Production is slowly ramping up on the first major film that my group Mantra Independant Film Productions (mantra.ifp) will be doing.
It's a WW2 movie set in northern Australia and Papua New Guinea (although all filming will be done locally on the east coast of Oz).
What I'm after here is just any info or guidance you guys can give me or any potential problems you see arising for the production.
So now I'll just do a bit of detail at where we are at atm.
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Scale:
It's a large scale affair which is a little daunting but we have an overall cast involvement of possibly 60 people (half of which are confirmed for the project), and a reasonably large crew (some crew/actor doublings are present).
As far as locations go my co-director is a master of persuasion and has secured us several outdoor locations (lagoons, forests, farms, old ww2 airfields) to use for the production free of charge.
The current runtime that is initially planned for is 30 minutes, but I was just doing a script breakdown from an outline I was given and I can easily see it blowing out to maybe 1.5 hours maybe 2...eep.lol so either a heavy amount needs to be cut or we just have a flexible timeline.
Story & Script:
Story is about 75% done and I've started doing breakdowns and such for the script.
Funding:
Funding wise we have a very small budget and are having to resort to actor contributions which will buy costumes and parts for props. We plan on selling everything when we are finished in order to pay the people back who contributed...and hopefully make a bit of a profit off of it as well.
Crew Set-up:
Several of the production hats have been plonked on my head, which is ok by me as I've just finished school (yay for that). I've gotten co-director, co-producer, writer, hero prop builder, cameraman, editor and VFX guy. My partner in crime is the other co-director, and we have our co-producer as well. We have a setpiece contsructor, some prop builders, I think we even have some AD's.
What we're working with physically:
This is the only area that disappoints me somewhat on this production. We have a single Canon mv600i, some lapel microphones, and a few floodlights. Fortunately I have had alot of experience with the mv600i, as it is the same as the cameras they had at school which I used alot, and I am able to get some fairly decent footage out of it, but of course nothing in comparison to say a DVX.
I am going to attempt to make a cheap dolly, steadicam and crane, because from the looks of things I'll need them, and I want this to look as good as possible.
What we're working with digitally:
I have access to After Effects Pro 6.5, Premiere pro 1.5 and 3dstudio max 7 (gotta love schools..lol) and I have several years experience in each of them. I know that I'm capable of pulling off the majority of the shots that will be required but some I may need to put extra work into.
Promotion:
While we are not really thinking about this yet we're looking at going to DVD to sell them, and having a premiere at the school (huge hall, nice big screen)
Things that scare me:
- The overall size of the project
- Hoping everything works...
Final Word:
Well there it is...thats our production....I think I might be crazy....lol...
I've set up a small website here
http://www.setbb.com/phpbb/index.php?mforum=mantra
where we're going through the early stages of things.
I'm interested in seeing if anyone from here would be interested in coming aboard as a story/script supervisor or anything like that...just let me know if you are....
-------------------------------------
come on guys...pick away at this now....I've rambled on long enough....
It's a WW2 movie set in northern Australia and Papua New Guinea (although all filming will be done locally on the east coast of Oz).
What I'm after here is just any info or guidance you guys can give me or any potential problems you see arising for the production.
So now I'll just do a bit of detail at where we are at atm.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scale:
It's a large scale affair which is a little daunting but we have an overall cast involvement of possibly 60 people (half of which are confirmed for the project), and a reasonably large crew (some crew/actor doublings are present).
As far as locations go my co-director is a master of persuasion and has secured us several outdoor locations (lagoons, forests, farms, old ww2 airfields) to use for the production free of charge.
The current runtime that is initially planned for is 30 minutes, but I was just doing a script breakdown from an outline I was given and I can easily see it blowing out to maybe 1.5 hours maybe 2...eep.lol so either a heavy amount needs to be cut or we just have a flexible timeline.
Story & Script:
Story is about 75% done and I've started doing breakdowns and such for the script.
Funding:
Funding wise we have a very small budget and are having to resort to actor contributions which will buy costumes and parts for props. We plan on selling everything when we are finished in order to pay the people back who contributed...and hopefully make a bit of a profit off of it as well.
Crew Set-up:
Several of the production hats have been plonked on my head, which is ok by me as I've just finished school (yay for that). I've gotten co-director, co-producer, writer, hero prop builder, cameraman, editor and VFX guy. My partner in crime is the other co-director, and we have our co-producer as well. We have a setpiece contsructor, some prop builders, I think we even have some AD's.
What we're working with physically:
This is the only area that disappoints me somewhat on this production. We have a single Canon mv600i, some lapel microphones, and a few floodlights. Fortunately I have had alot of experience with the mv600i, as it is the same as the cameras they had at school which I used alot, and I am able to get some fairly decent footage out of it, but of course nothing in comparison to say a DVX.
I am going to attempt to make a cheap dolly, steadicam and crane, because from the looks of things I'll need them, and I want this to look as good as possible.
What we're working with digitally:
I have access to After Effects Pro 6.5, Premiere pro 1.5 and 3dstudio max 7 (gotta love schools..lol) and I have several years experience in each of them. I know that I'm capable of pulling off the majority of the shots that will be required but some I may need to put extra work into.
Promotion:
While we are not really thinking about this yet we're looking at going to DVD to sell them, and having a premiere at the school (huge hall, nice big screen)
Things that scare me:
- The overall size of the project
- Hoping everything works...
Final Word:
Well there it is...thats our production....I think I might be crazy....lol...
I've set up a small website here
http://www.setbb.com/phpbb/index.php?mforum=mantra
where we're going through the early stages of things.
I'm interested in seeing if anyone from here would be interested in coming aboard as a story/script supervisor or anything like that...just let me know if you are....
-------------------------------------
come on guys...pick away at this now....I've rambled on long enough....