Archive for the “Production” Category

Episode 2, “Attack of the Cast” is now online!

You can view this, and Episode, on the new site www.fanfilmtheseries.com.

Here’s a sneak peak at one of the DVD special features David’s been working on. It’s the “Inside the Actor’s Studio” parody I posted about a couple months ago. Special thanks again to Steve Bost for helping us out with this.

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4 days into the new year, and I’ve still managed to keep to the production schedule I set for myself. This ting may just get done on the deadline for a few key submissions we were hoping to hit early this year.

Here’s some stills for the latest work – no clip this time, sound isn’t done yet. It’s another opener. Episode 3 I think.

Months ago when I first pulled down the footage from our PA shoot, I dabbled breifly in color correction with a couple of the shots I brought back with me.

Now that we’re coming into the home stretch of “Fan Film The Movie” it’s time to pay a little more attention on these details to wrap everything up.

After a little time and focus, I was able to “fix” a couple of shots where we accidentally left the in camera “indoor shot” filter on when we moved outside.

Here’s some quick screen caps of the results (left side before, right side after):

Man, I love After Effects!

I got a big opening scene/ joke done today, and posted the clip on our home site, neozaz.com. Check out the clip here.

I happy to share the final poster for “Fan Film The Movie”.

You’ll probably notice it’s a bit of a departure from the “Star Wars” styles I’ve been working on up until now, long story short I didn’t want all the marketing material to look like “Fan Film” is an actual Star Wars Fan Film. I think this conveys the core elements pretty well: Star Wars, Homemade Movie Making, and low budget.

Despite Murphy’s law of sound (if there is such a thing) we managed to finally put the last of “Fan Film” filming in the can today.

The biggest challenge, which all-in-all is not any big deal, was the sound elements from the area that seemed to want to pop up at the wrong time when we moved the filming outside.

Here are the highlights:
Airplanes overhead – I live too close the airport
Sea Gulls – Yes, sea gulls – in landlocked central Florida
My neighbor’s pool alarm that beeped every thirty seconds – in the end, we said the hell with it and just let it be part of the ambience.

So that’s it – Fan Film is a wrap. Finally!

Along with all the thanks I still extend to this day to Chris Irons, Dave Fox, Karen Hunsworth, John Coulter, Sunday Coulter, Gregg Hansen and David Smith, I’d like to also thank the friends that lent me their time this weekend to get the last of the filming done; Julie Koran, Adam Zeek, John Reynolds and of course my  incredibly patient wife, Khrysti.

The editing is really gonna flow now, footage should be coming in burst of the next couple of weeks. Until then, here are some screen caps from today’s filming:

While I await to get some of the finishing touches filmed in Orlando in 2 weeks, I figured I’d get some of the detailed work going to keep me motivated.

I started toying with the cover art for a DVD case. It’s the first try – I tried to model after the latest Star Wars DVD covers just for the hell of it:

I tired to use some of Photoshops Artistic filters to get sort of a painted picutre look. Kinda worked on Chirs Gregg and Karen, not so much on me and Dave. It’s the first try, I’m sure with some tweeking I can get something pretty cool.

David Smith met up with Dave Fox and Chris Irons to film the one last remaining elusive Pennsylvania scene.

The reason behind its elusiveness was due to the fact that I was running the camera the first time we “shot” that scene in August. Apparently the large green circle with the word “REC” and the large red circle with the word “STOPPED” is not large nor green or red enough for me to notice if the camera is actually recording or not. So yes, I didn’t hit record the first time. I did manage to film the moments before and after that didn’t have anything to do with the movie or series if that counts for anything.

This is the primary reason I write and rough cut the projects. I leave the things that need the attention span longer than that of a gnat to David.

So once again, thanks to Everyone – David, Dave, Chris, Karen, Gregg, John, Sunday, Steve, and my Parents Bill and Jackie for finally making the PA portion of “Fan Film the Series” and “Fan Film the Movie” a 100%, no doubt, in the can, send it to print, wrap!

After yet another extremely productive weekend in PA, the Pennsylvania re-shoots are in the can (oh, okay, there’s 2 teeny tiny scenes yet to be done, but they’ll be filmed and forwarded before I’m done editing what I brought back, so let’s not count those).

Re-writing these scenes thanks to my broken ankle went down to the wire. I wrote one scene on a note pad in the airport, David Smith came up with one scene while we were viewing the edited footage from the last shoot, and David, Chris Irons, and Dave Fox wondered into the woods on Saturday and improvised a scene that came out better than anything that could have been scripted.

Now all that leaves is the final Florida filming. Previously, we were awaiting my wife’s schedule to clear to shoot. As Murphy’s law would have it, her schedule is back to normal, and now we’re patiently waiting for my ankle to heal.

While I wait, it gives me time to figure out exactly what to do and what not to do in terms of releasing this monster project that’s starting to take on a life of its own.

Right, here’s the plan – though I expect it to change in the near future if not by the end of the day:

Fan Film: The Movie – edited and released and submitted to…

Fan Film: The Series – Edited and release a new episode each week for 6 weeks on this site (which there is a new site waiting on deck for these release, BTW)… These episodes will have additional scenes, extended footage, and episode specific special effects scenes that won’t be in the movie version. Each week we hope to have one of the actors from the project as a guest on the our podCast “The D-1-3 Show” to talk about that busy weekend.

Steve Bost’s Inside the Actor’s Cabin – Edited and released on this site.

Last but not least, in the ream of “Deleted Magic”, “Building Empire”, and “Return to Jedi”, I may put together a “Fan Film – Way Too Much Information Edition” DVD image with alternate takes, cut scenes, comments, etc and host a bit torrent for download.

But before the “Too Much Info” DVD, and after the series release, David and I will be back to concentrating on his solo project “Thacos Last Stand”.

We may even possibly film a sequel to 2:40 next month, but don’t hold your breath.