FEATURE: Stricken the Feature - A Matt Sconce Film

Render progressing 1 of 4

Render progressing 1 of 4

Now rendered 10,000 frames with 1.5 hours left, Sunset over Fresno from the 22 story Plaza building... Moving into the car rig shots...:2vrolijk_08:
 
Render progressing 1 of 4 reels

Render progressing 1 of 4 reels

It is funny that the car used was the one Matt won from American Idol in 2004...

Car shots... Yep, they are all real car shots, no green screens...
 
Render progressing 1 of 4 reels

Render progressing 1 of 4 reels

Nosey neighbor scenes. Don did such a great acting job! Interesting effects note in this scene... Originally Don had blood on his face with a bloody nose in this scene. After we watched it in the editing room, we decided the blood was over the top and didn't fit the scene, and Matt actually locked, motion tracked his face and removed the blood completely.

Shane Foster and Troy Ruff lit the nosey neighbor scene magnificently.

Now on over 15000 frames with a storm shot over Fresno... :laugh:
 
Render progressing 1 of 4 reels

Render progressing 1 of 4 reels

Shower scene... Woo hoo! This scene probably has actress Stephanie French's dad hunting Matt right now! I love how her character develops in this scene... She changes from tentative to passionate. :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)

18,000 frames rendered... Go, go, go! Dream sequence... (Nightmare sequence... Ahhhhhh!) :zombie_smiley:
 
Render of reel one of four progressing

Render of reel one of four progressing

Mirror scene one... Diner scene. The color is desaturated but the colors still pop in a wonderful way here. Jenny' blue is fantastic... The Shocklights put such a neat bar of light in the eyes of the actors. Their eyes really look good.

22,000 frames rendered. Yay! :love4:
 
Rendering reel 1 of 4

Rendering reel 1 of 4

Scary scene alert! Jump scare with creepiness. Moving on to the first Whispering Pines rest home with the digital matte paintings by Tim Nargi. He is REALLY talented. The rest home is really scary and creepy looking. I wouldn't want to go there... I could be (gasp) murdered! Who names a rest home 'Whispering Pines?'... I guess Matt does... creepy.

25,000 frames rendered, almost halfway done... Go, go, go!
 
Render of reel 1 of 4 progressing

Render of reel 1 of 4 progressing

Cutting to close-ups of the actors parking at Whispering Pines and dialog. When we finish completely, Matt and I are going to count all of the individual VFX shots that were completed for the entire film... We want to calculate how much money we didn't have to pay others to do the shots. Matt was quoted around $8000 per normal greenscreen shot by a prominent VFX house... Hoo boy... Needless to way, we didn't have that type of money... so we used it for the computer and Matt learned to do it all... Trial by fire so to speak.

The car scenes at Whispering Pines have great keying and Matt lightwrapped the actors to blend them into the background. Everything looks nice... These shots are filmed on the HVX200, and if you use Keylight with the 4:2:2 footage, you can get really clean keys from the 1280 by 720 footage. Render has slowed considerably with all of the keying and lightwrapping...

Actors Stephanie French and Christina Tellifson really look beautiful in these scenes. We shot these scenes in Matt's old house front yard with Matt, Troy and I as crew, using two 11'x15' greenscreen with six 6000k Shocklights on car and greenscreen, and two 6000k interior fluorescents in the car.
 
Render of reel 1 of 4 progressing

Render of reel 1 of 4 progressing

The greenscreen composite with lightwrap is taking 5 seconds per frame to render. Nearing the end of the scene with the two girls talking in the car... After this, things should speed up. Still, wonderful to watch all this work come to fruition...

Muy exciting! :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
Rendering reel 1 of 4 progressing

Rendering reel 1 of 4 progressing

Here I am giving the play by play on the render...
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Hey, we know this web site!
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Matt labors on... R e n d e r...
The Editing Chamber of Glory! Go, go, go!
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We are now ar 27,000 frames rendered, and are inside the creepy Whispering Pines. Sarah Black is talking to Oliver, one of the senior citizen patients in the hallway and caught his kiss blown to her. It is a cute scene.

Nearing the scene with Edna. Ahhhhhhhhh! Scary! In the Edna scene the lights in the room all go out as the lightning storm knocks out the power. We forgot and left the TV on in the corner, so Matt had to track a semi-rounded edge 1960's TV screen as it moves through the scene when the camera pans. That was not fun for him. When the camera panned, Sarah Black actually runs in front of the 'off' TV twice! Poor Matt. Yay for Mocha in After Effects! Whoo Hoo Mocha.

Edna's jump scares the poop out of me every time! Good scare. All of the pictures in the Edna Whispering Pine scene are planted family pics. The room has all original paintings too. It took me three takes to knock the rolling hospital dinner table over properly in this scene as I hid down behind the couch beside the bed.

28,500 frames rendered. Sarah is about to meet the monster for the first time!!! Ahhhhhhhhhhh! :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
Rendering reel 1 of 4 progressing

Rendering reel 1 of 4 progressing

The woman playing 'Edna' is actually named Edna which made for an easy time on set. Thanks again to all the Avenal Hospital personnel who allowed us to use all the amazing hospital furniture in these scenes. They are the nicest people in the world. Acting legend James Dean died there too... Unofficially. We put actor David Fine's bed in the exact spot James Dean died. He thought it was cool... We told him to say Hi from us if he saw him in the night... We wrote in a cameo for him in Stricken, but he didn't show... So we didn't pay him...

30,000 frames rendered and counting...

Ooooooo here comes the SCARY HALL SCENE... run Sarah, run! Freakin' scary!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! When we shot this hallway scene, Stephanie French ran down the hall toward a double closed door. The first time she ran, she was supposed to push the bar and open the door. She didn't push the bar, and Matt ran into the back of her with the Hypercam steadycam flying an HVX200 full speed... Smack! We all laughed and took the shot again.
 
Rendering Reel 1 of 4 progressing

Rendering Reel 1 of 4 progressing

Running down the hallway... Lightning flashing... SCARY! Aspect of the camera changes to the floor looking up... MONSTER! MONSTER! MONSTER!!! You will all love this scene. I did the lightning box. Back to normal lighting and power is on again.

31,500 frames rendered. It is going to take every bit of the 3 hours to render. Kenn Arola does a good job in the jump scare in the hallway.

I can't wait to see the hallway scene with the score and sound. Man, that will be fun. When we shot the hallway scene, the stunt double was so freaked out by the 'entity' coming down the hall toward her that she was cursing and swearing at it to try to not be totally and completely terrified. We have BTS of that for the blue ray someday... So funny. "I'm gonna kick your A**!!!" We were saying, 'Quiet, we are trying to shoot a movie here', but she was so scared, with the scary haunted hospital, James Dean's ghost, dying baby sounds, choking and gurgling sounds at night, that she could not separate fact from fiction. Later that night she was in a room alone and a King's County Deputy Sheriff loomed up in the window to make sure she was safe... She screamed obscenities at him too! Hehehehehe. He took it all in stride.

Bathroom scene in hospital with the writing on the mirror. Matt inserted a different mirror into the scene for the close up. Dr. Allen is in his first scene here. This was a particularly hard scene to light... Extremely close quarters with five actors, boom operator, camera, three Shocklights and Matt all crammed into the room.
 
Rendering reel 1 of 4 progressing

Rendering reel 1 of 4 progressing

Getting ready for the interrogation scene. I love the interaction of the original two detectives with Sarah Black. We chose to use natural light from above just as it would have been in a real police interrogation room, leaving interesting shadows on their faces. Shadows can tell stories as well as light.

Matt and I are turning into pumpkins here so we will sign off for the night.

Render is at 34,000. We will have the Interrogation scene, second diner scene, and the downtown Fresno walking dialog scene. We shot that scene with the Hypercrane set up next to the landmark Fresno water tower. The Hyperchariot was used to roll ahead of the walking actors on the sidewalk in downtown Fresno. Thanks to Ray Arthur the Fresno film commissioner then. We only had 20 minutes to shoot all of that until the sunlight completely disappeared. Our lead actor David Fine was wrapped that night too. So, no pressure... :kali: At the end of the walk and talk scene, it was very dark. We still needed a necessary shot, but had no power and no lights. Matt guaranteed us that the shot could be saved with the power of After Effects and Neat Video noise removal he could save the shot that was tremendously underexposed. He saved it... Nice work Matt. :2vrolijk_08:

Night to all. :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
Success! The render went well and I was also able to render the QT Timecode burn for the Sound Designers and Composers. I am now backing the files onto an external HD.

Many of the screen grabs for these moments have been posted earlier in the thread...but I may post some of the creepy moments now that they have their effects. I shall see. -Matt
 
Aftershock SPINCAM video on Vimeo

Aftershock SPINCAM video on Vimeo

We have posted a video on VIMEO highlighting the Aftershock SPINCAM we will be using on our next feature. Here is the vid:


Enjoy! :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
guys wow, that is very cool. i say, if you made one, start a company yourselves and sell those. I'd certainly buy one depending on the price point. I could see this thing blowing up.
 
Whew! Reel one is complete and moving onto reel 2. After that Reel 3 and Credits and Stricken will be in the final color and add a bit of motion phase. Then sound score and PRESTO! Magic time.
 
Yay! That is true. I just got some of the score from James and it is sounding great. Weekend after next, we have an ADR session in Burbank. I am rendering VFX for reel 2 at the moment, excited to get them done and move into the final passes of it. Then Reel 3, Credits and done...-Matt
 
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