THE THINGS WE CARRY - Geoff Reisner

Geoff_R

Geoff_R

Veteran
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Premise...
World War II drama taking place in the European Theater with two American GIs who are at risk of getting stuck behind the lines of a German advance.

More info soon...
 
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It's not based on the short stories which I believe you're referring to, (the ones by Tim O'Brien). I think his series takes place during Vietnam.
 
So here's the deal on this short... It seems I'm always doing a film for the Spring DVXuser fests so I couldn't not participate in this one. My problem is always coming up with an idea and getting it done in time for the deadline. With Heritage (dramafest), I got inspired to make a movie with two weeks to go, with Ghosts for Heroes (lovefest), I got inspired with less than a week to go. Unfortunately, I didn't get GFH in on time and not too many people saw the film. Thankfully, I managed to have a first draft of this script in hand early in January.

We kept getting hammered on delays... First off, I couldn't find the right location, nowhere in the Los Angeles area would work, I needed a thick, real world forest. Did a few trips out to areas I'd find on Google Earth but they were all crap in person. Big Bear CA was almost the right choice, they had great pines but the hills were too dangerous. There was no way I'd be able to move and shoot fast unless I trekked far inland to some of the valley areas. We started investigating up north and after some trial and error, found a more flat pine forest up in the mountains northwest of Gorman, CA.

Then it was a matter of getting all the props and weapons... all the houses in LA charged too much for us to do this. We were looking at anywhere from $400-600 a soldier. So we started looking for private owners and to our luck, found an incredible one who was willing to work within our budget.

We had pushed the shoot back about three times by now. We were aiming to shoot with each Thursday that rolled around... so this last Thursday, all is set and ready to go and then I see the forecast, rain and snow all day... I couldn't very well shoot in that kind of weather with the gear I had lined up. There was no way I'm putting a RED in those conditions, that thing has too many ports to protect and insurance isn't going to cover you when you short your camera out. It'd be production negligence to shoot in the rain without a full crew and tents and tarps constantly being rigged overhead.

Rather than postpone yet again, I decided to go HVX/SGpro and deal with it. Built a rain rig for my cam and we went. The weather was horrible, probably the worst shooting conditions of my life.. and it looks great on the screen ;) Thankfully, we had a small e-z-up tent otherwise I don't think we would have made it past two hours. The tent allowed us to hustle back and plan out the shots for the next scene.

So I've got the film in the can and I have some time to do post-production this time! I whipped up the poster last night and couldn't hold back any longer. Had to make a thread! We still have a lot of work to do on the post end. I'm going to be working on the cut throughout the week and aim to have a pic lock by the weekend.
 
Geoff_R said:
So I've got the film in the can and I have some time to do post-production this time! I whipped up the poster last night and couldn't hold back any longer. Had to make a thread! We still have a lot of work to do on the post end. I'm going to be working on the cut throughout the week and aim to have a pic lock by the weekend.
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That's awesome news! Having all that time for post work should really make this one shine. :thumbup:
 
Awesome Geoff - glad to hear you ditched the RED and went for it in the weather anyways - Just think what it would've cost to bring in all that fake snow and rain :) Wish you well in post and looking forward to seeing what you've come up with!
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
That's awesome news! Having all that time for post work should really make this one shine. :thumbup:
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Thanks Mike, it reals boils down to me getting a pic lock to my sound team as quickly as possible. There's so much work to be done there, lots of foley work and sfx, etc. Once we're locked, I'm sure Matt and I will have a long meeting outlining all that is needed.. I just know it's a lot :)
 
sometime you gotta run and gun and then hide from the weather. fun innit/ it's going to look so freaking awesome though. now i feel like a real wuss for postponing my shoots because of a little snow storm.
 
Jeff Anderson said:
Awesome Geoff - glad to hear you ditched the RED and went for it in the weather anyways - Just think what it would've cost to bring in all that fake snow and rain :) Wish you well in post and looking forward to seeing what you've come up with!
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Thanks, Jeff! Yep, we couldn't have asked for a more hellish environment. That was one of the deciding factors the other producers and I discussed the evening prior to the shoot. We were loosing technical image superiority but gaining overall image appeal due to the environment. My biggest fear was that it'd clear up and be sunny...
 
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