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Hello There Zed-ites!
The opening of this film has been, by far, the most difficult part to crack. Trying to find a balance between what rich and rewarding versus confusing.
The film has a big backstory. Initially, I told this with a narrator over stained glass (this is what was in the screening in April.) But, I just wasn't happy with it; I wanted you guys to be there when it happened!
Of course, the reason it was originally done with stained glass was it is a big story!
The good news is, our new intro is 90% done. It's a really fun way to start the film that puts you with the Ivan the Yellow as he trades the lives of his descendants for his own. (What a terrible thing to do!)
But the question is: Who does Ivan the Yellow make the trade with? Well, there's a big hint above! Bringing Velnius to life was a whole new challenge and a whole lot of fun. I'm not going to spoil his look just yet.
More good stuff to come! Thanks so much for your patience and support.
Jesse
Hello There!
How can I __________?
This fill-in-the-blank question has dominated every step of this film. Recently, I was asking myself: How can I create a Thunderstorm? The answer: Cloud Tank!
A cloud tank is technique that dates back to Charlton Heston and the Ten Commandments for creating storms and weather. You've seen it in tons of pre-CGI movies from Ghostbusters to Raiders of the Lost Ark.
We decided to use this for the Thunderstorm on Frank & Zed. Once we did, a whole slew of new 'How can I' came into effect. (How can I purchase 20lbs of salt? How can I drill a hole in glass? How do I light and focus on something that isn't there?)
To create this effect, you fill a tank halfway with salt water and then, very carefully, pour freshwater on top. If you do it just right, the two layers won't mix. Then when you shoot a liquid (heavy cream in our case) into the top layer it stays above the salt water giving the effect of a cloud forming.
Lastly, we've been knocking out the remaining inserts shots including this one of the Priest setting up a couple villagers for a run-in with the Drac Macat.
The film continues, as always, to go way better than I expected and way slower. Thank you so much for your patience. We are getting close!
Jesse
Hey There Everyone!
Lots of great progress over the past two months. Of course, the big news is we screened a roughcut of the film for the cast & crew. It was great finally seeing the film up on the bigscreen.
Since then, we've been tackling lots of inserts shots as well as getting started on the final sound and visual effects.
We've also added a whole new scene with the Quartet (of Shine fame). I decided I wanted to bring them in a little earlier in the film to fill the audience in on the story and give us a couple laughs.
Finally, in another potential milestone, I peeled off a couple insert shots of Frank. After wrapping I realized that this may be the final shots for our star? Is his four year film career at an end? Bittersweet indeed.
Thanks so much for your patience, I promise it will be worth the wait.
Jesse
We are one short week away from our cast screening. All of you lovely people are invited to attend.
Cast & Crew Roughcut Screening:
You have every right to ask and the short answer is: I don't know...but, we're getting close. I committed to the screening next week in part to help push the film faster. It's worked really well and we have made tremendous progress in the last months.
Still to do is the original score, visual effects, and lots and lots of sound. Everything continues to go really well but really slow. Thank you for being so patient. I'm very excited that those of you that make it next week will get a look at everything we've done.
More good stuff to come!
Jesse