Script + Effects testing

This project is still going. The script is basically finished up, and the effects testing is beginning.

Lately, movies have had bigger and better and more seamless special effects. Yes, this is cool, but I haven't really found the effects to bring as much to the movie as simpler, but more dangerous practical effects.

I'm also unhappy with the explosions in modern movies. Yes, they're big and puffy, but after making many similar fireballs in my own backyard, I learned something; Movie explosions aren't really dangerous. They might look that way to an untrained observer, but they carry no shockwave or shrapnel that a real explosion would produce. Realistic explosions would be more costly to produce but would really give film audiences a better overall movie experience.

I plan to post confirmation of successful effects tests on this web log, and should be posting within a month.

Scripting Scripting Scripting

The script is nearly finished. It's been registered with the Writers Guild, and is just about ready to released to potential producers. It's about 15 pages long, and feels like what I was hoping it would. Yeah, I've been somewhat slow to work on it, but it's really fun to spend this much time thinking about how to make a project.

Also, I'm starting to assemble the special effects team. It's going to be intense.

Resheduling

Flooding on the St. Croix river, resulting in closing of the Stillwater lift bridge means that the filming of Crystal Resonance will have to take place early summer, or during the fall freeze. Exciting - read more here.

Further Developments

The story department (me & the Man upstairs) are coming up with the coolest script ever. It's coming out far cooler than I expected.. I think y'all are gonna like this.

The Progress

As you just might have noticed, the video pretest was never released.
That's very true. In fact, it wasn't. All you've got to go on is a cool trailer.

So, Fall 2009?

It's probably not going to be what you expect, but it's probably going to be very cool.

Current Progress

The mockup is done.
The real version is beginning.
It's gonna rock.

check here for weekly details.

SCREENING DAY!

So, it's finally showtime, and I'm currently ripping my project to tape.
It will be showing in Weld Hall Auditorium at 6:30 tonight at Minnesota State University Moorhead.

It's a pretty intense mockup, and it's got a lot of cool ideas in it. I won't be releasing this version online, except to select parties who will be working with me on the final version of the film.

Over the past few days I've been grinding out pieces of a temp track, a crazy cool color correction pass, and the final mockup edit with lots of help from some really cool people.

The more work I put into this version of the film, the more excited I am about the real version I'll be filming this summer.

Much thanks to everyone involved - You'll see it soon!

<><
Paul

Picture lock

just that.

It's turned out slightly better than it would have seemed, and should be a pretty nice mockup of what the final project will be like.

Horah!

maybe I'll make another teaser trailer.. maybe not.

Reality, and being real.

I've noticed a lot of people searching for truth lately... people who are real seem to be quite cool nowadays. People trying to figure things out usually notice when someone isn't being fake. I want to make real movies.

Will Crystal Resonance be real?

Check it out - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Feu3bHz41-4

I'll be working with my editor on the rough edit this week, and am pretty excited about the direction of this project...

Are you?

Flooding (as opposed to editing)

So, I was up at the Red River helping out, so I ended up not really doing anything film wise - however, people keep asking me about it, so I decided to tell everyone at once here.

Monday - I get back to moorhead, visit my campus sports center, sign a release form and a time sheet jumped on a bus with my DP, and headed out. There were many heavy vehicles in the streets, dropping off sand, and picking it up from people who were bagging it, and taking it to yards that were being sandbagged. We worked at a house to the left of the point south of I94 here. Basically we passed tons of 10-30lb sand bags down a line over a muddy yard to a dike behind a house. It was very very muddy. I had boots on, and that made it lots of fun.

Tuesday - helped on the Horn park dike for most of the day to raise the level above 42', and then helped out in a neighborhood that's been evacuated. I worked with some people from Wisconsin among other places. On Tuesday, we had bags for sandbag transportation, and that was probably faster. We didn't tie sandbags, because that wasn't needed for them to stop the river. After the walls were built up high enough, they were covered with plastic, and that was pinned down with more bags. National guardsman, firefighters, and police were all over the place trying to keep things coordinated. I rode back to campus in a van and learned that school was closed Wednesday as well.

Wednesday - It was snowing and very cold (10-20ºF), but I helped bag sand, load it onto residents vehicles, loaded some city dumpsters, and helped build a dike around an elderly gentleman's house. Then I helped load more sand.

Thursday - I wanted to take a break because my wrist wasn't in poor condition from a 6 hour sandbag blitz on Tuesday, and it hadn't been fun Wednesday, but I ended up bagging sand from 9-midnight at Moorhead Technical College, and in the road by the Nemzek Sports center. It was pretty snowy. I opened bags, held bags under cut off constuction cones to be filled with sand, and put bags on pallets for bobcats to load into SemiTrailers. Sand was freezing, and so was I. It was fun though. I gave about 90GB of movie footage to my editor on a portable hard drive, beginning the epic editing process!

(no pictures )

Friday - Got a knock on my door at 9:33am and was told that Residents at Moorhead State University were being asked to leave. I hit the road around 11:30am with my AC, and will be working on spaceships for a Christian Summer camp Video in the Twin Cities this weekend. School opens Tuesday or later depending on the chaos level in the city. We also played a sweet game with Legos before my final car to the cities arrived. He won, but it was a close game.

Saturday - It's not Saturday yet. I'll eat homemade blueberry pancakes for breakfast.

day 5!

The filming of the video/promo version of the film is over. It was lots of fun (and some not fun).

Day 1!

So, it's fun how things work. You could look at this picture, and assume we're doing some crazy shooter movie, but nope. It's just part of the overally sceme of making a really sweet movie that will interest a multigenerational secular and Christian audience through the use of $4000+ .50cal rifles. (or make an attempt to do such a thing!)

Anyways, I felt pretty special getting a fancy permit from Stillwater delivered to me by a sweet Police Officer to film in Stillwater, MN. Not everything worked out exactly as planned, and sometimes worked out even better.

Take this picture for example. I wasn't thinking we'd even get this sweet teaser picture, but there it is! Also, you won't see anything like it in the rough movie, but it will be pretty fun anyhow!

Well, I'm getting up at 6am tomorrow to head back to Stillwater for an exciting indoor shoot of awesomeness, so I better check out.

Quiet on set...

It's almost time to shoot the rough edit of the film.

It's pretty crazy how much work it's taken to get here, but it's been worth it, and I can't wait to do it all again!

Promotional Video

Here's a project promotional video - the first actual project video online.

You can't do anything that doesn't change the world. Why not change it in a positive way?

Really, if you watch a 1 hour movie, you're 1 hour closer to the time you die. It's costing you your life. Do you really want to give up your life just to be entertained?

Of course, because if you don't take a breaks and enjoy stuff, you'll burn out. Thus, doing enjoyable things are something you've gotta do. So, why not entertain yourself with something that's really inspiring? Something that gets you excited about God?

If you watch lots films that actually show you how to get rich or free run, you'll probably get rich or free run.

If you were to watch lots of amazing film that show you how to actually be a cool Christian, you'll probably become a better Christian.

If you watch lots of movies that show you how cool it is to be evil, you'll probably become more evil... Hopefully not, but it's really hard not to be influenced by films.

So, lets make films that influence Christians to rise up and live for God!

Beta testers wanted!

Hey!


It's Paul again.


The film is coming along nicely.


It's just about time for the BETA shoot of the film...


If every other industry does product testing to ensure consumer satisfaction, why doesn't the movie industry? Well, they kinda do, so I may as well try it out on my project. So, sometime between the magical dates of March 13th and 23th will be the PreFilm shoot. Then we'll cut 'n' edit the film, slap on a temp track some simple color grading, and have a product y'all can actually watch, comment on, and enjoy. If it's good, we'll go into production, and finish up later this summer (Shoot May Edit June Release July). If it's not, we'll make changes as necessary, and go for it.


So, if you want to hang out for a day doing the Video run of the film, or the 5 days we'll be
filming it, let me know.


We probably won't spend much time on lighting, sound or perfecting each of the fancy camera moves, but we'll get every frame of our storyboards, and everything we need for a 'test movie'



Oh,

We've also decided on the title.

But we won't tell you.

So, check out BricklightStudios.com and learn more!

Props

A racoon skull - blacklight and firelight


A racoon skull

A skull, a bottle of poison, a .45 round and
a Crystal Resonance Device

Heros and good movies?

So I went and saw a movie, and as typical of most movies I've seen, it catered to a group of people who see "good movies."
Good movies?

"Yeah. It was a good movie."

"A movie where loyalty and bravery and perseverance are portrayed. Where somebody stood strong to protect someone else. Where good prevailed against evil. It had a good storyline, funny lines, and interesting characters. It was shot well, edited well, and had a cool soundtrack. Yeah, there was some stuff I don't approve of, but overall it was a good movie."

This above statement describes any movie. The virtues loyalty, bravery, and perseverance are used as commonly by evil as good. So, really, these movies have virtually nothing positive about them. Except entertainment. (that's another topic)

So, really we've got a title of “Hero” on this post, so let's find out what that's about.
The hero of this film was a guy who trusted that he could save someone he cared about, despite a huge amount evil beings against him. He makes split second decisions, he uses lots of skills he's got, coercion, smart talk, quick thinking and he takes many lives of evil people to finish his mission.

So, that's the hero we see. The guy who gets his way through worldly power. He's a strong and wise worldly guy. That being symbolic doesn't change it.

When was the last time you saw a movie with a Christian character that strong, but strong in faith? Somebody who actually modeled beliefs that God could solve their problems.

I haven't seen one movie yet where God couldn't have solved the problems of the hero.

I've seen a lot of movies where Christians are portrayed as being weak and powerless. They somehow scrape together a solution, and eventually achieve a happy ending - or die, because that's happy too right?

These sort of films aren't showing us who we should be. If they were redone as typical movies, It'd be like a heist movie where the guys go to jail, get out 60 years later, and have a happy reunion by stealing napkins from a restaurant. Who cares? Anyone can do that.

It's as hypocritical to have a Christian who is closer to God than you are as having a normal guy who's got better impossibly good skills portrayed in a film you're making.

So, how about we film makers find out what an impossibly great Christian would look like today, and how to make a really realistic and exciting film around that?

Rather than just sitting and staring a movie for 2 hours, we could actually be inspired and instructed to live a power filled Christian life.


Also, I saw a film promoting how cool it is to be a National Guard Warrior.

http://www.nationalguardwarrior.com/

Why don't Christians have films like this promoting how cool it is to be a Christian Warrior?

Work in Progress

We can't show you the film yet, but we can show you a different video.

Here's a test video shot on an HVX-200a we'll be using to shoot the film. It's got the 35mm SG Pro Rev 3 adapter, and a wide open lens.


Meanwhile, I'm putting together final details (and thousands of words) on the project, so everything will be ready to go.



A strange staircase.
I'm trying out a blue look.

Black and White and Color

Black and white produces a specific look that adds interest to films. Color really doesn't.

These color correction tests produced in the node based color corrector in Blender 3D provides a look into what sort of look this film might end up with.

Location Tour

These perticular images were shot on a panasonic HVX 200a camera in 1080p, with a 35mm adapter and a 50mm lens (F2.8 I believe). Color graded in Blender 3D.



attack of the cool nerf gun toting stand ins!

a forest, a pad of paper, and an award winning actor

pure creepyness?

could this be the title?

Details weekly.

Greetz

1521 (working title) is a sweet film project that is now getting free online press from blogger.com. pretty cool, eh?

We're about 1 month out from production, and having lots of fun. More info soon.

Here's a log line picture