU

Cast in order of appearance
J-SPLIF
NICOLE BILDERBACK
BRIAN YANG
C.S. LEE
PARRY SHEN
MICHELLE KRUSIEC
PROHGRESS
DC WOLFE
PK
KEV NISH
STEVE AOKI
ARDEN CHO
DANNY CHO
LANNY JOON
VIVIAN BANG
TAMLYN TOMITA
TIM CHIOU
JULIA NICKSON
DAVID LEE MCINNIS

Sentimental

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:12:00 +0000

After realizing that not everyone thinks my family is as interesting as I do, I created this piece in an attempt to make my family as engaging to an audience of strangers as it is to me. The final picture frames sequence was created in After Effects but the rest of the video was done in Final Cut Pro before After Effects incorporated z-space. The song featured is Goodbye Sky Harbor by Jimmy Eat World.

Director/Editor/Motion Graphics MICHAEL VELASQUEZ

Cast
THE YIP AND VELASQUEZ FAMILIES

2010 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Trailer

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Sat, 01 May 2010 06:20:00 +0000

This is the promotional trailer for the 2010 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. I re-created the cityscape in After Effects based on the original poster design, which was flattened vector art. The paper plane folding animation at the beginning is rotoscoped video of my friend, also done in After Effects.

Key art Design MATT LOPEZ
Motion Graphics MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
Music GEORGE SHAW
http://georgeshawmusic.com/

Contact

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 01:14:00 +0000

Michael Velasquez
michael@e3productions.com
818.636.4935

Tentaciones

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 01:13:00 +0000

Artist IGNACIO VAL
Lyrics & Music HUECCO
Director MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
Cinematographer JOSH PANGELL
Producers MICHAEL VELASQUEZ, BELLA GAUNA, IGNACIO VAL
Camera Op JOSH PANGELL, MICHAEL VELASQUEZ, KRISHNA NARAYANAMURTI, GREG HIRSH
Grips KRISHNA NARAYANAMURTI, GREG HIRSH, AARON OHLMANN, TIM JIEH
Crew BELLA GAUNA, GIOVANNA HERRING

Editor MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
Colorist JOHN NGUYEN

Cast
IGNACIO VAL
RACHAEL O'BRIEN
TERRY GINGLES

Band
Drummer ALEX MOSCATELLI
Guitar MARCOS GONZALES
Bass RIK BARBA
Flamenco Guitar MAU JUAREZ

Special Thanks MARCUS UBUNGEN, THE HERRING FAMILY

Burn

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 01:11:00 +0000

A college student's imagination runs rampant when he spots the girl of his dreams in the local bookstore. Dancing and martial arts ensue.

Director/Editor/Choreographer MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
Camera Op DERRICK VELASQUEZ, RAFAEL MARTINEZ

Cast
MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
SHARON RICHMUELLER
FASY
LUKE SLAVIK

Below The Belt

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:59:00 +0000

Below the Belt compares the fine art of boxing to the brutal sport of picking up on women. Rental costs for the boxing ring made this the most expensive E3 production ever. It is also the first of our shorts to have an actual script.

Writer/Director/Editor MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
Cinematographers MARK WATERBURY, MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
Original Score DAVID TICHY

Cast
TERRY GINGLES
LILA DOVAN
MICHAEL VELASQUEZ
JAMES CHE

E3 Productions Directing and Editing Reel

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:12:00 +0000

Directing, editing and cinematography Michael Velasquez.

Full credits for each piece can be found under "Shorts", "Collaborations" and "Archives" on this site.

E3 Productions Motion Graphics Reel

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Velasquez) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 00:08:00 +0000

Motion Graphics created by Michael Velasquez.