LEAP (An End Times Feature)

I was up pretty late last night editing and managed to make quite a bit of progress. Today the plan is to edit for a while, lay by the pool while working on Leap 2, then edit some more. Life is rough.
 
I edited the chase scene last night and it looked great. I dropped in a temp track and now it looks amazing. I also cut the stealth run and added an "Enya" temp track, giving it the serenity I was looking for. I called my composer and asked him if he thought he could come up with something that sounds like that. He said he can. Sweet! I have two more scenes to cut before we start shooting again on Monday, just two training scenes.

I didn't do much editing today, as I was busy doing research for Leap 2. My list has grown of issues I want to address, so I may have to cut some of it down. We'll see. I have three topics I'm addressing in Leap (the mark, premarital sex, signs of the end times), so I'm shooting for three in Leap 2 (what the beast really is, the truth behind death, and the 10 commandments). My overall theme for both films is Salvation through Christ and to encourage people to actually read their bibles and not just believe what they've been taught.

I was hoping to lay by the pool and actually start on a treatment, but the weather wasn't too great today, so my pup and I hung out inside and started collecting the scripture references for Leap 2.
 
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Shooting yesterday went great! Some of the actors were a little late, but once they got there, we were able to buckle down and shot the kidnapping and van interrogation scenes in two hours. This also included shooting the stunts of having the actors jump out of the van while it was moving. No one got hurt, and no one got arrested (we were using a 9mm handgun for some of the shots).

I cut the footage together, then we met up with some of the other actors last night to shoot the scene where Shane tells the group what happened, and the last scene of the film where they learn the mark has been implemented. Then we went to the church and shot the scenes we were supposed to shoot a week ago when my brakes went out.

All in all, a good day of shooting.
 
Thanks, Matt!

So we shot our first bible study scene tonight. We had a few issues but still finished when I wanted to. We got to the church only to find out that head pastor all of a sudden wasn't going to let us shoot there. I'd been working with a youth pastor who was supposed to be there to "Supervise" us, but his wife had a baby today, and apparently the head pastor didn't know what was going on so he told us we couldn't shoot there. Now, I created a motto for our parkour crew "power, fluidity, control, strength, concentration, speed, adaptaion, fitness, freedom" Tonight was a test of "adaptation". When I found out I couldn't shoot at the church, I said, "let's just shoot at Riverfront Park at the forestry shelter". So we get down there, I hook up my two lights, and everything is going fine until it starts to rain. Fortunatly, the rain didn't show up on the camera and the light didn't change, but we still had to stop shooting for a minute when the rain got so hardcore that I wasn't going to be able to hear the camera audio for ADR purposes later. After a minute, we started shooting again and finished the 8 page scene in two hours.

As we headed back to the cars, I made plans with my actors to have them get another parkour training in on Saturday so they'll still be able to do the stuff for the pk demo which we shoot in two weeks. When my coproducer and I got back to my apartment, I showed him how the cutting was coming and we played with some effects for the overall look of the film. Ultimately, we settled on a 75% Black and White filter in Vegas. That, along with my custom filmlook, and I think we've got something that looks great, and when added to all our shots with production value (pk, rappeling, wide moving shots) makes it look great!

As for Leap 2:The Beast, I found all the scriptures I want to use, now it's just a matter of coming up with a story for it all. Due to the nature of the film, my co-producer doesn't want to be involved, which I can respect, but he's still cool with me releasing the film under our Drift Entertainment banner, and not just STARS Pictures, which means I can use OUR equipment, not just MY equipment.
 
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Today, Alex and I got together to get a few pickups and reshoot one of his scenes. We shot his part of the final scene, his part of the scene where Shane tells the group about Crystal, and reshot the scene where he accepts Christ. We also shot the b-roll we needed of him standing on a roof, ready to take the "leap of faith".
 
So a week ago I sent out an ad on craigslist looking for Christian music ranging from dreamy to metal. I posted in the Seattle section rather than Spokane as it's a more artsy part of the state. I've gotten two replies so far, and have already acquired one track. The song is called "Signs of the Time" and fits perfectly with the theme of the film. I'm using it for opening titles and closing credits. The track has a "Bourne" feel to it, and the vocals sound like something from the 70's, which I love!

I've fallen a little behind on editing recently, as I have a couple scenes still to edit from before, but I guess it's not really behind as I'm editing as I go. On Wulf, I didn't start cutting until after I shot the thing, so in actuality, I'm ahead. =) I'm hoping to have picture lock by September, record the ADR in October, and have everything mixed and ready to go by Thanksgiving, Christmas at the latest.
 
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I cut for a little bit today, then took a break to work on polishing up some of the other scenes. I've spent the past four hours making this rough cut as good as possible. Some things I worked on were: updating titles and credits, dropping in some of the licensed music, removed halos from the greenscreen shots, added video effects to the dream sequences (100% B&W, Glow, and Brightness & Contrast) and removed my voice where I was directing actors as we shot. The film looks absolutely amazing right now, and after adding gaps in the timeline for scenes I still need to shoot, the picture is looking to come in at around 80 minutes with credits. It's better than Wulf, which was 71 min with credits. Oh, and my credit sequence rocks! In talking with my coproducer and lead actor, we realized that the only thing this movie was missing (besides a good explosion) was more pk, so I dug up some of my old parkour vids, scaled the video down to fit the right side of the screen, and moved the scrolling credits to the left side. So rather than seeing the outtakes like in a Jackie Chan film, the audience can see me doing parkour!
 
A lot to update today. First, the church that said we could shoot there suddenly said we cant last week. So this week, I tried again to get in touch and they flat out ignored me now. We were going to shoot today's bible studies out at Riverfront again, but Alex, who play's Shane, called his pastor on a whime and got us the use of their classrooms, sanctuary, and offices. Praise God! Most of the actors were a little late again, so it was a little after 7pm when we started shooting. We shot a six page bible study, a two page bible study, a two page candlelight vigil, and six pages of stuff in Pastor Scott's office. We were done by 11pm. I was most impressed by how well everyone did with the vigil. The group was really able to buckle down and get serious. I think we'll get people to cry during that scene. =)

Shooting with my tripod steadycam has been working great. I'll try to post a picture, but basically, I hold the tripod by two legs, keeping them parallel to the ground. It makes for some really smooth shots, and also gets rid of the handheld look I'd have otherwise. I attribute a lot of how we're cranking through the script to that little device. I don't know what I'm going to do when I get a larger camera... Maybe get a real steadycam?

So now we're down to a few pickups on Friday, then our last day of shooting will be Sunday. We'll be shooting the funeral, the pk demo, and the scene where the group gets their shirts for the demo (I had one made for me too!) I'm looking to have around forty or so extras for both the large scenes, which will be a great experience for me.

We should be ready to start the ADR in three weeks. As far as the cutting, I'm all caught up, except I need to recapture two minutes worth of footage. Somehow two of my shots were corrupted and keep crashing Vegas. Not cool. I'll probably capture them tomorrow when I capture the footage from tonight. I'm also about ready to start writing the next flick.
 
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Final day of shooting. Today we finished photography on Leap. Even the pick ups are done-(it's been so nice cutting as I go). We shot the funeral today and had about 8 people show up for that. Then, we go to the college to shoot the big demo/ministry scene, and people kept showing up. By the time we rolled, I had about 25 extras. To make things easier, I went down the line giving them a number, 1-4. I had each number group walk a different direction within the frame, and when the group starts evangelizing, I had people respond by their numbers. IE the 2's would walk away in disgust, or the 3's come forward. I also had about 25 bibles donated to the film for the traceurs to pass out, so I let the extras keep them. A few of the extras also asked where they could get some of the shirts I had made for the film. I told them that I'll post a link soon on my site where they can order some.

The coolest part about today was just seeing everyone there. At one point I just stopped, looked around, and was like, "Wow. All these people showed up just for my little project." It was truly an experience I'll never forget.

After we were done with the extras, they were dismissed and my main actors came back to my place to shoot one last scene. Upon wrapping, I had sparkling cider for everyone and I thanked them for their hard work. (Would've been champagne, but most the cast is under 21). I feel truly lucky to have the cast that I do. They went through a month and a half of parkour training with me, then put up with me for another month as we shot. They all did their own stunts (and the movie is full of them), and no one flaked out or got hurt.

This is the part of my journey where I'm supposed to be like "and now starts the long process of editing", but I only have to edit what I shot today. Once that's dropped in, I'll start tightening things up, and adding the overall polish, which should only take a week or two. I can then start the ADR sessions with my cast in two weeks as well as the foley and sound fx. During this time, I'll also be in contact with bands and musicians for music. Once the ADR and foley is recorded, I'll spend about a month syncing it all up, then I'll do the final sound mix, and lastly color correct the picture, and apply my filmlook. I should be done with the film by Thanksgiving, which is exciting as I should be able to get some discs pressed in time to use as Christmas gifts for friends and family.

A few stats:
On "Wulf" I shot six and a half tapes. For this film, I was guessing about nine, so that's all I bought. We finished today halfway through tape nine. 8.5 hours of footage. Not bad for an action flick. On my footage drive, this takes up about 115 GB. The film was shot again in 12 days (seems to be my lucky number, as that's how long it took to shoot my first feature), and those 12 days were spread out over the course of a month. We had no crew. Just my co-producer and the actors helping out as needed. The total run-time is 81 min. I'm cutting the film in Vegas 7 on a computer that's six years old running 512 MB RAM on a Celeron 2.6 GHz with an ATI Raedon 9200 card. Oh, and we shot the film with a Canon ZR800 using two shop lights. I can't wait to post a clip for everyone to see what can be done with this stuff when you milk it.

So that's where we're at right now, forgive me if I don't update much for a while. I really don't see the point of saying "Today I recorded ADR with Natasha". Not too exciting. But I will post some production pics as soon as I get them from our photographer. Also, I want to get the 'making of' up when she's done.

Till then-

El
 
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So I really thought it'd be longer before I posted another update, but I figured, "what the heck". I finished the first assembly Monday morning and watched the film all the way through with my producer that night. All it felt like it was missing was a few establishing shots to help with scene transitions. Other than, just have to do the normal "trimming off the fat" and start adding the L and J cuts. I have a recruited test audience tonight with my neighbor and his fiance, so hopefully that goes well.
 
The test screening went well. They got it, and the film made sense to them, which is good. The only suggestion they had was that I try to rework the kidnapping scene. I 100% agree. I'm going to try to use an alternate take, or recut it somehow, but I may just have to try to get some of the actors back together, which will be hard as most of them started college yesterday. Fortunately, it's just the actual act of the kidnapping, which isn't really as pivotal of a scene as the one that follows is. Worst case scenario, I leave it as it is.

The best part was just watching their reactions and seeing that the film worked. They laughed when they were supposed to, cried when they were supposed to, and were on the edge of their seats during the pk stuff. If the film works know, in the very primitive form it's in (you can still hear me directing the actors in parts), then I know it can only get better! =)
 
AWESOME! You are brave to show a rough cut. I never have a group sit down to watch a rough cut unless I know they are the type who can see the final vision through the chaos. Congrats!
 
Oh, I was scared! My shirt was soaking wet by the time it ended! lol! I had shown them examples before as to what the movie would actually look and sound like, so they understood that at this point I was just concerned with the story. I'll post a clip after I start the ADR. Same with the trailer. I've tried cutting a trailer from rough cuts on Wulf, and it never sounds good.
 
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So here's an example of how most of the stuff looks. You can see why it's hard to find some good grabs. A few notes: This is from the cut that my neighbor watched, so keep in mind that ALL of the audio will be redone. Also, there's one guy who really hams it up for the camera. I'll probably pull him out, but I wanted to get your take on it. I also ask that you please don't watch in full screen mode. It's SD, and heavily compressed. Thanks!

To set up the scene: A group of traceurs have formed a parkour ministry, and this is their first attempt at an outreach.

http://starspictures.ning.com/video/sample-clip
 
I enjoyed that! Cool to see a bit of the film! Good luck on the post production. It is hard and tedious but the end product is worth it. I liked the lead's acting. He seemed genuine and inviting. -Matt
 
hey,
just watched your sample, not sure if you have processed the image at all yet but you seem to be lacking deep blacks, looks as if it has a green tint which is flatteningyour contrast. this might just be the way the video has compressed though.
please dont take offence but
From a non christian standpoint, I find the message a little intense, feels abit like scare mongering. not sure it is the best tactic to attract people.
but thats just my opinion,
good luck with your project.
regards
Matt
 
I sort of agree with Matt on this...

I would never disparage someone for trying something to do something creatively, but it does appear a lot like fear mongering.

Again, just my opinion. Best of luck.
 
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