SALVATION a Twilightfest original

Mike Insane

Mike Insane

Well-known member
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SALVATION: sal·va·tion·al adjective
1. Act of saving from harm: the saving of somebody or something from harm, destruction, difficulty, or failure. 3. Deliverance from sin.

This is the Thread for 12th Round Entertainment's short film SALVATION for DVX user film festival TWILIGHTFEST.

I watched a number of Twilight zone and outer limits shows and the ones that kept resonating with me were the human error episodes. Those ones that seem to have everything going in one direction and then getting smacked in the face by reality coming from a different direction. We wrote the script right after the topic was announced and before the general re-description or clarification of what elements make it a viable twilight fest film. We forwarded the script to Barry Green and had it approved. So, hopefully you find the project fitting of the rules for this fest. I also fully intend to make this forum somewhat of a "how we made this film" thread. Hopefully someone can take some of the ideas that we came up with and run with them on their next project. So without further ado... enjoy.



JULY 25, 2008
The script is coming together nicely. We are on the 3rd revision and have had a number of eyes on it so we are feeling pretty confident. Some minor tweaks are left before it is in the shape to be read by potential talent. This leads me to the next topic, casting. We are about to turn in our paperwork to become a SAG elegible project. So the casting notices will be out in the near future.

Onto the remaining thoughts for the project...

Here is a quick mockup of a possible set we will be building. Enjoy!


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Here is the Regimental patch for the SALVATION
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UPDATE 8-11-08

Phew ok so we are about to cast the film this weekend. We are using CAZT.com. For anyone who hasn't looked into them, check them out. Connor is the man. Basically they provide casting facilities for free for films. The cool thing they do is allow actors to see their auditions. If you're an actor you know what a valuable tool that might be. So, check them out at CAZT.com

The script is ambitious. We are looking for a 3d animator. So if anyone is interested then send me a PM. more to come...

Fantastic news....
08-17-08

We just casted our lead... Bree Michael Warner. She has an impressive resume with guest staring roles on shows like Without a Trace, CSI:Miami, 1Carly, Crossing Jordan, Six Feet Under and many more! She is super cool! Actually, it was sort of spooky how well she fit in with the theme of our company. She is really down to earth and has incredible chops as an actor! She has a play coming up in September in Burbank... so if you're in the area, we highly suggest that you come support a fantastic actor. She performed a monologue from the show in her audition and it knocked us off our seats. It's difficult to be fair to the other actors auditioning once you've seen "the one" perfect for the role already read.

So, enough of me singing her praises, we're just really happy we got her on the team!

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Here is an Anamatic of the first few seconds of the film. It is basically a photoshop and motion rough draft of elements we are shooting in in camera and how they might be comped together.

http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/12787/1220425522.mov

Enjoy!

UPDATE 9-30-08
Deep Breath! We have shot principal photography. I call it photography because with the Red Rock and lenses from FM it actually looks like film. Scary thought that lenses can do so much. I honestly don't want to shoot without lenses anymore. But I digress. after weeks of daily slaving away in my garage in sunny southern California we finally finished with the set. At some point we are going to put out some how to's on building DIY sets, especially space ones. That was the one thing I found lacking on the ever impressive and wide reaching internet. No one other than the "I must make this film" guys have anything out there that is a guideline/ jump off point for building Sci-fi space ship sets.

So, after building the set we went ahead and shot on Sunday night. Bree was amazing and my three person crew, Steve, Alan and Alfredo seriously kicked ass. We managed to get 6 pages, with practical fire effects shot in 8 hours. A testiment to my crew and especially my actor who was off book from the get go. * note to self, remember to have a small monitor attached to the camera that can be turned upside down to compensate for the Redrock flipping the image.* Steve, my DP was a trooper, re teaching himself how to shoot without being able to use the eye pice/ LCD monitor.

BTS pics will be up in a few days. Thank you everyone!

UPDATE 10-1-08

Here are a few BTS shots courtesy of Alfredo Carrillo

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Super Fun SHOOT! Thanks guys!:thumbup:

UPDATE 10-4-08

We have a assembly cut together and what do you know... it's 10 minutes long! I hate when that happens! lol. I guess that is what happens when you have a great actor that takes time with emotional changes instead of rushing into it. So now tonight we go back at it and try to whittle it down. As you can see from the BTS shots, there is a lot of green screening to be done so we need to get the cut under control soon or it's a lot of redbull and 48 hour days to make the deadline. Exciting;)

SET CONSTRUCTION

My home has a addition on the back of the garage that is a 20x 12 room with low 7'6 ceilings. Low ceilings is a problem for a set like this. We wanted to create a "cut" light effect that had beams shooting through the space but to do that you need to back off your light source a long way. The cool pics from the Fat Monster O2 set are achieved by the 20 ft ceilings that allow for this effect. My garage has more ceiling room and square footage but because of sound issues and the fear of being able to keep it reasonably cool we choose to use the back room. I tried many things to recreate the look, cookies, grates, gels with patterns on them, and none of it worked like we wanted them to. We eventually gave up and the smoke became more of an atmosphere effect rather than a medium to see the light.

CONTINUED on POST #7



FURTHER UPDATES ON POST #7
(I forgot to reserve more spaces)

More to come!
 
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SALVATION a Twilightfest original

SHOW THREAD CONTINUED

SET CONSTRUCTION Continued...

So now that we decided on a space there were some serious questions that needed to be answered... what the "F" do I do now? I turned to a friend of mine Shanan Brown. He's a General contractor who has an MFA is stage lighting and craft from CalARTS ( A prestigious art/ theatre/ animation college). Here is what he taught me. You can make the frames of your walls with 1x3 pine boards. Nothing fancy. You can hold them together with a lot of different devices. I went out and bought a finish nailer and used 2" finish nails. The frames are just fine and they are light weight. Also, if you build them in 8x4 sections (same size as the wood sheets) then you can move them around and re-use them later on. Think of youre set as an investment in future projects. The way you put the skin on (the front that everyone sees) is by using 8x4 sheets of Lywaun (not sure of the spelling). It is a thin, flexable tight grain wood. With two coats of paint it looks smooth and will hold up to the scrutinany of HD resolution. Don't use plywood. although it is stronger, it has a lot of grain. I shot a Star Wars fan film called Enlistees a few years back. They had built a great corridor inside of a battle cruiser type set. The paint was awesome and the size and scale was just enough to make it feel right. however, they used plywood for the walls and that left wood grain visible on any shot where we were closer than 4 feet. It kind of kills the realism. Damn, HD! So LLewayn is the way to go. If you use a narrow crown nailer to hold the wood down you're set. A finish nailer can work but you run into the problem of the skin popping off if you mess with it too much. there are relatively no heads on a finish nail so there is nothing to really hold the wood down. The only problem with llewaqyn is that it is a bit pricier than most other sheets of wood. I believe it was about 13$ per sheet at HD. The 1x3's were like 1.99$ each. But a ton of them, you never know when you might need one more pice than you had originally calculated.

We had the luxary of having a sh!t ton of drywall screws left over from a home remodel we had just completed so we used those screws for EVERYTHING! They grab well and hold things down tightly. I believe you can get a large bucket for like 75$. They will last you forever! We also were able to screw directly into the walls in some cases. This helped tremendously. I saved probably 8-10 hours of time and about 100$ on not having to build the frames and skins of the roof and the right side wall.

So with a simple circular saw, a few nail guns and materials, you can build a light weight and reusable set for roughly 300-400$. Expensive I know. But the cost of renting a location like this is somewhere around 1800-2500 per day, not including insurance and payment for a stage manager to baby sit you.

Next chapter will be the dressing and painting. I'll also post some pics to show you some of what I talked about here.

UPDATE 10-4-08
SCREEN GRABS - Un Color Corrected

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Focus with the Redrock is hard the first time you use it. Never ever shoot with it unless you have a DP bible and a tape measure or a large HD monitor.

Anyhow, enjoy the pics!

10-22-08 Wednesday night *UPDATE*

Exhaustion is setting in. I am waiting for the first render for the main screen plate for the Ships computer. Man, Motion can take it's time. Perfect time to log in and give an update. So here it is. We are %50 done with the AE effects. However the hardest and most interactive shots are still ahead of us. 129 shots in the project, 109 of them are effects shots! I'm currently wondering what possessed me to take on something so nutz! So far the shots we have completed are great! But, it would make me a lot happier if I had my very own roto ninja like Fat Monster does :) Until then we will keep plugging away.

We realised that with all of the sound effects and the great acting that we might not need a score. At this point I am just running out of time end energy to consider how I would add in a score. Sorry Engen.

Lessons learned: Sci-fi is expensive... or... time consuming to produce. There doesn't seem to be a middle ground either.

PA's are worth their weight in gold!

Wheelchair dollies don't work when you are as bi of a boy as I am. I'm made more like a tripod than a dolly.

Collaboration is key... like the PA's those people helping you are worth their weight in gold.

Techno music helps you stay awake while doing post at 4:30 AM. Even if you hate techno... it will annoy you awake!


Anyone want to take a crack at a movie poster for me? PM me if you do.
 
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The design was inspired by what I saw on the set with you guys. It's just too big for what we wrote. We're going to try and create something about 1/4th the size of that. I had actually sort of burned out on doing shorts but after Mark invited me out to the set for O2 I was completely reinvigorated! I couldn't wait for the next festival. I'm sure everyone knows but filmmaking takes time and with a full time job, it is sometimes hard to keep the energy up. See-ing what the Monster's pulled off as well as watching how this community has grown and evolved... I'm inspired.

BTW Kyle, are you filming in LA or in Neb? If you're shooting in LA, I'd love to come out and get my hands dirty.

Actually, that goes for anyone in LA... if you're in need of crew, give me a ring. er or a PM
 
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Update 08-13-08

Update 08-13-08

UPDATE 8-13-08

We just got a draft done for the regimental patch for the Salvation crew uniforms. Courtasy of Jen at JWdigitize. If you are in the market for something embroidered take at look at her stuff. She also happens to be a personal friend of mine so be nice... she's good people :)

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Wow! I just looked at the Battlestar fan film you scored! Kudos! Great project. It is amazing how important a good score is. People think the most important element to a film is the picture but really it is the sound.
 
This looks very interesting... can't wait to see it. I appreciate your enthusiasm, this stuff is exciting. So should I be thinking "O2 Deux"?

Best of luck!
 
I love that the fact even though this is a short film festival hosted by a website, it doesn't stop people from going out and making a sci-fi movie with sets like this. Kudos man, I can't wait to see it!

PS... Lake Balboa? Don't you mean Van Nuys! Haha
 
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