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NEWS February 7, 2010 - First things first: A hearty congratulations to friend and colleague Mark Adams, whose fan film THE HELLRAISER CHRONICLES: LIFEBRINGER (2009) now has an IMDB page! I know I've been pretty quiet lately, but believe when I say that I am indeed working on the YouTube version. Taking out that bloodstain frame-by-frame is tedious. The changes to four out of the six scenes (mentioned in the Dec 23 post) are complete, I'm working on 5 and 6. Can't wait until this part of the remaining edits is over... 1) On the other hand, here's some news: HELLRAISER: DEADER - WINTER'S LAMENT (2010) is coming to YouTube on Wednesday, April 28, 2010. Haven't decided on the DVD date yet, but I'm anticipating the end of July. When I'm reasonably certain that the YouTube editing is done, I'll try to make a second trailer announcing the YouTube date. Chances are, by that time, the DVD release date will also be known and included as well... 2) I'll be opening a webpage for IN HELL'S WAY on this site shortly. News on that to follow. 3) HRDWL will be screening along with HRC:Lifebringer at ConNooga in Tennessee later this month... We may have a screening in Mississippi in early March... More on that to follow. January 18, 2010 - Happy new year, all, as we enter our 3rd calendar year of news on this site. A few news items: 1) HRDWL - The SheVaCon screening in February is confirmed. See the Screenings page and the links within for details. Digital removal of the bloodstain is complete in three out of the six scenes that I'm working on. 2) IHW - The Making-of documentary IN HELL'S WAY: MAKING "HELLRAISER: DEADER - WINTER'S LAMENT" is complete and has been submitted to a few festivals through Without-a-box. More info on that as it develops. December 23, 2009 – Happy holidays, everyone! A few items of note:
1) HRDWL – One of the most frequently asked questions is “when can I get a copy of the DVD?” And my answer is almost always “late spring, 2010, when the DVD is done.” The question that usually follows is why, particularly when I’ve submitted screeners to reviewers, conventions and a few festivals.
To me, the situation is similar to a film that’s released in theaters but later released on DVD as a “director’s cut.” Granted, for the studios, these situations are financially motivated, i.e. the films make a small metric ton of money on a theatrical run before home DVD sales, but for me, the reasons are creative. I’m satisfied with the screener version, but not necessarily happy with it, i.e. this isn’t necessarily the version that I want being distributed for posterity. I absolutely take into account the remarks of reviewers, and the technical advice of my d.p. so that I can tweak the film before its wider release on YouTube and DVD (as I did with HRP), because that’s the version I’d like to be out there.
The following are currently being worked on for the spring YouTube release:
i. digital removal of a bloodstain from the Ivan’s shirt from several scenes, as not to disrupt continuity between some of our scenes and the events of HR7 ii. redo of the “eye-blinking” effects at the end of the film iii. redo of the audio transition between the restaurant flashback and the library iv. adjustment of the lighting levels in the Merchant family scene
Again, my thanks to d.p. John Hudak, Tim Day and Ms. Monika DeLeeuw-Taylor of MicroFilmmaker Magazine for this input… The distributed version will be muchly improved thanks to their suggestions.
2) Screenings
– Due to professional obligations, I had to cancel my trip to
MarsCon this January. My
apologies to James Allen of MarsCon, and well as my gratitude for his
understanding and willingness to screen HRDWL at the convention regardless.
I’ve also added screenings for
RustyCon in January and
SheVaCon in February.
(Note: the SheVaCon video schedule has not yet been updated.) 3) IN HELL’S WAY is almost complete and clocking in at 12 min 11 sec, and is far, far, far more watchable than DEMONS TO OTHERS (a film that I cannot apologize enough for.) Adonis Aletras actually made a souped-up version of the music from the HRDWL trailer, which I’ve incorporated into the opening and closing of this film. (My kudos and deep gratitude for that extra mile!) All that’s left is incorporating the HRDWL score into IHW, which he’s given me permission to do.
December 02, 2009 -
I've just created our
Reviews page, which
currently has excerpts from two reviews. Next week I'll be working with the narrator for IN HELL'S WAY, and I'm currently working on tweaks to a few scenes for the YouTube/DVD version in the Spring. I'm going to try to tweak a few scenes along Ms. DeLeeuw-Taylor's suggestions, if it's at all within my ability...
Update: Thanks to Pete Mizzo for pointing out the
missing Reviews page... 1) Reviews - I'll be adding a reviews page next week; will post an announcement when it's complete. We've got two reviews so far, one of which comes from Mr. Timothy Day, the screenwriter of HELLRAISER: HELLSEEKER and one of the screenwriters behind HELLRAISER: DEADER. Many thanks to him for support and constructive input, which I do hope to put to good use in the future. There's an additional review coming shortly, along with a bit of news, but I've been told that those are going live on December 1st; once they're available, I'll post more information. 2) Screenings - With the conclusion of our TusCon screening in Arizona earlier this month, our 2009 screenings are concluded. Our next confirmed screenings are at MarsCon in Virginia in January, and now Con Nooga in Tennessee in February. There are two additional screenings in the works, one in January and the other in February, but neither are yet confirmed. 3) IN HELL'S WAY: "MAKING HELLRAISER: DEADER - WINTER'S LAMENT" - indeed, coming soon. This will be in the style of a narrated video diary. Pretty much everything in this 12-14 minute short was shot as we filmed, with only a few exterior shots filmed afterwards. I've actually taken a short break from working on the YouTube version of HRDWL and IHW to give myself some time to regroup. Also, the coworker of mine who has agreed to step up to narrate IHW had to reschedule, so that gave me a welcome respite. Still, I'd like to get IHW done before the new year. And in that vein, here's a brief excerpt from IHW. (Note, this is without narration and music, and is a work in progress.) This was filmed at Liberty Studios in NYC on March 1, 2008: If you know of a genre convention/film festival/venue to which you would like this film to be submitted for screening, we invite you to submit your venue suggestions to screenings@winterslament.com
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November 06, 2009 - We have our first 2010 screening lined up! It looks like our Virginia premiere will be at the 2010 MarsCon. There may be a screening late on Friday (January 15), but on Saturday I'll be there to introduce the film, to take questions, and possibly even screen IN HELL'S WAY (2010). Many thanks to Mr. Allen for inviting me to participate as a special guest. I'm looking forward to the experience! I'm told that HRDWL is screening at Astronomicon upstate in Rochester this weekend... Not certain of the details... Many thanks to Ms. Burke at Geek.Kon and Mr. Gustafson at MileHiCon for accepting HRDWL for screening at this years' events. Also, my thanks to Anthony Rockey for his feedback from Geek.Kon! The IMDB credits are essentially complete. There's a few issues with IMDB compatibility with some of our credits (e.g. "Scenes adapted from Hellraiser: Deader written by..." etc. doesn't easily fit into the IMDB categories. On the bright side, they're at least in the rolling credits.) Some of the thanks credits have similar issues, but again, these are fairly minor issues, considering that everyone listed in these more descriptive credits are already listed elsewhere in the credits for similar things. I'm reasonably certain that our TusCon screening in Arizona will be the last for 2009, but I'm hoping to have several more in 2010 before the YouTube release. Will post updates here.
If you know of a genre convention/film
festival/venue to which you would like this film to be submitted for
screening, we invite you to submit your venue suggestions to
screenings@winterslament.com |
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October 23, 2009 -
Happy Halloween, next weekend, everyone... Regarding our IMDB page at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1523299/ : Please note that several credits are still pending. Some of these have been already submitted for IMDB consideration, but their turnaround time is about a week to a week and a half, which is still fairly impressive, given the amount of data they must receive. Most of the missing information is in the thanks and creative consultants sections, with a other miscellaneous errors (e.g. "Dan Weiss (II)" vs. "Danny Weiss (I)".) Good times. 2) Upcoming screenings:
In screening news, our thanks to Marc Gustafson
who confirms the screening time at MileHiCon this weekend. Apparently the
missing time slot in the online PDF schedule was a glitch, and he assures us
that the screening time will be listed in the final paper programs/schedules
that are distributed at the con. As to Geek.Kon, it seems that our own Anthony
Rockey (creator of the Grimoire of the Gash) will be attending that
screening... I look forward to hearing how it goes! 3) Screening version vs. upcoming YouTube/DVD version:
I've put work on IN HELL'S WAY on hold while I
address a few minor issues in HRDWL. Just as there were some subtle
differences between the film festival version of HELLRAISER: PROPHECY and the
YouTube/DVD version, there will also be a few differences between the version
of the initial run of screenings versus Spring, 2010. The differences are
subtle - a post-production lighting adjustment in one scene, a rendering
artifact in another, and a minor continuity issue involving a bloodstain on
one of the Deader's costumes. Though I'm been scouring the internet for conventions and festivals to submit HRDWL to (the pickings are light between mid-November and mid-March) I'd like to take a cue from one of our longtime supporters, Mr. Charles Hall, who for many months has been kind enough to send me information on film festivals around the world that he recommends submission to. As such, I've added the following to the screening page:
If you know of a genre convention/film
festival/venue to which you would like this film to be submitted for
screening, we invite you to submit your venue suggestions to
screenings@winterslament.com |
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October 15, 2009 -
Alright, a few items of note: There were some issues with the poster image, and three missing actors credits, but they're all taken care of now.
2) Screenings: Our screenings times at Fargo
Fantastic Film Festival (10/17) and Geek.Kon (10/24) are confirmed. We now
have a tentative screening in Tucson, AZ in November. As for MileHiCon, I was
told that we're screening immediately before THE HELLRAISER CHRONICLES:
LIFEBRINGER, and there's a missing entry from 1:30PM to 2:00PM that day, so
I'm assuming that that's when we're screening... :P :) We'll see. :) |
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October 11, 2009 -
So, first the good news.
Do keep in mind, if you gander over there, that
the credits are NOT AT ALL COMPLETE at this time. As of today, there are at
least 3 actors credits that still haven't materialized over there yet, but
should in the next few days. The crew credits are staggeringly incomplete,
mainly because the withoutabox system didn't have a lot of the credit options
that IMDB has.
(Also, I've fixed this news page, so there should
be no further image issues.)
The Fargo Fantastic Film Festival hasn't updated
its site to include the lineup of films which will be screening, so I haven't
been able to get online confirmation of the screening outside of the selection
email I received. I've emailed but I imagine that they probably have more
important things to worry about, these scant few days away from the fest. So,
I'll try again afterwards. No doubt that it'll eventually be up there, it's
just unclear right now when that will be...
UPDATE: Correction, the Fargo screening is
confirmed in the Program book of the convention and film festival. The film
will screen Oct 17 at 11:00PM. See the Screenings page for more information. |
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October 5, 2009 - There's lots of exciting news, today, but I need to begin with an apology. He's already forgiven me, but I need to apologize publicly to my friend and colleague Mark Adams, for failing to send his screener of THE HELLRAISER CHRONICLES: LIFEBRINGER to Geek.Kon before its deadline. I sent mine in early enough, but by the time I sent his, it was too late. Mark, I am truly, truly sorry... On the bright side, with his permission I've sent it in to a few other conventions and festivals (the ones that don't require his signature, or payment) so I'm hoping that there will be some good news there... Okay, that was the bad news... And now I'm going to sound very self-serving, but here's the good news. 1) October 24th: HRDWL has been accepted for screening at MileHiCon in Denver, CO and tentatively accepted by Geek.Kon in Madison, WI. I say "tentative" because their schedules aren't online yet, but I've gotten email confirmation from their helpful con committee members. What I do know for now is that HRDWL will be showing from 9:00PM-9:30PM on Saturday, 10/24 at Geek.Kon, and at some point Saturday night at MileHiCon (time TBD). This means that the Screenings page is now open. 2) October 16th weekend: As of noon today, HRDWL is an official selection of the Fargo Fantastic Film Festival in Fargo, ND. Screening times have yet to be publicly announced, but should be by the end of the week. As it is our earliest date, it is, as of today, our official premiere and first film festival. 3) IMDB: Thanks to withoutabox and submissions to two film festivals (which we may or may not make it into) I received confirmation today that an IMDB page is now in the pipeline, pending approval from IMDB staff. I don't see any reason why it WOULDN'T go forward, so we should expect a page about two weeks from now. For those whose names are slated to be in the credits, please do be patient as the individual credit submissions may be incomplete/inaccurate over the next month until I'm done submitting individual corrections and additions.
Still, this is very good news. There may be up to
two more screenings before the end of 2009, but that's about it... Then
there's a paucity of conventions between now and March, 2010, but we'll see... |
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September 25, 2009 - Two people have been telling me that there's been this crazy assemblage of images at the top of this page whenever they try to view it. (Mark, Pete, that would be you.) I didn't believe it until I saw it with my own eyes on Pete's iPhone. Suffice it say I've gone through the page and seen the damning evidence firsthand, and to fix it, I've done the simple thing of deleting the offending images. (Or at least I THINK I have. Someone please let me know if the problem is still there.) In a few days I'll go back and reinsert the images CORRECTLY, but I lack the time right now. Also, my thanks go out to Ruby in North Carolina for her kind words of support and encouragement. Sadly, I've taken down the Producers donation page, because the film is now complete and locked, but the sentiment is muchly appreciated... :) She's offered to donate a more fitting cat-o-nine tails if our next(?) film will have Angelique's return. That may yet happen, but it's years off... Still, I will keep that in mind. :)
I should have news about our first screening(s) in
about a week... I'm awaiting confirmation (as is IMDB). :P :) |
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September 20, 2009 - Thanks to Latreash McCurdy we have a poster! Particular thanks go to her, because if it hadn't been for her parting advice, the credits text would have illegible... Latreash, you save me from myself. :D
In the meantime, I'm working on the outtake reel which is about 2 and a half minutes long... On one hand this surprised me, because we easily had twice the footage that we had for HRP, but on the other hand, things on the HRDWL set were always pretty tense... There was a lot more to coordinate this time around, so the atmosphere was more, well, professional, which is appropriate under the circumstances. Still, good times were had, and they'll be on the DVD next year. (As with the HRP gag reel, I may keep the outtakes as a DVD feature to thank those who actually went to the trouble of downloading the whole DVD.) We've also got alternate/extended scenes, audition footage and a few other goodies for the DVD. On one hand, I'm getting waaaay ahead of myself, as we're still pending screenings, but on the other hand, I'm a Hell of a lot more organized now than I was three years ago, so I've been planning the DVD for quite some time. Anyhow, I'm also intending to do a making-of again, called IN HELL'S WAY (which has the virtue of being interpreted in a few ways) but I'm still trying to decide on how to approach it differently than DEMONS TO OTHERS. For Pete's sake, even I get bored by DTO; there's only so much of my nasally drone that I can take, and I really apologize for how DTO turned out. So this time I'm thinking of more of a Production Diary style making-of than a "let's interview the Hell out of myself" marathon of conception through execution. I think the behind-the-scenes of the actual production would be far FAR FAR more interesting for people to watch than to have me drone endlessly on how the idea came about. We absolutely have the behind-the-scenes footage for at least 5 of the 7 days... A lot of this depends on whether I can get certain people (*cough*) interested in participating... We'll see... First things first... Screenings. I am
absolutely working on it. |
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September 9, 2009 - Alright, this is a little behind the news that I posted on our Facebook page, but for those who haven't heard, the movie was completed two nights ago, at around 11PM. "Labor Day Weekend" truly became about labor. The audio's complete, reasonably balanced and normalized to about -12dB, give or take... We have a few sound effects that creep towards -6, but it should much easier and consistent to listen to than the blaring audio of HELLRAISER: PROPHECY. (Thanks to Monica Deleeuw-Taylor of Microfilmmaker Magazine, whose advice from 2007 I finally had the opportunity to try and implement!) Anyhow, I'd write more, but I need a bit of a break... I'll be submitting HRDWL to a few genre conventions, but most venues for 2009 are either closed, too expensive to enter at this late date, a long shot, or some combination of the above. Well, that won't stop me from trying... If worse comes to worse, there's always 2010. The apocalypse isn't predicted for another 3 years, if you trust the ancient Mayans more than the Y2K fanatics, so that gives us some time to amass some screenings... Oh, I almost forgot to mention that we snuck in
one last crew member before I locked the credits... It's not on the website
yet, but I'd like to welcome
Latreash McCurdy
to our
crew as our graphic designer. I'm very grateful that she took on this last
minute assignment, pro bono, no less. Latreash will be designing the
poster layout for HRDWL... Thank you! |
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August 31, 2009 - Lots of news to report. Most of it is good, so I'll do the bad first (which has little to do with the film anyway.) First off, I'm recovering from a appendectomy, so my work on the film was limited this past week to Sunday, Monday and Saturday... I lost a lot of time this week. And now the good news: In truth, the epilogue, which I believe is more accurately described as a post-credits scene, is visually complete, but needs a spot of audio work. That goes onto the punch list. Secondly, the full runtime of the film, barring any minor changes, is 29 minutes and 19 seconds.
(Trivia: die-hard fans may recognize that the character of Natasha from HRP and HRDWL was named after this Natasha... And, it therefore follows that Lydia was named after...? :) )
So, where does the punch list stand? * Possibly Replacing one of Winter’s flash forward inserts in Act 4. We have less than two weeks left... I was admittedly distracted by sudden appendicitis I developed on Tuesday and the emergency appendectomy I had this past Wednesday, but we're almost there, and I'm not going to give in this close to completion... That's why they invented pain management. I'll still be recovering for the next day or two (in fact, I'm to meet with the surgeon tomorrow) but I'm intending to be back at work on Wednesday. Ironic, given that I'm working on a Hellraiser fan film. One would think that stabbing abdominal pains would be a muse of sorts... (Not so, trust me.) |
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August 09, 2009 - Enough of the visual effects for Act 6 are done that I felt comfortable sending the entirety of HRDWL to the composer for the remainder of the scoring. The runtime of HRDWL minus the rolling credits and minus the epilogue 26:23. The addition of the rolling credits and epilogue should make this about 30 minutes or so, which is admittedly shorter than I initially expected it would be, but that’s just the way the cards fell. :) I haven’t
heard back from Adonis that he’s received the file and/or the email, but I’ll
try him again on Tuesday. In the meantime, I’ll be going through the “punch
list,” which includes:
The first two shouldn’t take long. The audio editing is going to be a bit of work, but it’ll get there… And I’m pretty excited to try out chromakeying; I’ve never actually done it before, but what I’m looking to do is pretty simply, so I’m going to try. The rolling credits shouldn’t take long. There are one or two credits that I’m missing, but I’m going to ask John H. for those names. The rolling credit music is going to be an acoustic Russian song by one of my favorite singers, Natasha Borzilova, that she was kind enough to let me record on the spur of the moment in… Philadelphia (I think) …for use in this film. (She’s currently recording a full version for her new album, I believe...)
As for the epilogue, it’s pretty much in the same state that Act 5 was in before I completed it. It’s about 85% complete, but I hit Editor’s block in the last 15 seconds, so I put it down in favor of completing the rest of the film. In fact, if memory serves, the last time I worked on it was on an evening flight on an airplane; Hell, I don’t even remember when it was or where I was flying to… Anyhow, it needs to be shortened down a bit and its conclusion needs to be tackled. Well, I’m flying to sunny New Orleans for vacation on August 15th, so something tells me that that’s what I’ll be doing on that flight.
So, if Adonis
finishes scoring the film before the end of the month, the film should be
complete. Submitting for screenings is next, and it would be nice to have a
premiere for the cast/crew, but first things first… let’s tie up these loose
ends. |
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July 22, 2009 - The rough cut for Act 6 is done. All that's left are the rolling credits, and possibly the epilogue ending. The epilogue ending is not essential, and I may not finish it until the DVD version, for the purposes of deadline, but that remains to be seen. So, the unofficial tally is ~26 minutes from the opening frame to the beginning of the rolling credits. With credits and epilogue, my guess is that the total runtime will be close to 30 minutes. (Then again, I apparently have a tendency to overestimate runtimes, so maybe it'll be closer to 28 minutes, for what it's worth. :)
Here's the problem. I'm pushing for end of August completion, which is an idealistic goal. Nothing wrong with that, but seldom go exactly as planned. That being said, having a finished in LATE August makes it extremely difficult to submit for end-of-the-year screenings; the genre convention pickings are scant, and the looming deadlines of film festivals mean that submissions for 2009 are becoming more and more expensive with each passing day. At the end of August, most submissions to film festivals will run me $80 a pop, and with that there's of course no guarantee of a screening... So, while I'm aiming for a 2009 premiere, rather than a 2010 one, the practicalities of scheduling may preclude this goal. But I'll keep trying... Still, we're almost there. In other news, my congratulations to Mark Adams, a dear, dear friend from the UK (and proprietor of The Hellbound Web) who just had his first child. My best wishes to the happy parents and family! Also, congratulations to another old friend and
role model, Ralph Suarez, who has completed the DVD for his first feature,
PURGATORY COMICS (2009).
Many kudos to you for successfully completing this ambitious project! |
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July 15, 2009 - Alright, I'm CLOSE to schedule, but a little delayed... The good news is that video for Act 5 is done, and it's clocking in at about 3 minutes, 10 seconds. The bad news is that the remaining audio work (balancing, foley, etc.) has to wait until I can work on it on a weeknight at home. Can't do it on the train because my Asus EEE has really low sound output, particularly through the headphones. Add that to the sound of a New York subway car in transit, and I can't hear much of anything in detail. Great times. I still haven't had a chance to sit with Adonis' score and take detailed notes on the score yet... I'm hoping to do that tomorrow, but more likely it'll be next week sometime. In the meantime, I'm copying the Act 6 files
over to the EEE as we speak... I'm thrilled that I'm on the FINAL ACT!! We're
almost there... Still aiming for the end of August... I think we've got a
strong shot at making it... |
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July 7, 2009 - First off, I just finished listening to Adonis Aletras' score for the first four Acts. I'm just about ecstatic. It's mysterious, foreboding... I love it... Almost 20 minutes of footage, now with music. It's incredible what mood a score can evoke... Act 5 is in progress; I lost about 4 days of editing time because I left my computer at work over the long Independance Day (American holiday) weekend... It's absolutely getting there, though. Still aiming to finish it in the next two weeks or so... It's interesting going back to Act 5 after having edited so much of the rest of the film. You may recall that Act 5 ("The Hotel scene") was our first day of shooting, and it was also the first thing that I tried to edit. I can palpably feel the differences in what we produced later on... That first day of shooting was my very first time working with an actual D.P. and watching footage through a monitor around the corner rather than at the camera itself... John Hudak, Danny Weiss and I were getting to know each other and it was definitely a learning process, for me at least. Still, looking back on it, I definitely feel that we went a long way from the first day to the last day of shooting... Alright, enough nostalgic musing... Sleep, then
more editing on the train... |
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June 24, 2009 - Act 4 is in the can. Audio and video are done. Moving on to Act 5... Or should I say, moving
back to Act 5. This time I'll keep working on 5 until it's done,
withOUT jumping to and from other sections of the film... |
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Alright,
I’ve got a whole bunch to talk about… I’ll start with Act 4. 1) Act
4, the video is done. Effects, inserts and transitions are all in; I’ve got a
“to-do” list of 9 tweaks that need to be done. Although a few of the tweaks
are video, most of them are audio tweaks. That should be done by the end of
next week. I have to scour the Internet for a few sounds. It’s not difficult,
but it does take time, so I’m determined to put some time aside this week to
do that… Some of
the sound effects, however, are needed as flashbacks to HELLRAISER: PROPHECY.
So, I pulled the old Q:\ out of mothballs and plugged her in. Let me
tell ya', I have no idea how the Hell I edited that whole film using Windows
Movie Maker. It wasn’t until I was looking through the directories for specific files that it dawned on me that back when I was editing HRP I had not yet figured out how to use video/audio TRACKS, rather than editing everything onto a single track. Damn, I made things difficult for myself back then. (And it makes finding specific audio files difficult NOW.) In my own defense, I had nothing else to compare it to… It wasn’t until about a week before I-CON that I actually assembled the individually edited segments, using Adobe Premiere Pro for the very first time. Still, it’s interesting seeing how differently I approach editing now than when I was first working on HRP. No doubt I’ll go through this again during my next project. If I do another Making-of, I’m determined to either learn how to use Avid Express or a more recent version of Adobe Premiere... (Not a big Sony Vegas fan. I only use it for pull-downs.) 2) The
entire assembly from opening through the transition from Act 4 to Act 5 is 19
minutes, 16 seconds. Act 5 is looking to be 5-7 minutes, which already pushes
us past the length of HRP… I’ve sent
this incomplete assembly to Adonis Aletras to begin work on the score… The
current gameplan is: finish Act 4 by the end of the month, Act 5 by mid-
July, and Act 6 by the end of August. Hopefully, the music will be on par
with the schedule, in which case I’ll start sending it out for screenings
around September/October. It would be nice to have a few 2009 screenings to
keep my promise on having it as a 2009 release… |
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May 21,
2009 - I
was going to put up a screencap from the first half of Act 4, but then
decided that I was jumping the gun, mainly because the final edit isn't done
yet... To be brief: |
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May 12, 2009 - I spent some time going through the Act 4 footage and figured that there are about 35 sound effect insertion points that need to be filled. Not to worry, many of those need the same effects, i.e. ~10 of those need a transition "whoosh," 2 needs screams, and a few need some of the sounds from HELLRAISER: PROPHECY. "Sounds of Angelic War, " "Natasha screaming" and the like... Restoring
the files from Act 5 to this laptop was relatively easy. I didn't have any
problems with file paths or anything like that, so I'm picking up right where
I left off, except that I now know how I want to cut together at least one of
the two problem spots. I haven't focused on the second (final) problem spot
in that Act yet... One step at a time. More importantly, this kind of
reinforces to me that sometimes all I need to do is step away from a problem
for while to get a fresh perspective upon returning. |
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May 5, 2009 - The second half of Act 4 is cut together, visual effects and all. This montage adds 2:28 to the runtime, and is looking good. Now comes a bit of sound editing, transition sounds and the like. I'll be picking up one of those handy little Asus EEE 1000HA's (or 1000HEB's) in the next week or so. (Thank goodness for gift cards...) The small size of the laptop with its reasonably large hard drive will allow me to actually do some video editing on the subway to and from work. It won't be as good as the 3-hr round-trips I used to have every day when I took the railroad, but at least it'll give me back some of the 90-minute roundtrip during the day before my loving wife starts her daily tirade (upon my arrival home) about cleaning the house. The goal is to finish the sound editing to this second half, as well as finally finishing that last minute of Act 5 (which you may recall was about 80% cut before I began suffering from Editor's Block) on this cumbersome laptop at home, and editing the first half of Act 4 entirely on the more portable Asus. To summarize: Act 1 - All
but music is done (2:00) The editing
pace/consistency of the past week is the pace I need to maintain. |
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March 31, 2009 - Alright, it's been three more months, and what's going on? Well, you see the previous news item listed below, the sentence after "life circumstances." All of those items will be checked off about three weeks from now. As you can imagine, that's been taking up most of my waking, and indeed, some of my dreaming hours as well. That being said, I have indeed continued working on the film, and despite now being officially behind schedule, we're continuing forward, self-imposed deadlines be damned. First off, I was surprised to realize that for the past three months, the Christmas news item below was talking about my work on Act 2, when in reality what I've been working on has been Act 4. Act 2 is done and has been for months now. I've corrected the information in the previous post. Secondly, I promised screenshots, and I'll put a few below, but because the scene is a flashback montage, the images won't seem to connect at all. That will, of course, be abrogated by the voiceover narration, which provides the bulk of the exposition of the film, all in this Act. So, the
rough cut for the flashback sequence is clocking in at around 3 minutes (it's
not done yet). But, here's a taste of what I have so far. Also, I want to draw your attention to another film by a friend and colleague, which I've mentioned in passing more than once. Mark Adams' THE HELLRAISER CHRONICLES: LIFEBRINGER, which is the third entry in THE HELLRAISER CHRONICLES anthology of Hellraiser fan films deserves a look. I've been entrusted with trying to submit the film for scree ning here in the U.S. and have been woefully lax in doing so, because of my other personal commitments, and that's a situation that I continue to try to rectify... Until I get married, things are going to stay hectic, progress on this film is going to remain slow, if steady, but it's right around the corner, and I'm going to try to be a bit less thinly spread... Thanks for all of your continued support and patience... Alright,
back to editing... |
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December 25, 2008 - "If I don't get Internet access and post something soon, they're going to think that I've either died or abandoned the film." (Neither of which are true.) This is roughly the conversation that I had with my fiancee two weeks ago, and yes it has taken me that long to get Internet access. See, I actually moved to a new residence at the end of November, and have been engrossed in extensive renovations almost continuously since then. (The renovations were largely completed three days ago.) So, November was almost taken up with preparing to move, and December was almost entirely taken up with doing renovations while essentially living on a construction site. As you can imagine, it leaves one somewhat isolated from the rest of the world. That being said, there has been progress, even if that progress has been somewhat delayed due to life circumstances. (What can I say? New job, new house, renovations, book chapter authorship, impending wedding and film editing all within a six month period leaves one with a need to prioritize.) So, where do we stand right now? The last half of Act 4 is mid-roughcut. Most of the dialog is voiceover narration by Winter, and that audio has been cleaned and fully assembled. Right now, about half of the inserts into the scene (which include flashbacks involving the Archangel Simon, Amy Klein, etc.) are assembled. There's still a lot of work to be done, and though it's being done a bit slower this month than in months past, it is definitely being done consistently... Thanks, all, for your continued patience and support... and happy holidays. Screencaps
from Act 4 to follow soon... |
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November
08, 2008 - Alright, I ended up
taking an extra week to finish not only Act 2 but also to clean up the audio
to Act 3. I've put together the first 14 minutes of the film and have sent it
off to Adonis for scoring... So, I'm waiting to hear back his thoughts. In the meantime, I'm moving forward to do Act 4. When that's done, I polish off Act 5, and add the one last scene to work I've already done on Act 6... Still aiming for the end of January to complete the workprint. So far so good... So very busy... |
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October 23, 2008 - Trying hard to stick to schedule, but it's gonna be close. I think I'll make it; it gives me eight days to finish Act 2. Almost all of the visual effects are complete. (Kudos again to April, Pete, Monica and young Spencer for the great performances, and especially to John and Danny for the excellent lighting that you'll see below.) The only visual that's left is another shot that needs some CGI blood, and for that, we turn once again to Michael Joseph, who's working on it as we speak. While he's working on that, I'll be working on audio... It needs a bit of filling, a bit of cleaning up, and a few sound effects. It should be an interesting week. There are a few surprises in this Act, including some cenobite footage that I hadn't expected to put into it, but I'm pretty excited about it and am pleased with the way it looks, so I'm going to hold off on posting the screencaps and let people see the cenobite clips after the film is done. So, here's a few screencaps from the final cut of Act 2. None of these should come as a big surprise...
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October 09, 2008 - Just a quick note this time... Wanted to inform that the (very) rough cut of Act 2 is assembled. It's clocking in at 6 minutes, 11 seconds. This number will fluctuate by about 5 seconds or so in either direction, depending on visual effects, changes, etc., if I don't decide to change something a bit more radical, like pacing. Will keep posting updates about progress with a cleaner cut... Most
importantly, a hearty congratulations to friend, colleague and fellow
Hellraiser fanfilmmaker Mark Adams, for completing and releasing his first
(of, hopefully, many) Hellraiser fan films, THE HELLRAISER CHRONICLES:
LIFEBRINGER (2008). This British production is the newest episode in the
anthology that began with RN Millward's THE HELLRAISER CHRONICLES: A QUESTION
OF FAITH (2003). Bravo and kudos to the cast and crew of LIFEBRINGER!
Information on the film and the DVD may be found at
http://www.cenobite.com/forum/showthread.php3?threadid=7618 |
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October 04, 2008 - First off, a warm and grateful welcome to our newest Co-Producer, Mr. Brad Garris. Thank you, sir, for your generous support and kind words. :) Secondly, on to news about Act 2. I'm about 65% done with the rough cut, and that 65% is clocking in at about 4 min, 15 sec. I'm not sure how we did it that day, but we had about 25 setups, about 20 of which are being used in the cut. (I'm exhausted and my brain hurts.) Again, my kudos to D.P. John Hudak, gaffer Dan Weiss and the talented actors and crew who volunteered on that grueling day. Now, even when the rough cut IS done, there's still 1) lighting corrections, 2) sound editing and 3) visual effects that need to be done before I can send this all to the composer. I'm aiming to have the rough cut done by the end of the coming week, but I'm starting a new job on Monday, and I'm not sure how that will factor into my existing plans. That being said, the gameplan is to have Act 2 tidied up by Halloween, at which point the footage of the first three contiguous acts gets sent to the composer, and I dive into Act 4. Still aiming for the end of January for the full assembly (minus music.) I was going to include screen captures, but because I haven't corrected most of the lighting yet, I don't want to throw in any final caps, but here's two more screencaps that were between takes. (#1 - I show Monica how she should restrain Spencer. #2 - Pete and April after one of the takes came to an abrupt halt... Hint: this one's going in the gag reel.)
P.S. All this
editing while riding the Long Island Railroad has made me long for the days of
editing poolside at a resort in Curacao... :) |
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September 16, 2008 - Alright, I'm back on the horse, beginning the editing for Act 2. It takes place in Winter's apartment and contains a great deal of background and exposition. The questions of who Winter actually is and how he came to be involved with the Lament Configuration get answered here.
It's too early to tell (because I've only begun to edit this act together) but it's looking like this act will run about 8 minutes or so. All in all,
I'd say that we're doing pretty well. Acts 1 and 3 are done. Acts 5 & 6
have been (very) roughly cut. I'm starting Act 2 now, which leaves Act 4.
Still, we're on track to get the assembled film over to the composer by the
end of January. |
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September 01, 2008 - For those of you living in the States, Happy Labor Day. :) Speaking of labor, one might wonder, in looking at my last news posting, whether or not I've actually been working at all. Rest assured that I haven't been on the coast since the end of July, and that this past month has been spent finishing Act 3, which I am happy to say is now complete. So, some stats: Scenes 12, 13, 13B, C, D and 14 were shot at four locations, and run at 5:53, bringing the total runtime of the edited footage so far to 7 minutes, 54 seconds. In debating between finishing the last 30% of Act 5 or going for broke with Act 2, I'm aiming for the latter. When Act 2 is complete, that will give us the first 40% (or so) of the film contiguously complete, which I can give to Adonis Aletras for scoring. Right now, it's still piecemeal, so I'll try to bridge the gap. I've got
some screencaps from Act 3 below, hopefully not enough to give too much away.
In truth, I thought Act 3 was done this past Wednesday, but when I decided to
view it on a TV screen (for scale), I found a few items that needed
adjusting... The most notable adjustment was the use of a moderately tight
shot that was filmed outdoors. It turns out that there was dust on the lens,
and the particular angle that we shot at had the dust glowing from the
reflecting sunlight, tracking all over the shot. And though I spent two days
arguing vociferously with Adobe AfterEffects in an attempt to "Remove
Grain" from that shot, it was utterly futile. My attempts to remove the
dust also removed any detail from Winter's face, and while I could go and
manually remove the dust speck-by-speck, that would take the better part of
2-4 weeks that could be better spent on further editing. In the end, I
replaced that shot with a wide shot, which I'm slightly less happy with, but
the scene ultimately still works... The resulting cut actually adds a layer
of symbolism to the imagery, which works for me. Still, I've retained the
original cut (dust and all) for either an Alternate Scene on the DVD (way
ahead) or to edit out the dust and cut it back in, in the future (the DVD
version.) Either way, it will be seen someday... My immediate
plans for the next week are actually to wrap up the PASTICHE OF THE DEAD DVD
as best I can to get it off my sodding hard drive. This should give me enough
space to work with Act 2, which is fairly long, and probably has a greater
number of shots than any other Act in the film... but again, I'm eager to do
this, if for no other reason than to work with the Bobbi Merchant, Jack
Merchant and Angelique footage. |
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July 22,
2008 - Well,
doing editing every morning/evening on the Long Island Railroad cannot begin
to hold a candle to doing editing at a resort on the south coast of the
island of Curacao, located off the northern coast of Venezuela between
snorkeling excursions. Good times, indeed. good times. (Here's me editing.) Anyhow, I lied. It turns out that with the PASTICHE OF THE DEAD DVD remaining incomplete I have a limited amount of space on this laptop's hard drive, and I couldn't fit all of the source files for Act 2 onto here, so I decided to move on to Act 3 instead, the library scene. Having worked on this on and off for the past few days, I cannot begin to express what a relief it is to do editing rather than visual effects. (That, and the island setting helps. And the alcohol.) Here are a few screencaps. So far, so good, only two obstacles so far: 1) having worked with the Act 1 audio previously and now switching to Act 3 makes me wish that we could have secured Allison Jackson to do sound on the entire film, rather than just Act 1/6... Still, under the circumstances, it's going pretty well. 2) I've got a single "crossing-the-stage-line" issue to resolve, which I'll come back to, but for now, I'd like to finish the rough cut of this act... Will keep people posted...
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July 16, 2008 - First off, many thanks to our new associate producers Darrell Ray Herman and Jose Leitao. Thanks for coming aboard! Act 1: As I've mentioned before, the visuals are done, and it's about bloody time. It's been two months of continuous work specifically on this Act (particularly Scene 02), and now I'm actually happy with it. The audio is done as well, and a special thank you goes out to Charles Hall who emailed in after the last news update and recommended that I visit SoundDogs.com, where I found the two sound effects I needed. Mr. Hall, a hearty thank you, sir. Boulder hits, rocks and debris, hm? Never would have come up with that on my own... So, I sent Act 1 to Adonis Aletras (our composer) a few days ago... We've had some hearty discussions about Because there's so much of the film left to go, I've left it up to him to decide whether to work his magic now on what's done, or to wait until more of the film is more available for him... Right now, there's no rush on music, just a rush on editing. And we know
whose responsibility editing is. |
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July 03, 2008 - So, it's about time I give an update. The news is good. The
video from Act 1 is essentially complete. It's been a long process of
frame-by-frame editing, but at this point I'm reasonably satisfied with the
result. (Remember, folks, five seconds of footage is still about 150
individual frames to modify, even if it'll be pulled down to 24fps later on.)
All overlays are likewise done, and all that's left is a bit of foley work.
Specifically, I need the following: Chattering teeth, blood-filled scream
(below), exploding wall and a short bit of ADR. The response we've had on Facebook has been far better than I'd hoped... We've got over 200 fans now! Also, I'm almost done paying off the rental fees on the equipment from the shoot... Many thanks to my D.P. John Hudak for his faith and patience. I'd also like to shout out to our #1 fan, Michael Waskelis who has thankfully reminded me that another Producer Newsletter is probably quite due... I will definitely try to put a more comprehensive update together with a few exclusive screencaps for them, as time allows. Lastly, and
most importantly, I bid a fond "until-next-time" to Hermann Eppert
(in pale green, below, between takes adjusting Drummond's costume, with Pete
looking on), who plays "Ivan" and who helped us with the production
design for Day 5. Not only is he a gifted actor, but he drew upon his prior
experience as a furniture maker and volunteered his time and skills to draw
us a set of blueprints to use for constructing the Pandora Estate set...
Hermann, I wish you well on your return to Germany! Don't be a stranger...
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May 29,
2008 - Act
1 proceeds. To say that I'm thrilled to have Michael Joseph aboard as Visual
Effects designer is an understatement... He rendered us a fantastic blood
eruption from Winter's mouth, and a fantastic chain to follow... (If you're
reading this, I'm assuming that you've already seen the original HELLRAISER:
DEADER, so you already should know what happens at the end.) In either case,
I threw in some color correction, some digital blood on his robe, some motion
tracking (halfway there) and a timecode overlay and we've got ourselves a
good work in progress... Anyway, I wasn't really looking to show these cards quite so soon, but the truth is that I've been spending a lot of time tweaking this, and I did want you to know that there's definitely progress, and again, that my absence from updates is not an absence from work. It may be a long bloody road, so to speak, but believe me, every day we're getting one step closer... Act 1 -
Completion of remaining Pinhead adjustments (motion tracking for first five
seconds of footage) and sound editing. |
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May 14, 2008 - Well, it's about 1 in the morning, I've got to get ready for work in five hours, and here I am writing a quick update. Today was interesting, as it marked my return to Adobe AfterEffects, to delete a lighting rig that appeared in the top of the frame in Act 1. It's been a while. A long while. But, it's like riding a bike. So, my meeting with Michael (Visual Effects) is tomorrow. I'm very confident that he'll do a great job with the single blood-effect in Act 1. After that gets dropped in, all that's left is a timecode overlay, some foley work (recorded my chattering teeth just a few hours ago) and sound cleanup. I'll send the rough cut of these scenes off to Adonis (Composer) but I'm not certain we need the music this early in the assembly. Really, I'd just like for him to get a feel for the mood of the film, as it develops. Quite pleased with Act 1. Next I'll re-attack Act 6/Finale. I had some interesting ideas on how to address the continuity issue that's remaining, in a way that will be visually interesting, and much less cut-and-dry than how it was scripted. Some sleep
would be nice. |
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April 28, 2008 - One hopes that silence is not mistaken for absence. Apologies for having been so lax on adding news lately... Well, to begin with, editing is going fairly smoothly. Currently in the pipeline:
ACT FIVE - The hotel room scene. This was the first day of shooting, and arguably the most problematic. The rough cut is almost done, all but the end of the scene, and several more insert flashes need to be added as well... ACT SIX - So, we filmed two different endings for the film. Originally, the goal was to include one ending after the end credits, and save the other ending as a "supplemental ending" to be released on the Internet or with the DVD. Problem is that I really like both endings, and they're not mutually exclusive. So, I've threaded one ending into the end credits, and am editing together the supplemental ending to run after the end credits finish rolling. That being said, the first ending is done, but I may need to shoot some inserts to bridge some continuity problems in the supplemental ending... We'll see... So, believe
me, much is indeed being done... |
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March 28, 2008 - A few quick things of note... Editing effort continues; we've added a Gallery and Links page to the website. But most importantly... ...the
trailer is done! You can see it at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npExTO0fSxw |
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March 20, 2008 - I'm very gratified to announce that our crew is now joined (at a significant remove) by Cypriot composer Adonis Aletras. And he's actually IN Cyprus, not just FROM Cyprus. This will be my second Internet scoring collaboration, and I'm excited to have Mr. Aletras aboard. Our first job will be to complete the trailer, and then we'll move on to the rest of the film. I've started a bit of editing in Act 5, which was the first day of shooting. That will likely be the first scene to be done... As to the
website, I'll be adding a Links page soon (note: actress
April McCullough has launched her
website), as well as a FAQ page, mainly to address comments/concerns that I
anticipate fans will have... Please note that the Credits page is incomplete,
and does not include several crew who joined us for Day 6. John has actually
compiled the list of those not yet included, and I hope to have those up soon
as well. I may put up some additional photos here soon, but I'll likely put
existing photos in the Gallery section (which I'm also working on) when I
have a chance... Will keep you posted, especially on the trailer! |
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March 13, 2008 - Well, the video for the trailer is done, now I'm cleaning up the audio as best I can... The ad for a composer that I put up on Craigslit a little over 24 hours ago has met with surprisingly prolific response! It'll take me a while to go through the submissions, but it's good to know that I have options... Many thanks to all who have submitted so far. The truth is, I haven't had time to look/listen yet... I'm actually on deadline for a website launch tomorrow for something else entirely... Just finished. For now. :) On the other hand, I've located the missing behind-the-scenes tape from Day 6! The footage is not lost after all! :) Right then, so a trailer should definitely be ready either at the end of this month, or early next month... (In fairness, the reason for the quick turnaround is that this trailer has been planned since before we started filming. So it was kind of a leveraged project.) Anyhow, I'm
off to Monster Mania X this weekend, but I'll be back to work on Monday... |
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March 10, 2008 - So, there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that all of the behind-the-scenes video footage for Day 6 was lost. Right now, our best guess is that we taped over it for Day 7. Ah well... The good news is that Christina Purpi has sent me 250 behind-the-scenes pictures, some of which I'll share here. (Thank you, Christina!) In other news, Allison, John and I are meeting up next week to transfer the DAT footage for use in editing. That notwithstanding, I've already begun editing together the trailer. It's about a third of the way done. I'm hoping to have the video set by the end of the weekend, and the audio set by the end of the weekend after. So, hopefully, by the end of the month, we'll have a trailer. My next step, as I continue editing the film proper, will be to find a composer. Our tentative composer is still tentative, and with all gratitude and respects to him, I'll likely begin the process of looking elsewhere. ...but I will say that it's a damn relief to be done with production. :) Right then:
pictures! (Note: 1) they're not really in order, and 2) Don't get the wrong
idea: this day was an insane amount of work and time for everyone involved,
but these scenes are by NO MEANS the center of the story. Remember: The
Cenobite scenes are crucial, but ultimately this is a story about
Winter...)
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March 03,
2008 - Well,
it’s done. Production has concluded, following three very successful days of
hard work by over two dozen people. |
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February 25, 2008 - Alright, I would have posted sooner, but I
was vomitting profusely most of yesterday. Well, vomitting and other bodily
ejections that you probably don't want to hear about...
I'll have
more costume pictures for you shortly (tomorrow?)... I'm grabbing the very
last costume pieces that we've been missing (fishnets for
"Despina," gold-rimmed sunglasses for "Joey," gloves for
"Spike" and "Chatterer," etc.) Sets are
about 60% built. Those 60% will be painted tomorrow, and the remaining 40%
will be built, we'll see if we can get to painting them... Some would say
that this is last minute, I say that it's the price of doing a fan film of
this scale on zero budget, with essentially 2-3 people working on it after
work. Still, either way, it will be done. :) The good
news is that all fifteen cast (which includes background and understudies)
have checked in for Saturday, so we're good to go. I'm working on confirming
the remaining crew, as well as cast for Sunday. Right, back
to work... Three days left for prep... |
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February
23, 2008 - Set
construction continues... We have 12 wooden frames, 12 sheets of sheet rock
and 6 days left.
All but two
or three people have checked in, so we're in pretty good shape... A lot to
take care of between now and then. Drummond, Christie, S. Plum and I are
meeting in Brooklyn tomorrow for makeup/costume fitting. |
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February
17, 2008 - Alright,
we've had to reschedule some of our scenes (Act 3B) to March 2, due to an
illness, and we've therefore decided to combine the NYC scenes into one day
(March 1), to reduce transportation, location and makeup costs. The bright
side is that we really did some good work today... Pictures follow below. :) Right, with
two weeks left, we're constructing set pieces in earnest for the Pandora
Estate scene. Christie is coming down to do makeup/costume fittings with
Drummond on Feb 24th, and we're good to go!
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February
11, 2008 -
Or, again, more like 1:16AM on February 12... Well, our
four-day marathon of filmwork is done. :) I'm exhausted, but exhilarated that
we're more than halfway done with filming. The past four days were grueling,
but we've covered most of the script. Today's
thanks go, of course, to John, Dan W. and Pete, but more importantly to
Allison Jackson who joined us today as Sound Recordist (she will be back on
March 1/2) and Brittany Mosher who stepped into the role of "Natasha."
Also, innumerable thanks to Katie of Mamma Cucina Restaurant for being so
hospitable. We were very disruptive to the restaurant during the dinner rush,
and despite our blocking of the hallway to the bathroom, they were not only
exceedingly kind, they even agreed to lower the volume of the music to
minimize its presence on our audio track. The large number of patrons did
make things challenging from an audio standpoint, but in the end, it ended up
being an ideal location for us. Thank you again, all! It wasn't the easiest
day, but we all pulled through! Not too many
pictures from today, but here are a few: (#1: Brittany Mosher goes blonde for
the role of "Natasha." #2: Brittany and Pete before we got started.
#3: Back row - Dan Weiss, Jonathan Kui, Pete Mizzo. Front row - Allison
Jackson, John Hudak, Katie of Mamma Cucina's and Brittany Mosher)
Still to
come: Re-storyboarding for Act 3B (library now, not antique store), set
construction for Act 1/6. To everyone
involved over the past four days: THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR HARD WORK. Alright, I'm
ready for some damn sleep... Update: I
was going to hold off on this picture from yesterday to save for a later
date, but Pete requested that it be put up, and how can I not, in thanks to
his hard work:
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February
10, 2008 - Well,
more like 1:30AM on February 11, but who's counting? Today was
our longest shoot by far, and probably the longest on the entire projected
schedule. (March 1/2 will be more complicated, but the days won't be as
long.) We shot over 2 hours of film today, covering all of Act 2 and the
beginning of Act 3. It was extremely productive, and again, my thanks go to S.
Plum, S.T. Kui, Kerri McKenna, April, Pete, Spencer (and Lane) Hall,
Monica and, of course, Dan and John. The most
important thanks of the day, however, go to Erin Coughlin and family, who
allowed us to take over their house to film all day. Erin, I am deeply
grateful, truly. Well, we
started at about 10:30AM and wrapped at about 8:30PM, which was a good, solid
day. Tomorrow, call time isn't until a leisurely 2PMish, but I'm definitely
looking forward to working with Brittany Mosher as our new Natasha. (She's
come all the way down from Ithaca, NY to film with us!) Extra thanks go to
Katie and Michael of
Mamma Cucina Restaurant! Once again,
Erin: our entire cast and crew thank you for making today possible. Here are
some pictures from today:
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February
09, 2008 - Day
two is complete. We got absolutely everything we needed today, and we
finalized arrangements with Mama Cucina Restaurant in Lake Ronkonkoma for
photography on Monday. Many thanks to S. Plum and S.T. Kui for making today
possible, and to Seema, Nadia, Dan M., Spencer T. and John H. for making
today complete. Tomorrow
will prove to be an extremely busy and extremely challenging day, as it is
our most packed filming day yet. Let's do it. In the
meantime, here are some images from today. (In chronological order, from left
to right: 1) Seema Ramji in costume as the Puzzle Guardian. She'll next film
with us again on Feb 17th. 2) Nadia Suen at the end of day, on location, as
Yolanda. She'll film with us again on March 1. 3) Jonathan Kui, S.T. Kui and
John Hudak holding up a scafolding that was used for... well, it would take
too long to explain. This shot actually finished what was left of the blood
from the gallon we originally bought for Hellraiser: Prophecy. 4) Dan Moody
as the Archangel Simon, John Hudak, Spencer Teplin as the late Colonel
Hawthorne and Jonathan Kui on set at the end of the night. Dan will be
filming with us again, as well as helping with makeup, on March 1. Spencer
may help us out with set construction as well.)
A very
special thanks, which I shamefully almost forgot, goes out to Hermann Eppert
for helping design an incredible set for the Pandora Estate. I was blown away
by the work he's done, all for the love of the project, and I hope that we
will at LEAST come close to what he's drawn out for us... We're certainly
going to give it our best! |
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February
02, 2008 - Day
one of Principal Photography is complete. And boy, was it memorable. I suppose
it began a little before midnight, when Siu-Tsang and I left for Manhattan to
pickup our D.P. (John Hudak Jr.) and the equipment. It was nothing short of
miraculous that we were able to fit three tripods, three C-stands, the video
camera, a monitor, about half a mile of cables and extension cords and all
three of us into one Saturn Ion. (S.T. is a wizard at packing in.) (Sadly,
none of us had a camera on us.) Gaffer Dan Weiss followed us in to Ronkonkoma
and we checked in the equipment at the hotel at about 2:30AM... About four
hours later, I was back on the road to Manhattan to pick up actors Hermann,
Oleg and Pete in Manhattan. We made it back to the hotel at about 9:30AM,
where we met up with actress Meagan, makeup artists Pam and Dan M., Erin C.
and Craft Services Siu-Tsang Kui and S. Plum. So, it was a pretty crowded
hotel room. The day was
a very strong success, and we captured about 90% of what we needed. We're
still scheduling out the remaining inserts; they'll probably be shot on March
2nd, but the plans haven't been finalized yet. So, I don't
have very many pictures on me yet (I was a bit occupied), though I'll
endeavor to get a few up here in the next days, and maybe a screenshot or two
as well. In the meantime, here are two quick photos. (Left: Pam and Dan Moody
apply makeup to Meagan Moir, as "Despina," while Oleg Volinsky and
Pete Mizzo look on from outside. Right: Director of Photography John Hudak
Jr. sets up a kino with a green gel.)
UPDATE:
Here are a few more. (#1: Jonathan S. Kui directs Pete Mizzo and Meagan Moir.
#2: Oleg Volinsky, Gaffer Dan Weiss and John Hudak. #3: Pete, Meagan and
Oleg.)
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January 30,
2008 - Three
days left and counting. I'd like welcome aboard Dan Weiss, our gaffer and
associate producer, who comes to us by way of John Hudak. Our deepest thanks
go to them both for their assistance! Plans for
this Saturday are pretty much set, as you can see from the pictures of
provisions, some of the props/equipment (not including John's camera kit and
Dan's lighting kit), and some of the costumes.
We're
already pretty deep into planning for the weekend of Feb 9/10/11.
Transportation details have been released for the ninth, though I'm still
waiting to hear back from one person. The plans for the 11th are done (though
haven't been communicated yet), and I'm working on firming up details for the
10th. On the bright side, the storyboards for Act 2 are done. There's 73
frames, but here are a few:
Three days and counting to begin production on a project that I've been planning for about two years... Good times. (I'll sleep next month. :) )
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January 22,
2008 - Two
weeks until we start filming, and things are going well. We are all set for
Feb 02. Transportation, food, props, equipment and actors are all good to go.
Our
Myspace page is up and running and the Facebook
page is almost up. We've also pleased to have aboard Allison Jackson as sound
recordist. Additional thanks go to our newest contributors, Steven Feldman,
Stoney Buckler and my friends at Auricle Media, as well as our newest (and
first!) Co-Producer, Geoff Varney. Less than
two weeks to go! |
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January 08,
2008 - With
less than a month before principal photography commences, we have a lot going
on behind the scenes. Most
importantly, heartfelt thanks go to Pete Mizzo, Jaclyn Reid and John Hudak
for helping me out with the schedule. The complete schedule is as follows:
So, with
that in mind, we're almost good to go. Hermann Eppert and I are meeting on
Wednesday, and he's going to give me some advice on my set piece ideas for
the March shooting dates. Christie Bialowas contacted me today with progress
on the two cenobite costumes. (Two, because the Spike costume is still here
from HRP). S. Plum and I went shopping for cases of water, food and soda on
sale this weekend. Remember, folks, it may be a low budget independent fan
film, but the least we need to do is make sure that the people who are
volunteering their time aren't hungry and thirsty. When I
asked everyone if anyone had any nutritional requirements I should adhere to
for food services during the shoot, I did receive this: "I'm
glad you mentioned dietary needs. Mine are as follows: HEHEHEHE
outSTANDing. I did have
to do some rewriting this week, however. The antique store scene isn't
working quite as planned. An antique store which gave me the tentative
go-ahead a few months ago backed out. (They decided that a film with
"Hellraiser" in the title and the words "pleasure,"
"desire" and "temptation" in the dialog would not
"work" for them. Not kidding. Nice.) That being said, Ms. Plum and
I scouted out about half a dozen other antique stores in a twenty mile radius
about two weeks ago. Of the ones that actually weren't closing down, one was
not very sanguine about the prospect, and the other would allow us to film on
a Monday. Unfortunately, asking volunteers to donate a second Monday to film
an unpaid nonprofit project (with Feb 11 being the first Monday they were
asked to donate) was not really tenable. So, the simplest thing to do was to
rewrite the scene. Losing an antique store as a setting takes away from a bit
of the ambience, but under the circumstances, I'm just grateful that
everyone's still aboard. Our Myspace
page is pretty much complete and viewable at
http://www.myspace.com/hrdwinterslament/ Also, with
production underway in February, this is the last month to make donations for
producer credits at their current levels. When February comes, Special Thanks
will go up to $30, Associate Producers will go up to $50, Co-Producers (which
we have none of yet :) ) will go up to $100, and Executive Producers will go
up to $150. So, our
immediate concern is securing the remaining props, costumes and transportation
for the Feb 2 and Feb 9 shoots, and working out of the design of the set
pieces for the Pandora Estate scene in March. |
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December
17, 2007 - Heh,
this prop came in the mail today... Yes, we're definitely on our way...
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December
14, 2007 -
Alright,
so, what news? Well, to begin with, the latest Producer's newsletter was
completed two nights ago, with, among other things, a cast/character
comparison, a link to a short clip from April McCullough's audition (for
Marla). So, to our producers, enjoy!
As for
shooting schedule, we've finalized our third weekend out of four. The last
weekend of shooting will be the weekend of March 1st, 2008, at a rehearsal
studio in Manhattan. (I had originally scheduled us for Mar 22/23, which
would have been ideal. Thankfully, Christie Bialowas warned me, within 12
hours of emailing out the dates, that March 23, 2008 is Easter. (A bit early,
no?) So, the only other suitable dates are the weekend of March 1/2. Also, a
restaurant scene featuring Natasha (from HRP, now played by Brittany Mosher)
will be shot on Monday, Feb 11 at a restaurant called Mama Cucina's in Lake
Ronkonkoma. Many thanks to Katie, one of the two owners, for being incredibly
generous and flexible! Three
weekends scheduled. One left to go...
Costumes
are about 40% done, props as well... It's all coming together. :) In other
news, I apologize for not mentioning an extremely artistic Hellraiser fan
film named
Lemarchand Scrolls. Please give your support and
encouragement to Hellraiser artist Lich, the filmmaker. Wonderfully done...
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November
20, 2007 - Marla,
Marla, Marla... Difficult
choice, Marla. I met with our final Marla candidate this afternoon, and with
that being the last of the auditions, I have to say that the decision on
Marla is going to take a few more days... We've narrowed it down to three
very, very talented actresses, each of
On the other hand, I'd like to introduce
Hermann Eppert (left, who hails from Austria!) as our Ivan, and Drummond
Doroski (right) as Pinhead. The funny thing is that Drummond actually came in
to read for Ivan, but upon the merest bit of reflection it was very clear
that his presence (both theatrical and physical) would make him an excellent
foil for Pete Mizzo's Winter. It will be a clash of the titans, indeed, but
we all already know who wins that particular battle. I A quick
shout-out to my trans-Atlantic friend Mark Adams (director of the forthcoming
THE HELLRAISER CHRONICLES:
LIFEBRINGER) over at
The Hellbound Web for keeping its
members so well abreast of the latest news... Also worth
mentioning are a few videos out there that I'll link to later (when I'm not
doing this on a dial-up connection).
HELLBENT: A HELLRAISER CHRONICLE,
one of the earliest Hellraiser fan films, has surfaced on YouTube. A fan film
based on the Hellraiser comic "Wordsworth," with the same title was
made just this past summer and is definitely worth perusing. Internationally
renowned (and I daresay infamous) Hellraiser aficionado Jose Leitao (of
The Hellraiser Gallery) has posted a
negative of Clive Barker's original
THE FORBIDDEN for
study, also on YouTube. (I'll post links later. I'm doing this from memory,
so if I've missed anyone, my apologies.) News on
Marla casting will follow by the beginning of next week, once a decision has
been made... |
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November
18, 2007 - So,
a lot can happen in a few days. First off, John Hudak (D.P.) and I had an
extremely productive meeting earlier this week, where several issues were
discussed, including camera and lighting equipment that's available to us,
the possibilities of securing a soundstage for two days to film both Marla's
interlude segments as well as the Pandora Estate re-creation. These
possibilities are very exciting and are in the works. The good news is that
even if a particular soundstage falls through, there's another soundstage
that I might be able to secure, and, failing that, Studio A or Studio B and
Center Stage NY (which is very affordable!) may also be an alternative. In
short, we WILL have a location to film the Pandora Estate scenes. The bad
news is that the re-creation will be somewhat minimalist. This isn't exactly
"bad" news, but it's more disappointing than saying, "Yes, we
will be re-creating the set replete with gothic stone architecture and columns."
But, with a slightly modified, minimalist set, we'll be relying upon the
actors, the set pieces and the lighting to establish for the discerning
audience exactly where and, more importantly, when we are. Still, the
possibilities are exciting, nonetheless. Also,
regarding filming, we have additional dates secured. To summarize:
The other
big news is that the John and I both agree that the remainder of the film can
be shot in two additional weekends, rather than three. That will cut down
tremendously on cost. Those two weekends will be in March. Once we've
scheduled the soundstage weekend (at whichever soundstage we're able to
secure) I'll then turn my attention to finalizing the time/location of the
non-Pandora Estate scenes. And, yes,
we did indeed have auditions today at Center Stage NY in Manhattan for the
roles of Marla and Ivan. I'd like to thank the actors who trudged out to
Chelsea for the auditions. (edited) Producers:
Thanks for your patience. I'm afraid that the Producer Newsletter #2 has been
delayed and delayed due to other pressing issues (including casting). Once
we've finalized the Marla role, I'll finalize the newsletter... there will be
a news announcement when that Newsletter goes out... Also, my
thanks go out to renowned fan film director Chris Notarile, for his sage
advice, experience and wisdom... |
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It's also
confirmed that we will be filming Act 2 (of 6) in Port Jefferson Station, NY,
on February 10, with a backup date of February 24. More news to follow soon,
no doubt... |
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October 29,
2007 - So,
our first round of auditions was this weekend, in Flushing, NY. I'm very,
very pleased to inform you that we've cast Pete Mizzo in the role of Winter,
April McCullough as Bobbi Merchant and young Spencer Hall as Jack Merchant,
and Nadia Suen in the new role of Yolanda. (I also had the opportunity to
meet face to face with Irina, who was cast as Katia a few weeks ago, and I'm
very delighted for the opportunity to work with her as well.) The auditions
were both challenging and exciting, and I thank the many actors who came all
the way out to Flushing. That's a great sign out commitment and dedication,
and I look forward to working with each of them in the coming months.
To
accomodate the schedules of the actors cast, we may shift from our original
plan, which was three weekends in Feb, two in March, to a new plan of two in
Feb and three in March. We should have the two February dates narrowed down
by the end of the week... |
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October 7,
2007 - Rest
assured that the silence of late is not due to inactivity, but rather to its
opposite. Many things have been moving forward; I just haven't had the time
to report on them.
Second, the
cast notices did indeed go up on Craigslist and Mandy.com at the end of
September, as planned. The responses we've had have been quite significant.
There's been a paucity of applicants for the Archangel Simon role... Any Eric Stolz
lookalikes in the vicinity? ...and
thanks to the casting notices and the submissions we've received, the roles
of Katia and Shanta have been cast. We're excited to have Irina Belkovskaya
(right) in the role of Katia. (You may remember Katia as the Deader who
resurrected in the early scenes of HR: DEADER.) We're also excited to have
aboard Veronica Carr (left) in the role of Shanta.
The
shooting dates are getting very much narrowed down. We are on track for a
February start. I'm aiming to have all costumes and props ready by Christmas,
or thereabouts. In other
news, we're switching from Little Sister cenobite to Chatterer cenobite, for
a number of reasons, most of them easily assumed. Christie Bialowas will work
on the Chatterer costume, while Anthony Rockey continues on the Pinhead one. Sadly, we
may also be cutting out the Natasha flashback scene from the film... Would've
been a nice touch for continuity, but I haven't been able to secure Lori's
return... Welcome to
our newest producers, Paul Forrest from the UK. All contributors should be
expecting a more detailed newsletter later this month. The wheels
of progress squeak forward along their inexorable way. |
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September
4, 2007 - I'm
extremely pleased to announce that John Hudak, Jr., has joined the crew as
Director of Photography. John comes to us as a candidate for Master of Arts
from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, CA, and brings with him
a great deal of training and experience as a D.P. on several commercials,
short films and independent feature films. He already has had excellent
advice to impart on pre-production, and I feel confident that I will make his
job as easy as possible, as he helps elevate the realization of this script
to a higher level of quality. I very much look forward to working with him. One of the
changes that we'll be making is to schedule the shoot for five weekends
rather than the initial three that I had initially planned for. Upon
discussing the possibilities with John, we've decided to move the shoot
forward a few weeks, and shoot in February and March, 2008, rather than March
and April. My immediate goals are to resume storyboarding, and begin the
casting process in two weeks time. |
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August 11, 2007
- Well,
I guess it's been a while since I've updated... Many thanks to our #1 fan for
reminding me to put up a bit more info. :) First off,
the search for a Director of Photography has begun. The ad itself is pending
approval on Mandy.com, and I'll be placing an ad on NYCastings.com on Sunday.
If I don't hear back from too many applicants, I'll follow up with a
Craigslist ad, and flyers at local film schools later this month. I've spoken
with the head of a fraternal organization about renting out their Meeting
Hall for a weekend in either March or April as a location for the Pandora
Estate scenes. (It's a fraternal organization, like Veterans of Foreign Wars
or Knights of Columbus, that sort of thing. They haven't approved yet, so I
don't want to specify which one.) In either case, I have to present myself in
front of their board in early September and describe eXACTly what I'm
intending to do, and then they'll let me know. No word yet on rates, but
we'll see. The casting
notice is ready, but I'm not going to post that up until September. I think
that finding a D.P. at this point in pre-production is probably more
important right now. On the other hand, I've managed to secure Spencer Teplin
to play the corpse of Colonel Arnold Hawthorn (a character you may recall
from THE PROPHECY (1995).) In Producer
news, our thanks go out to our newest contributors, Joey Gowdy and Streetball
Canada. And, btw, the first Producer Newsletter, though delayed, will be out
to donators on Tuesday. I'll have a
bit more to report soon... |
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June 21, 2007 - Plans are still moving forward, still looking for a Pandora
Estate location. In preparation for the search for a Director of Photography,
I've been storyboarding some of the trickier scenes using an old program
called FrameForge 3D. Just to
give you an idea of the locales we'll be dealing with, some of the locations
you'll see (though not necessarily in chronological order) will include:
Again, I'll
start looking for a D.P. in August/September, and then start auditioning
actors and casting extras in September/October. Also, I'm also trying to put
together a small info packet that will provide quite a few more specifics
regarding the story and the film that will go out to Producers in the next month
or so. In the
meantime, I'd like to give a shout-out and moral support to director Mark
Adams over in the U.K., who's in post-production on his fan film THE
HELLRAISER CHRONICLES: LIFE-BRINGER (200?). He's working damn hard to
bring to screen a completely original Hellraiser story, and the early shots
of it look absolutely first-rate. Hell, I WISH that I could write an
independent HR story, but so far all of my passion has sprung forth from a
revisionist union of ideas, rather than synthesis. (Hey, if it's good enough
for Gregory Maguire...) Also, my
thanks and apologies to screenwriter Jose Leitao for my decision to delay the
filming of his adaptation of Peter Atkins' Hellraiser story, SONGS OF METAL
AND FLESH, until after WINTER'S LAMENT. I decided that if I were to split my
attention between two projects while filming, I'd be doing a disservice to
both. So, Jose, thanks for your patience, old friend. |
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June 05,
2007 -
Seema Ramji is definitely aboard to play the Puzzle Guardian, marking an
interesting departure from the style of Puzzle Guardians that we've
traditionally seen. Outstanding. Shing Chan
is tentatively aboard to help out with set design for the big prelude/finale.
Recreating the Pandora Estate state is going to be a big challenge, but again,
the main challenge lies not the construction, but in securing a location where
we can actually construct a set of that size. Brainstorming for ideas right
now, and am going to start contacting rental halls, warehouses and school
auditoriums... Our producer
list is slowly growing. Many thanks to our newest contributors, Executive
Producers Michael Waskelis (our #1 fan), and Sveinung Svea (from Norway);
Associate Producer Larry Gevirtz, and contributors Thomas James Scott (from
Ireland) and James Magnum Cook! |
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May 21, 2007
- We've
secured a few more locations for the film. Many thanks to the Huntington
Antiques Center and 105 Harbor Restaurant, both in Cold Spring Harbor, NY, as
well as the Coughlin Family of Port Jefferson, NY, for tentatively granting us
permission to film at those locations in March.
Producer info is now online,
for those who'd like to a part of this project. We're still
short one or two locations, but if I can those hammered out, the next step is
to find a Director of Photography who I'll work closely with... |
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May 11,
2007 - So,
this is the first entry for the news on the HR7 fan film prequel. It was
originally entitled "HELLRAISER: DEADER - ASCENSION", and now has
been changed to "HELLRAISER: DEADER - THE DEAD OF WINTER." I'm
still toying with the idea of changing it again to "HELLRAISER: DEADER -
WINTER'S LAMENT." We'll see... Anyhow, the
shooting script is done, although minor revisions are still added
periodically. There are seven acts which span several years from 1996 through
2005. The story structure is atypical, and was influenced by Christoper
Nolan's MEMENTO. It was
originally set to start shooting in summer, 2008, but for practical reasons,
we're taking steps to move it back to March, 2008. In taking advice from
feedback on HELLRAISER: PROPHECY, I'm going to use Craigslist and New York
Casting to find actors who would be interested in the lead roles. I'll also
try to secure a Director of Photography as well as some lighting crew, if I
can... We've
already secured a shooting location for Winter's house, an office building
and a street, and we're hoping to use the same library that we did in
HELLRAISER: PROPHECY for a flashback scene. I'm going to try to go location
scouting in Huntington, NY again in a week or so; we still need a restaurant,
a warehouse and an antique store... I'll
shortly begin using eBay to secure a budget for this film, using an up and
coming method: placing film credits up for auction. Before production
commences, we'll be offering Special Thanks credits for $20, Associate
producer credits for $40 and Executive Producer credits for $75. The
credits will appear in the film credits, and will be submitted to IMDB upon release.
These preproduction donations will be used to secure filming equipment,
lighting equipment and makeup. So, check
back regularly for more news and info...
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There are a few screening submissions pending,
but nothing's confirmed yet. In the meantime, I'm working on uploading the
film to WithoutABox to make my life a bit easier... I think we'll have a few
2009 screenings, but I'm reasonably certain that the bulk of screenings will
be in 2010... There are a few potential venues in October, a few in November,
and almost none in December. It's pretty scant, but I'm working on it...
Third,
the rolling credits. As you may recall, in 2008 Natasha Borzilova was kind
enough to let me record her performing a song that I had heard her sing in
concert back in... 2003, I think. I had always loved the song and in 2007 it
occured to me that it would make a great ending to the film. It's poignant,
it's sad, it's lonely and it's beautiful. Matches the subject of the film
fairly well. Well, it turns out that she recorded it in-studio a few months
ago, and with our deadline approaching she and her team were kind of enough to
mix it for us to use in the film. So, instead of the version I recorded a year
ago in a small room with my digital camera (you can only imagine the sound
quality), she's letting us use a fresh, studio recorded and edited version of
the song. This song is called "To Nye Vecher" and will be the first track on
her upcoming album. Natasha, you ROCK. (Check her out on iTunes, CDBaby and at
Speaking
of rocking, we come now to our diligent composer, Adonis Aletras, scoring
busily half a world away. He sent this image, which was heartwarming and
reassuring... :) I'm told that the composing is done, he just needs to mix
it... Soon, quite soon... Thank you sir, for working your magic. (For those
who are curious, that's Ivan, Winter and Despina in a shot from Act 6.)
So,
what's left? Well, the following will happen in order:
June 12,
2009 – 
In the
script, the Act comprises scenes 5 through 11. This was Day 3 of filming, and
was easily the longest, in terms of actual footage captured (even though Day
6, with Pinhead, was a longer day, due to time for set preparation, makeup
and cleanup). The dailies for Day 3 took up almost 3 digital tapes, so I've
begun by parsing the dailies for Day 3 into its component shots: 10 in all on
the first tape, not sure how many yet on the second. I'll be back home
tomorrow night to take care of tape 2. I'm shuffling many files off of my
laptop onto temporary storage to make room for all of the shots.
So, those who've
been keeping track of the credits page may have noticed that we have indeed
cast Marla, in the most difficult casting decision thus far. Our
congratulations go to Gina Montrone, and our thanks go to all of the Marla
candidates. With that, we've now cast all 21 roles. Christie Bialowas is
returning (from HRP) for alterations, costume design for Pinhead and
Chatterer, and makeup design for Pinhead. Fortunately, we've got Matthew
Bialowas returning (from HRP) to play Spike, and I've still got his costume
and makeup, though the makeup needs a tad of patching up. All in all, we're
in reasonably good shape.
'll say
this... Having chosen to go the path of auditioning trained actors for the
lead roles, I never expected how difficult both the process and the decisions
would be. Still, I'm grateful for my friends in the cast who have agreed to
be a part of this film (especially to Monica Dus, Matthew Bialowas and Meagan
Moir who are returning from HELLRAISER: PROPHECY) and am even more grateful
for the new friends and colleagues that I've made in casting the lead roles
in this film... I cannot thoroughly enough express how excited I am to be
working with everyone...
November 5, 2007 - 
First off,
the script is now registered with the WGA East. Good times.
The nonspeaking roles of Joey, Yolanda and
Anna are less clear-cut and will take a bit more consideration. Auditions (by
invitation) for the roles of Winter, Marla, Jack Merchant, Bobbi Merchant,
Ivan and Darren will be held on October 27 and 28, in Flushing, NY.
Organizing the script excerpts and reference video clips for the candidates
as we speak...