Dreams and Money: How Do We Get Them in the Same Room? Pt. 1

   

The following few articles will follow my journey through the development of my film, as some kind of a "how to" for people looking to create their own film that seems beyond their means. (You might say this is an interactive experiment in moving from micro-budget to Indiewoood.) 

I have read pretty much every book on how to make it in the film industry, how to succeed in business, selling a killer script, and Hollywood schmoozing.  I don't believe I was ever really able to connect to any of the banal information I found in those books, so simple-sounding and stagnant, and unfortunately...obsolete.  This is a real story.  At this point there is no ending, but a strong beginning.  Whether amazing, tragic, or uneventful, we shall find the ending together.

[Note: Images throughout this article are from the pre-production teaser trailer we shot with a RED MX camera. More on this later.]

One day I came up with an idea that I thought sounded like fun for a feature script.  The idea was pretty complicated, and I was sure that the script would have to be written without limits, as there would be no way I would be able to shoot it on a micro budget.  As I continued writing, the story decided upon its own path.  It went down paths that were exciting, the characters were dynamic and integral to the storyline, and eventually it found its way to a completed script.  

This script was good.

As I said before, I knew I had to sell it because there was no way you could do this with a low budget.  But I wanted to try and imagine the ideas and the story.  The film was in a sci-fi realm, so it would be important to the storytelling if the reader knew a little bit more about the universe of the film.  I hired an artist to help me start to figure out what some of the spaceships and alien characters would look like so that readers could get a clear picture of the universe surrounding this picture.

It was inevitable.  After a few months of development on the script, I fell in love.  I could no longer allow this film to be bought, raped, and thrown up on the screen like a melange of blindly thrown darts.  I had to direct this film.  Protect it.  Tell the story that I meant to tell.  I suppose that's why I call myself a director.

My fiancee had a few of her friends read my script, and had some great notes.  One of her friends was trying to get a new production company going after playing second fiddle at a mid-level Hollywood production company, and had a great feeling about the script.  She had some amazing notes which I addressed over and over, and eventually we came up with a pretty tight version of the screenplay.  She started trying to get coverage from major agencies and almost immediately received interest from some mid-level studios and executive producers.  We had a plan on how we could make this film for $5 million, which took into account a great deal of "soft money" from rental houses and favors from friends.  The company we had hooked were interested in the film being shot in 3D, which I was not opposed to, but it would mean the budget had to go up.  We worked on a new budget.  

As soon as the budget went up, the interest went up.  Trust me, I don't understand it either.  But the current draw for a 3D film is very strong because of the box office that Avatar and even some of the less popular films like The Last Airbender brought in just because they were kid-friendly and 3D.  The new plan began and I started learning everything I could about shooting in 3D.  

We attempted to raise some startup funds on Kickstarter.com.  We wanted enough money to start developing the plan and get some flashy artwork for the presentation.  Unfortunately we were unable to reach our goal, but it was too difficult to explain what the project is and why the money isn't going to be enough to actually make the movie.  People prefer having something tangible they can point to that they invested in. (Additionally, Kickstarter is really more compatible with micro-budget films anyway, as its audience is far more excited about these than Indiewood entrants. You can read Mike Flanagan's great article in which he used it to fund his microbudget feature, Absentia.) So we continued to develop the project on our own dime.

Shooting in 3D seems to be a very interesting process, and not just a new camera for you to play with.  The entire process of shooting in 3D is different, meaning that the way you have to think about how your story is told in 3D has to be different.  It's not enough to just shoot with 3D cameras and fix it later.  3D has specific issues having to do with the convergence point of the viewer's eyes, and how often you can adjust that point without making them uncomfortable or even sick.  Longer, moving masters become important, and any time you are going to have a great deal of action cutting, you must not move that convergence point often.  Avatar was more than just an expensive film, it was a test to see what people's eyes could handle when true 3D was being projected for a feature length film.  There were actually early tests that made audience members throw up.  The technology is powerful, so it's important to know what you are getting into before you just start shooting in 3D.

I built an entire plan to shoot the film in 3D, and worked with a few great artists on some storyboards and concept designs for all of the aliens' costumes and locations.  Going to meetings was easy...once the investors saw our storyboards and designs, they felt I had a pretty good handle on how I wanted to make the film.  This meant that the one roadblock to making my feature (which was keeping myself on as director) didn't seem like it would be a problem.  Eventually we met with the owners of New Deal Studios, who are the company behind the effects for Inception, Dark Knight, Terminator Salvation, and many other amazing sci-fi films.  Their team became very excited about the film, and eventually became a partner in the film.  This happened because our presentation was clear, concise, and right in line with what they want to make.  They agreed to put together a budget for the effects based on my shot list for the entire film, and also gave us valuable notes on our presentation as well as help toward looking for investors.

After a few meetings, we kept getting the same question.  "Is this an animated feature?"  Uh, no.  I realized that because everything I had to show was in concept drawing form, no one could see the tone/style of the film I wanted to make.  Here's a quick statement which sums up why I want to make this film, and how it should look:

The films that really fueled my creativity are long since gone.  Films like Empire Strikes Back, Goonies, and The Last Starfighter were so well crafted, so imaginative, so empowering that I believed I could do anything with my life.  Eventually I realized that making films was what I wanted to do.  As I learned about filmmaking, I started analyzing films that I liked, as well as films I SHOULD have liked.  There were several points that were missing in the films of our current time, and I knew they could be easily remedied with a little TLC and insistence.  I want to bring back the adventure and tactile reality to films, and actually take great care with all of the details, starting with the story and ending with the last frame of fx.  

Even though I knew this was a hit, no one else did.  The problem with a script is that no one is in your head to see all of the amazing things that you see.  Notes I received after some amazing meetings hovered around the fact that this was a good script, and it was either a huge studio epic or a direct to video low budget action adventure film.  Hearing those comments made me understand that if I was going to prove that the version of the film that I saw was possible, we would have to shoot a trailer.  My lovely new wife and production partner Berly Ellis believed highly in the film, and invested every dime that it took in order to create this trailer.  The next few paragraphs will outline how we kept the budget down while not sacrificing quality, and hopefully I've followed my own advice from my earlier editorial about how to write something you can shoot.

The Trailer
We didn't have a ton of time.  My wife and I had literally been married 3 days before the meeting with our producer at which we decided we needed to shoot a trailer for the film.  We knew that there were several trips we had to go on in the coming weeks, so to get this done in a timely manner, we would have to shoot in less than two weeks.  That might not seem like a short time period being that we already had a great feature script, but being that this is a sci-fi film, there are many set design, camera, and art direction concerns that we were going to have to deal with rather quickly.  Not to mention the most limited resource we have...money.

Making a few calls to some friends, we quickly found some great makeup artists who could create the alien makeup for our lead character, as well as a fabricator to build the custom armor and helmets worn by the alien characters.  I knew of a great little space called Laurel Canyon Stages which has a few standing spaceship sets which have been used in many productions throughout the years, and can look completely different based on your lighting...I knew that stage was the key to 60% of what I needed, and I was hoping I could get a deal that would make it possible.  Luckily we were able to manage it.  I also have the good fortune of working at Hollywood Rentals, which is one of the largest production lighting rental houses in the world.  They have always been very supportive of my goals and were willing to provide lighting as well as their black-box stage for all of our greenscreen shots.  I also took some liberties with them by shooting in their warehouse, converting it into the backroom of a museum.  

With such a great set for the spaceship I knew it would be important to sell the museum set as well.  We went to several prop houses in the area and got some great deals on a statue that was used in The Matrix Reloaded as well as some great costume pieces from The Last Samurai and Red Planet from The Hollywood Heritage Collection and Premiere Props.  Once again, showing them the idea that this was a very low budget-big dream helped us to get a great price.  One great thing about living in Los Angeles is that you are around these great prop and wardrobe places, and more often than not the people that work there are amazing film fans with big dreams of their own.  I can't tell you how much fun it was to tour that huge wardrobe shop and see the original uniforms from The Last Starfighter, Babylon 5, and decades of movie history that I could touch.

Our crew is a dedicated group of guys that I love working with. My DP Leo Jaramillo, Gaffer Kirk Bartolata, and I have a shorthand developed over years of shooting low budget productions together.  They were very helpful in filling out the other positions with great people who also had great attitudes, and helped keep the days moving.  We had an amazing time, working long hard days and capturing the magic you always hope for when you stand behind a camera.

We shot with the new Red MX, with Zeiss lenses. A friend of ours had the camera and graciously donated it for our shoot. We used LEDZ lighting predominately, which kept the set cool and helped us preserve the alien makeup. Our Dolly was the Fisher 10, also donated to the production. We received so many great things for free, and I am very thankful to Hollywood Rentals, LEDZ, Expendable Supply Store, JL Fisher, and all of the cast and crew who donated their time for this production! Hopefully it will be the piece that gets this film going!

Next month I'll share more info about the editing process and how I was able to finish my effects at New Deal Studios, which I am doing as I write this article!

A.J. Wedding is a graduate of Western Michigan University and has won festival awards for his first feature film, "Pop Fiction". As a writer/director, he has won several awards for his short films, and recently garnered worldwide distribution for a feature film titled “The Disappearance of Jenna Matheson” releasing this year. His hit web series, “Infamous” created an instant fanbase, and spawned interest from networks to create a tv series based on it. A.J. currently works with The Production Green, directing and editing commercials as well as developing his next feature film, "Junior Crew."

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