That's very interesting, the symbolism you bring up. Although I am an admirer of Gandhi and I love trying to include/find symbolism in my movies, this was not something I intentionally did. I do appreciate your take on the film and its deeper qualities. Out front and center it is a goofy comedy, but I tried to make it a thoughtful one and I'm glad to see that come across to some. Thanks for the comment.
Thank you. It's not easy to find time to do all of this that's for sure. The main thing is, as the director and/or producer, you need to make yourself available to shoot at nearly any time possible, then you can adapt to the ever-changing schedules of your peers. I was lucky enough to be working a part time job that only required me to work during lunch during the week, so I had weeknights and weekends free while we were shooting. I used weeknights to schedule with the cast and crew and weekends to shoot. During shooting months, I basically had no social life. It can be incredibly difficult to schedule that many people for free, I don't recommend that large of a cast to start with!:) But in the end, it was that, honestly, unless they've all been BSing me, everyone who was working on the project in any significant capacity really seemed to care about finishing and really seemed to like the material.
Costly mistakes did happen. I was 19 when we started production, 21 at the premiere, and 23 when the DVDs were finished (now). I originally thought it would take me less than a year haha! The worst setback was that we went through 2 lead actresses, the second of which filmed about 90% of her scenes before randomly deciding to never show up again, and it was tough getting everybody behind reshooting with a third actress, but it happened, and we're all happy it did as we have a much better movie because of it. If you are determined enough and give it the thought it requires, you can do almost anything. Make lemonade out of life's lemons and other such cliches.
It often came down to me saying "I will be damned if this doesn't get done, even if I have to do it myself!"...and as you can see, that's often what happened:)
Indeed. For my second film I purchased a DSLR (Canon 60D) and using a prime lens that could go down to f1.4 allowed us to shoot in firelight without needing any other source and it worked out great imo. It was a very worthy upgrade, although live zooms became next to impossible to do smoothly with the DSLR zoom lenses, that was really the only significant drawback. We were filming in 100 degree weather and were able to keep the camera shaded enough to never have any notable problems with overheating luckily.
After reading, I am a bit ashamed to say I was not familiar with his work despite our shared Wisconsin roots, but I am happy to learn about him, thanks!
Our colorist did a great job with the grainy footage and deserves most of the credit, but I believe reducing the quality of the footage from 1080 to 720 also helped in our case. The HV30 was pretty adequate in low lighting, so it usually left us with a decent amount to work with. A lot of the night scenes are much brighter, noisier, and more colorful in the raw footage, so reducing the saturation and brightness to try and better represent what you see with your eyes in moonlight naturally helped hide the grain as well.
There are no frigging zombies or vampires, just fuckin' zombies and a werewolf. Maybe you watch half, eh? (Fuckin' zombies are a little different than friggin zombies btw--but no time for details on how!)
Thanks! We used Final Cut studio for most of it (Final Cut, Soundtrack, Color, and DVD Studio for the DVDs) and After Effects and Shake were used for the visual effects.
First question: I guess because I thought it was all in fun and games...
Second question: oh god wait...
Third question: I would not mind at all if it were shown on Australian television, it would be a great honor. Message us through facebook or our site with any inquiries regarding that.
Hey everybody, I made this movie. I was the writer, director, producer, co-editor, and an actor, and I did a bunch of other shit too such as remove hiss from over 900 individual audio clips! It was awesome. If anyone is interested in knowing anything about this great film please ask me and I will be happy to try and answer.
Thanks for giving the movie a watch, I'm happy to have your support!
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That's very interesting, the symbolism you bring up. Although I am an admirer of Gandhi and I love trying to include/find symbolism in my movies, this was not something I intentionally did. I do appreciate your take on the film and its deeper qualities. Out front and center it is a goofy comedy, but I tried to make it a thoughtful one and I'm glad to see that come across to some. Thanks for the comment.
Thank you. It's not easy to find time to do all of this that's for sure. The main thing is, as the director and/or producer, you need to make yourself available to shoot at nearly any time possible, then you can adapt to the ever-changing schedules of your peers. I was lucky enough to be working a part time job that only required me to work during lunch during the week, so I had weeknights and weekends free while we were shooting. I used weeknights to schedule with the cast and crew and weekends to shoot. During shooting months, I basically had no social life. It can be incredibly difficult to schedule that many people for free, I don't recommend that large of a cast to start with! :) But in the end, it was that, honestly, unless they've all been BSing me, everyone who was working on the project in any significant capacity really seemed to care about finishing and really seemed to like the material.
...and as you can see, that's often what happened :)
Costly mistakes did happen. I was 19 when we started production, 21 at the premiere, and 23 when the DVDs were finished (now). I originally thought it would take me less than a year haha! The worst setback was that we went through 2 lead actresses, the second of which filmed about 90% of her scenes before randomly deciding to never show up again, and it was tough getting everybody behind reshooting with a third actress, but it happened, and we're all happy it did as we have a much better movie because of it. If you are determined enough and give it the thought it requires, you can do almost anything. Make lemonade out of life's lemons and other such cliches.
It often came down to me saying "I will be damned if this doesn't get done, even if I have to do it myself!"
Indeed. For my second film I purchased a DSLR (Canon 60D) and using a prime lens that could go down to f1.4 allowed us to shoot in firelight without needing any other source and it worked out great imo. It was a very worthy upgrade, although live zooms became next to impossible to do smoothly with the DSLR zoom lenses, that was really the only significant drawback. We were filming in 100 degree weather and were able to keep the camera shaded enough to never have any notable problems with overheating luckily.
After reading, I am a bit ashamed to say I was not familiar with his work despite our shared Wisconsin roots, but I am happy to learn about him, thanks!
Our colorist did a great job with the grainy footage and deserves most of the credit, but I believe reducing the quality of the footage from 1080 to 720 also helped in our case. The HV30 was pretty adequate in low lighting, so it usually left us with a decent amount to work with. A lot of the night scenes are much brighter, noisier, and more colorful in the raw footage, so reducing the saturation and brightness to try and better represent what you see with your eyes in moonlight naturally helped hide the grain as well.
There are no frigging zombies or vampires, just fuckin' zombies and a werewolf. Maybe you watch half, eh? (Fuckin' zombies are a little different than friggin zombies btw--but no time for details on how!)
Thanks! We used Final Cut studio for most of it (Final Cut, Soundtrack, Color, and DVD Studio for the DVDs) and After Effects and Shake were used for the visual effects.
First question: I guess because I thought it was all in fun and games...
Second question: oh god wait...
Third question: I would not mind at all if it were shown on Australian television, it would be a great honor. Message us through facebook or our site with any inquiries regarding that.
Hey everybody, I made this movie. I was the writer, director, producer, co-editor, and an actor, and I did a bunch of other shit too such as remove hiss from over 900 individual audio clips! It was awesome. If anyone is interested in knowing anything about this great film please ask me and I will be happy to try and answer. Thanks for giving the movie a watch, I'm happy to have your support!