filming a movie in a few weeks...

[Misery]

most of the planning is done, we are gearing up to film the movie in 1-2 weeks.

The movie is going to be very psychological. the hero of the movie is a struggling artist, who paints the walls on the inside of his house to keep himself sane... because he is schizophrenic.

about half of the movie will be in 1st person from the hero's point of view, so you will get to see things as he sees them, and he the voices he hears.

The movie is going to be lit similar to Suspiria. Splashes of red and blue and other colors will be on all the walls whenever he is tripping (most of the movie). Even though we are filming the movie using mini dv cams, we are going to film the movie in widescreen to give it a more professional look.

What can I say? I have high hopes. Things seemed to automatically fall into place, and I cannot see the movie going wrong. A couple of the scenes we have planned are downright cool and unique, so I cannot wait to see what it looks like.

Then, and this is where my questions start coming in, we want to enter the movie into film festivals and perhaps sell the movie to a small distributer and get some cash for it. It seems like a completely realistic idea, because every night i'm watching some crappy home video that somehow found it's way into my collection. Take Monsturd for example. Low quality footage. Bad acting, bad sets, bad lighting, bad sound, etc etc.

So why shouldn't my friends and I be able to do the same? Is there something I am forgetting? What are some things I should take into consideration?

[the dead one]

1st off congratulations on your up coming film project, taking the guerilla filmmaking route does have its advantages. Because it is your vision you have complete creative control, I understand the whole struggling artist, schizophrenic thing you mentioned, your story description sounds interesting but just a bit vague. Your main protagonist has to have an arc, a basic example: the TV show ‘The Fugitive’. The protagonist Richard Kimble's primary motivation was finding the mysterious "One-Armed Man" who framed him for murder. This is something that you might want to take into consideration, having strong story arc.

The basic point of a story arc is to move a character or a situation from one state to another, in other words, to effect a change. One common form of change in which this reversal is found is a character going from a situation of weakness to one of strength. Or the opposite direction can be taken, having a protagonist with a highly self-destructive nature, sinking to the point of no return.

So get out there and make the best damn kick ass film possible, guerilla filmmaking rules! Keep us posted…and keep your dreams alive! :)

Good Luck...

[Misery]

whoops! i guess i forgot to explain the arc.

arc = pauls descent into madness. there will be 4 steps. killing his conscience, emotions, reality, then finally, God/himself (the suicide)

Each step will of course be shown in seperate, unique ways.

For example the conscience is teh first to go. early into the movie, when Paul hasn't taken his mediaction, he starts to lose it, and kills his friend. well at least the viewer thinks it's his friend, but it's really his conscience. then Paul will dispose of the conscience in a bay. As he is dragging the body by the feet through the hallways of his house, the dead friend will turn his head and begin to talk to Paul, asking "why did you kill me" etc etc.

As soon as the conscience is elimated, one of his 4 delusions will be gone, and Paul goes into a temporary manic state, until his horrible hallucinations and evil delusions return. Then, of course, he will go on to kill the next part of himself in order to reach another manic state and destroy another evil voice.

Oh, and I found a composer that is willing to create a few original songs for the movie, so I am thrilled.

And thanks for your kind words! I'll be sure to post a trailer for the movie in a few weeks.

[Rick Popko]

Hi, Misery, good luck on your project.

If I had one piece of advice for ya, it's to make sure you cram as much production value into your producction as you can. And production value doesn't mean spending a lot of money. You need to be creative and resourceful.

We made Monsturd for $3,000, sold 4,000 copies into Blockbuster and are now distributed in UK and Thailand.

I'm sorry our flick wasn't your cup of tea, but if you do an internet search on Monsturd, I think you'll find a lot more people championing the flick than bashing it.

That said, good luck on your flick.
-Rick Popko
(co-director of Monsturd)

[Misery]

who said i didn't like Monsturd? i enjoyed it, and watched the making of it and was inspired. still, if you have any more in depth advice i would love to hear it.

we are going to be filming the movie in about a week now. it finally has a name! Tenatively titled Going this Way.

I still plan to enter the movie to festivals, but I gave up on getting the movie distributed... the main factor is length. i don't see GtW exceeding an hour, and no one will buy a 50 minute movie.