FEATURE: Rise of the Beast-the new feature from STARS Pictures

Production Journal

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Man, it's been a long day. I've been busy working on a trailer. Cutting a trailer is hard enough, but it's even worse when you've only done ADR for three actors. I'm hoping to keep it more visual than dialogue based. We'll see how this goes.

So I decided to take a break from trailer cutting and adapted an old stageplay that Alex (Shane) had written in college. I'm considering using it to screentest Kimberly for "Derek". It's a psychological thriller so that works well because "Derek" is also a thriller. I'll probably have to make a few changes to the script, but I'm excited with the overall story. I'd like to add a Christian element, but it is a short, so I'm not as concerned. Kim's coming over tomorrow to go over the script, then I have my composer Mark coming by tomorrow night to work on music for ROTB. Busy day =)
 
Had a busy weekend doing some re-shoots with Chelsea. We re-shot all her greenscreen stuff and it looks so much better now! Then we shot some inserts of her that will be used when we flashback to the first movie, since we had a different actress playing this character then. I also took a photo of her face that I’ll be using to do a face replacement on the original actress for some shots that we couldn’t redo. I’m not too excited about having more effects shots to do, but it’s all going to be worth it. We finished the weekend off by doing Chelsea’s ADR and then watched the rough cut. Slowly but surly we’re getting done!
 
Good stuff! How are you going to be able to pull of the face replacement? I'm doing ADR myself right now. Sucks, but once it's done it's so much better.
 
It's a really wide shot which helps. In AE I'm going to mask off the photo into an "8" type of shape. I'll keep the eyes, nose and mouth, with the edges being feathered. This will then be tracked (probably by hand) to the original actress's face. I'll also have to roto the original hair onto the new image when it covers the face. I'm really not sure if this will work or not, but it seems like it should. Anyone have any suggestions or ideas?
 
Just checked out the trailer, man. Looking good. You're right there. You've got some good footage in here for sure. The opening with the flashes from the film are great. You've got the footage for the action, but I think if you tighten some of the shots, speed up certain spots and take out a frame here and there I think you'll have more impact - the choreography is good already. Just a little tweaking will make it pop more I think.

I think you can make that explosion at more believable at the end too. There's a place online that has window fire bursts and they look really good. I can't remember the name of it right now, but I think if you had that along with debris and smoke coming out of the windows it might be better. Just a suggestion. It's looking good and coming along though. Oh and the fx makeup was really good as well.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I'm already in the process of revamping it, so I appreciate the ideas. I really like the idea of having the explosion come out windows. I'll definitely incorporate that into the next version, as well as faster cuts and a better color grade (it looked great on my monitor, but I'm not happy with it on my TV, so I re calibrated the monitor and can see what needs to change). Thanks for checking it out!
 
Hey all, I know I've been quite for a while, but things on the Leap 2 front have been super busy. I have a premiere date set up with the theater for May 15 and have been busting my butt to get the movie finished on time. I spent all last week doing visual effects and should have them completed tonight. Then I can start my CC and grading after conforming the online. After that it'll be foley and the 5.1. I'll have a "good enough" movie to show at the theater, but I'll probably still perfect it before I release the DVD. In any event, I'm excited =D
 
We ended up having well over 100 people show up for the premiere in the little town of Newport, WA. Not too bad considering its over an hour's drive from Spokane where most of us live. The response was extremely positive and we've had a spike in preorders for the DVD which is always nice. The projector was always working better this time too (on the last film, there was no red being output). What's really neat is that I even had grandparents from California fly up just to see the movie. I think uploading the first six minutes online was a smart move. It allowed people who saw the first flick to cast away their doubt about how good this one would be. There were a few Catholics in the crowd, so I am curious as to what they thought. Overall though, people have said they really enjoyed it and that it has caused them to think and look up the facts for themselves. To me, that makes the film a success, regardless of how much money it makes. People are also excited for the sequel, which is probably two years away. Here's pic of me in front of the box office with the marquee
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El Director, I have to ask out of pure curiosity. Did you photo shop your movies name on the marquee or is that real?
Something about that picture just looks odd to me.
 
Where's the first 6 mins of the film. I'd love to check it out. Oh, and why is that guy behind you standing just like you? Lol! You got a Mini-Me?
 
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