I'm someone who always wants to be ready with my next project. As I'm writing this, post production for "Leap" is well underway and it's time I start playing with ideas for my next film. A week ago, I had no idea what I wanted to do next, but then I saw a trailer on Angel Studios for some movie that deals with the issue of life after death. Always one to ruffle some feathers, I remembered a script I wrote that takes the complete opposite stance.
In 2010 as we were shooting "Leap: Rise of the Beast", my lead actor and I started talking about what we wanted to do next. He challenged me to try to come up with a character piece and we started toying with the idea of doing a ghost story after filming "the bathroom scene". In the scene, the main character is seen in the reflection of the mirror and due to a black hoodie, it almost looks like a disembodied head floating there. The effect was creepy and definitely inspired our conversation.
The shot that inspired "Derek" from "Leap: Rise of the Beast" (2011)
I kept trying to come up with a story but never could. In late 2010, as I was in post production for Leap 2, I heard a woman's testimony at church one Saturday. The gist of the story is that she had to exorcise a demon from her mother while she (the woman) was a new Christian. I remember that I came home and spent the next six hours on the couch writing a treatment based on this idea. I did send the treatment to the lady and asked for her blessing, which she gave me, and I proceeded to write the script. The script was a little short, coming in at exactly 69 pages, but heart of the story was in place.
Unfortunately I ended up shelving it and got sidetracked for ten years with work, short films, and now Leap 3. However, now might be the time to revive the script and make it my next film. I dug out all my old files for "Derek", including a short film version that I shot in 2014 to practice with some effects and workflow. The big gem though was the original printed treatment and all my handwritten notes on it from over ten years ago. Using the treatment as a guide, I launched my favorite brainstorming app, "Freeform" and started hammering out the main beats. I'm really enjoying mapping out stories this way compared to treatments. It's a lot more fluid and easy to move beats around, plus the color coding is useful for different themes and such.
So that's where I'm at with all this. I'm scoring and starting on VFX for Leap 3, and soon will start the script for "Derek". I'm really looking forward to going a little bit back to my horror roots and doing something a bit more mainstream than Leap 3. My plan right now is to get the script done by the time I release Leap 3. Then, hopefully Leap 3 makes a little money on Amazon and I can apply that to Derek. My original estimates for this film were in the $45,000 range, and I still think that's doable.
Not sure when I'll be back working on this, but in the meantime, here's the short version of "Derek" that was used as a VFX test. The Oujia board is a CGI overlay on a wooden cutting board. The indicator is either CG or is a real prop with a wooden handle allowing it to be controlled offscreen. That handle had to be removed. We shot this on the Canon Rebel T2i and it was my first time using those four bulb soft boxes to light a movie. It was also the first movie that I cut in Avid, onlined in Resolve, and did the VFX in Fusion 7.
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