FEATURE: THE LOST CHILDREN - A FEATURE FILM by Mark Harris

Yeah Jack, I got 10 skulls, if you need to borrow them :)

The location was about half a block from a police precinct. I thought about waiting for some cops to walk by, then start hauling skulls up out of this basement: "Oh hi, officer..."
 
Mark you just influenced me significantly with your extra steps of shooting the tv screen to get a real security cam look instead of plug-ins, very smart.
 
That's awesome Matt. Thanks. That's what I hoped, other people can get something out of us sharing the process. I am writing a new post about the Art Direction, skulls, and making guts! Coming soon!
 
Reposted from NEW BREED:

I thought people here would get something out of this one. I think more people on DVXUser know this stuff now than in indie film circles, maybe? But thought I would share anyway.

Art Direction and Practical Effects Techniques

THE LOST CHILDREN is a pretty ambitious story to attempt on a low budget. It has aliens and hidden lairs and a massacre. These things are not easily accomplished on a budget as low as ours. It's only due to the dedication of my cast and crew, and the help from some friends, that this film is possible at all.

Lessons in art direction

I am blessed to have an Art Director who is an artist in his own right. He's a perfectionist, not because he's well paid, but because he takes pride in his work. This film could not have been done without him. We learned a while back that art direction is often the most critical piece left out of micro-budget films. So this post is to encourage everyone to think about it.

Lesson 1: Location, location, location

When you're able to get hold of good locations, your art direction is handled for you. And in ways you could never ever accomplish on a small budget. We needed an abandoned insane asylum from the 19th Century. We would never be able to fake this. So we had to find one. We wound up using an abandoned prison in Philadelphia.



All of this stuff was in the place when we got there. The only art direction we added were props specific to our story. But when we got in and saw the location, we realized nothing else would need to be done. We got miles and miles of production value for free. Or I should say, included in the location fee.

Likewise with the location below. Clearly we would never be able to fake or build an observatory. But again, miles of production value built in.



Sub-Lesson 1.1: Cinematography is 50% art direction

Many in the low-budget film community obsess over cameras. They should be obsessed with art direction. If you have budget for either a RED and a so-so art director, or an AF-100 and a good art director, always, always, always, always choose the latter. What you point the camera at in the first place buys you a lot of cinematography. Again, on micro-budget productions this is a way to get more production value out of your budget.

Sub-Lesson 1.2: The city is already art directed

If you are lucky enough to be living and working in NYC, you have the world's greatest backlot at your fingertips. Permits are free. You can shoot all over the place. On a low budget, you get a lot of production value for next to nothing:



The same lesson can be applied to any city you live in. I know in Ohio where my mom lives, many small towns have some great main-streets, old factories, barns. Use them.

Lesson 2: Be specific

Just as in scripts and acting, and everything else, the choices you make in art direction should be specific to the story. On our set, you could walk into Jared's office, examine the things on his shelves and desk, and never know it was a movie. Each and every thing in this set has meaning to the character and story.



This symbol is very specifically designed, each element having a meaning:



And this is becoming more important than ever, as your movie may move beyond the screen into other media. There might be some little thing on screen that winds up playing out more in shorts, the website, etc. So you have to know exactly what that thing is. Take the time to make every detail very specific.

Lesson 3: Smoke it up!

A little fog goes a long way. We've been using this for a long time. Now fog machines can be purchased at any halloween store. Hell, I got mine at a $.99 store in Brooklyn. They can also be purchased at places like Guitar World. They go for about $40 now, and they will come in sooooo handy.



Professionals use something called a hazer, which more evenly spreads the smoke. So when you crank up your el-cheapo smoke machine, make sure you have a big piece of cardboard around to waft it into an even pattern.

Now, you can use this fog for a couple of things. First off, it can help make your location look creepy as hell. But it can also be used like the Hollywood people use it, to diffuse light and give depth and atmosphere to a location:



Blade Runner is of course an extreme example, but I just saw the hazer used on the HBO show "Bored to Death". In the Old Town bar. Once you know about it, you'll start seeing it everywhere. And it's an effect you can apply yourself for very little money.

Or you can use it just to make yourself look like a bad-ass:



Makin' guts: Practical effects on set

One scene in THE LOST CHILDREN involves a massacre. This means blood and goop and guts. The fun stuff. These things can be composited in after the fact, and I have seen some low budget films do that. But I don't really have that skillset in house, so it would raise the budget. It was much more cost effective to do these EFX on set.

I had researched a bunch of tutorials on the web, and you can find them too with Google. But the technique I settled on for making our entrails, is this:

1) Get some skin-colored liquid latex and paper towels. This latex can be had from Halloween shops, or of course professional make-up suppliers. But these days, it seems like Halloween shops have nearly everything you need for a film.

BN_liquid_Latex__42109_zoom-300x280.jpg


2) Get a paint brush and some pretty smooth surface. I've seen plexi-glass recommended, but I used a shelf from Ikea. It's laminated, so will not soak up the liquid latex, yet allows for some imperfections. In all things guts, imperfections are your friends. Paint the liquid latex over your surface. It can be pretty thin. Don't sweat trying to make it smooth and perfect, just get a good membrane laid down.

3) Then get a hair dryer and blow that stuff dry. Otherwise, you'll be sitting there all day.

4) When it's dry it will look like rubber. It might seem like it got transparent, but don't worry about that, it's all good. Take the paper towels and roll them up into sort of thin sausages. The length can vary. Again, not perfect is perfect.

5) Once you have the paper towel sausages, put them on one edge of the latex and roll the latex over them, as if the latex is the sausage casing. Roll it up until your paper towels are contained in the latex casing. Use several paper towel sausages so that you get some intersect points, as illustrated in the photo below.

6) Repeat until you have all the guts you need. This can be time consuming, even with the hair-dryer, so make sure to give yourself enough time. I think I spent about 8 hrs making the guts I needed for...2 people. But you can re-use them in several shots, I think. I don't know how they keep, because we only needed them for one shoot-day.

You can add more layers of latex, if you like. I think we did two per entrail. But the end result looks like this. See how it looks like there are three sections? That's due to three paper towel sausages.



Now, add some blood mixture, tear open a shirt, and Voila! Actually, I had made a sort of...plastic-bag-bed-gut-holder under the actor's shirt, so he wouldn't have to sit there with it on his skin. It also made clean-up easier, which saves time on set. Reads great on camera and gives people a jump. Even on set, people walking into the room would jump when they saw this.

Skulls: Everyone has one, but how often do you get to play with it?

One of our shots involves a pile of skulls. This is one department where Halloween stores will not save you. If they do have skulls real enough to pass muster, they will cost you an arm and a leg. Okay, bad joke. Instead, I found a great website: http://www.skeleton-factory.com. You want bones, they got 'em. And cheap. Here you can buy skulls of many qualities at various prices. I chose the cheapest, knowing that the fog and the muck, etc would cover up any imperfections. These run $8.95 each. I got 10 for our shoot.

CS-20-4.jpg


Rip all the hardware off. You will need to sandpaper some ridges, maybe putty up some cracks, spray paint them. depending on how they will be seen. But if you don't mind putting in a little elbow grease, these are a fantastic solution for the micro-budget filmmaker. Here's how they came out in the film:



Okay, that's it for now. Send questions if you have them. I am talking to my art director about writing something as well, detailing some more of his processes.
 
Other news:

So it looks like the December screening in LA may have to be pushed back. This is because I was just asked to take part in an extremely high profile project. I can't say anything about it until the new year, but it will have world-wide exposure, and I think really advance my career in the direction I want it to go. It was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. But what that means is less time for post this Fall. Might push back then screening, maybe into Feb.

M
 
Update. They announced it today, so I can post something here. I've been asked to work on one of the projects in the 2011 Sundance New Frontiers program:

http://www.indiewire.com/article/franco_weiler_and_new_frontier_at_sundance_film_festival/

It's the one at the bottom, called Pandemic 1.0. I can't say too much about it, but that it will be a large Transmedia project at the festival. I will be writing software for this project. For a while I have been looking for ways to leverage my software background in storytelling, and this will give me a chance to do that. As everything converges onto the web, I think both filmmaking and software skills will become mutually beneficial. I want my business to use both for telling stories. This project will have a lot of exposure, and hopefully lead on to some more of the same.

In addition, it's going to give me a chance to work on a large scale Transmedia project in real time, and gain a ton of experience I'll then be able to bring back to my own projects.

Very very excited.
 
Thumbs up for going at this in a Unique and Creative way Mark, like you said, you are just looking for a specific type of audience and if it reaches beyond that, it's great, if not at least you got to do what you want, either way I wish you the best success.
 
Sound Design

Sound Design

Thanks Patrick! Someday I will catch up to you!!!

So I have been experimenting with some sound effects for the movie. In some parts, I was going to handle this visually with static, but after showing it to a few people, they all kind of agreed it was over the top and out of line with the tone of the film. So I started looking at some more subtle ways to do the same. That lead me to sounds. I am playing with the idea of infrasounds, which are too low to hear, but you can still feel them. Playing with the idea that some of the characters can communicate with these sounds over long distances. After getting some help in the audio forum, it's become clear and actual infrasounds are not viable. But I have started faking some that come close to what I'm looking for:

dre83 was helping explore this. I sent him a vocal track. Then he worked with the pitch, taking it down almost out of the range of human hearing. I then stretched the time on it and it's coming close to a good drone I can hide in background noise:
http://www.desperatecomfort.com/working/lc/infrasound-faker-original.wav

Then this is the file "re-built," as if someone processed it to figure out what was in it:
http://www.desperatecomfort.com/working/lc/infrasound-faker-rebuilt.wav

Also going to start working with minor keys. Nolan uses them to really great effect in Batman, many times the Joker is on screen. But I was with a friend last night talking about a ep of This American Life where they talked about minor keys in household appliances, causing certain moods in people. So I am going to play with working, say minor key static sounds into the sound design. Not music, but actual sounds in the movie, like room tone, refrigerator hums, etc. Will keep posting some samples as I play with them. Then, once I nail down what I want, I can better communicate it to the REAL sound designer.
 
Turns out I had read more of this than I thought. Every filmmaker (including myself) should be as thoughtful about each step of the process as Mark is! And I think that's an enormous part of why your post on "Making Better Films" resonated deeply with me. I don't know if that post has made you very popular, but it's certainly true.

There's a part of me (probably the part that made James Bond movies in high school and then went to USC) that is still drawn to that big-budget spectacle. Maybe not on a purely epic, Matrix/LOTR/Die Hard style, but trying to incorporate those larger-than-life moments into the screen. I think Monsters is a great example of doing this sensibly on a small budget (but I'll be able to say more after I see it tomorrow). We have to know when it's appropriate to stage those big effects moments, and when larger-than-life actually defeats the goal. Even if you have all the money in the world, a constant barrage of action and huge moments doesn't make a good story. Transformers 2 or Modern Warfare 2 prove that well enough.
 
Ha, thanks Doug. Yeah, my "making better films" post met with a lot of crickets. I too LOVE big movies. As long as they're good. I thought Inception was a good recent example of a film that at least didn't treat the audience like idiots.

To large degree, it came out of my own work. Setting out to do this film, I was determined to conquer some of my own shortcomings, and really focus on the basics of story and character. I think it's paying off, because so far people who have seen the whole 90 min cut have been drawn in all the way to the end, despite missing effects, sound mix, and whatever flaws the film itself has.

I too want to see Monsters, and from what I read I agree, seems like he did what we're saying here: made something Hollywood would not make, played to his strengths, and didn't try to do more than he was capable of on the budget. Eager to see how it comes out.

For anyone who did see this article we're talking about, they just "reprinted" it at microfilmmaker magazine. Originally on NEW BREED:

So blah blah blah how do we sustain, how do we distribute, blah blah blah. But I’ve come to a realization lately. Well, I’ve come to admit a realization. Many many micro-budget Independent Films just aren’t very good. Maybe if they were better, some of these other problems would be easier to solve. I’ve heard this from many people in the Indie-Film-o-sphere, but usually in blog comments that offer little more than snark.

So I’m going to try to look at the problem and break it down some. We’re always dealing with these things in THE LOST CHILDREN. And be warned, most of the lessons come from Hollywood. Because though they often make really bad choices, they typically know what they’re doing.

What Happens Next?
What happens next? This is the number one thing we need to strive for. Soap Operas could last decades by effectively posing this one question week after week. How many of us actively focus on this question? Working through post on THE LOST CHILDREN, it’s always, always on my mind. At the end of every scene, at the end of each act, I’m constantly asking: “Will they want to know what happens next?” If that one question isn’t in the air, you are left to founder on ambiguous things like your “voice” as a filmmaker. Which probably isn’t original. Or even worth listening to.
Right now my fiance and I are almost done with Season 3 of Mad Men. Last night we finished an episode that was so good, we had to stay up and watch the next one. We had to know what happened next.

I remember finishing The Wire, Season 1. I got Season 2 in the mail from Netflix. I put it in at about 11PM. I could not stop until the season was done, about 7AM the next morning. I had to know what happened next.

I had the same experience with Buffy. Finished a season, and ran out to Tower at midnight to get the next one. Had to know what happened next.

I know these are all TV shows, but I think the same rules apply to films. The last time I think I had to know what happened next in a film, was No Country [For Old Men], Inception… (I can’t remember the last time I felt this with a micro-budget independent film. Primer?)
I think there are exceptions to this. I actually found The Watchmen movie pretty compelling, though to a large extent it was slow and moody. I felt like the film gave me the same experience the comic had. It allowed me time to ponder the ideas presented. And I think that was part of it structure. Intentional.

But for the most part, I think we really need to be asking: “Will the audience want to know what happens next?”

Characters
This should need no explanation, but it took me so long to learn, I figure others may not get it yet. It’s not about you. It’s not about your vision. It’s not about the filmmaker. Nobody cares about you or what you have to say (which is probably not original or unique anyway). It’s about the characters. They don’t by any means have to be “likable,” but they do have to be compelling. Some of my favorite characters ever are scumbags, or at the very least massively flawed: Walter White. Don Draper. Scorpius. Vic Mackey. Omar Little. When was the last time an indie created characters like this? Are we working hard to create compelling, memorable characters?
Use the Red Letter Media smell test for characters: Ask people to describe your characters without using their looks, clothing, or profession. I’m working on a web series now for next year, and this is probably the single more effective tool in our writers’ toolbox.

Writing And Acting
Just like it says. One of the biggest issues with micro-budget film is the belief that just having access to cheap gear means you know what the Hell you are doing. You don’t. And out of all of the things you need to do to make a film, it seems that writing and acting are the ones people think they need the least skill in. Many micro-budget films shoot scripts that are…to say the least, underdeveloped. People think that just because they can type, they can write. They think that just because they have some (probably not original) idea, they should just run out and write it down and make a movie. We often had the same issues at the DVXFests. People would come on the board and say things like: “Script done in 3 days!” yes, your script sucks. And no I don’t even have to read it to know that. Because if you wrote it in 3 days and your name is not Epstein, you didn’t spend enough time on it, and are probably not even aware of which questions you need to be asking. If this is your first micro-budget feature and you have never written a feature before, you should spend at least 1 year on the script. At Least.

I find it painful to watch the acting in many micro-budget films. Often you don’t have access to professional actors to begin with. And on top of that, you may not know how to direct them. Meaning, you haven’t learned the actual, demonstrable skills a director needs to do his/her job. Do you know what an objective is? Do you know what actions are? Can you communicate your needs to an actor in these terms? Do you know how to get an actor to do nothing? Do you know what that means? When you have very experienced professional actors, you can sometimes let them go their own way. Meaning, if you don’t know how to direct, they will still be able to turn in a pretty good performance, because they know how to break down a script, figure out actions, etc. But with inexperienced actors, if you don’t know how to direct, you’re in trouble.
As we work on our film, I am constantly applying this test: I watch a real movie, a Hollywood movie or TV show with professional actors. And then I ask myself: “Does the acting in my movie/scene look like that?” If the answer is “no,” I know we have a problem. You should always be holding yourself up to the best work you can find and asking: “Is it as good as that?” Always.

Feedback: focus groups
This term I’m sure, causes many an indie to sprout hives and die. But it will save your butt. I encountered this first in the indie film world when Zak Forsman invited me to be a part of a focus group for Heart of Now. I was no stranger to feedback. I had long participated in DVXUser short film competitions. And those generally led to a lot of good feedback from filmmaking peers, mostly on technique. And in the software world, I had led teams and held code reviews. But with Heart of Now, it was the first time I had been invited to an actual focus group for an independent film. I think I was pretty honest with my feedback. I tend to be pretty objective about work, including my own. Zak then screened Heart of Now for about 50 people who weren’t friends, past collaborators or “fans.” And this is critical; showing it to people who don’t know you and have no stake in your success. Absolutely critical.

When we started THE LOST CHILDREN, we made a series of small videos representing parts of the story. You can see them on the film’s site. They are right at the top of the home page in that little rotating carousel. Before embarking on the actual film, we created these and showed them to a focus group. Then we asked them a series of questions. We used that data to alter the script. It’s not about pleasing or pandering to an audience. It’s about trying out your material and seeing if you are even being clear. Do people even understand what you’re talking about? Do they get the points you’re trying to get across? Do they find the characters compelling? Are they with you for the ride?

We are fortunate enough that a small group in LA is putting on a rough cut focus group for us later in the year. And we are doubly lucky in that the audience (hopefully) will be made up mostly of people who don’t know us. We did this in the example I mentioned above too. We asked friends to send us people who don’t know us. People who have no interest in our success, so will hopefully let us know if we just wasted their time. Again, critical to the process, I think.

I encourage everyone to do the same. In fact, I ‘m brainstorming ways to create some safe review processes through NEW BREED.
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Mark Harris said:
Also going to start working with minor keys. Nolan uses them to really great effect in Batman, many times the Joker is on screen. But I was with a friend last night talking about a ep of This American Life where they talked about minor keys in household appliances, causing certain moods in people. So I am going to play with working, say minor key static sounds into the sound design. Not music, but actual sounds in the movie, like room tone, refrigerator hums, etc. Will keep posting some samples as I play with them. Then, once I nail down what I want, I can better communicate it to the REAL sound designer.
Click to expand...

This is awesome; I didn't know sound designers did this, so it'll be fun to experiment with it. I can imagine doing actual chord progressions throughout a scene. You may also have fun experimenting with other than just major and minor chords: tritones, 7 chords, diminished, augmented, etc. Tritones used to be banned by the Catholic church. You can hear one by playing a C and an F#.

Can you find the episode of This American Life you're talking about? Google is turning up the very post I'm replying to.
 
Drew Ott said:
This is awesome; I didn't know sound designers did this, so it'll be fun to experiment with it. I can imagine doing actual chord progressions throughout a scene. You may also have fun experimenting with other than just major and minor chords: tritones, 7 chords, diminished, augmented, etc. Tritones used to be banned by the Catholic church. You can hear one by playing a C and an F#.

Can you find the episode of This American Life you're talking about? Google is turning up the very post I'm replying to.
Click to expand...

this looks like the ep:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/110/mapping

ACT II is about sounds. It's pretty interesting. It means I can kind of "score" scenes with ambient sounds, while still maintaining the illusion of "real" found footage.
 
ACT II is about sounds. It's pretty interesting. It means I can kind of "score" scenes with ambient sounds, while still maintaining the illusion of "real" found footage.

i love it. i just did a found footage short and scored it the same way.

the last exorcism was pretty cool, but it had music in it! that drove me nuts, even though the music added to the tension, it detracted from the realism.
 
Matt Harris said:
ACT II is about sounds. It's pretty interesting. It means I can kind of "score" scenes with ambient sounds, while still maintaining the illusion of "real" found footage.

i love it. i just did a found footage short and scored it the same way.

the last exorcism was pretty cool, but it had music in it! that drove me nuts, even though the music added to the tension, it detracted from the realism.
Click to expand...

Where can I see/hear?
 
Mark Harris said:
Where can I see/hear?
Click to expand...

Mark I will PM you a link when it's done in about 2 weeks, I just need 3 quick VFX shots done in AE before it's finished.
My short is a just a "test" for investors, and for myself, to see if i could put together a found footage style movie.

It is not a well thought out or scripted mega-production like yours. but i will still send it to you when it's completed and you can give me feedback.
 
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