SEX MACHINE - $8,000 DVX feature

Thanks for all the info here. Your film looks dark, gritty, I think the feel you're going for. Good luck, I'll be checking this thread for more stuff as well!
 
asphaltplanet said:

2. UNRELIABLE STRIPPERS
Strippers do not show up on time, or early in the day, or sometimes at all. In our case, they didn't show up at all even though we had rented out a strip club for the day. We ended up talking a few "real" girls into performing, but this drastically cut down on the number of breasts on display in the movie. Lesson to be learned: don't trust strippers.
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Bwhahaha. :grin:
This is why the plus size victim in Rekindled was the first payed person ever (tech or actor) in one of my films.

Unless you are friends with some very cool chicks, I think nudity, unless maybe it's attached to a part or film they are excited about = at least nominal change.

We were so lucky we found Shakira especially given the body type we wanted, but we were only looking for one person, not a bevy.

Your cast seems pretty large - was this not an issue as it was a small core cast with the other parts only needed for a couple of days or so?

One of the things that's kept me from diving into a feature is the thought of keeping that many people attached for a much longer time than it takes to do a short for no $.
 
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I was going to pay the strippers, but they still didn't show up. Oh well. The nudity that is in the movie is paid for. Except for one instance, in which a bet was involved.

As far as our core cast, I knew it was going to be a long hard shoot, so I cast people I felt would make it to the end and not drop out. Sometimes this meant not casting the person that was the most perfect for the role. But of all the people I cast, they all completed the movie.
 
The key in casting is to get your cast FIRED UP about the film! And keep that energy every single shoot day! That's the key IMO.
 
uhrgl - thanks, but we technically don't have distribution yet. The goal is for the papers to get signed at AFM next week. I'll let you guys know what happens.
 
Brandon - Yeah, you want people who share the passion and have the HUNGER to do something like this. Once you start rolling, you are all on an adventure together - especially with something at this budget level. You're the captain so it's your job to keep everybody onboard. And it gets to a point where you really want to quit, but if you do, you'll be letting everybody else down. You just can't do it. When I looked at the footage from the bowling alley stuff, I wanted to shut the whole project down. But you can't. No matter what goes wrong, you just have to finish or you have squandered the belief people have in you.
 
Yep, sometimes during the course of a project I'll fake excitement, just because I know it's what is required to keep the whole thing together... sometimes as the director/producer we have to do our fair share of acting ;) It's all worth it in the end.
 
asphaltplanet said:
As promised, here are some of the top mistakes we made...

1. TOO MANY LOCATIONS.
I was determined not to make a slasher/zombie/vampire flick that was all set in one location. I was determined to flesh out the "world" of the film. Unfortunately, that included way too many locations. Some of these were really difficult locations to film in. We got behind schedule, we got tired, we got discouraged, we elimated scenes, we changed things. It's not a good idea to change things when you are tired and discouraged. So, the final movie is missing some chunks that I really wanted in there, but it works and we got it done. Time for the next one.
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Heh, yeah...this is something we are trying to get someone to cut down on to help keep on budget and to shorten the number of shooting days. My partner looked at the script we were handed and it was the first thing she noticed. Too many locations that had little to do with the story or that could be moved to other locations to cut costs on moving people out of their place for a day or two.
We are also planning on repurposing some places to look like more than one location.
 
Aram Bauman said:
We are also planning on repurposing some places to look like more than one location.
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That's key IMO. For Smuggler's Ransom we had one location but used it for three locations... we just changed around a lot of stuff, and shot it differently, and it worked. Having a diverse location is so valuable.
 
Rob Zombie talks about that on Devil's Rejects

If the camera faces this way its the home where the shootout is at the top, turn it this way and its the whore house, turn it this way and its the field where some people get killed, all at one location.
 
Yeah, those are good ideas. We used one house for multiple locations, including dressing one of the bedrooms as a motel room. A lot of the movie was shot in that house.

The flick I am working on getting set up right now is all going to be shot in Texas hill country and a lot of it is outside. I can't wait. You can aim the camera in any direction and it looks absolutely great. I have really cut down the locations for this one.
 
its funny you mention the hill country.... I just moved to Austin recently and I been traveling out west of there shooting some footy out/up in the hill country.... I was thinking the other day that the whole area would make for a sick backdrop to a film

its pretty farther west of the hill country but have you ever been to marfa tx? PT anderson just got done shooting over there (as have a few other features) marfa is one of the most photogenic little towns in texas.... another good location
 
damn that was a cool trailer asphalt movie looks good bro , what u edit on what program ????????and what you do as far as CC ?????????and your camera settings????????????? ? movie look great diffrent then anything i seen here

peace n luv

Mark Dog
 
I don't really know about the camera settings, but we shot 24P instead of 24PA which I wish I could go back and change. We also shot full frame and matted it to widescreen. This worked out good because it let us fix a lot of little errors by re-framing things in post.

Edited in Final Cut Pro and did color correction in Look Suite.
 
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