thisisapocalypse
Well-known member
View attachment 15537Hey everyone,
Well the time has come and we're going to begin production on my first feature film next month, I've written the screenplay, will be directing and running one of the cameras.
We're going to be shooting on Panasonic GH1(s) with Zeiss and Canon FD lenses in 1080/24 and will be transcoding to Cineform for editing. We'll be using a Fostex FR2LE with a Rode NTG-3 for exteriors and an NT-3 hyper for interiors, with a Zoom H4N for backup and some location sound gathering.
Premise:
For the Love of God: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Apocalypse is a feature-length documentary-style comedy set in Boston, MA during the weeks leading into, and during the Biblical Apocalypse, set in present day. The film is composed two stories running in parallel. The first story explores the nuts and bolts of God and his crew carrying out the logistics of the Earth apocalypse and is shot in a documentary style in the spirit of This is Spinal Tap and The Office.
God's Apocalypse team is composed of his executive assistant Bobo and Rapture Rose (his apocalyptic events coordinator.) This story assumes that God and his crew, while supernatural, because of the many worlds they must manage, work in a typical corporate office style environment and have to coordinate operations and solve problems just as any typical business would.
As God and his crew leave for Earth, Bobo informs God that the Book of Life for Earth has been destroyed. Rapture Rose suggests that since just about everyone on earth uses Facebook, and many people list their religious views in their profiles, that they can just use Facebook instead of the Book of Life. And for those places on earth where the people don't have facebook? "Collatoral damage," as Rapture Rose likes to put it.
The parallel story to the above takes place on Earth, and is shot in a traditional narrative style. The story focuses on the relationship between two scientists: Jamie and Joanne (who goes by Joe). Jamie is a brilliant particle physicist who is near a breakthrough in her study of string-theory. Joanne is a classical physicist and mathematician...but most importantly a string-theory skeptic...a true odd couple, these two (did I mention this is an esoteric love story?). Joanne is in love with Jamie, and has made this very clear to Jamie. Jamie does not reciprocate, but given her particuarly black & white disposition, she is willing to entertain the notion that one day, she might be able to love Joanne under the right conditions. But of course, time is running out.
Meanwhile God and his crew have set up operations on earth for judgment which is handled in very "DMV" impersonal surroundings - they have an office, call who's next in line, pull up their Facebook profile, and query them over their religious views. This is handled in a College Admissions interview fashion, where God et. al, are actually trying to make a case for getting the subject into Heaven, trying to talk them into saying things that will make their "application" as strong as possible.
The film will cut back and forth between scenes on Earth with Jamie & Joanne, and scenes with God + team both in their offices in heaven, during the planning phase, and in the DMV/office-building style setup they have setup on Earth and various "judgment" scenes. These scenes are intercut with brief interviews by the documentary film crew from Heaven who are documenting the Earth apocalypse for Heaven's internal records. Again the style of the God + team interview scenes is similar in style to This is Spinal Tap, Best in Show, etc.
At the moment I am in the final rewrites of the screenplay, primarily editing the second and third acts. It will be a straightforward 90 minute film.
I would like to know if anyone might be interested in reading the first act of the screenplay and giving me your feedback and honest criticism. It has been read by a number of people thus far and I am happy with where it is, but if this film sounds like something you'd like, I'd love to get more feedback before production begins. The second and third act editing should be done in a week or so, at which time it will be the shooting script.
I've attached the PDF of the first act to this e-mail, if you read it, my e-mail address is on the title page and I'd love to hear from you.
Thanks everyone, I've learned so much from this forum with regards to filmmaking. This isn't my first project, I've DPd some shorts and written some shorts, but it is my first feature and we're ultra-low-budget, so it's all about the writing for us.
Thanks guys and gals!
Well the time has come and we're going to begin production on my first feature film next month, I've written the screenplay, will be directing and running one of the cameras.
We're going to be shooting on Panasonic GH1(s) with Zeiss and Canon FD lenses in 1080/24 and will be transcoding to Cineform for editing. We'll be using a Fostex FR2LE with a Rode NTG-3 for exteriors and an NT-3 hyper for interiors, with a Zoom H4N for backup and some location sound gathering.
Premise:
For the Love of God: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Apocalypse is a feature-length documentary-style comedy set in Boston, MA during the weeks leading into, and during the Biblical Apocalypse, set in present day. The film is composed two stories running in parallel. The first story explores the nuts and bolts of God and his crew carrying out the logistics of the Earth apocalypse and is shot in a documentary style in the spirit of This is Spinal Tap and The Office.
God's Apocalypse team is composed of his executive assistant Bobo and Rapture Rose (his apocalyptic events coordinator.) This story assumes that God and his crew, while supernatural, because of the many worlds they must manage, work in a typical corporate office style environment and have to coordinate operations and solve problems just as any typical business would.
As God and his crew leave for Earth, Bobo informs God that the Book of Life for Earth has been destroyed. Rapture Rose suggests that since just about everyone on earth uses Facebook, and many people list their religious views in their profiles, that they can just use Facebook instead of the Book of Life. And for those places on earth where the people don't have facebook? "Collatoral damage," as Rapture Rose likes to put it.
The parallel story to the above takes place on Earth, and is shot in a traditional narrative style. The story focuses on the relationship between two scientists: Jamie and Joanne (who goes by Joe). Jamie is a brilliant particle physicist who is near a breakthrough in her study of string-theory. Joanne is a classical physicist and mathematician...but most importantly a string-theory skeptic...a true odd couple, these two (did I mention this is an esoteric love story?). Joanne is in love with Jamie, and has made this very clear to Jamie. Jamie does not reciprocate, but given her particuarly black & white disposition, she is willing to entertain the notion that one day, she might be able to love Joanne under the right conditions. But of course, time is running out.
Meanwhile God and his crew have set up operations on earth for judgment which is handled in very "DMV" impersonal surroundings - they have an office, call who's next in line, pull up their Facebook profile, and query them over their religious views. This is handled in a College Admissions interview fashion, where God et. al, are actually trying to make a case for getting the subject into Heaven, trying to talk them into saying things that will make their "application" as strong as possible.
The film will cut back and forth between scenes on Earth with Jamie & Joanne, and scenes with God + team both in their offices in heaven, during the planning phase, and in the DMV/office-building style setup they have setup on Earth and various "judgment" scenes. These scenes are intercut with brief interviews by the documentary film crew from Heaven who are documenting the Earth apocalypse for Heaven's internal records. Again the style of the God + team interview scenes is similar in style to This is Spinal Tap, Best in Show, etc.
At the moment I am in the final rewrites of the screenplay, primarily editing the second and third acts. It will be a straightforward 90 minute film.
I would like to know if anyone might be interested in reading the first act of the screenplay and giving me your feedback and honest criticism. It has been read by a number of people thus far and I am happy with where it is, but if this film sounds like something you'd like, I'd love to get more feedback before production begins. The second and third act editing should be done in a week or so, at which time it will be the shooting script.
I've attached the PDF of the first act to this e-mail, if you read it, my e-mail address is on the title page and I'd love to hear from you.
Thanks everyone, I've learned so much from this forum with regards to filmmaking. This isn't my first project, I've DPd some shorts and written some shorts, but it is my first feature and we're ultra-low-budget, so it's all about the writing for us.
Thanks guys and gals!
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