In-World War

FX help needed. Make history.

In-World War was written to be cheap. Or at least, that was the original goal.

No space ships. No alien invasions. No fighting robo-dinosaurs with bio-chemical laser cannons.

The special effects would be kept to a minimum and focus on what we could do with trick-photography and perhaps get some simple CGI from FX students who were looking to build their own reels and resumes.

However, as we moved through production, I became concerned that the film wouldn't "read" as sci-fi, that it wouldn't have enough FX and would seem simply like just another ultra-low budget drama.

I thought I was fine with that (In-World War will never be a traditional sci-fi blockbuster -- it's far too quirky and smart), but my inner sci-fi geek wanted more.

So along the way, our ambitions grew.

Bit-by-bit I found ways of adding small (and sometimes large) FX shots. Always to add to the story and build a richer world, but also because each new FX concept was -- well -- cool.

Fast forward to today: I stayed up late last night finishing the first preliminary FX shot list -- a scene-by-scene inventory of the special effects that we need.

Somehow, we ended up with about 100 FX shots in this simple little DIY sci-fi film.

So we need some help. Your help.

If you or someone you know does FX (concept work, modeling, lighting, producing, whatever), get in touch: brant [at] studiolomismo [dot] com

I'll be upfront: we can't pay you in cash. We can promise a copy of the film and the opportunity to be part of something that's bigger than any of us (hundreds have already contributed as cast, crew or donors).

If you're looking to join a ragtag band of indie film rebels and help hoist the sail on this unlikely DIY sci-fi epic, then let's talk. 

We're making film history here: who's in?

The digital filmmaking life: 400+ hrs of transcoding and VR pre-production

Things are moving forward steadily on a couple fronts.

We're just about done with the transferring of footage from the RED (and other formats) into ProResHQ for editing in Final Cut. It's taken over 400 hours to do this work, since one minute of footage takes nine minutes to convert. Thanks to Dane for riding herd on all that digital data.

We had another drive fail (one of the ones that was supposedly repaired), so we lost a week due to that, but we're back in the saddle (and backed-up thankfully).

We're also in pre-production on some additional 2nd unit work in our most exotic location: a true virtual reality world. Actors will -- literally -- go in-world to act out the scenes. We'll record their actions and then later replay the action to "shoot" it.

It's a crazy, but very cool and flexible way to work: we separate the performances from the camera work. Basically, because we are recording the every movement of the actors in-world, we can replay it perfectly and then at leisure place the camera for recording and editing. This allows us to place the camera EXACTLY where we want, including shots that we could never afford in real life (helicopter shots anyone?).

It also allows us to shoot from different angles with exactly the same performance, since the performance is literally recorded. Totally wild. No continuity errors are even possible (um, hopefully).

Big thanks to Laura and her team for helping us out on this in-world shoot and making it happen.

This is the largest segment of the film left to shoot, so it will be great to get it in the can. We're planning on having the performance occur in the next ten days with later "recording" of the camera angles sometime later this month.

Eat your heart out James Cameron.

Formats and the holidays

We're still noodling through the details on how (and when) to ingest the different formats we shot on. While 80% of the film was shot on the RED ONE, the rest was on the Sony EX1, Sony EX3 and Canon's amazing little 5D. This resulted in a bunch of different formats (the Sonys were used on our European shoot, so were at 24.98 fps, while the Canon was at 30fps and the RED was at 24fps).

I've also been spending a ton of time this month on sending out letters and emails asking for holiday donations to the film.

Which is a great segue to ask: Shouldn't you help  make the world a better place by a holiday donation (in your name or your fav sci-fi fan's name) to help us edit together the In-World War rough cut?

Don't be an art-hating grinch this holiday season: donate today!

We're not above hardball tactics. Next step if you don't donate today: bawling babies and sad puppies in cages. Only you can stop the madness.

Drive drama and post-production steps

Been a long slog of an autumn for IWW.

We had not one, but two hard drives fail (the second was supposed to replace the first). Luckily, we had back-ups, but it was still a scare. It's taken the past month to get the replacements and then get the back-ups copied onto new drives. Sounds easy, time gets gobbled up fast when you're dealing with nearly 4TB of data, back-ups that are far offsite, people with busy day-jobs and a bank account unable to pay overnight rush shipping fees (hey, this ain't Hollywood).

Luckily that is all (mostly) behind us now. Big thanks to Alex for his work in keeping the back-ups safe and copying to the new drives.

The next big milestone is the assembly edit -- basically a very very rough edit of what we have to see what we need to still shoot and re-shoot.

Before we do this though, we need to get our whole post-production digital workflow planned out.

So, we're currently discussing the post-production workflow with a number of our mentors and consultants, since we want to get it right the first time and not make decisions that hurt us down the road. In fact, if you know anyone who is a post-production supervisor/guru, please get in touch. Now's the time for us to get this input and figure out the optimal roadmap.

How long will post-production last, you ask?

Well, we expect to have a finished fine cut no sooner than end of summer 2010.

Got a long way to go on this little movie.

Onward.

Back in Oakland, SFFS grant finalist and other miscellanea

HOME AGAIN: After being out of town for the past month (honeymoon and then 2nd unit work), I'm back and recovering from the jet lag and a flu picked up in France.

The shoot in Dublin went great, despite the previously noted train issue. Thanks in particular to Brian, Brian, Oliver and the rest of the Irish cast and crew. After wrapping on the last day, we finished in proper Irish fashion by closing three pubs in a row before turning in at around 3am.

Overall, the Europe shoots went perfect. Even with last minute script additions (for instance, the nun in La Roche), we were able to make it all happen. The exchange rate nearly killed us and I'll be paying off my credit card for a while yet, but at least we go it all.

GEEK OUT MOMENT: As mentioned in a previous post, a number of different cameras were used. Unlike the rest of the film, which was shot on the RED here in the Bay Area, while in Europe we used the Sony XDCAM EX1 and EX3 for most of the dialog scenes since there were so few European REDs available and they were hugely expensive (double the day rate in the US, at least). These Sonys shoot a hardy HD image at 1080p, which is obviously not as information-rich as the RED's 4096x2304 ("4k") resolution. On top of that, we shot most of our outdoor/street with the Canon 5D, which operates at 1080p (albeit at 30p, not 24p like the rest of what we were shooting) and is phenomenal in low light situations.

Since we won't be cutting between the three types of cameras in a single scene, we aren't too worried about it, except that the non-RED footage will have less wiggle-room for color correction. Overall though, we should be fine.

SFFS GRANT FINALIST: We've been selected as a finalist for the fall 2009 award of the San Francisco Film Society/Kenneth Rainin Foundation Grant, to support post-production on In-World War. This important grant supports narrative feature films with a social justice theme being made in the San Francisco Bay Area.

We know that filmed science fiction has a stigma (thanks to Hollywood's schlock factory) as mindless fun, but smart written sci-fi has a long tradition of addressing social issues: Russ' The Female Man, Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the oeuvres of Ursula Le Guin, Octavia Butler and Sheri S. Tepper, to name a few. For movies, the selection is thinner, but still,  there's Born in Flames, the Sayles classic Brother From Another Planet, The Handmaid's Tale and even the flawed District 9, among others. 

Grants to support narrative features are few and far between -- this is a huge need that the SFFS/KRF initiative is addressing and we're honored to be a finalist despite our sci-fi label. Obviously, we hope to win the award, but we're glad to see our regional narrative filmmakers get this support regardless.

MORE IRISH COVERAGE: The most important film industry website in Ireland, IFTN, ran a nice piece about Vivienne Connolly's appearance in the film.

IFTN: Vivienne Connolly Joins 'In-World War' Cast

Kicked out of a Dublin train stop

Big Brother was watching.

Three of us were at a suburban train stop outside of Dublin, Ireland waiting for a train so we could shoot a guerrilla scene, when we heard the Voice of God (or the civil servant who fills the position for the train's Central Security Office).

"Will the three gentlemen on the platform with the camera please leave the infrastructure immediately unless they have permission. The person in black with the rucksack and his two companions must leave the infrastructure now."

Oh well, so much for shooting our train scene that morning. Off we went.

Granted, we had a few things working against us:

1. Donavan had just attached the wireless mic to Oliver (who plays Mary). The wireless mic mostly consists of a small black box with wires leading from it -- and goes hidden within the clothing. Nothing suspicious about that. Nope.
2. We had taken a train, gotten out at a stop, taken another train in the same direction to the end of the line, crossed over and were waiting for the next train back into the city. And then we put on the mic.
3. It was 8:30AM on a Sunday. Dublin isn't known as an early morning Sunday town. Saturday night is a bit of a hoo-ha, on the other hand. So basically, we were the only people around.
4. Except for the guy at the security center watching the Closed Circuit TV. He was more than happy to have something to do at 8:30 in the morning. And we were it.

So, we departed all nice and docile (yet muttering of Orwell and bored security staffers).

Later in the day we shot the same scene on the bus (as our back-up plan) and then again on the train itself anyway, just for good measure.

European 2nd Unit has begun

Director of Photography Donavan Sell, actor Brian Levy (who plays Junior) and I are in La Roche Sur Foron, France, near Geneva.

It's a gorgeous medieval French village, just at the base of the Alps. We're shooting one of the sections of the film here and then we move on to Dublin, Ireland where we have nearly ten pages of script to film (about 8% of the movie, if you can believe that).

I got married at the end of August and we did our honeymoon in Europe. My lovely (and supportive) new wife went home to Oakland and I stayed here for these scenes, flying out Donavan and Brian via cheap online tickets.

In both Dublin and La Roche, we filmed scenes for the film three years ago when I was backpacking around Europe (read some of the original blog posts about that). The script was more of an outline and I wrote each scene a couple days before each shoot. We gathered actors through friends and scrambled on the day of each shoot to fill out the roles and locations.

But that bare-bones backpacking-verite production got the ball rolling on IN-WORLD WAR (then under its working title of GAMEPLAY).

Now that we have a full, edited script and a real crew (including an amazing DP), we have returned to reshoot these scenes.

We're even using the same actors to play Mary, though thankfully we have a professional (Brian) to play Junior. I had originally played the role since I was the only one traveling between me and my then-girlfriend (now wife) that was willing to be in front of the camera. Believe me, Brian is much better than me.

And we're actually shooting in the same bar we shot in three years ago. Deja vu.

We're sharing a cheap apartment at a local family's small B&B while in La Roche. It's kinda like a big road-trip movie with the three of us. More than once we've wandered around town trying to find some semi-vegan food I can eat, long after most restaurants have closed.

We're being very well-supported here (and in Dublin too -- more on that in a later post).

A digital media school based in Geneva has come on board with equipment and crew (thank you SAE!). A friend of a friend helped with producing, hooked us up with the school as well as a couple of the students that have a Sony EX3 that we can shoot with. Turns out, we cannot use the RED, since there are only three in Geneva and they are extremely expensive to rent. The EX3 (shooting in 1080p) should be fine.

We are also shooting some low light and public/street scenes with a Canon 5D. The video it takes is amazing. And it is shaped like a standard still (photo) camera so we look like tourists.

Thanks to Benjamin, Mikael, Alex, Noemie, Silvere, Laure and of course Nicole for their help with all this, plus all the rest of the amazing SAE team of course.

One of the things we stumbled across in La Roche was what we call the "Pizza ATM". You put in your money, select a pizza and it cooks it up and spits it out a slot in less than four minutes. We haven't tried it (8 euros is a lot to pay for questionable robot-made food) but we did take a couple pictures (see below). Brilliant those French people. Just brilliant.

The exchange rate sucks right now, so if you're looking for an end-year tax deduction, please consider a tax deductible donation to help us out.

We're traveling VERY cheaply and are using mostly volunteer labor and donated gear. But the food is not cheap. Even the non-vegan food.

Please donate today if you can!

Check out our snaps of the French Pizza ATM (withdrawals only, hopefully)...click for full-size:

Married and Movies

I'm getting married this weekend. It's like a feature film, all the details and production logistics (to say nothing of the cost).

Been focused more on that (though, of course, my fiance is the producer and director on that one), plus working a ton to save up more money to finish the 2nd unit work.

I go on my honeymoon in Europe immediately afterwards next week (hat tip to my grandpa who left me just enough inheritance to go on a nice honeymoon -- I miss him terribly and wish he could be at the wedding). And then my new wife flies back to the states while I stay there to shoot a few 2nd unit IWW scenes.

I go back to the places where shot the original footage (now what I am calling the "test footage") in La Roche, France (near Geneva) and in Dublin, Ireland. We've got cast and some crew in both places, from the original shoot plus new people we've gotten connected with.

Should be an amazing time. Just got a wedding and honeymoon to get through first.

Getting married and shooting a feature film in the same summer. Not recommended.

Let me know if you know any crew in or near Geneva. Still have room for team-members there.

Principal photography stats

I can't believe it's been nearly three weeks since we finished principal photography.

The time has flown by. 2nd unit work is now in heavy pre-production mode, so the grind is starting again.

So much for rest and recovery.

Also, I'm getting married in two weeks and that is no small project on its own (thanks to my lovely and patient fiance for being the lead producer on that little production).

Yes, I'm making a feature film the same summer I'm getting married. Me = loco. Big time.

Anyway, the footage is looking great. The RED camera is amazing, but the real amazing came from Donavan (our DP), the crew and the outstanding actors on the project. Together, they made the footage look so damn good.

Principal photography was crazy. Long long days. Not long enough nights (except the nights we worked -- that were too long for sure). It seems like a dreamstate now, looking back on it. Was it even real?

Here's a quick look through some of the stats on the production. These are ballpark figures, so don't nerd out on me if the final needle moves on any of these numbers:

Production days: 17 (out of 19 days straight -- we had 2 days off)

Hours: Most days were 12 hour days, some went well beyond that (I think we maxed at 15 or 16 hours on one painful day). But that didn't include total breakdown and travel time. Add two hours a day for  that, minimum. It was grueling.

Cast: approximately 60 speaking roles (we have another 10 or so during 2nd unit work)

Most extras on any one day: 100 (according to our craft services coordinator, "they ate like locusts")

Crew: Between 20 - 25 people every day (a few people bailed when the pressure got too high and they got fed up, unfortunately).

Locations: about 38 (plus about six more will be shot during 2nd unit work)

RAW media files: 2.25TB of video

Takes: over 900 (a bit better than four takes per production hour)

Interesting props or on-set effects: custom-made resin phones, a smoke machine, a homemade virtual reality eyeband (with sequenced LEDs, electroluminescent wire and more), a body bag, white viscous goo (with eyelashes), family photos featuring Erin Gray and faux blood.

These details only start to tell the tale. It was insane.

Principal photography was a huge undertaking. But we're not even close to being done with production work. We have 2nd unit in three different cities coming up over the next few months:

Dublin, Ireland
La Roche, France (near Geneva)
New York City

Plus pick-up work to do yet in the Bay Area still (these are scenes we messed up and need to redo. Or just didn't get for some reason in the first place).

All of this done on a shoestring DIY budget, if you can believe it. (Your tax-deductible donations are still needed, to say the least.)

So far to go -- and yet it seems we've been in the Valley of Pain so long already.

Onward.

In the weeds

What day is it? I don't even know.

I thought maybe Wednesday, but then I heard yesterday was Thursday which makes today Friday. Calculating until our next day off (on Tuesday),  yesterday was actually our Monday, even though it was our fourth day in a row shooting since our last day off.

Basically we're in the middle of an eight-day week. And it's gotten to the point where the 12-hour days feel like easy days compared to the 14+ hour days like yesterday.

It's 5:30am and I need to create the shot list for today, plus get through my email from the last day.

I dreamt last night about returning to my 9 to 5 job as if it were a tropical vacation.

But, we're still making our days and getting what we need on camera.

So on we march.