A Terrortory Interlude Part 1

I'm gonna share a little of my private notebook on the making of the final segment of Terrortory I'm about to shoot.

What I won't detail is the problems finding actors on this one--without a real casting process, it's pretty tough. Doubling the problem is that there's no money, which sucks, but since I'm stretched thin on this now--having already done three segments when I originally thought I'd only do one.

I'll warn you that there is cursing and honesty, so if you're allergic to any of those then stop reading now.

I'll pick it up on:

APRIL 11, 2016

Went over to Mark's place to get the head cast done of one actress, and get my tripod legs cast. Here's the time lapse I did of the process. Was easier than actually rolling video, and takes up less space on my card.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdTcMUwQRvM

I like the new guy Mark's brought on to help with effects--his name's Rich and he's worked on some big movies like Riddick. Which is weird because he's actually an engineer.

But he seems really knowledgeable about FX which is sweet.

Still two actors short and we're 11 days away from filming.

This is fun.

Okay, that was sarcasm. It's sad because I WAS enjoying working on this flick up til now. I mean, the wrap around was pretty rough but NOTHING like this.

And to make it sadder my brain keeps chugging in the Terrortory. I've already got some really interesting(to me) ideas for Terrortory 2. Like, the return of Smiling Jack. (I have a feeling he's going to be a popular character)

I pretty much have the idea for the sequel's wrap already, which--let's face it--is always the hard part. You pretty much have to come up with interesting ways to get stories told, and most of them involve people sitting down to tell them. That's boring enough if that's all they're doing, but I fixed that by actually telling a STORY in the Terrortory wrap, and figured out a way for the stories to keep being told even as I was ramping up the tension.

Like, let's say two people are telling each other stories but after story two they are threatened by something. They're not gonna keep telling stories, are they?

Well I solved that problem in the first wrap, and I've already solved it in a different(and slightly ingenious if I do say so myself) way.

Anyway, trying not to think about it because I gotta just get done this flick and see what happens. After I'm done this I can write whatever the fuck I want and see what's what.

APRIL 16, 2016

So after a brutal 4 days of scrambling, begging, talking to filmmakers I know, and finally posting on a local message board I got an actor to fill each of the two roles I was missing.

Yes, 6 days before filming. That was tight...as a no-budget filmmaker you have enough things to worry about right before a shoot that casting shouldn't be one...

 APRIL 18, 2016

After all this stress and work to fill out my cast, the forecast seems to be saying not just rain on Friday but THUNDERSTORMS.

A little rain I can probably deal with. We'll be under a canopy(I think--I haven't seen what the woods looks like yet but I think the leaves have come in), so not too bad. The bigger worry would be finding wood that's not wet for the fire.

But thunderstorms? That's bad.

My choices then become: Shoot the day shots in between rain on Friday, and then literally shoot 15 pages in one night. 15 pages with FX.

If there IS no rain let up on Friday then we shoot all 18 pages in one day. A guaranteed 14-16 hour day.

Because I CANNOT get these actors back together again until June, and that's too late.

FML has never been more appropriate.

Kinonation Update #4

We just got notice that our flick got accepted to one of the "outlets". That's good news, right?

Well...it's okay news. The outlet is Vimeo Plus, and it's an outlet I could technically get the movie on myself. I gave them the rights to, because, why not?

Now I have Bounty ready to release it streaming on Amazon too, but Amazon's crappy way of doing things is that they will only stream SD video from us nobody filmmakers. Why? No reason that I know of.

So I'm debating about whether to give Kinonation the Amazon rights too, since they can get an HD version up there. Then I only have to worry about accurate reporting ,and possibly having to audit them if I think they're being shady.

I don't have any reason to think that, other than pretty much every aggregator and distributor I've ever dealt with has been, to some extent, shady.

See, the problem for me right now is that I--like most filmmakers--have limited resources to get the news out there. And I can't blow them all on telling the world BOUNTY IS AVAILABLE ON VIMEO!

I need the flick to get to as many places as possible, so I can hit up the horror web sites and tell them it's out and you can get it HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.

Anyway, more news when I get it.

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Remember how I said in a previous post that "Terrortory Concludes(For Me)"?

Spoke too soon. Had some filmmakers who couldn't get their stuff ready in time. As I always do, I had a backup in mind. I finished the script, showed it to two people, and everybody wanted to do it.

It will be a return to killer clown territory for me. My brother Mike and I went out to the woods to do some scouting, lighting and camera tests.

Will be shooting in two weeks. Prepping FX and stuff now.

Kinonation Update #3

A picture from "Bounty", the flick we've uploaded to Kino

I know, you're like...#3? Yeah, with all these different blogs it's hard to keep straight where I'm posting them. So you can see the last post here:

http://bounty-film.blogspot.com/

Now there's some good news--I had basically given up on the freaking SRT file because it's insane how tedious it is. Then I lucked into this web site:

https://www.rev.com/

They will create a subtitle file in English for $1 per minute. Yes, that's right, I could have saved myself a lot of time all for the cost of about $80(since the movie, not counting final credits, is about 80 minutes)

I went ahead and paid it and they delivered within 48 hours. The SRT wasn't perfect, but most of that was because the audio at times is hard to understand. So I went through and corrected it, which took about an hour but was no big deal.

I HIGHLY recommend them. No, I don't get paid to recommend them.

So I uploaded all the files and the site told me I had uploaded "28 out of 28 items". I waited. Nothing. Eventually I emailed them to find out what happens next.

Turns out I hadn't uploaded a trailer. I'm not sure why it didn't tell me that, since it said I had done everything I needed to. Uploading the trailer is on a separate page in the whole thing.

So I can see why the site is still in Beta. But they DID get back to me right away every time I emailed them. There was an issue with the trailer, which I fixed and uploaded.

It only indicates you can upload one trailer, which seems strange. Most films have multiple teasers/trailers. I've asked about it.

Now I think I'm done. I guess I wait and see if they can place it anywhere. Will let you know how that goes when I hear.

btw: Just in case you want to see all the blogs I keep. This is the list:
https://www.blogger.com/profile/05306092145547452231

Old Enchanted Forest Pictures(Maryland) from Fear of Clowns Location Scout

I'm sure some of you who have seen Fear of Clowns remember the scene in the Enchanted Forest where Shivers watches Jacky, but he hasn't been given the all-clear to kill her yet so he hangs back.

The story that Tuck(Rick Ganz) tells about the Enchanted Forest is my story. My parents took me there when I was very young, probably about six years old. I only vaguely remember it, but I distinctly remember being terrified of the whole thing.

Particularly that whale. Someone was in its mouth I think, and I thought it would eat me next.

Anyway, back in 2000-2001 when I was writing the script for FOC I wasn't sure what was even there. I had heard that there were pieces of the Forest still there, but how much? Was it still creepy?

So Rick and I went out there. We found a hole in the fence--it's the same hole we actually show them going into in the movie--and ventured inside.

I was pretty excited to find quite a few of the exhibits were still there. I recently found some actual photos, you remember, on paper from 35mm negatives. Figured I'd scan them for people to see.

So here you go!

One final addendum I found as I was searching my hard drive for some video we shot there--didn't find them, but found this:

We had no permission to shoot there. I was worried the cops would be called because of the crew and equipment, so I looked up who owned the property. I typed up a permission letter and faxed it to myself so it looked like it was faxed. Then we shot on a Sunday, so I figured even if they tried to call the number on the paper there would be nobody there.

I'm not telling you to do illegal stuff like this if you have to; I'm just saying, I did it all the time. Whatever it took.

I removed the names of the company and the guy, but this is what the letter said:

Marauder Productions has been granted access to the grounds known as “Enchanted Forest” between September 26th and October 7th. The physical location is on Route 40 West behind the “Enchanted Forest” Shopping Center.
The previous permission is granted to Marauder Productions on the following:

•  Marauder Productions is shooting a video to be used in a classroom setting.
•  Marauder Productions will not bring more than six(6) persons on the property, and they will not remove or damage any of the existing property. They may take equipment in as long as all equipment is removed when they vacate.
•  Marauder Productions indemnifies MART from any harm or loss suffered while on the property.

If there are any questions regarding this document or Marauder Productions use of the property, please call me at the number below.

A Word About Casting(and Terrortory)

We forgot to take cast/crew pics until the end, so here's who was there at 5am Sunday morning as we finished(Brad has just left). Left to Right in top pic--Me, my brother Mike, Laura and Stewie. In bottom pic on left is Matt Smith.

One of the huge challenges of working on micro-budget flicks like Terrortory is that I've been my own DP(Director of Photography) on all of my segments.

Now on the one hand it's nice because I'm definitely getting as close to the image in my head as possible without having to talk through it with the DP. On the other hand you don't get any of the collaboration that frequently results in better images than you imagined, which can frequently happen with talented DP's.

But the main setback for me that I get from being my own DP is that much of my focus is literally on the focus and the composition, and I'm so intent on that that I am frequently not paying as much attention to the actors as I should.

Actors need feedback and attention. It's not a dig. Acting is a challenging job in the fact that there isn't a right or a wrong way to do it. Actors can only do what they feel is correct for their character in the moment, so they may not understand what your original intention for that character is. At times this can be a good thing, but at other times it's not. And you need to let them know what you were going for, or let them know they ARE on the right track.

And as I'm listening to the audio on the wrap we shot I realize a lot of what I'm doing is being more focused on getting the shots and the focus(because the lenses we used on this shoot were nice, but had very small depth of fields), and I really wish I had had the time/awareness to have given them more.

It's not a knock on them at all. Brad Masters and Laura Kiser were phenomenal, and testament to the Frankenheimer notion that "casting is 65 percent of directing". If they hadn't been as good as they are then this could have all gone wrong.

Luckily, even with the massive setbacks I had--it was the most problematic shoot I've ever been on--I think we came out with some great stuff. Only time will tell, as I've just begun going through the footage but I'm excited to see what we got!

 

Laura Kiser and Brad Masters

And don't forget to go over and give our Terrortory Facebook page a Like so you get other updates!

https://www.facebook.com/terrortoryfilm

 

Terrortory Concludes(For Me)

Gearing up to shoot the big wrap-around for Terrortory. Some people aren't familiar with what that is, so here you go:

Terrortory is an anthology horror feature, meaning that it has a bunch of short movies in it that are tied together by the "wrap-around" or "through-story".

While I like to say the film is similar to the great Creepshow, that film didn't really have a wrap or through-story. It had more of a bookend, with Billy reading his comic and getting yelled at by his father.

A better idea of a through-story is Tales From The Darkside, which has a witch who has captured a boy and is going to cook and eat him. He delays his death by telling stories to her, and each time he starts to tell a story we see the actual story he's telling as a mini-movie.

That's similar to what we're doing, except our through-story is much better than TFTD. (he said humbly)

I don't want to say too much about it, but it follows through on what I believe Terrortory was made for, which is this: Every story I did, including the wrap, starts out being something you've seen before and takes a (hopefully) unseen turn. Which is why most of the pictures you see are going to look like standard "people go out in the woods and get butchered".

Like, the above pic is just a test photo I did the other night while I was doing a last-minute run through of the main location for the wrap. It's gonna pretty much appear to be a riff on The Strangers.

We have some talented actors coming on--M.T. Smith(pictured above) is actually playing his second masked killer in Terrortory, having played Smiling Jack also.  He loves dressing a Jason and Michael Myers, so this is a lot of fun for him.

Then Brad Masters is playing Tray. He's a talented local guy who I've been wanting to work with for a while. Super-nice guy, which you wouldn't expect from a guy who looks like the studly good-looking bad guy from a lot of 80's movies.


Finally Laura Kiser is an actress coming down from New York. We auditioned a lot of really talented actresses but there was something so natural about hers that I cast her without even asking for a callback.

Wish I could show you what's coming, but we're not far from the finish line now. I'm guessing we could probably premiere it in something like January or February, but nobody wants to schedule a premiere when snow could screw you, so look for early Spring.

Terrortory Interlude

The past year or so I've been working with some other filmmakers on an anthology feature called "Terrortory". I was originally going to do one segment plus the through-story that connects all the segments.

I shot the one I was going to do, called "Smiling Jack". This is him.

You can see some other stills and whatnot on the FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/terrortoryfilm?fref=ts

Smiling Jack's done and turned out very nice, starring Johnny Alonso, Melissa LaMartina and Matt Smith.

Anyway it turns out I'm going to do another segment called "Siren". I went out to do a location scout a while back and found what appeared to be a cool meadow very similar to what I pictured. We would just have to chop a dead tree down.

Weeks went by as I prepped other things related to the film(casting, shooting script/shot list, equipment prep), and this past weekend decided to finally go back out to chop that tree down.

When we first got back to the meadow I saw how overgrown it's now become with all the rain we've had lately. It's still doable, but doesn't look as good as it did.

Also: Nobody I know owns a gas chainsaw. I figured the tree's dead--how hard will it be to saw down/chop with an axe? Turns out, very hard.


This tree's not as dead as it looks. That's a time-lapse video of my brother and I trying to cut it down. We spent a good 90 minutes trying to cut it down. We went more than halfway through it with a big notch on the side you can't see(that's where we want it to fall), but it wouldn't go.

Tree 1, Us 0.

The other thing we went into the woods to test was this:
We have a head that's got to explode. We have no electricity this far in the woods so an air compressor is out. Explosives are unpredictable.

So I watched the making of on that Scanners head explosion, which has to be one of the best ever done and it turns out they got it to work by using an actual shotgun. My brother has a revolver that shoots shotgun shells, so I figured we'd test it to see if that had enough power to blow apart the fake head that Mark Wenger(the Terrortory creator and FX guru) is putting together.

We took a honeydew melon into the woods. I figure it probably has about the same toughness that the fake head will have. Here's our one and only try at it:


For those wondering, I did a quick color grade on that first section. The 2nd, even slower version, is shown as shot with a modified Natural setting on the GH4. The first take is 96 frames per second, the second is slowed down by 50%.

I think it's going to work.

Now I'm praying for no more rain because it's still pretty muddy out there and I want it to dry up so it's not so messy.

Anyway, just figured I'd show you how glamorous and fun it is being a no-budget filmmaker. I recommend it to no one.