FEATURE: The romantic ghost story "Afterlife"

D

David W. Richardson

Chapelgrove Films
A long, long time ago, I set out to make my first feature-length movie -- the romantic ghost story 'Afterlife'.

We had an ultra-micro budget, and very little crew -- too little, although I was too green to know that at the time. Luckily we had some VERY good actors and an EXCELLENT director who was also an artist with lighting.

We got 95% of the movie shot. The whole story is there. Basically we're missing some establishing shots and a 'shadowy figure walks through a semi-darkened house' sequence. Nothing that needs any of the original actors.

The movie was shot on the DVX100b. I got the 95% edited together, minus the greenscreen compositing and digital 'ghost' effects. The rough cut needs work with sound and such. I had rendered out the entire movie as an MPEG-2 to burn to DVD. Then lost the hard drive that the original footage was on. So all I have to work from at the moment is the MPEG-2 render.

Unfortunately, the MPEG-2 render is two separate files -- one for video, one for audio. So I can't just put that file online. I'm forced to put both files into Vegas and do a second render in order to get a single file with both audio and video. As you can guess, there's a bit of a quality degradation from doing that.

Luckily, I do have all of the original MiniDV tapes. I plan to re-capture and re-cut from the original footage, and then finish the movie.

In the meantime, I'm going to try to do a re-render from the MPEG-2's that I can put on Vimeo so you folks can have a look at it. For now, here's one scene from 'Afterlife'.

To set this scene up -- Logan Foster loved his wife dearly, but she died in an car accident -- an accident which Logan feels himself responsible for. He is in a deep state of grief. His brother's wife -- Lilith -- has always secretly loved Logan. In this scene, Lilith and her daughter, Denise, are at Logan's house taking care of him.

http://vimeo.com/112396437

Please overlook any quality issues with the whole re-rendering thing. I know it needs work on the sound and probably needs music. But I'd appreciate any opinions.
 
I found the editing a bit strange - we go from the woman on the phone to the guy, then the guy walks to another room, and then he looks - and now we see presumably his POV (or maybe not), but in any case we see just various objects and the watercolor, but that's really not that interesting compared to us wondering what the heck is going on with the phone conversation. I suppose it could be fixed if we could hear the phone conversation from the kitchen in the background, even if it's not intelligible (meaning we can't make out the words, so we're not distracted from the guy and the watercolor and stuff), and maybe a bit of music underneath to clue us into the mood he's in. Like you said, the sound and music is still not finished.

General observation I hesitate to make, because there's nothing you can do about it now, the footage is already shot - but I don't find the way the kitchen scene was shot very satisfying. I felt like we needed a couple more setups here, like maybe she should take the call initially with her back to the camera, we see her tense as she hears who is on the line, then she turns around to pick up the wine glass and lits into whoever is on the line etc. Basically, the way it was shot here is kinda boring and predictable, it doesn't do much to build tension. Anyhow, just a few random notes.

But big congrats on having shot a movie - it looks pretty decent overall.
 
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Well the whole thing with the dead flowers and the unfinished painting becomes very important in a later scene. It was setup in the opening scene of the movie.

Yeah, there are things I wish we could go back and shoot to add to certain scenes, but that ship has sailed, unfortunately.

Thanks for giving it a look and sharing your thoughts!

To elaborate, Logan's wife Angelique enjoyed painting. In the opening of the movie, she is working on this very painting. But that night she dies in a car crash. Logan is also injured in that crash, and wakes up from a coma 2 months later, to learn his wife is long buried.

When he goes home, Logan begins to be haunted by the ghost of his dead wife, who calls to him to join her on the other side. Wracked with guilt, Logan wonders if he is going mad.

There is a scene previous to the one I put up the clip for. It's continuous with that one, but earlier of course. Logan and Lilith are talking while Denise watches a music video on TV. Lilith takes Logan by the hand, but her hands are cold. (That figures later in the story too.) Lilith goes to make dinner. Logan watches TV with Denise absentmindedly, until a commercial comes on for a local psychic who promises to be able to put people in touch with the spirits of their departed loved ones.

From there we cut to the clip you saw, with Lilith preparing dinner and getting a call from a suspicious Roy (her husband, Logan's brother.)

So that kind of leads you into what I'm going to try to post next on Vimeo -- the scenes that follow the one I already posted. Hopefully it will all connect up and make sense. Be looking for it.
 
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Okay, the video is up for the next few scenes -- the ones that follow the scene in the video I put up previously.

There's a small bit missing at the beginning, so it needs a little explaining.

In the scene I posted earlier, Logan tells Lilith about a 'silly little tune' that Angelique would always whistle when she was painting. Later, after Lilith and Denise have gone, Logan hears that whistled tune coming from the room where Angelique did her painting. This section opens with Logan investigating the sound -- which stops when he turns on the light.

There is also some significance to the water draining from the bathtub. In the beginning, Angelique takes a bath. She leaves her wedding rings sitting on the corner of the tub, in her haste to dress for the anniversary party. Logan reminds her to get them. She does get them and puts them on.

This section will show us some characters not seen in the previous scene. We'll see the apartment of 'Digger' Graves, Logan's business partner. With him, obviously romantically, is Tracy Wilson, who is Logan's secretary. She hides when Logan arrives because she doesn't want her boss to know she's involved with a senior partner. So now you know what that's all about when you see the events unfold. We'll also see Roy Foster -- the brother of Logan and the husband of Lilith.

And now......the next few scenes from the rough cut of "Afterlife".....

http://vimeo.com/112444078
 
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