Beginning Middle End Productions Presents...

[Mike Manning]

A Work Of Art

A comic book artists finds himself on the brink of insanity as his drawings of a woman he's never met seemingly come to life.

The Crew.
Mike Manning - Producer/Writer/Director/Visual Effects
Dayn Naimy - Producer/Editor
Wes Barker - Producer/Editor/First A.D.
Tory Weisz - Executive Producer (http://fictitiousfilmsinc.com/
Kevin Zanit - Director of Photography (http://kevinzanit.com)
Frank DiPaola - Gaffer
Mark Margossian - Camera Op.
Jamie Yukich - Script Supervisor
Jason Fields - Script Supervisor
Sergio Rodriguez - Key Grip
Mario Valladares - Grip & Electric
Jeremy Cisneros - Production Design (http://jeremycisneros.blogspot.com/)
Angel Herrera - Production Design
Dan Walter - Composer (http://danwaltermusic.com)
Jackie Mantel - Second A.D.
Eric Capella - Production Mixer
Jackie Cruz - Sound Department
David Beaty - Artist (http://hachiman1.deviantart.com/)
Juan Carrillo - Artist (http://85original.com/)
Morgan Blair - Artist (http://morganblair.com/)
Rachel Raleigh - Artist

The Cast.
Arthur

Sebastian Stenhøj

Dr. Waneka

Bryan Chesters

The Girl

Mara Herbkersman

Rick Reynolds

John Kyle Grady

[Mike Manning]

Production Blog.

Aug 4. First official Production meeting. Dayn, Wes, and I locked down our story (it only took ALL night). By next Monday, each of us will have drafted our own version of the script. At our next meeting, we'll shop each script and take the best elements from each to create the uber-script. We're all very excited.

Aug 11. Production Meeting. We accomplished a lot; locking down our script, are crew, and most importantly, our shooting schedule. Production will be September 19-22. By Wednesday, we should have our locations locked and our "Girl" cast.

Aug 12. Just completed the third draft of the script. It's pretty solid. I think we'll probably stay with "A Work of Art" as the title. Tomorrow night we're meeting with the DP to talk equipment and budget. Should be a good meeting...

Aug 13. Production Meeting. We met with Kevin to discuss the style and logistics of the shoot. Are budget is sky-rocketing and we need to find a way to get it back down. Two of our four main locations are locked. We're waiting to hear back from the other two. Wes and I did a script breakdown and it looks like our movie will clock in just under 6 minutes... that was a big sigh of relief (given the 7 page script). We still haven't nailed down our actress yet, but that should (better!) be resolved by this weekend. Josh needs to be able to start drawing her, like NOW! Other than that, we're pretty much on schedule...

Aug 18. Well, we've hit some bumps that need to be worked out in tonight's production meeting. But essentially we lost one of our locations (though it has subsequently been replaced by my apartment) and we lost our artist. Though the good news is, I've already gotten some good responses on Craigslist regarding an replacement.. so thing's are already starting to look up. We also might have FINALLY found our actress. Stay tuned...

Aug 18. Production Meeting. We've finally cast our female lead! It's a huge weight off our shoulder's, especially now that we have to find a new artist for Arthur's drawings. We've already locked down one artist to draw Arthur's comic book, entitled "Cyborg Assassins." His name is David Beaty and he's ridiculously talented. Check out his Deviant Art page to see some samples.
Today, Dayn submitted Kevin's equipment rental list to Wooden Nickel for a price quote. We're trying to figure out an alternative to renting a truck for 6 days as that would seriously jack up our spending. Once we have that, we'll have a better idea about what our budget will be.
I forgot to post earlier this week, but we've also signed up to make the film a co-production with Fictitious Films Inc. They've been gracious enough to attach themselves to our project so that we can use their 3 million dollar production insurance policy for all 4 days of shooting. Big shout out to Tory for the help!
Lastly, I handed my most recent draft off to my friend, Tom, for some input and he had a lot too offer. Thus, we have a 4th (and hopefully final) draft of our script.
More to come this week...

Aug 19. Locked another artist! The very talented Mr. Juan Carillio! Check out his site: http://85original.com

Aug 19. We have our third (and final) artist! Working long distance from across the country, we have Ms. Morgan Blair. PLEASE check out her site (http://morganblair.com) as she is EXTREMELY talented in the market for more freelance work.

Aug 23. Production Meeting. Getting close to locking down a budget. Met with Juan and he had an amazing piece for the one sheet. Check it out! Wes and Jackie did some AD stuff; worked out call sheets and schedules. Juan did a little photo-shoot with Mara to get as many poses as he can for his art. Riley dropped off the HVX and tomorrow we're doing a camera test to figure out VFX and our general Post-Production Workflow.
We locked a location to use for our hospital set.. I added pictures to the BTS section. We just need to lock an Art Gallery and then we're all set.

Aug 24. We had our camera test today... Dayn and I met with Kevin and we went over the Wooden Nickel quote to see how we could get it down. Kevin showed us some cool ideas and tricks using the HVX that sparked my fancy. And we did a VFX test shot that will prove whether or not I can do what my script says I can do... keep an eye on the VFX test section below. I already put up a very crude animation of what will be comped into the two test shots. Check it out! Now I'm off to go see Radiohead at the Hollywood Bowl... hehe

Aug 26. Might have found a gallery to shoot in. We are meeting with them on Thursday to discuss specifics. Check out their site, http://cellagallery.com. And, randomly, while I was looking for a gallery location, I stumbled across a possible hookup at this location, http://huronsubstation.com. I sent the owner an email, if she's down, I want to use it as the Studio Loft Set (instead of my apartment). Tomorrow is a busy day, two tech scouts at the Office and Hospital sets, and a production meeting where Juan will present us with some more art. Check back tomorrow evening... I'll post his latest art.

Aug 28. We've locked a Cella Gallery (http://cellagallery.com) as or final location. Damn, it feels nice to say that. We have all 4 locations locked now. I've also got some good and (kind of) bad news. The bad (but good in another way) news is that Dayn was offered an assistant editing job in Alaska for 6 weeks. Of course, our shooting dates happen to be during this time, so we'll lose Dayn on set and in the editing room. The good news is, this prompted us to find a new Production Designer, and we got the talented Jeremy Cisnerors (I added him to the crew list).
Juan Gave us some more artwork last night. That fool is f*cking talented! Check out his latest in the art section below.

Aug 29. Script copyrighted.

Aug 31. Big Production meeting. I worked with Juan and Dayn's friend Nick and we knocked out all the storyboards. Jeremy and Angel worked out some more specifics of the production design. They had some great ideas. Riley had to drop out as Rick Reynolds dude to scheduling conflicts, so we've recast him with the talented John Kyle Grady. Jackie and Wes pretty much finished all the scheduling and crafty situations. All that's left is to finalize the budget and reserve our rentals. Right now I'm taking all these storyboards and cutting them into an animatic to give to the composer, so he can start working on the score. Things are moving along very nicely, we're all REALLY excited.

Sept. 1 Completed the animatic (see below) for the composer. I'm anxious to see what he comes up with!

Sept. 2 Got my first look at David's CYBORG ASSASSIN cover! It's awesome, check it out below!

Sept. 3 Script Supervisors Jamie and Jason added to the crew. Budget's closer to be locked down. May have some really good news tomorrow...

Sept. 5 New art from MORGAN BLAIR!!!! See below...

Sept. 6 Dayn left for Alaska... we wish him luck on his project and we're sorry he wont be here for production. Jeremy, Angel and i painted the Garage in Hawthorne. Check out the pics!

Sept. 8 Okay, so some crazy sh*t happened this weekend. Our lead, Liam, dropped out due to some personal problems, leaving us without a star, and with a grip of useless artwork. With less than two weeks until production, you can see how I pretty much had a heart-attack. After going crazy, we got our act together and found a replacement actor, Sebastian Stenhøj (http://sebastianstenhoj.com). We also brought on another talented artist, Rachel Raleigh, to help handle the art load - as Morgan has to start over from scratch. Anyway... it looks like the storm has settled, and everything is back on track. Though, I have to figure out a new poster.... and what to do with the t-shirts I had made with that image... sigh... Check back soon!

Sept. 15 So we're getting down to the wire here.... about to spend A LOT of money. But it's good. I'm pumped. Production starts on Friday. I've got rehearsal with my cast on wednesday. Just stressing about that one thing I'm forgetting. You know that thing... that thing that's like really important, but easily overlooked. I'll figure it out... haha. Stay tuned!

Sept. 18 Whoaaaa it! Lots of money being spent today! Haha! Truck = $375. Equipment = $756. Call sheets just went out... anyone in the LA area is welcome to come by and check out the shoot tomorrow! Download the call sheet HERE.

Sept. 19 Woot! Woot! Day 1 was a success! We had a bumpy start (problems with Edison and sound) but the footage is looking great! I have an amazing team! Check out the screen grabs by clicking this one...


Sept. 20 Day 2 = Wrapped. Couldn't have gone smoother! Check it out!


Sept. 21 Wrapped Day 3.. it was a bit of a nightmare. Don't EVER shoot where you live! I've learned my lesson... check out the grabs...


Sept. 22 And... we're a wrap on Production! (Sort of... guerilla-style pickups on Sunday)
Click for more grabs...


Sept. 25 Not much to report in the aftermath of production... Wes returned the truck and the equipment... it looks like were gonna be about $1000 over budget... ouch... I FedEx'ed one of the drives to Dayn (in Alaska) so he can start editing.. dont worry.. we're backed up - Wes has a drive and I have a drive. Pickups in downtown LA on sunday. That'll be fun. Should be a nice change of pace to do some guerilla shooting after the madness of a full blown production. Stay tuned.. I'll update when there's more to report..

Sept. 29 Sundays shoot had to be postponed until next weekend.... no big deal... we're on schedule so have this done fairly soon so I'm not stressed (yet). Dayn's gotten started editing, He's gonna have something for me to see tonight... and I just got an email from my composer who had a first draft of the main characters theme to show me. It's pretty F-ing sweet! Check it out... http://beginningmiddleend.com/twilig...eme_take_1.mp3

Oct. 1 Just locked down a date with Cella Gallery to have our premier (post Twilight Fest) screening/fundraiser/art exhibition on Sunday November 9th! Once the details are worked out, invites will be sent out.... you know you wanna come!

Oct. 5Filmed the pickups today. It went great. Shooting on the subway is a little sketchy, but it ups the production value. The stuff looks cool! Rough cut should be done tomorrow... I'm excited!
Click for a few grabs...


Oct. 8 Wes and Dayn got a full rough cut done! It looks and feels great! The only problem is that it clocks in at 9mins... there's gonna be some MAJOR frame-f*cking...haha!

Oct. 28 Wow I have been neglecting this blog. Basic recap of the last 20 days. Both cuts of the film are finished. The DVX cut clocked in at 5:40... so I had time to add my production logo and some ridiculously quick credits. The full cut runs about 6:50 and we haven't done the credits yet. I'm anticipating about a minutes worth of credits, so call it 8mins total for the full cut. The DVX cut has been uploaded and already approved and this week I'll be passing the full cut off to Kevin to do some REAL color correcting. Danny's also revamping the score to fill up the added time. We've also locked down all the specifics regarding our premier screening on Nov. 9th. I PM'd Larry asking him if it's okay to post the open invite... once I get the good word I'll get a thread started for that. Can't wait to see what everyone else has done!

[Mike Manning]

Behind The Scenes

INT. MENTAL HOSPITAL ROOM
Production Designers, Jeremy Cisneros and Angel Herrera, hard at work!


INT. ART GALLERY


INT. ARTHUR'S STUDIO APARTMENT


INT. RICK REYNOLD"S OFFICE

[Mike Manning]

Storyboards



Concept Art
(Click the images to see more)

Morgan Blair


Juan Carrillo


Rachel Raleigh


David Beaty



VFX Tests
Animation Test Part 1

Animation Test Part 2

Please ignore the stick figure guy and the red tracking dots. Otherwise, you'll get the idea....

[Matt Sconce]

Sweet Poster. I really am intrigued by what this will become! Welcome!

[David Jimerson]

That's a little creepy already.

[Kyle Stebbins]

Dang I was freaking out about the poster design man... that's AWESOME. - Can't wait to see what you come up with for the poster using that as an inspiration.

[Simon Höfer]

Welcome to the fest!

[Mike Manning]

Thanks everyone! Stay tuned as I'll try to update regularly...

[pauly_the_hitman]

Cool this will be my second entry and I wish you as much luck as we had with our first one. The poster kicks ass.
Pauly