Community Project

NickClapper

NickClapper

My greatest regret, during my time on IndieTalk, has been my failure to get a community project off the ground. We came pretty close with the organ lottery project, but it never quite worked out. The past few days has seen a new member trying to get another community project off the ground, but is, I suspect, going to fall into a number of inevitable traps.

I am currently studying for the final exams of my academic career (*sob*) so am just sitting in libraries all day, every day. I'd like something to break it up a little bit (in addition to the couple of projects I am, slowly, working on). So I've come up with a new way to do a community project.

If you would like to participate in this project as a director (or in a shooting capacity), I need the following information out of you:

What actors are at your disposal? [i.e. two men and a woman]
What locations are at your disposal? [i.e. a house, a bar, an abandoned quarry]
Can you record decent quality sound? [i.e. yes]
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Please be conservative with your responses. In order for this project to be realistic and work, I need to be sure that people can (and will) shoot their scenes in the allocated manner.

Once I have a bunch of participants, I will go away and write a short script that incorporates these various shooting units into a single coherent story. I will ensure that no member has more than a maximum of two days shooting (though generally will try and keep it to what can be done in a single day). If you cannot record decent quality sound, I will give you no dialogue to shoot. Everything will be kept as simple as possible (within the constraints of a very tricky project!) so that we have the maximum chance of success.

Additionally, if you are not willing to direct (or arrange the production of) a shooting unit, there are loads of other roles that are required:

Composer
Editor - individual units should edit their scenes but a central editor will put it all together and try and ensure that the editing matches throughout.
Post-sound
VFX - will not be VFX heavy, but we can incorporate some if there's someone who can supply the talent.
Marketing - with so many cooks, would be great to have someone responsible for pushing the film.
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In order to make this attempt as successful as possible, I will only accept forum regulars into the scheme. New members (and I'm talking people who've only been around a few weeks) are welcome to input and help out, but it is of paramount importance that I know people will stick around and see their unit through to completion.

The deadline for signing up is 18th April 2014, giving people two weeks, after which we will allocate two months (and a bit) to complete production of your scenes, meaning a shooting deadline of 30th June 2014. As I have said, should be no more than a day of filming over the course of two months, so if you can't commit to that then please don't!

I really hope this works, and I think it can. Let me know if you have any thoughts and get signing up!

Current units:
David.rhsc (San Francisco, USA)
cheeseandachallenge (Wellington, New Zealand)
Cracker Funk (Richmond, USA)
wheatgrinder
Flicker Pictures (Boston, USA)
mad_hatter (Birmingham, England)
Dreadylocks (Omaha, USA)
Lucky Hardwood (New Orleans, USA)
ChimpPhobiaFilms (Ohio, USA)

Fence-sitting-maybe-merchants:
WalterB
Dreadylocks
sfoster
mad_hatter
ChimpPhobiaFilms
ItDonnedOnMe
jax_rox
Flicker Pictures

Music team
JoshL
mike mcguill

Sound team
mike mcguill

Sound maybes
AudioPostExpert
Alcove Audio

Marketing maybes
RayW

And remember to fill in this form if you want to have a shooting unit in the film!

(Of course, if you're local to an existing unit, why not team up?)
 
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Can someone throw up a link to the script? I am just now starting to get settled in our new home/town. So if it isn't majorly complicated there is a chance I could contribute the Vern scene...
 
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Interior location for the old man in a bed scene. Im setting up a "oxy tent" like thing inside this huge barn. It will be glorious.
10575402_10203852903114484_8136289658526318589_o.jpg
 
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You're right, that is glorious.

Nick, I have a couple concerns about my ability to execute the scene, so I'm still up in the air.

#1 Finding an actor that age. But I can cast a line on CL and see if I get any bites.

#2 We don't really have forests here. There are manicured parks, an arboretum and a botanical garden all within 30 miles or so, but really our nature here is in the form of corn and soybean farms, nothing quite raw and nature-like. And it's a totally different ecosystem than Oregon. I will do some more research.

What was the timetable on this again? When does C-Man need the footage? I just got a paid gig but will be done with it and should be free by Sept. 8th at the latest.
 
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Wheat, that looks amazing. Make sure you get plenty of BTS shots. If anyone has any BTS footage or outtakes, it'd be great to compile them into a promo video to accompany the film.

Dready: We need to get things shot in the next week or so, ideally before September. I realise that would be a super rush, but that's the timeframe we're working too because CF has other work in the second half of September. It's also pretty important that the forest scene matches the forest in A) the viral video and B) Wheat's scene.

It might be worth conferring with Wheat via PM to see whether you'll be able to get things to match up, but I appreciate that, given the time constraints, it might be too much of an imposition. But it would be really great to have you directing a segment, so if we can make it happen, then let's!

What about Urbana State Forest? Looks like it could match Oregon close enough if you kept quite shallow DoF and shot at twilight...

BHT-Wa12.jpg
 
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wheatgrinder said:
so... refresh me on the actual delivery?
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Asap.
Am I to deliver an edit?
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No need to edit. Both Walter and I did a quick edit to share with the others here (I also did it to figure out if I needed any extra coverage).
footage and sound?
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I believe CF wants both footage and sound.
Do I need to sync the audio?
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Didn't sync sound, but I presume that can't hurt
Whats the file naming convention?
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CF said this didn't matter too much, as long as it was clear. I did "scene#shot#take# - shot type + any special notes/brief description." E.g. "1G2 - CU Curtain Flap Tail Slate"
 
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I, too, am alive!

Wheaty, fantastic work! That's beautiful, man. And cheese answered your questions quite well on my behalf.

Does anybody want to do coloring? I'm willing to do it, but it's not my forte, so to say. I think my coloring looks okay, I guess, but I've seen much better from other people on this forum. So if anybody wants that task, it's yours.

You're saved from being the last to shoot, Wheaty. Looks like that's me. As of now, I'm just waiting on my artist. She's a mom of two youngens, so I don't want to pressure her to much, but I'll do my best to politely nudge her along. I think I can realistically shoot mine in the first week of September.

In the meanwhile, I should get to editing the rest of the footage. I'm open to any form of delivery. One fine gent has already uploaded his footage to Dready's server, so I can download via http. It's been a while since I've transfered with http, but I do remember it did not go flawlessly. The BitTorrent Sync is intriguing. Let's give it a go, Walter! :yes:

I agree with APE that it could be good to use both radio broadcasts, as well as reaction footage. And I like Nick's idea of us playing cameos for that, haha.

Should we sync the audio? I dunno, what do our audio guys say? I suppose it'd help them if we did that, no?
 
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For FTP I use Filezilla. Works great AFAIK. I only use it to update my website, so that's not even close to GBs of data ;)

I'll install Sync later today.
I'm curious how it'll work :)

I probably won't have time to colorgrade, unfortunately.
But I'll help with the opening :)

BTW: still looking for native English voices: from New Zealand/Australia, London, New York, San Fransisco.
 
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Do we just need voices? I can probably get a recording. But I don't have my sound recordist available for another few weeks, so probably won't be amazing. I'll set up a bunch of blankets and what not to do the best I can, but I'm not sound recordist.
 
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I was not able to do ALL my shooting today. The final scene was on the books for tonight, but the location I had, just wasnt good enough. Ill scout a new location this week and shoot the final scene Friday next. So I could still be last if you gets yers done.. :)
 
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