Aim True but Tread Litely

Had quite a few shoot days for REDD. Knocked out some of the Monster Make Up stuff. Worked on some Special FX. Finished a major dialogue scene.

The timeline is open for REDD. The editing timeline that is. I put in the edited shots and scenes where they need to go and any blank spaces I fill with descriptive text.

Here's an example. I have not yet shot the scene where we see the Dead Cyborgs laying on the ground. So a text place holder sits in it's place.

There are many of these placeholders. Really shows how much needs to be done.




I pinpoint what pages need to be shot, I schedule shoots, and I knock out the footage. When I get the footage, I immediately throw it on the timeline to see if it all fits. And thankfully so far it does. If it doesn't then I figure out how to make it fit, or re-shoot it.

What I'm realizing right now, is if I'm not careful, this movie could turn out to be total crap.  Yeah, you'll probably still like it, but by my standards it might be crap. One wrong shot placement, one bad edit, one too many shots with CGI, and my movie could end up equaling the same crap you'd see on the SyFy Channel.

As outrageous and campy as some of this movie sounds (I mean Red Riding Hood has guns, and there is a Werewolf with a laser eye) I don't want to wander into typical B-movie territory. When you watch this I don't want you to roll your eyes, I want you to laugh outloud and cheer on the good guys. On some level you'll giggle at some of the campyness, sure. But I'm aiming to make a good solid movie here. Not a throw away B-feature.

Yup, it is indeed no-budget/low budget indie. But I'm REALLY trying hard for it to look and feel like something more than that. I really feel like the secret to this lies in what I don't show you.  There are plenty of fx shots that we have that if you glimpse them, it'll be fine, but if I leave them up for a frame longer than necessary, you'd start to see the seams.

Now more than ever I need to maintain a steady eye on what the audience sees, and try to perceive what they perceive. Much of this will be smoothed out when we start doing beta tests on the first few cuts of the movie. But we've got a ways to go til we get there.

Here's a few pics and frames from this past months shooting.

Richard Gaither as The Chapel Wolf. Make up by Chana Van Meter.

After Visual FX has been added.

Before. The raw footage by itself.

The above frame is from a scene where Carter (Jennifer Russoli) is being interrogated by Snow (Alethea Delmage) and Simon (Nick Karner). It was quite pleasurable to be indoors working on a dialogue scene. A much welcome reprieve from running around in the woods with guns and monsters.

Nick Karner as Simon Weller.

As much as I love the action and fx stuff, I really love getting down with dramatic dialogue. Especially when the performances are just that good, shooting it the right way really enhances the tension of the scene. Can't wait to get this scene completely cut and mixed.

Plenty of scenes where we show armies of soldiers.

Here's an example of a shot where we took 2 actors and turned them into 6.

Some of the Monsters and Crew on our first day with Monster FX.

Chana applying make up to Richard.

Having fun making this film. Hoping you all will have fun watching it.

Aiming to have a full trailer out by Christmas.

More later

Patrick