Production Begins In 9 Hours…

The 2010 Project Twenty1 Filmmaking Competition begins tonight at 7:00PM, with the reveal of a “secret element” that all of the films must include.  That reveals starts the clock ticking on our 21-day production period.  Our film has to be completed and turned in by Saturday, August 21 at 7:00PM.  Here’s what’s been done since we entered the competition more than two months ago.

THE FUN SO FAR…

After we registered for the competition back in May, I realized we’d need to create something quickly and on pretty much a zero budget.  As a longtime fan of exploitation films, I turned to their low-budget independent filmmaking methods for inspiration.  Watching Doris Wishman’s 1967 sexploitation film A Taste Of Flesh, which she shot in a weekend in her own apartment, made me decide to study her techniques.  From this came the decision to pay homage to her legacy as the most prolific female filmmaker in history by creating a “vintage” sexploitation film for the competition.

Over the past two months, I and my team have had occasional worries over whether the secret element will aid our creativity or kill our idea.  If the element ends up being something like “time travel”, how do we work that into the context of a 1965 period piece set in a single location?  In past competitions, the element has been something vague enough to work with, like “light” or “key”, and I’m hoping it’ll be the same this year.

I cast my own home as the location, and dressed it up as best as I could with 1960′s furnishings, and cast my wife and two friends to star in the film.  These are both ideas inspired by Wishman for keeping the costs down.

Knowing I couldn’t actually shoot our film on 35mm black and white film (film and processing for a ten-minute movie would have cost nearly $3,000, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get a digital scan back in time to edit and complete the movie), I knew I had to learn how to make modern video look like a 45-year-old film print.  I shot some test footage with my actors and in a week had figured out the right set of filters and processing tricks to pull it off.

I titled the film Immoral Desires in reference to two of Wishman’s films, The Immoral Three and Indecent Desires.  And a check on IMDB showed no film had ever been made using that title.  I created a promotional poster based on some still photos I shot while creating the test footage, and we sent it out to a variety of media outlets along with a press release to start generating buzz.

We spent close to four hours as a team being interviewed by a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer (that article is scheduled to be published right before the world premiere in October), and this week got front page coverage in The North Penn Reporter and an interview on KYW NewsRadio.

AND NOW THE HARD WORK BEGINS.

Tonight, we learn the secret element and get the official Green Light.  Tomorrow, Christian and I will be locked away all day to write the screenplay.  Don’t try calling or emailing me – I won’t even have my phone turned on.  I’ll then have the week to create shot breakdowns and storyboards.

I’m planning a one-day video shoot.  On Saturday, August 7, we’re planning to get every shot we need for the film.  We’re shooting silent and recording dialogue and Foley audio the next day (another homage to Wishman), and that whole weekend the band “The Velvet Elevators” will be recording an original soundtrack to our film inspired by the 1960′s library music Wishman utilized (they’ve even added vintage drum heads for the perfect sound).

By August 10, I’ll have every asset in hand that I need to create the film, leaving me 11 days to edit audio and video, process and render a final master.

That’s my plan.  Starting tonight, I’ll be creating a daily video podcast right here on the Team CrackerHammer website detailing our process and progress, so you can see whether we stay on target or go horribly awry.  Should be a fun watch at least!