One year later...OR WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!?!

It's interesting when things fall apart, isn't it?  Kind of sad and lonely, and terribly depressing. However, it isn't the end of the world as long as you can pull yourself back up, get your head on straight, and try to re-organize.

Things fell apart, folks.  Life, work, home...all pretty much went to shit.  My kids are fine.  My girlfriend and I broke up.  My job took a drastic and odd change.  And I had to move out of my apartment.

It's a year later, though.  I have pulled myself up.  I am dusted off.  My head is mostly on straight.  I am re-organized.

CHEAPEST MOVIES EVER!!! is back in business!  Let's get rolling!

A Trailer, and the story behind the movie....

So, a few years ago, I got together with some fine talent and made a little movie called BURDEN OF LOSS.  We spent about six months working on the film and it was great fun.  However, on the last day of shooting, one of the actors came to me and said "I want to make a movie, too.  I just don't know how to start."  No problem, I can put a movie together and we can shoot it.
     Now, understand that this was September 11, and I assumed we would start on this project as soon as BURDEN was finished with post.  I kicked around a few ideas, though, just so I could give Jerry an idea of what we could do, and came up with a concept that I thought could be developed fairly easily, using some of the same talent as BURDEN OF LOSS, some of the same locations, etc.  So, I met with Jerry on September 14th, we had a cup of coffee, and I laid out this crazy apocolyptic, Lovecraftian, police-procedural.  He thought it sounded great and we agreed on a miniscule budget that would be very tight.  Then Jerry dropped a bomb.  "We have to shoot the week of Halloween." 
     This Halloween?  Six weeks from now, Halloween?
     Yes.  So, instead of saying no, I started smashing out a script, finding actors, hiring a special effects girl who had just graduated from a "prestifious effects school", and putting it all together.  The effects girl didn't work out, so I ended up doing the effects myself with the help of a couple of castmates, the script was still being written, the cast was coming together (and falling apart when they found out we had no money) so casting became a need, and our shoot date started to creep up on us.  Actually, it was barrelling down on us like a crazy steam train that had hurtled off the tracks and was carreening uncontrollably through the center of my life.  BUT...I was able to start shooting this epic with no cash, on the Saturday one week before Halloween, and we just kept shooting.  We shot in the morning, went to work, came home, fed the cast while working out the shots for the day and finishing up the effects and final touches of what was actually the first draft of a complex screenplay while we were shooting it.  Oh, and just before this all started, my male lead told me he couldn't be in the movie because he had to get a real job.  LOL!  I took over the role since I was the one person I knew for a fact was going to be there every day.  I shot, I shot and I pulled in every favor I could.  And the day after Halloween, we wrapped.
     I was exhausted.  I had just shot two movies back-to-back, and now I needed to begin post. 
     Then the call came. 
     I was set up to show a film at a local convention on November 14th.  They called, explaining that they had lost one of the movies they were premiering to a bigger venue, and did I have anything that might fit the bill?  I told them I had just finished shooting, and was entering post on two features.  "What are they about?"  Well, BURDEN OF LOSS is a love story with a horrible cult and monsters, and THE REALITY is an apocolyptic, Lovecraftian, police-procedural.  They wanted THE REALITY.  So I started post, and busted my but to finish it in time. 
     At Midnight on November 14th, the theater filled and people sat down to watch a movie that I finished burning out to dvd only five minutes before.  It was concieved, written, directed and edited over an eight week period, with a huge cast, special effects, and a budget of just under...$500!  It isn't the cheapest movie I ever made, but it is the biggest cheapest movie I ever made.  Just to let you all know.
So, here's the trailer for your entertainment.

The Reality Trailer from Cheapest Movies Ever on Vimeo.

A lesson in technology...

Okay, so I didn't realize that the conversion process for the short video I was putting up would take quite as long as it has.  In fact, it's STILL converting!  So, please let me apologize for the promise that I have broken.  Hopefully, by tomorrow, I can embed a video for you, dear follower.  It's simply a trailer for an earlier movie made in a similar manner to the CHEAPEST MOVIES EVER, just so you have an idea of what you might expect.
Sigh.
Now I know, don't promise an exact date and time unless I have already uploaded, prepped, and verified the link. 
Don't worry.  It won't happen again.

A Shameless Enticement...

So, the weather continues to be nice in the afternoons, and unbearably cold in the evenings.  I continue to write (slowly), and try to get on with the creative process.  I believe that the only way this is going to work out is if I can give you something new, and something free to keep your interest.  So...
Come back this weekend, on Sunday afternoon, after 3pm Central Time, and look at what I have for you, my dear reader/follower.
I promise it will be worth your while, heh heh heh...

The Grand Scheme...REVEALED!

Okay, folks, here it is, the Grand Scheme!  The Big Idea!  What it's really all about!

The idea behind Cheapest Movies Ever is to attempt to create five movies of mid-length in a mere five months.  It's crazy, I know.  It's probably even stupid.  It might even be a gimmick to get noticed.  But, it's the plan.

I have shot short films over the course of one or two days, and mid-length features over a week.  (A mid-length is between 35 and 65 minutes long.  They are called mid-length because they are too long to be considered a short by film festivals which generally have a time limit of less than 30 minutes and a full-length is considered to be over 70 minutes.  I can, in a very collaborative environment, birth a screenplay and a movie in about two months, though my best record was a film called CONTAMINATION (5 weeks!) which has been shown at so many comic/horror/fantasy conventions that I feel like EVERYONE has seen it.  However, in the next couple of weeks, I am going to be putting CONTAMINATION online, for free, streaming right into your laptop, computer,  or cellphone.  Just in case you might have missed it.  Heh, heh.  It's part of a grassroots attempt to find out if anyone is out there listening.  Subscribe to the blog, please, just so I know you're out there!

The grassroots campaign will consist of this blog, a website, a vlog showing what we're doing, a facebook page, a myspace (I know, no one uses myspace anymore...except all the people who do), and contests, stories, artwork, etc.  It's all going to be free to you, whoever you are!  Until the actual movies come out, that is...  After all this work, the movies are going to have to have a charge associated with them, but I promise it won't be much.  Less than the cup of coffee you get at the corner coffeeshop every morning.  We are planning on touring the movies throughout colleges and pretty much anyplace we can get people to line up and buy a ticket.  If you know of a venue, please let me know.  Thanks!

The first movie is designed to be a hack-n-slash-six-kids-in-the-woods sort of thing, and it's currently called AFTER DARK.  I know it's a generic title, and I even know it's a generic script.  I am working on it now.  It's still fairly intense, though, and should be a VERY harrowing experience.  I have some actors lined up, and the script is nearly complete.  It will be fun to start showing how we are doing stuff. 

Please subscribe to the blog so that I have an idea of how many people may be following this insanity.  It's easy, just click the "follow" button at the top left of the screen.  I promise it will be an educational, entertaining ride!

"How's the script going?" or why I sometimes consider hurting my fellow humans...

When last we met, I was beginning to tell you about the method I usually use to write and how well it works for me.  Unfortunately, life, work, etc. has been getting in the way terribly over the last few days, and I am currently feeling like maybe I should consider hurting people.  No, no.  It's okay.  The meds are working.  Really.

Actually, you are going to get this a lot as you stumble down this path of creativity.  Don't fret, though, because I have some things that will make people back off.  Yes, a chainsaw WILL make them back away, but then there's all that explaining later.  Better to try these excuses, er, explanations.

"I had to find a new direction since it turns out Shakespeare was writing a hack-n-slash when he died, and they are terribly similar."

"The police contacted me and said a serial killer had found my work and was using it to copycat the murders in my script."

"I decided to give up, and make it a musical, instead.  Alan Menckin is dying to collaborate!"

"It's going slowly because it just feels like everything else out there, and I need it to be unique." (This one is true, by the way.  As I am writing, it feels a little generic.  I know I can make the movie I am writing, but I am not terribly interested in seeing it.  Part of that is the characters, and another is the formula of the hack-n-slash.  I am working on this by trying to be less predictable, and more character-based.)

"I am worried about the order of production on the features due to rapidly changing weather patterns in the world and my life."  (Also true.  Weather has been pretty drastic recently, and I am afraid we will not be able to film consistently if we start this project now, which makes me consider starting one of the other projects first.  At the same time, the hack-n-slash has an easier production style so would be ideal to get people into the feel of filming.  Also, my girlfriend sometimes makes it hard to write because she feels neglected when I spend time at the keyboard instead of with her.  Stormy weather indeed.)

Use these explanations, and watch how people react. 

See you on Wednesday!

The process of writing, or "Why is there blood on your keyboard?"

I have a method of writing that seems to work for me.  MOST OF THE TIME!  Basically I stare at the blank screen, concentrating so hard that beads of blood appear on my forehead, fall to the keyboard, and write a script.  At least that's how it feels at the moment. 

Truthfully, I DO have a method, and it's simple.  I find someone that I trust.  I go out to coffee with them, and tell them "Let me tell you a story..."  I tell them the story, making it up as I go, watching their reaction, fixing problems as I create them, and taking notes all the way.  If it's someone I really trust, they even take notes.  After several hours, a great deal of coffee, and many trips to the bathroom (coffee does that to you), I have the basis of the script.  The funny thing is that I usually start with something like "So there are these five kids driving along a back country road and they're talking about stuff that doesn't mean anything."  In my notes I write "Scene 1:  Introduce characters".  By the end of the few hours, I am writing dialogue and action, and the notes are very specific.

"Hey, doesn't that mean that you have a writing partner?"

No.  I tend to trust people who just want to hear a good story.  I tend to be less trustful if they are wanting to put their two cents in.  Why?  Because this is my story I am trying to tell.  However, I do have a friend, Adam Gaulding, who I trust enough to put his two cents in, because Adam never gets offended if I say "Let me tell you the story first..." and he listens intently.  If I say "I am having trouble with this part...", he knows that means that I either need to talk it out, or he is going to ask it out.  Asking out is when he asks me questions that lead me to the answer.  Sometimes Adam just says "I would do this...", and it either leads me where I want to go, or I agree, and Adam begins to tell his version of the story.  At that time, I have a writing partner.

So I am writing the first of the five scripts, and Adam has been my sounding board.  I tried to tell the story to someone else, and they looked at me like I was NUTS!  In fact, they told me I had a disturbing mind. 

Well, it's a horror movie, you know.  No fluffy bunnies and kitties here.  Oh, wait.... Actually, there is a fluffy bunny in the movie, but it's dead.  Anyways...

I take my notes and simply begin fleshing them out, one scene at a time, from start to finish.  I try to keep each scene story driven, unless my notes say something like "Jeff and Kerri talk while walking.  Develop characters."  Then I get to play with these people in a couple of quick scenes that develop them a little bit.  I hate intrusive character scenes where someone blurts out their whole life for no reason other than the people watching have nothing else to identify with.  I prefer characters that the audience loves or hates based on their actions, inactions, or reactions.  I can take a douche character, and turn them into the hero that way.  Or the weak girl becomes strong, and the audience sees it along the way.

However, we're talking about the first draft here, and my first drafts tend to be sort of question and answer sessions between the characters, or long expositions that don't work or propel the story.  FIRST DRAFT!!!  Because when I am finished with the first draft, I immediately go back and read it.  Not until the last page is written, though. 

Did you hear me?  NOT UNTIL THE LAST PAGE IS WRITTEN!  If you start re-writing early on, you can get stuck in the process of writing, and then rw-writing the same stuff until you lose interest in the story and give up on it because you are either bored or disconnected to it.

So, don't do that.  Finish writing it, and then re-write it.  But finish first.

If you're wondering, I am on the finishing part of the first draft.  It has a great pace, and it's fun.  But it is going to need a re-write.  I will get with you next week and we'll talk about that.

See you next Wednesday night!