blog Leap

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Backstory:
I've completed three independent feature films, plus countless shorts and adverts. My first feature was a no budget slasher I shot in 2007 for a budget of $600 called "Wulf". It played a few festivals and then I buried it, considering it my trunk novel. In 2009, I turned my back on horror and decided to be the Christian I considered myself to be. I still wanted to make movies and had an idea to combine parkour and the last days into a movie that was ultimately called "Leap".
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I shot it in 2009 on MiniDV (a Canon ZR800) for a budget of $200. I spent three months teaching my actors parkour and they did most of their own stunts. It screened at a local theater and we sold 200 DVDs. Let's be honest though- it's bad. My heart was in the right place, wanting to share what I was finding in my own personal Bible studies with the rest of the world, but it was poorly executed.
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In 2010, I made the sequel, "Leap: Rise of the Beast". It was the first feature film shot on a Canon Rebel T2i and we only had the kit lens. The budget was $2000 and continued the story I began in the first film: a group of college kids trying to save the world while the Vatican hunts them down. My goal was to make a Christian version of the Bourne series. We had a theatrical screening for it, sold 100 DVDs and then I stuck it on YouTube in 2012 and it now has over 1.5 million views and has made over $10,000 over the past ten years. Most of that money has gone toward purchasing better equipment because hey, tax write-offs :)
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Immediately after Leap 2 came out, I wanted to do something different before finishing the story. So I wrote a supernatural Christian thriller but everyone kept begging me to do Leap 3 next instead. I caved and wrote the script called "Leap: Revelation". It picked up in the middle of Leap 2, followed a new parkour crew and took us to the end of the world. The only thing stopping me from shooting it was the financing. I figured that I'd need $20,000 to do the movie on a "low-budget" while paying for actors and a few key crew members. Unfortunately I never raised the funds.

The past ten years saw me being homeless, getting a dream job as a VFX supervisor, losing everything I owned (including my dog) in a house fire, rebuilding my life, getting a wife, a new dog, and moving back to Montana. Now I run my own production studio called Pyro Studios and I feel like I'm at a point where I want to revisit this material again. I've grown a lot as a person and as a filmmaker and finally feel like now is the time. I've been keeping a production journal on my computer and I'll be sharing that here.

I hope it is useful and I welcome you all along this journey.

-Chris

Ten Years Difference
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sfoster said:
Damn you are working hard! Got all your shooting done in a couple weeks and now already have a teaser out.
Very respectable.
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I was motivated to get something done that would keep me excited in the months ahead. Plus I have a little version of the film now that I can use to refine the workflow. I'm using ACES and having problems with the grading and exporting on this one, so I can use it to work out the bugs. Even the YT version and this Vimeo one aren't 100% exported to reflect the actual grade.
 
Start cutting the movie today. I wasn't able to keep up with cutting as I shot, so I'm starting at the beginning of the film and working my way through. I've got 13 minutes of rough cut so far and it's playing better than I expected, especially for a first pass.

Also, McKenna wanted to take a crack at making a poster and this is what she came up with:

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Thirty minutes cut. Overall, this first pass is flowing pretty well, so that's good. I'm maybe missing a few insert shots here and there, so I'll need to get those at some point. I attribute it to having a large camera that's a pain to move, but overall I'm impressed. At the rate I'm going, I should have a rough assembly by the end of the week. At that point I'll watch it all the way through, tighten some stuff, add some temp sound and music, and then be ready to show my wife before making the next round of adjustments.
 
Chris Tempel said:
Thirty minutes cut. Overall, this first pass is flowing pretty well, so that's good. I'm maybe missing a few insert shots here and there, so I'll need to get those at some point. I attribute it to having a large camera that's a pain to move, but overall I'm impressed. At the rate I'm going, I should have a rough assembly by the end of the week. At that point I'll watch it all the way through, tighten some stuff, add some temp sound and music, and then be ready to show my wife before making the next round of adjustments.
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Best of luck on the edit, the film frames, and the new cover, all look great. It's a ton of work editing a feature, but it's great accomplishment once it's done.
 
Checking back in! Today we shot the news reporter stuff. Annalise is new to the area, but has done a lot of modeling and some acting before. She helped out behind the scenes a bit and also was an extra during the funeral scene. I cast her as the news reporter and we shot it in my living room on the green screen. All of these "Leap" movies have used news reports to help open the movie up about what's going on in the rest of the world, so it's almost like a tradition. They're always almost always shot way after principal has ended :D
 
Had a busy week with client work, but sat down today and cranked out another ten minutes of movie in about three hours. My brain hurts. Also, I was curious how much footage I actually shot on this project, so I threw all of the footage into one timeline and was pleasantly surprised to see that we shot a total of eight hours and fourteen minutes. The majority of that is RAW 4:1, as well as some drone shots in h.264. I'd have to go back and look, but I feel like that's about on par with some of my other movies.

My only worry is that I'm on script page 48 right now, and the movie is at 43 minutes. I'm confident I'll hit at least 80 minutes of movie, but was still surprised to see it come up short. I think the big culprit was the re-write that we did on one of the scenes. We cut like three pages of useless dialogue and made it snappier. I'll need to check with Amazon Prime and see if there's a required length.

Fall is setting in hard here in Montana, so it's great to have this project to work on when the weather is crappy.
 
Well, my rough cut is sitting around an hour eighteen right now and I still have about ten minutes left to cut, so I really shouldn't have to worry about length, even if I cut it down a bit. Hoping to have a test screening with my wife soon to see how it all flows. Then I can take a few passes at fine tuning the edit and begin on the VFX and Music, (which is what I'm thinking will take up most of my time in post) as well as any ADR.
 
Finally had some time today to buckle down and finish the rough cut! At this point, everything is in place, now it's just a matter of tuning the cut and making sure it's the best film that it can be. With end credits, the movie is sitting at 85 minutes. I can't complain about that! I wasn't sure how my new beast of a computer would handle editing the movie online with the cDNG files, but it's a champ. I haven't even had to downgrade the playback resolution in Resolve. The last time I cut a movie online, it was shot on MiniDV and cut on Vegas Pro 5 or 7, so it's been a while.

My project output size is 2048x858 and playback is super smooth, even with some basic effects and repos.

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For my own info, I had planned to cut in Avid Media Composer, but an early test with the teaser trailer showed that something was off with my system causing Resolve to link up to wrong clips during the conform. I didn't want the headache of dealing with that for the entire movie, so I took a leap of faith and just cut the film online in Resolve. Still planing to use Nuke X and Blender for the visual effects, maybe using Fusion if it's just something simple and small. And still planning on Mixcraft for the score.
 
Personal Post:
I'm experiencing something new this time around, something I never had to deal with before - backlash from fans. First, it's crazy to think that there's actually fans of these low budget films, ($200 for the first, $2000 for the second), but lo and behold, they're out there. I posted the shot of the rough cut timeline to the film's Facebook page and the number one comment it got was along the lines of "It's only 85 minutes? It should be longer".

I've had a couple of responses in my mind, ranging from "If you want to make a longer movie, go for it" to "Can't you just be happy that the movie is finally getting made after 12 years?" Ultimately though, I have to remember that I didn't make this one for fans. I'm making the movie that I want to make. Out of our around $20,000 budget, maybe $1000 was donated from fans, the rest came from my wallet. The movie even begins with a line, "This isn't the story you're expecting..."

Short story long, I need to realize that I'm not going to make the fans happy with this one, but that's okay. The potential of a larger audience reach far outweighs keeping the existing fanbase happy. On top of that, I'm a huge believer that a movie should only be as long as it takes to tell the story. On my first feature, I was so hellbent on trying to make 70 minutes that I padded the film with needless scenes and a really slow credit roll - both bad ideas. That movie moves like a snail and I never wanted to repeat that again.

So, Chris (me), when you're re-reading this three years from now, just remember that you're only venting and remember that they haven't actually seen the movie yet.
 
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Chris Tempel said:
Personal Post:
I'm experiencing something new this time around, something I never had to deal with before - backlash from fans. First, it's crazy to think that there's actually fans of these low budget films, ($200 for the first, $2000 for the second), but lo and behold, they're out there. I posted the shot of the rough cut timeline to the film's Facebook page and the number one comment it got was along the lines of "It's only 85 minutes? It should be longer".

I've had a couple of responses in my mind, ranging from "If you want to make a longer movie, go for it" to "Can't you just be happy that the movie is finally getting made after 12 years?" Ultimately though, I have to remember that I didn't make this one for fans. I'm making the movie that I want to make. Out of our around $20,000 budget, maybe $1000 was donated from fans, the rest came from my wallet. The movie even begins with a line, "This isn't the story you're expecting..."

Short story long, I need to realize that I'm not going to make the fans happy with this one, but that's okay. The potential of a larger audience reach far outweighs keeping the existing fanbase happy. On top of that, I'm a huge believer that a movie should only be as long as it takes to tell the story. On my first feature, I was so hellbent on trying to make 70 minutes that I padded the film with needless scenes and a really slow credit roll - both bad ideas. That movie moves like a snail and I never wanted to repeat that again.

So, Chris (me), when you're re-reading this three years from now, just remember that you're only venting and remember that they haven't actually seen the movie yet.
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Everything is a numbers game. I think on an emotional level it's hard not to be taken aback a bit when we put a lot of time and effort, and a lot of ourselves, into making something, only to have some random person criticize it, often before even actually seeing the work. I think you get it though. You didn't make this movie for one person to watch, it's for tens or hundreds of thousands of people to watch. In that context, I think you can shrug off trite complaints from Monday morning quarterbacks, and simply take pride in the hard work you know you did. People have become especially shallow and rabid out there these days, and in the gaming community I constantly see people gleefully tearing down some 5 year project that 100 people worked on to try and make themselves appear higher status, as though they have some right to judge something that they themselves could not accomplish.

Like Mara, myself, and many others here, you've made several feature films and released them to the public. That takes a lot of work, and a lot of guts, even just the act of exposing yourself to ridicule from the public (a necessary part of filmmaking) shows more courage than most online critics with a fake name will ever have. If I were you, I wouldn't concern myself much with trite opinions. I've actually walked a mile in your shoes, metaphorically speaking, and I'd have respect for your project if it was 80 minutes, or 70. It is by no means easy to even make a 60 minute film on your own with a microbudget.

Best of luck with your marketing, and congratulations of finishing your film. I'm looking forward to checking it out, so make sure to post a link when that's available.
 
Thanks guys. Nate, I think you nailed it - the frustration was because they haven't even seen the movie yet and are already complaining.

But, moving onward! I started spotting the movie today using red and yellow markers in Resolve. Red is for score, yellow is for stuff I'll need to license from local bands and such. Using the "Duration" function is nice because I can literally spread out the marker over the scenes and visually see how much music I'll need.

Also started dropping in some temp tracks, mostly from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, but also even some stuff from my earlier films. It's not always perfect, but it's far more enjoyable experience than watching an action scene silent.
 
Starting on some score today. One of the nice things about using markers with a duration in Resolve is that I can pause the playhead over a scene that needs music and I get data about how long the track needs to be, as well as my notes about what kind of music I want. In this case, since I'm just starting and haven't fully created a musical identity for the movie yet, I looked for some low hanging fruit and found a scene that's just eight seconds of the main character contemplating some choices.

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I watched it a few times to get a feel for what happens before and after, then fired up Acoustica Mixcraft (my music creation software). Earlier in the week, I created a scoring template where I have different orchestral sections (Piano, Strings, Winds, Brass, Percussion, & Voice) and filled the sections with my favorite virtual instruments. Now I have it all at my fingertips and can quickly audition different instruments and melodies. Previously, I would just add new tracks as I thought I needed them and would have to choose the instrument as I went and it was slow. I think this new method will be a quicker, more creative way to work. It's also similar to what I've seen Hollywood composers do in Cubase. They basically have all the instruments already laid out.

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I have a M-Audio Oxygen 49 MIDI keyboard hooked up to the computer and it lets me start hammering out music. It also has transport controls and a finger drum pad. Just arm a track, hit record, and I'm off. After the notes are recorded, I can use a Piano Roll editor in Mixcraft to quantize, humanize, or manually edit and change the notes. I keep the Piano Roll open on my second display so it's easy to record, then edit the recording.

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The final thing that's cool is that I can import a video track so if there's a scene that's more complex and needs hits to happen at a specific time, I can render that scene out of Resolve and import it straight into Mixcraft. I realize this is probably a standard feature today in most DAWs, but back when I used Mixcraft on the last film, it wasn't possible. I literally had a second computer with its own display and we would play the movie on the editing computer while composing music on the other. I had spent several hours getting the computers networked together so I could share the music files between systems. Yuck! I really dig being able to just bring the video into the software now.

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My music guys working on the last film. The CRT monitor is for the music computer, while the other two are for the edit computer.


Eventually I want to invest in some better instruments like the Kontakt stuff, but with a little reverb and careful mixing, the instruments included with Mixcraft sound pretty good. I don't have the money to hire an actual orchestra either, so these will have to do.

Anyway, I've wasted enough time for the day typing all this, so back to work!
 
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First test screening! Just watched the film with my wife for the first time this evening. One thing I've learned over the years is that test screenings are best held in an environment separate from the edit bay. On my earlier films, this meant burning a DVD to watch on a TV. This time, I just copied the rendered file to my laptop and hooked it up via HDMI to our main TV in the living room. Watching a movie in this setting is totally different than sitting at the computer. I'm able to watch it as a viewer, rather than as the editor.

We came up with a few notes that I think will help the film. The focus tonight wasn't on effects, sound or color, but just the story itself. I wanted to make sure that the framework of the film was in place before I continue forward. There was one scene that I had thought I'd need to reshoot, but it actually played great, while another scene near the end will need to be re-shot. At the end of the movie, watching it as a spectator, it was hard to believe what we had accomplished for so little money. There's only a few thousand dollars spent on screen. Of course, there was lots of money spent on equipment in the years leading up to this, plus all the time everyone devoted, but as far as actual dollars spent for the shoot: salaries, food, gas, props... We're maybe looking at $5000. With the equipment purchases over the last ten years, probably closer to $20,000 was spent to make this.
 
Starting a big task today: spotting for VFX!

Every film I do, I create a spreadsheet document. Could be Excel, Calc, or in this case, Numbers. Each of these documents contains different spreadsheets for things like production reports, cast lists, credits and one for VFX. On the VFX list, I froze the top few rows down to my column labels. This way, no matter how long the list ends up being, I still can read what each column is supposed to be. I know that most VFX houses use their own structures and labels. Mine are Shot Number, Timecode, Description, Status, Length, Lens, and Sensor. Shot Number is just the film name or abbreviation, the scene number, and what VFX shot. So it might be labeled LEAP_18_B, which would be the second VFX shot in scene 18 of Leap. Under description, I note what needs to be done to the shot. Rig removals, sign replacement, add birds, etc... I also try to note any special processes, like using Smart Vectors in Nuke. For Status, I have three options: FIX, IN PROGRESS, DONE. Each of these is a different color (Red, Yellow, Green) and I can copy and paste the labels for these cells from the frozen area above the column labels.

Length is just the length of the shot in frames. In Resolve, I just ALT drag the shot to a VFX Selects track, select the clip, press T (using my Avid shortcuts, this sets an IN and OUT for just that clip), and then I can see how long the selection is up above the preview monitor. I just take the number of seconds, multiply by 24 (since I shot the movie at 24 fps), then add however many frames. So a clip length of 00:00:07:13 would be 7x24+13, or 181 frames.

Lens and Sensor are there for when I have to do 3D tracks and undistort the footage. If I know a shot is 24mm on my URSA Mini (a sensor size of 22x11.88), this info is handy.

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I realize this is going to take a full day to do, but at least I'll be able to start chipping away at these shots and know how much work I have left.
 
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