Community Project

My greatest regret, during my time on IndieTalk, has been my failure to get a community project off the ground. We came pretty close with the organ lottery project, but it never quite worked out. The past few days has seen a new member trying to get another community project off the ground, but is, I suspect, going to fall into a number of inevitable traps.

I am currently studying for the final exams of my academic career (*sob*) so am just sitting in libraries all day, every day. I'd like something to break it up a little bit (in addition to the couple of projects I am, slowly, working on). So I've come up with a new way to do a community project.

If you would like to participate in this project as a director (or in a shooting capacity), I need the following information out of you:

What actors are at your disposal? [i.e. two men and a woman]
What locations are at your disposal? [i.e. a house, a bar, an abandoned quarry]
Can you record decent quality sound? [i.e. yes]

Please be conservative with your responses. In order for this project to be realistic and work, I need to be sure that people can (and will) shoot their scenes in the allocated manner.

Once I have a bunch of participants, I will go away and write a short script that incorporates these various shooting units into a single coherent story. I will ensure that no member has more than a maximum of two days shooting (though generally will try and keep it to what can be done in a single day). If you cannot record decent quality sound, I will give you no dialogue to shoot. Everything will be kept as simple as possible (within the constraints of a very tricky project!) so that we have the maximum chance of success.

Additionally, if you are not willing to direct (or arrange the production of) a shooting unit, there are loads of other roles that are required:

Composer
Editor - individual units should edit their scenes but a central editor will put it all together and try and ensure that the editing matches throughout.
Post-sound
VFX - will not be VFX heavy, but we can incorporate some if there's someone who can supply the talent.
Marketing - with so many cooks, would be great to have someone responsible for pushing the film.

In order to make this attempt as successful as possible, I will only accept forum regulars into the scheme. New members (and I'm talking people who've only been around a few weeks) are welcome to input and help out, but it is of paramount importance that I know people will stick around and see their unit through to completion.

The deadline for signing up is 18th April 2014, giving people two weeks, after which we will allocate two months (and a bit) to complete production of your scenes, meaning a shooting deadline of 30th June 2014. As I have said, should be no more than a day of filming over the course of two months, so if you can't commit to that then please don't!

I really hope this works, and I think it can. Let me know if you have any thoughts and get signing up!

Current units:
David.rhsc (San Francisco, USA)
cheeseandachallenge (Wellington, New Zealand)
Cracker Funk (Richmond, USA)
wheatgrinder
Flicker Pictures (Boston, USA)
mad_hatter (Birmingham, England)
Dreadylocks (Omaha, USA)
Lucky Hardwood (New Orleans, USA)
ChimpPhobiaFilms (Ohio, USA)

Fence-sitting-maybe-merchants:
WalterB
Dreadylocks
sfoster
mad_hatter
ChimpPhobiaFilms
ItDonnedOnMe
jax_rox
Flicker Pictures

Music team
JoshL
mike mcguill

Sound team
mike mcguill

Sound maybes
AudioPostExpert
Alcove Audio

Marketing maybes
RayW

And remember to fill in this form if you want to have a shooting unit in the film!

(Of course, if you're local to an existing unit, why not team up?)
 
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Okay, sorry. Again. That came out as way more churlish than I intended. It was written in the trough of a very black depressive state, and while that is no excuse I did want to come back in here and try to explain that I wasn't trying to be a dick about it - that's just a thing that happens when I'm in that mental space. I've been feeling really, really terrible about the results of my work lately. Very much in the "everything I do ends up terrible" frame of mind and when I last visited this thread I managed to convince myself that I had single-handedly ruined the entire project. Which is, I know, ridiculous - but that's how much my brain hates me sometimes.

Sorry for that.

Sorry, completely missed your edit David. I understand where you're coming from, because when I look back on bits and pieces of work and think of missed opportunities or, worse, when I feel like a single moment or scene undermines a larger project, I feel like shit. But, of course, it's important to not reflect exclusively on the bad points (or, at least, not to give them disproportionate weighting in your mind).

Needless to say, your work on the San Francisco segment is very good. There's no accounting for weather and it doesn't much matter – a bit more contrast in the grade will make things look perky, and worse comes to worst, we can brighten the sky a little bit. As an Englishman, I am perfectly used to have a grey-sky picnic on the beach!

update: in a few weeks I should be able to pick up where I left :)

Awesome!

We all need to remember about this project. Let's try and have another couple of week-long surge of enthusiasm to get it finished.

CF: Any chance of looking at that rejigged edit? If you're too snowed under, I'd be happy to take a look at the structure myself (although I don't have the footage and I'm not sure my computer could accommodate ALL the footage from all the shoots).

JoshL: Should we start thinking about themes for the score now?

APE, Alcove, Mike McGuill: How are you all feeling about sound? I understand that a lot has changed since we started this project (!!!) but if you still think you could help out, that'd be amazing. It would be great to start getting some ideas for the spaceship sound, if anyone has any...

C&C: Did you ever pick up that Wellington exterior shot that was discussed about 9 or 10 months ago??
 
C&C: Did you ever pick up that Wellington exterior shot that was discussed about 9 or 10 months ago??
Heck, I can't even remember what this was. I think I gave a few generic establishing shots to CF a wee while ago, can't remember how good they were.

Was there anything specific we were after? I might be able to go out and shoot something myself if it's simple enough.
 
Heck, I can't even remember what this was. I think I gave a few generic establishing shots to CF a wee while ago, can't remember how good they were.

Was there anything specific we were after? I might be able to go out and shoot something myself if it's simple enough.

That's all it was, just some establishing shots to sort-of verify that it was actually shot on location in New Zealand!
 
APE, Alcove, Mike McGuill: How are you all feeling about sound? I understand that a lot has changed since we started this project (!!!) but if you still think you could help out, that'd be amazing. It would be great to start getting some ideas for the spaceship sound, if anyone has any...

I'm still in, although it will depend when exactly we get the locked-off edit. For example, I'm completely stuffed for the next month as I'm already trying to juggle two different projects at the same time.

It would be great to start getting some ideas for the spaceship sound, if anyone has any...

If Alcove is still in, he was going to do the sound FX design for the spaceship.

G
 
I'm still in, although it will depend when exactly we get the locked-off edit. For example, I'm completely stuffed for the next month as I'm already trying to juggle two different projects at the same time.

I'm still on board, but, like you, the ITCP will have to take a back burner to paying work. I'll do DX editing, Foley, sound effects, whatever.

Awesome, thanks guys.

I think we're probably all in the same boat, especially now that this has been fermenting for over a year(!!). So I don't think urgency can be top of anyone's list of demands, but I do think it's really important that we finish it, given that we've all put in a lot of work and have made really significant progress.

If I don't hear from CF on this thread today, I'll drop him a message and see where he's at with the edit.
 
Alright, well when you've caught up with CF lemme know if we need anything. I think I gave something like that, but from memory what i provided wasn't amazing (Wellington isn't a big city, so night photography is quite tricky as there isn't a heap of city light).
 
hi.
Im still alive, is everyone else :)

Iv sorta left off film making for a bit.. I think it just sorta happened when I wasnt looking.. I have a new love now.. and well she just gets me..

EDIT: That was a metaphor by the way
 
Uhh, so do you all hate me? I wouldn't blame you if you did.

I'm genuinely sorry for making a vanishing act. I let down a lot of people. But I'd still like to finish this. I guess the ball is in my court, I gotta make those edits we talked about.

It's been an interesting year for me, to say the least. But recently I've had a bit of a personal resurgence, and I wanna right this wrong. Expect a new edit soon, like by the end of the week!
 
There is no hate in this topic :)
Welcome back!
I still have things to do/shoot as well... sometimes life just gets in the way... and then you pick up again where you left :P
 
Hi guys!

Bumping for anyone who still has stuff to deliver.

Cracker Funk: Are we any closer to a new edit? I know you've been hella busy lately, would you be interested in having a co-editor? And, if so, does anyone fancy having a rejig of the edit pieces?
 
*bump

I haven't had the time to make any progress 'lately'.
Finished the 12 videos, but new paid work filled that gap again...
BUT
it is time to revive this thread: one of my actors asked about it...
 
I've just watched this thread... been curious to see the outcome since the start... Uhhh since time has passed so much. Any chance a kind of "Status Update" can be made? Like a what has been done and what still needs to be done?
 
There is a rough cut of what has been shot in New Zealand, The Netherlands and various places in the USA.

The opening still needs to be shot. I've got some ideas, but had too little time in 2015. (And I will need some help from other ITers for that as well.)

So, basically post has only just begun, while there is still stuff that needs to be shot.

(Besides that I'd love to shoot more scenes :P
Just watched the first 2 episodes of the new X-Files... brought back that vibe from 2014 when we all shot the scenes...)
 
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