Untitled -- A film by Inverse Paradigm Studios

[Mattykins]

I might as well toss a disclaimer in here: this is all hypothetical at this point.

But I figured I might as well jump on board early. I learned from my failures with Perchance to Dream. Some of that talk might get in there as this thread evolves. But I intend on entering. Details to come.

So tuning in: I am looking for any New Yorkers who want to team up on a production. I intend on pushing things again. I want to lock a script before I go trying to find a DoP. But if you are a DVXuser with a RED or with any camera system and you want to join up with us. Let me know. Details can be worked out.

[Mattykins]

Reserved for Cast and Crew information.

[Mattykins]

19 November 2008

Today the first email was sent to my perspective producer and collaborator. Right now the concept of the film hasn't even made it to my white board yet. It still lies in a small book of ideas. In fact - the idea hasn't been solidified.

I was looking at potential locations to shoot in as well today. We have a full stage that may or may not be available.

Concepts are floating. But nothing is set.

24 November 2008

Another email out to my friend. She changed her email address. A quick phone call made me aware of the issue. I was speaking to another friend the other day bouncing ideas around. Where nothing was too crazy. Needless to say I have a few things I am really in love with.

Two variations on the same idea. One will cost much more, but it almost the one I like more. If only I could figure out a way to build a refugee camp.

25 November 2008

Sat on my ass today and did nothing. Though I was attempting to come up with something we could pitch for our first meeting. Looking at two different conceptual ideas right now. Well - three different ideas. Two of which looking at the same general idea of loss, just different settings. I have started looking into how to build a set we need for one of the ideas. If that isn't feasible - the story can work in an entirely separate realm.

The second idea is more based around music. I personally like it. However there are multiple issues with the story. Thus it isn't the top choice. But we shall see what happens as I prep to meet with my producer.

30 November 2008
Spent several hours thinking of a concept for the film. Kinda need one of those to move forward. Finally today I think I nailed one. Starting to write the screenplay tonight. Will be in rough draft Tuesday. And a polished script by Thursday. Conveniently enough I need to write a short film for my screenwriting class. So this will be it. Not going into details just yet. I need to come up with a title, logline, and poster.

7 December 2008
Script is locked I believe. I have some calls to make tonight I think. It is looking as if it is going to be an endearing film. Something I've never really tackled before. But either way - it should be a decent production. I've been searching around for some help up here in CNY. For what its worth - I will be in Manhattan for a month. Maybe we can get a few New Yorkers interested in the production?

[Mattykins]

Reserved in case I need it.

[Rodney V. Smith]

Time for some brutal production! Welcome to the fray!

[Michael Anthony Horrigan]

Good luck!

Mike

[Susanne G.]

Welcome to the fest and much luck! :beer:

Susanne

[Mattykins]

A journey in short film making. Mistakes to Products.

Let me first start by mentioning why I am talking about a failed project. This thread is designed to be a project. And talk about what we are doing. What better than to share our mistakes, how we plan on correcting them. And how you can avoid the same. Might as well turn a failed project into a learning session unto it's own.

18 November 2008

On the 14th of July 2008, Inverse Paradigm jumped into the ring with a film called Perchance to Dream. It was an utter failure.

We rode the thread hype all the way though. We contracted out Concept artists. We had fellow DVXusers give us a hand on Visual Effects. Gord - this goes out to you. We had script writers. It was a production that looked like it was going to make some ground.

Unfortunetely - Perchance was a film that was destined for failure. A series of small oversights and misplanning began the slow demise of the production. It wasn't until the start of Principle Photography that failure was upon us. When we hit the edit bay, we realized Perchance was nothing other than a tape.

The following is an account of the beginning of an end for Perchance to Dream:

The art department:

Shortly after announcing Perchance as an official entrant to the DVXuser Twilight Fest, I began entering a full steam ahead pre-prod mode. My first call was to a concept artist friend. We discussed the project at length and he passed since he was short on time. I then did my first round of visual effects recruiting.

We picked up a concept artist who started working for us immediately. When the contract was written and sent - he decided that this production was nothing he wanted to work for. There was less time allowed in the contract than he had anticipated. Despite telling him in the hire process there was a two week turn and not to apply if you cannot meet those demands.

After he quit, we kept the one piece of poorly designed work he sent us. Apparently hires online are sneaky. Portfolios only tell so much. We then contacted another conceptual artist who signed onto the project immediately. The turn around took a very long time. Which caused us to miss offers from Maya modelers. We eventually were able to work with our very own Raptor.

Raptor had an excellent turn around and really delivered an impressive product. After much messing around we managed to move the model into Maya 8 Unlimited. The 3D model was complete. But we were lacking a film to implement the character into.

Big hand to Raptor for giving us a product. Alas it was never placed.

The general production:

As concept art came in slowly. We were working on the film behind the scenes. Grabbing locations. casting, writing and rewriting. All of which will be covered later in the "blog". It wasn't until the day before Principle Photography I noticed that we might encounter issues. Our DoP decided he wanted to use a 35mm adapter on an AG80 (The precursor camera to the DVX100). He drove all night to pick up a Letus35.

I would like to make note: I would never recommend anyone ever use a system they are unfamiliar with.

This is where the production took a nose dive. We pulled into the location after emergency location searching as we were denied permit days before on the location we wanted. And began unloading the car.

The Jib was supposed to be set to go and was to be built. Our AG80, Letus combo took ages to set up. Already we are hours behind. And our Jib turns out to be lacking a critical part. Instead of ditching the shot and moving on, I let control of my show slide. Our DoP sent our runner out to the store to buy a piece. In the process we tried to set up for another shot. Moments before camera roll - our 'B' cam decided it was an opportune moment to crash. This caused a minor panic on set as our second operator began to cause a fuss. In this battle, my HV20 - our BTS cam gets thrown to the ground. (She survived.)

It wasn't until lunch was delivered did we get first shot off. With only 4 hours left in our time slot we were rushed for time. Lacking sufficient storyboards, we were searching for coverage.

Our first day wrapped on time, since our actors needed to be elsewhere. But we were lacking shots on the roll. I wasn't too overly concerned.

The following day:

Myself and the production roll into our second and last location to finish. After setting an HMI and gelling lights we were set to shoot. This day went off without a hitch. Until it was time to look at dailies.

Severe errors were made on all parts. Mostly from sound and camera. There was more than once that a boom drifted into frame and I was told "money". We moved on only to notice a boom clearly in the frame after the fact. There were times where the Letus wasn't turned on, so we could see the ground glass. Our second day looked better. But the first day was critical.

The sound was worse. Using a sound setup that I argued against, we lacked sufficient sound. Levels came back between -48 and -96dB. And that was when we did have levels. The recorder never recorded sometimes.

Perchance was officially done. There was nothing to edit. The image we had, we had zero reference audio. And the image was not at all decent enough for a CG integration.

We cancelled production shortly thereafter. A few hundred dollars later, I had some files on my computer and nothing more.

It was the death of Perchance to Dream.

Following: What went wrong? And how can it be fixed?

[Tom Marshall]

It's better than spending 12k and having nothing to show for it.

[Mattykins]

The Production itself was haunted from the beginning with minor oversights.

Planning:

The Planning process of Perchance to Dream began immediately after the posting. An idea was in my head and a script needed to be written. After a series of revisions, the script was set to go and ready to be brokendown. Myself - as a working AD knew how to break down the script. However, I've only scheduled my films based on my standard working times. I've been very efficient until now.

Most schedules adapt after the first day of production. A breakdown is only as good as the production at hand. Especially when breakdowns occur offline. The breakdown for Perchance was standard. Lacking only minor details. But there was one major oversight. That was actual physical limitation. Something that really can never be planned for.

Second unit was on set right before we got there to set up our location and prep for shooting. As our set came up, First unit was working on the technical end. Lacking an assistant director - units work was left unchecked as I was working with actors.

With several issues coming up though the day, I noticed one thing I never planned for was a contingency plan. What would I do in the event everything went to hell? I had no idea.

When things went downhill I was left without idea of what to do. And control of my show left my hands. Something you never want to have happen. Without a plan we were rushing about with no clear objective, and no clear way of handling issues.

What can you learn from what we did wrong?

Basically a contingency plan needs to be hashed out. By your AD. When things go wrong, panic sets in and no one is happy. It can be as easy as thinking ahead of the simple what ifs. If I can't get the jib up, what will I do?

Have a strip board set for a failure of something. Even a reversed board that plans for an issue at the beginning of the day. Instead of being productive and moving to our set B unit made, we stayed on our first set waiting out the problem. Thus losing hours.

It was an obvious choice, but something I overlooked.

[Mattykins]

Location, Location, Location

The three words most said in Real Estate, and the three words that would again be a pain.

The location permits were placed for the film two weeks prior to shooting. The city needs three at the minimum. Let me tell you - when they say three, they mean three.

Our location permits were filled out and filed with the proper authorities. They were ultimately denied. Insurance played a factor, the city played an even greater factor.

Needless to say, without permits - we couldn't shoot. We had to scout alternate locations a day before Principle photo started. What exactly went astray in the permit hunting?

We didn't scout enough. We picked a location and made it our only location. What we should have done is come up with a backup plan. Something we could pull together in the event of failure. This would have only helped had we tried to lock locations a month and change before shooting. We waited too long, and were left with zero options.

Basically, plan the locations and be sure to give enough time to process paperwork.

[Mattykins]

The Tech

Here we failed. Using tech that no one really knew how to use is generally a bad idea. Especially when these decisions are made in the days prior to shooting.

First was our audio setup. Without audio - you essentially don't have a package. MOS works in some cases. In a case where dialog was important, lacking audio is not okay.

We tried a hookup that, in theory, would work. MixPre to a Zoom recorder. This combo has worked in the past. Much to my arguing we went with it. The setup is a quirky setup. It has issues. And if set up incorrectly, will fail epically. And it did just that.

Rather than deal with tech we knew, we went without something that might have worked. But didn't.

We could have easily recorded single system directly into the camera, but added a complication factor by going dual system. Which I do like. But learned single system has its virtues. A failure in single system recording is less likely. Since when one system rolls, everything is getting recorded and we automatically have levels rolling across. On dual system, there could be a recording failure.

We had many of them. And no one knew.

The second issue was the camera. That was mistaking a 35mm adapter for a savior. Now the 35mm adapter can work wonders when used correctly. When being using with a crew that doesn't exactly know how they work. There is an issue. Everything that your DP requests isn't a necessity. The adapter was one of those errors in judgement.

We couldn't get the adapter to work properly early in the day. Several shots were ruined by keeping the Ground Glass vibrator off by mistake. What we should have done was prep the cameras. Make sure they were working. And make sure everyone that needed to, knew how the adapter worked.

Since we didn't bother learning, it came back and bit us in the butt. Take the time to learn the tech. Or have someone that knows how to run the systems come in and do it for you.

[Rodney V. Smith]

Yeah i hear you on the Tech. My first shoot with the HVX was almost a complete disaster. Well the shoot itself went well. We were recording directly to Firestore and P2 cards on occasion and then passing those off to the editor. At that point I still hadn't edited any footage with the P2 workflow, besides a few test runs. My problem came when we had to ouput the edited film onto tape and I had never done that before.

I didn't find out until later that my problem was because I was editing in a 720 workflow and Premiere refuses to recognize MiniDv in that mode. We spent 5 hours trying to get this entire thing on tape and only figured out the problem 6 minutes before the deadline... of an 8 minute short film.

Ow. Ow. and Ow.,

Could have been avoided if I had not assumed and taken the workflow all of the way through to completion.

Knowing your tech is very important, especially what to do when it fails.

I feel your pain man.

[stinkpot]

We had audio issues on ours but slightly different. Learned huge amounts about what not to do or neglect. Hopefully won't happen this time around.

Looking forward to you hypothetical entry. ;)

:beer:

[Mattykins]

I might add more to the Perchance disaster page as we progress. I just added a quick status update. And was browsing through other threads. Noticing Zak's. I've always been one for journal entries, but his podcasts are interesting me.

IPS might be doing something similar. Either way, if this gets off the ground, we will be giving you an in depth look at how we do what we do. And hopefully we won't echo Perchance.

Looking forward to this one.

[Neal Buconjic]

Matt,

Some great learnings here. I was disappointed that Perchance never came to fruition. Would love to see some of Raptor's work. Have you got any animated footy of the "creature"?

[pauly_the_hitman]

I just read your entire thread and let me say I am sorry for your past issues but I am looking forward to seeing this project go smoothly. Good luck.
Pauly

[Mattykins]

Another update added. This week will really be devoted to locking an idea for the script. Then I can start pushing ahead on some other stuff.

Sorry for being a lame thread. But until we have something of substance - isn't much to talk about.

[Mattykins]

Working on two concepts right now before I have my first meeting. Basically so there can be a pitch session and figure out what we are going to be writing.

The question is: is it financially feasible to construct a refugee camp?

[Mattykins]

Another Update added. And a short blog to accompany it.

[Mattykins]

Creative Processes:

Sitting here in my small room in Ithaca, a breakthrough occurred with the loss fest entry aptly named: Untitled. (Really, I will have a better name once I figure one out)

Anyways, the film making process is one that always starts off as some kind of idea in someone's head. I carry around a small book with me in which I write down every concept that comes into my head. Something so I can reference later. It might not be anything of substance. Just something that sounded good in my head at the time.

Nearly all of these ideas never come to fruition. Sometimes these entries are only shots that I came up with that would look cool. Other times I try and flush something out, complete with characters, general plot, logline.

When I finally come across an idea I think could become a film. It hits the white board. Now, 99.5% of the concepts I come up with die before they even hit the board. Of those ideas that end up on the board, .3% of them never make it to a piece of paper.

The white board serves as a planning stage. A word association happens. Major words that have a descriptive property for something in the film make it up on the board first. Wether the key word is love, or in this case loss, it leads the "discussion".

Below, ideas begin to appear. Concepts I like, things I like, are reduced to one word and placed under the key.

I work out the general description of the character. A beat by beat breakdown of the story - however general it may be, basically to determine an arch.

A beginning, a middle, and an end. And then I work out a short roadmap for the film.

Any major questions that occur in the boarding process I write out as well. And attempt to answer them. IE. What did he lose? The answers to that question will follow below. Mostly so I can see immediately where I had issue with the concept, and how I answered it.

From this point - the boarding is basically complete. And moves into screenwriting.

That is coming when I actually start writing the film :)

[Mattykins]

Updates posted.