archived-videos last statement

Ernest Worthing

Ernest Worthing

I can finally share the 'Last Statement' teaser trailer with everyone here on IT. It is slightly over 1 minute long.

The film deals with the actual last statements by real life death row inmates. It is not pro or anti-capital punishment but merely strives to show that no one plans on being on death row one day and what one would say, knowing that they would be his/her last words.

A big thanks to FlickerPictures for being a part of my segment.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/56171506 (If you have the time, hit like and leave a comment to help spread the word.)

And here is a rough, low res poster. Finalized version coming soon.



Click the poster for the trailer​

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Btw, this is the same film I was talking about in the Can the INDIETALK community come together? thread:

Ernest Worthing said:
For What It's Worth:

I recently finished working on a film which was a collaboration between 10+ units. It just got completed and is about to start running in festivals and perhaps a direct to dvd release in Europe. It's called Last Statement and deals with the actual last words of death row inmates.

What made this project and collaboration work, imo, is the structure of the script and story and the the way the different units were organized.

The main producers, director and writer were based in Germany and got in contact with other directors and producers through networking. One key aspect was that director and producers track record of actually completing films when committing to them.

The script was structured in a way where there was a main segment running throughout the film and then the 'last statements' of death row inmates were were divided into individual sub-segments which could be filmed autonomously by the other producers and directors.

This way, if a single segment director failed to deliver, the film would be unaffected and a replacement would be found. Out of all the segment directors, one actually did fail to deliver and was replaced. Apparently, it barely felt like a hiccup and things went right on going.

In addition, a forum was set up online where everyone could interact, update and collaborate. At the same time, personal emails were sent all the time from the main project director to all the segment heads, always checking the status and making sure things were moving along.

Once everyone has finished filming, the footage was edited, graded and scored back at home base by the main producers.



Btw, FlickerPictures was among my small cast and crew of 8. Hopefully I can share more details about it soon when I get receive some promotional material from them like a teaser, posters etc.
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Upvote 0
Ernest, it was a pleasure working with you, virtually speaking, and I'm really glad to see that the project came together. I'm impressed at the variety of people involved from all over the world it seems.

I forgot to ask, how did you become involved with it?

Thanks for having me on board! :)
 
Planning on checking out the trailer when I get home from work. It sounds like an interesting project. Especially the collaborative aspect. It's pretty remarkable to see it actually work, and I'm really excited to see how the final product came together.
 
OK, I just read the bottom of the top post about how you got involved. Neat.

What sort of networking? Through Vimeo? Blogs? Film forums like IndieTalk?

Hi Dready! :)
 
Dreadylocks said:
Planning on checking out the trailer when I get home from work. It sounds like an interesting project. Especially the collaborative aspect. It's pretty remarkable to see it actually work, and I'm really excited to see how the final product came together.
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Cool. Lemme know what you think.


Flicker Pictures said:
OK, I just read the bottom of the top post about how you got involved. Neat.

What sort of networking? Through Vimeo? Blogs? Film forums like IndieTalk?

Hi Dready! :)
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They got together through a couple of different ways. A couple of them knew each other from before, having worked on something together. Others were screened through 'Collabfeature.'

I was the replacement for another director who failed to deliver, which is the only big hiccup I know of in the whole project. They saw that I was interested in Collabfeature as well and checked out my website and some of my work on vimeo before contacting me.


Zensteve said:
Looks quite interesting. When's the 30 minute cut expected? :)
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It's been done since December and I've seen it. It was an uncomfortable watch, which is exactly how the subject matter would affect me, and it had slow burn kind of feel to it. It's going to go through film fests this year and probably be out on DVD in the EU by the end of this year. I don't know if they're going to post it online or not but I'd gladly send DVD's to you guys when I get them if anyone asked.
 
Heavy stuff. Looks really well done though. Be sure to share the full thing when you can :)

So how much flexibility did each team get? Were you just given the lines and then free to get creative or was it more restricted like, 'we want this shot' etc?
 
Thanks, Judge Dreddy. (trying...)

We had the whole script and picked an inmate each. Each director and producer was in charge of their own casting, locations, shots etc and could get as creative as he/she wanted while being mindful that this was part of a larger whole. Thankfully, no one tried to outdo each other by going off on an extreme tangent in their style.
 
@Nick: Thanks, it's done. Should be out on DVD later this year.

@navmachine: Thanks. Your project looks really ambitious. And my curiosity has been piqued by 'vespers' as well.
 
Ernest Worthing said:
@navmachine: Thanks. Your project looks really ambitious. And my curiosity has been piqued by 'vespers' as well.
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Thanks a lot! It's my first feature and it's taken 4 years since I started writing, but the picture is finished and now I'm finalizing sound. I'm looking to have the premiere in Chicago in mid-May. If I knew it would have been this hard, I probably wouldn't have started, so I'm glad I didn't know :)

Your film is obviously not your first rodeo, so where do you take it from here? What methods are you using for promotion and distribution?

Thanks,
-Matt
http://www.voiceofthevespers.com
 
Looks good, I actually signed up to help (not necessarily on this film but on the collab feature site) and was accepted but had to say o for the time being because of school... I might be interested in the next one
 
navmachine said:
Thanks a lot! It's my first feature and it's taken 4 years since I started writing, but the picture is finished and now I'm finalizing sound. I'm looking to have the premiere in Chicago in mid-May. If I knew it would have been this hard, I probably wouldn't have started, so I'm glad I didn't know :)

Your film is obviously not your first rodeo, so where do you take it from here? What methods are you using for promotion and distribution?

Thanks,
-Matt
http://www.voiceofthevespers.com
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Thankfully, I'm just one of the directors of one of the segments and don't have to worry about any of that. It's the project producers job. It's hitting a lot of film fests, I can post the list here sometime. After that, they're aim is to get a basic dvd release in the EU unless they make something larger happen throught the film fests.

Mannie Bothans said:
<-- Definitely interrested in getting the DVD.
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Thanks. Link to it will be up on my site later this year.

bird said:
Really compelling stuff, Ernest. Congrats and good luck with this!
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Thanks for checking it out, bird.

MileCreations said:
Looks good, I actually signed up to help (not necessarily on this film but on the collab feature site) and was accepted but had to say o for the time being because of school... I might be interested in the next one
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This is actually not a collabfeature project but the project producer on this is also a lead producer with collabfeature and decided to promote it under that banner.
 
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