Archive for November 2011

Basis Weekly Update 11/25/2011 – Shades of Gray

It’s the day after Turkeyday, which means you’ve either been out shopping or serving those who are. I suppose you could take a third option (like sleeping), but I like dichotomy, hence the existence of Spirit’s Requiem. The Great Spirit represents all that is good, and the Evil Man is – you guessed it – evil. With so many contemporary films featuring shades of gray and never clear cut white and black, I thought it would be nice to have something where good and evil are apparent.

At least Spirit’s Requiem would have been like that had I not [apparently] been subconsciously influenced by said gray contemporary cinema. After having spent many long hours staring at the film, I have come to the conclusion that the Great Spirit is selfish and power hungry, while the Evil Man is more of a tragic figure. To elaborate would give away spoilers, which I grew to hate over my 5 years as a Lost fan, so I’ll leave you in the dark for now. Once the movie has been released perhaps I’ll post this alternate character interpretation so you can see these characters in a different light. But please, do not put the Evil Man in leather pants. That’s just not right.

I’ve decided to take a brief retrospective over several photos this week. While we were unfortunately unable to take production pictures every shoot day, we did snag a few that I love, and I want to share that love with you. No, not like that. That’s just not right.

That’s me right there, along with our trusty camera, a Canon XL1s. She’s been through a lot, and though she is now mostly dead I still wouldn’t mind taking her out again for one last swing. Thanks to Matthew Myers for letting me borrow her for the past year and a half, and in case I forgot to tell you: your camera is on its last legs.

One of my favorite scenes (visually) features Shade and the Girl walking down a creek while the former monologues. The camera floats around the characters as the sun sets in the background. It’s pretty.

Once you’ve seen the film you might recognize this field. Shooting here wasn’t planned, we passed by it on our way to the creek and it just so happened to be a great location to shoot a couple of scenes of the Girl walking around. The best footage comes from these unexpected events.

 
This is my favorite production photo of them all. I know it doesn’t show much of the production, but it gives a fairly good look of the farm (or the barn at least) of the location for the majority of the film. I would like to thank Kingsdale Farm for allowing me to use their property to film not only Spirit’s Requiem, but The Exile as well.

Basis Weekly Update 11/18/2011

Three weeks until the premiere and there’s still a lot of work that needs doing. It’ll be another short update this week.

The music was delivered a few days ago and boy is it good. Jon truly outdid himself, he’s an excellent (and patient) composer. I can’t wait for the movie to be done so you too can experience his music. The score will also be available for sale as a digital download in the not so distant future. Once it’s up I’ll link you to it, though your earliest chance at hearing it will come when Spirit’s Requiem is released online.

That was a really short update. I suppose it leaves more time for drinking…which is something you don’t want to be doing at your office Christmas party. Is it really only 5 weeks until Christmas? That doesn’t leave us much time to get the DVD stuffed into your stocking.

Basis Weekly Update 11/11/11

It’s the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh year of the third millennium, or at least it is here in St. Louis, Missouri. Time for a production update, however brief it may be.

The end is in sight. The audio is being worked on, a slow and painstakingly boring process. Yet now most of the movie is watchable and hearable, albeit without a musical score. That will be added next week, the last major piece of the puzzle.

It’s been a long journey from idea to paper to film, one that you’ll be able to experience sometime next month. The premiere date has been set for December 10th, and while I wish I could open it to all of our faithful readers, we only have a limited number of seats that are reserved for the cast and crew. Do not fret if you are neither of those – the movie will be available online shortly after its premiere.

I leave you with this video, which I believe is appropriate for today:

Basis Weekly Update 11/4/2011 – Spirit’s Origins II

A couple of weeks ago we talked about the first ideas for the movie that would become Spirit’s Requiem, ideas that bore only a passing resemblance to the story as it is now. And then, in March of 2010 there was a breakthrough, an idea that had enough adventure, excitement, and mystery to make it compelling for the average person (previous drafts were a little too “art house”), but was possible to pull it off on a budget comprised of Monopoly money.

The beginning of an outline dated March 7th, 2010:

The Companion, an invisible fairy born from the baby’s laugh, was developed from an invisible friend that briefly accompanied the Girl in the second draft, which in turn was developed from the “giants” in the first draft. He was a kind and helpful fairy who guided the Girl to each of the four altars.

The altars were introduced in this draft, a concept that stayed with the script until shortly before filming began. There were four altars each representing one element. Can you guess what they were? Fire, wind, earth, and water. Thanks to Final Fantasy (and pretty much every JRPG I’ve ever played) for that idea. The Girl needed to activate these altars by solving some sort of puzzle, and the Spirit would be awakened and we would be “treated” to a lengthy expository speech regarding the villain, initially known as the Man in Black, and the nature of the Spirits.

Overall the outline for this draft looks remarkably similar to the movie as it is now. I cannot go into any more detail lest I spoil you, and I certainly wouldn’t want to do that.

The problems with version numero tres were twofold – the pace wasn’t quick enough, and there was very little conflict before the climax. The first problem continued to be a problem until the final draft, but the latter issue was homed in on like a predator drone going after a terrorist hideout (though I should clarify that no civilians were killed in the process of writing this script).

And so, the Companion became Shade in the draft dating from late April 2010. Upon writing this I realize that Shade could take up an entire article on her own, and so I believe I’ll do that at a later date. In short, while the Companion was kind and helpful, Shade was sardonic and far less obliging. It brought it much more conflict to the story, as Shade has far less optimism about their chances against the Evil Man, and on several occasions expresses her love for the shadows. It’s cooler in the shade than in the sun, after all.

Between April 2010 and April 2011 the script essentially stayed the same. There were minor changes here and there, mainly the removal of things that were deemed to be too difficult to pull off with our resources. Originally there were two encounters with the Evil Man’s minions, but due to the complexity of filming fight scenes and outfitting the minions in appropriately evil costumes they were scrapped. A bonfire party was also thrown away partially due to logistical difficulties but also because it felt somewhat out of place.

The biggest change came in April of 2011 when, as we were casting for several of our roles, I figured out how to pick up the pacing of the plot by getting rid of the altars and replacing them with one all encompassing “Spirits’ Altar.” The pace was greatly quickened and the movie slightly shortened. It also meant we didn’t have to figure out how to haul a stone altar around to four different locations, though in the finished movie the altar isn’t actually a stone altar and is rather a waterfall type thing. Securing stone altars is surprisingly difficult, though we do have a kickass stone pedestal for the sacred sword.

The only major script change during filming was to the ending, which – please do not be alarmed – was completely rewritten less than an hour before it was shot. If you have time or money invested in this movie and have just had a heart attack then I advise you to take some Advil. Or call 911. Or just get over it. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: fight scenes are horribly difficult to film. I decided it would be better to rewrite the scene than have a god awful battle that leaves such a bad taste in your mouth that you forget all the goodness that was the previous 40 minutes of the movie. So how did the hastily rewritten ending work out? You’ll have to be the judge for yourself.

The script saw its last draft on July 10th, 2011, where some minor adjustments were made to a scene about to be filmed to correct for production related changes to a previous scene. Though the script is finalized and will see no more edits, the story is still being changed in the editing bay. As of right now I’m seriously contemplating cutting a portion from one of the scenes that is an artifact from earlier drafts and is no longer necessary to understand the story or the characters, despite the fact that I’ve already locked the cut. As a wise man once said, it’s not over until the fat lady sings.

On a related note, Basis Productions is looking for a plus sized female to perform a selection of Mozart’s opera works at the premiere of our latest movie. Mezzo-sopranos are preferred.