The Echo Game - feature filmmaking at new car prices

[dougspice]

Charlie, this would fall somewhere on the line of supernatural thriller or slasher.

When producing, I have a rule: "Expect everything". Something you can't possibly predict will always happen, and cost you money, so you just have to be prepared for that and budget accordingly. On this shoot we haven't had anything too major happen. Our gaffer misstepped when working up on the roof at our hospital location, and fell through a piece of drywall. It left a nasty big chunk of the ceiling missing, but fortunately no one was hurt and it only cost us $50 to fix it. We were pretty lucky on that.

Aside from that, the only major unexpected cost I can think of has been the relatively expensive craft services our director keeps buying! We keep telling him the crafty budget is way over, but he keeps showing up with this stuff... oh well.

Here's the first handful of actual stills from the film. Understand that this is just early sample color correction, and probably not quite what will be in the final film.

 

[gi-jones]

Wow, that looks great. I love the to middle ones especially. Is the person in the eye a real-for-real effect? In that case it seems very well executed.

 

[dougspice]

Yep, shot practically, as were all "ghost" effects. It remains to be decided if we will slightly augment these effects digitally, but I think everyone's pretty happy with them as they are already.

The full moon rising over the house is also the real deal.

 

[Matty_g]

love that eye still!

 

[PaPa]

soem very nice stuff here. I was wondering what the lighting design outside the house resembled. What lights were used and where ewre they placed? I can't find any shadows on the house to really figure it out.

 

[dougspice]

Hmm, I don't actually know. I believe it was primarily lit with a 1.2k HMI from the front yard. I'm trying to get the DP to post a bit here but he's extremely busy, of course.

 

[dougspice]

Getting some love this morning from Shock Till You Drop, one of the leading sites for horror movie news... they made a couple little typos but still good to see some people are interested!

Tomorrow we start our final 3 days of shooting. We already have several scenes cut together pretty nicely and are working towards a complete rough cut in the next 4-6 weeks. Everything is looking just outstanding and we're all very proud.

 

[dougspice]

Wrap day today! Shooting some VFX plates, a couple pickups, and one final scene. And then... production is wrapped!

Meanwhile, Fangoria has decided to do a little article on us, which is totally awesome. This is the kind of press that a movie like ours dies for, and hopefully will help us drum up some interest in the month to come!

 

[dougspice]

1:04 AM on Tuesday, September 16, and The Echo Game has wrapped production. 94 pages, 15 shoot days (only 2 of which went over schedule!), and we are wrapped.

My gracious thanks to a fantastic cast and crew who made getting this done a true pleasure even in the face of constant pressure to stay on a hectic schedule, keep to a truly slim budget, and not kill each other. You all did wonderful work and should be proud.

Now comes the part where we slowly put our lives back together. And then the wrap party (when we wreck them again). Good night.

 

[gi-jones]

So, are you happy with what you've got? What kind of problems did you guys run into?

 

[dougspice]

I think we're all extremely happy with what we got. I think this film looks and feels very professional, very soundly produced, all thanks to a lot of hard work, talent, and deferred pay.

The main problem we ran into again and again was just scheduling people to come in for low or no pay work. When people have paying jobs that you have to interfere with, it can get tricky, and we respect (and expect) that. However, a couple times cast or crewmembers ambushed us at the last minute with "Oh, I don't think I can make that!" or drastically reduced their time commitment, as if they hadn't known for days or weeks when and why we needed them. Most of the time we were able to negotiate and work around it. A couple of times we had to get very creative with shot choices. But either way, I feel confident that no one watching the movie will ever know. This is where it's helpful to have a couple producers sitting around doing basically nothing all day... when something like this comes up you can brainstorm a solution in minutes and keep rolling. Still, it does leave a bad taste in my mouth... but that's just something you have to deal with in the micro-budget realm.

 

[Brandon Rice]

But what matters is you got it shot! Awesome.

 

[dougspice]

Yes indeed, we did. Getting some good press on this now, I'll let you guys know when more stuff is posted. Meanwhile, here's a few stills from our final days of shooting, showcasing some of the awesome effects shots.

​

 

[Mark Harris]

Yes indeed, we did. Getting some good press on this now, I'll let you guys know when more stuff is posted. Meanwhile, here's a few stills from our final days of shooting, showcasing some of the awesome effects shots.

​

Man, I love this stuff. Do you have any more angles on the melting head? I mean just stills you grabbed?

Here's a corpse we had for my last short, made by a SUPER EFX magician.

http://www.desperatecomfort.com/media/media/rpdm/rpdmgrab10.jpg

 

[dougspice]

That looks pretty awesome, Mark. Poor fella.

This is the best angle I have. The FX people took a lot of stills as well, and once I get those I'll try to post a few.

 

[Mark Harris]

I would love to see some more of those. This is looking like a cool project.

Also, did you guys have distribution in mind when you planned it? I've read the thread, but can't remember seeing an answer.

 

[dougspice]

We certainly have distribution in mind, and I have no doubt that we will get it. We're not locked into a specific plan at the moment. Right now we are working with the press, trying to build some hype, and once that's happening we have some specific people we want to take it to. A couple companies that are new to me have contacted me as well, and we'll be talking to them later.

For now, though, we have to finish a cut and (probably) a trailer!

 

[dougspice]

Oh, I just realized your dead guy was from RPDM. I truly enjoyed that film. I didn't remember the corpse because it's so briefly on screen!

 

[Mark Harris]

We certainly have distribution in mind, and I have no doubt that we will get it. We're not locked into a specific plan at the moment. Right now we are working with the press, trying to build some hype, and once that's happening we have some specific people we want to take it to. A couple companies that are new to me have contacted me as well, and we'll be talking to them later.

For now, though, we have to finish a cut and (probably) a trailer!

Well I meant more, did you select the story/genre/etc based on a distribution strategy? Or did you deviate from anything you intended, to better your chances?

 

[dougspice]

Aha. Those are questions better suited for the writer/director (I think he created an account, I just have to bug him to post!). But I can tell you that the script was fairly strategically written to cater to both horror and gay/lesbian audiences. There is no explicit homosexuality in the movie, but the main characters are a functional lesbian family (in fact, they are married!). Brian felt this was an interesting take on the characters first off, and would secondly be well-received by that audience.

First and foremost, though, everything that happens in this movie comes from Brian's great love of horror, slasher, and gore films. It is a tightly paced thriller with deliberate tension, culminating in moments of graphic violence. We all know that the audience for these films exist, but we wanted to give them something more: a professionally-produced, beautiful movie that is populated with real characters and not just cardboard stand-ins.