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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WalterB said:
I totally get your point 1, but that means immediately showing it is 'real' instead of a hoax.
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Not necessarily, it depends when in the timeline the "real" footage is shot. For example, two guys walking in the forest (one with a rucksack/bag), maybe Man gets an SMS, stops and takes out his cell, maybe a slightly strange ambiguous sound in the distance. Or maybe this intro can be set even earlier in this timeline, maybe getting out of their car near the location, could even have a line or two of dialogue, something like; "looks like good conditions to get some background footage". This intro could lean one way or the other and be as ambiguous as required.

I'm sure Nick could come up with something suitable to avoid starting the film with cellphone footage.

G
 
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My concern with adding a New Orleans element to this short is that, in order for each part to have enough screen time to matter, the project will grow to an unwieldy length. As for being able to capture sound, I have the gear, but not an experienced operator. For my projects, I usually run with wireless lavs.
 
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AudioPostExpert said:
Not necessarily, it depends when in the timeline the "real" footage is shot. For example, two guys walking in the forest (one with a rucksack/bag), maybe Man gets an SMS, stops and takes out his cell, maybe a slightly strange ambiguous sound in the distance. Or maybe this intro can be set even earlier in this timeline, maybe getting out of their car near the location, could even have a line or two of dialogue, something like; "looks like good conditions to get some background footage". This intro could lean one way or the other and be as ambiguous as required.

I'm sure Nick could come up with something suitable to avoid starting the film with cellphone footage.
Click to expand...

As you were writing this post, I happened to be watching a screener of a film I'm reviewing. Not the sort of film I'd usually watch – animé sci-fi – so pure chance. The film opened with distressed footage, designed to look like it was shot on maybe a broken camcorder, while the audio overlaid with a mixture of disjointed radio signals. Obviously, this was animation, so the production standards were there, but it was an arresting and engaging opening, and only lasted 20 seconds or so (the radio was in Japanese and not subtitled so I have no idea what they were saying...).

My point is that, if it's crafted well, I really think that a cold opening with the video footage will be a good way of immersing the viewer into the world of the film and the story. I think we need to be clear that this is not just crummy production values, which means heightening the visual and sound elements – if there's good VFX on the 'spaceship' then I think the viewer will immediately recognise what it is. Play that out for 20 seconds, fade to black, CLASSY LOOKING TITLE IN A NICE FONT, fade in on the beach.

That's my preference, but equally, I'm happy to write some extra stuff for that first scene and then we can maybe make a final decision in the edit suite..?

@Lucky Hardwood: Do you have a forested area nearby?
 
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NickClapper said:
... CLASSY LOOKING TITLE IN A NICE FONT,...
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LMAO!
dragonstouch_lmao.gif
 
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There is a geographical connection in the story between the Oregon Cult and Vern In The woods... basically within walking distance.. (Cult guy sees Vern in the woods and runs back to the small holding) so some attention to matching the look of the woods will be required...
 
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NickClapper said:
...The film opened with distressed footage, designed to look like it was shot on maybe a broken camcorder, while the audio overlaid with a mixture of disjointed radio signals.

My point is that, if it's crafted well, I really think that a cold opening with the video footage will be a good way of immersing the viewer into the world of the film and the story. I think we need to be clear that this is not just crummy production values, which means heightening the visual and sound elements – if there's good VFX on the 'spaceship' then I think the viewer will immediately recognise what it is. Play that out for 20 seconds, fade to black, CLASSY LOOKING TITLE IN A NICE FONT, fade in on the beach.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I understand, are you saying the cell footage opening should be very obviously "distressed", so much so that it couldn't be confused with even poor amateur filmmaking or are you saying it should appear to have a much higher production value? While there is justification for better than standard def "broken camcorder" visual quality (modern smartphones are capable of full frame rate HD after all) the sound would still have to be seriously futz'ed and the end result would not be dissimilar to home video/poor amateur filmmaking standards.

G
 
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My 11yo son expressed giggly interest in watching 'Sharknado' despite my advising against it, found the DVD at my local library, watched the previews for other The Asylum products before the movie, 'The Bell Witch Haunting' trailer looked "interesting", pulled it up on IMDB and looked at the reviews.

Let's please not make a stitched-together Frankenfilm with this project that garners similar reviews.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2991532/reviews?ref_=tt_ov_rt
 
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Thoughts..

If Charles is Chuck then maybe have Samuel call him "brother Charles" instead of Father? If Charles is NOT Chuck, think about what it would mean if he was...

Americans don't use the therm "spotty" its pimple faced kid.. :)
 
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Finally got around to reading the current screenplay.
Nice.

Just for fun, turn off your program's "Continueds" feature. Don't need it.
(Don't really understand why anyone would need it or why the program defaults to it or is it's even programmed with it.)

Page 3
Code: 
		MARK (CONTINUED)
	Who am we to complain though?

Should be:
Code: 
		MARK (CONTINUED)
	Who are we to complain, though?

Page 5 convo scene between Carl & Sophie.
Would be funny if before she walks out of the studio she rhetorically asks if Carl can make that a left/right side "picture" (what we call a landscape) instead of an up/down (portrait) "picture"?
As if it were nothing. Just a trifle suggestion/request/demand.
("It's a PAINTING, b!tch! Not a PICTURE!")
Then Carl double-takes both the closed door behind Sophie and his portrait oriented painting.
Angrily gesticulates that would make more sense.

Pages 7-8
A 20s year old physics math geek would more likely have the trajectory plotted along a map on a computer screen rather than on an old school paper map.
She could tab through several maps from larger to more precise measurements & calculations.

Also, ring tones can be copyright protected, so someone had better pick public domain ring tones for all cellphones.

Page 8
Code: 
[Vern] dips two fingers in and pulls them up to show a viscous,
oil like substance.
Anyone have some practical ideas on what substance to actually use for this black liquid oil like substance?
Other than burnt motor oil?
5gal of black latex paint?


Done.

Very nice.
Certainly feels more refined than I recall the first draft.


Quite suggestive of a much larger piece. :)
These six primary scenes are all very well tied together and looped coherently after the initial scene of MAN & Steve.
Excellennnnnt!

As is it's not a full start to finish buttoned-up story, although it's a nice opening scene, though.
Will there be more to this screenplay to follow?
It's going well, it just ends rather abruptly.
 
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