Art by Robert Long II

After a three-year run, we at Timewarp Films are  finally wrapping up production on or latest feature Sealed Fates. It’s been a long road with many interesting stories, which I’ll save for another post. But we’re finally ready to show this thing. Here’s the official release from our Producer/Director Joe Ripple:

The time is upon us. I’m proud to announce the official premiere for “Sealed Fates.”

We will be having the Premiere on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010. The time will be 7:00, although we have the theater space from 7:00 p.m. until 11:00 p.m. – which means we may show the film around 8:00. This gives everyone a bit of time to catch up, chat a bit, and so forth.

The location will be the “Carroll Arts Center,” located at:   91 W. Main Street, Westminster, Maryland, 21157

Tickets for guests will be $10.00 per person!

The theater will be serving concessions…including alcohol (cash bar) for those choosing to drink. We have the space for four hours, so there will be plenty of time for the showing and general partying! People will be able to buy tickets online in advance with a credit card, and pay by cash or check at the door.

We are asking that you PLEASE spread the word, however, so we can fill this 270 seat theater! (The film is rated “R,” so no one under 17 without supervision, please!!!)

Visit the Sealed Fates fan page on Facebook:

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• Sealed Fates Teaser Now Online (talesfromthecellar.com)

50 Best Blogs for Moviemakers

• Adventures in Self-Releasing
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From the Times article:

Fresh off its stunning “Paranormal Activity” success — a $15,000 thriller that has grossed more than $107 million in its domestic release with little paid advertising — Paramount Pictures is set to launch a new production business for movies budgeted at less than $100,000.

The as-yet-unnamed division plans to finance as many as 20 “micro-budget” movies annually starting in 2010, according to people familiar with the studio’s plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because the formal announcement has not been made. A current Paramount executive will run the business, but the selection has not yet been revealed  publicly. Funds for the movies — no more than $2 million total annually — will be part of Paramount’s existing production budget. The division does not plan to acquire completed movies at film festivals and markets.

Even if you get a chance to make your film and it serves as a “calling card”, or warrant a larger budget to be re-made, this could be a good thing. We’ll have to keep an eye out.

Read the entire article here.

I originally found the reference at FreshDV, a cool site for filmmakers.

low-budget filmmaking paramount financing

At last the teaser is finished and posted on YouTube. Sealed Fates: A Trilogy of Claustrophobic Terror is Timewarp’s latest feature. The film is currently in post production and should be in the can this summer.

Stay tuned for a post on the making of the trailer. I got to use a lot of fun tools on this one.

Take a look at the video, then go over to Count Gore’s unique Web site,

Meet Effects Artist Mitch Klein from Gore De Vol on Vimeo.

Shooting on location with the GL1

Since today’s shoot was canceled due to hurricane Hanna sweeping through our area, it’s a good time to post a bit about how we’re shooting our latest feature.

There were several choices to make before the cameras rolled on the first day. Should we shoot in 24p or 30p? SD or HD? and what camera should we use? We already had 2 cameras available: the Canon XL1s and the Canon GL1. The XL1s is a solid choice, with manual control over every setting, but it shoots in SD and in 60i or 30p only. The GL1 is pretty much the same, but not nearly as versatile. I had also purchased the Canon HV20 last year. It shoots in HD, has a Cinema mode that can be converted to 24p in post, and a beautiful picture. But it doesn’t have the manual control of the XL1s. Ultimately, I chose control over format and went with the XL1s.

Then there was one other decision: should I use Canon’s Frame mode (30p) or shoot 60i and convert to 24p in post? I grabbed the trial of DV Filmmaker, a program that converts 60i to 24p, and did a few tests with both formats, using the same subjects¹. While the 30p footage approximated the film look, the 24p conversion had softer light and appeared more film-like. So, I purchased DV Filmmaker and decided to shoot in 60i.

So, the first day of shooting came and after the 4th or 5th take of the second shot, we get the infamous “Remove Cassette” on the XL1s. Anyone who uses that camera will probably know what I’m talking about. The problem is, it wouldn’t clear no matter what we did. The drive assembly was dead. Ugh! Luckily, we brought the GL1 as a backup.

But we soon discovered that had flaws of its own.

A few takes into the next shot, we discovered 2 bad pixels on the CCD chip–not on the LCD, but the CCD, so it recorded the bad pixels. Okay, it’s an easy fix in After Effects, a minor inconvenience we decided to live with.

Fast forward to the second week of shooting, or, rather, the capture session after shooting the second week. I noticed a few sound drop-offs and, worse, digital breakup on the tape. Luckily, we generally run a lot of takes of each shot, so the glitches were easily avoided in the editing room.

Until week three.

The glitches were getting worse. I was now looking at masking and cloning out glitches. The sound, fortunately, was mostly okay.

Then I discovered, or remembered, a solution. Adobe Premiere CS3 (my editor of choice) comes with a program called OnLocation (OL), which allows you to connect the camera to a PC and capture the signal directly–bypassing the tape. Well, shit, let’s try that.

Holy crap, OL was easy to set up! I had purchased a 500GB external capture drive and planned to use my laptop to run everything. The XL1s (yes, we went back to the better camera since we weren’t using tape anymore) plugged right in and was instantly found by OL. OL’s interface has a nice monitor for our director; it even shows the zebra lines. And, perhaps best of all, no capturing. Each take goes right to the capture drive, and can be labeled as needed.

We were rolling smoothly now. The only real–shall we say…inconvenience–is the camera’s wired connection to the computer while shooting, which makes camera moves somewhat limited. Add to that the signal loss when the cable length is too long², and you have to be really creative in how you shoot. But we use sticks more often than not, so we’re managing. We’ve even established a rhythm when moving the whole rig (camera, laptop, drive, etc.) from one shot to the next.

In the future, of course, I intend to purchase an HD (probably HDV) camera that can shoot in true 24p, so we get the best cinematic look possible for our budget.

Stay tuned for more behind the scenes stories and pictures.

¹I used my daughter’s Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals, the battery-operated ones that move and talk, and staged a scene as if they were talking to each other. Silly? Yes, but it worked for the test.

²I’ve seen several references that say a firewire cable can be 14′ without a signal loss, but I used a 10′ cable and noticed some degradation in the image. It works, but should be use sparingly. I use it for hand-held shots that require a lot of movement.

Now, we start rolling.

This is the first time I’ll be behind the camera, other than for the Horrorfind commercial in March. So, I made a checklist for the set:

• Charged battery…check.
• Tape in, queued up…check.
• White balance set…check.
• XL1 set to interlaced mode…check (we’re converting to 24p, but that’s a whole, upcoming, post in itself).
• Subject framed…check.
• Lights set properly…check.

And, um, anything else?

Oh yeah,

• Focused? …check. Whew!

Photo provided by Robert Long II

We finished auditions for our next feature last weekend. We didn’t get as large a turnout as we expected, but the quality of those that did show up was surprisingly high. Usually, about 5-10% are really good, another 10% we can work with, and the rest should look for a new career, but this time we must have gotten at least 15% that were excellent, and another 20% that were workable. I’ll take that kind of quality over quantity any day.

After viewing the tape and mulling over the choices, we decided–with very little disagreement–on our cast of choice. It was comforting to see that most of the parts had solid backups in case the first choice didn’t work out.

This week we called the actors and made the offers. Nearly everyone accepted– excitedly. While we had to go for a couple of backups, we don’t feel like we settled in the least.

Now we’re gearing up for production, which should begin in July. There’s a lot left to do before then. Final script tweaking, prop gathering/crafting, scheduling, scouting a few more locations, purchasing equipment, and drafting all kinds of lists.

Whew, that’s a lot. And I wouldn’t miss it.