Now In Production . . .

Hey Paul,

Thanks for asking.

Sunday, July 10 will be day 7.

We could have gotten more shooting done if we didn't have clash of the titans on set between the stunt coordinator and the actresses. I had to fire the stunt coordinator for an offensive mouth around the ladies after he ignored several warnings I gave him to treat the set like an office environment. He made too many sexist and racist remarks in front of the ladies.

We also had an actress with a bad attendance record holding us back. So, we downsized her role for holding back her peers who were on time and ready to work, when she was not. She was the 4th recasting of a role.

Union actors are more reliable for low/no budget productions. The SAG rep will report the ones with bad attendance records back to SAG. And, SAG will deal with them. They can get thrown out of SAG for horrid attendance. You have to show that you are willing to work to keep a union job.

When we put all the serious actors together after the shakeout, we got WAY more scenes shot.
 
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I have made a decission that after the July 10 shoot to pretty much put the production on hold until next year in the spring. Money is running out and my finances are very slim. Some cast members are asking for at least a rough with their dialogue, which I should be able to give them for the time being. I expect to get all of the footage that day.

Times are hard. Money is tight everywhere. I can't even talk about how scary things are financially. All I can do is hope for better times.

I love these actors and my crew. We all worked so hard together.

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ah..
After july 10 it will all be IN THE CAN though right?
So you cam pick at it here and there until your situation improves. So its not "on hold" rather its in POST! :)
 
Fingers crossed. I just feel very uncomfortable that the cast does not have the time for a get together to walk through and rehearse the most complex fight and stunt scene in the production. It is a shame I have to write out one actress playing a cyborg because she had to get back home to a far away state. But, it is what it is. I hope we can complete the fight scene by the end of the day. We have to start off shooting greenscreen with spaceship exteriors and then pick up footage from another fight scene even before we begin something more complex than anything they have done so far.
 
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Stick with it man.

Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson wrote Bottlerocket and figured they could shoot it for about $25k (all film keep in mind) and planned on shooting 6 minutes every $2k they raised. They shot the first 6, raised more and shot the next 6, then that was it. They couldn't raise any more. They cut together what they had, entered it as a short and it got enough attention to get some small amount of millions to shoot the feature.

Keep it up man.
 
This link is to my FB page that has a growning collection of photos and stories about the movies and comments by myself and other people in the production.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Modern-Day-Myth-Productions-LLC/146345185435657

Here is a shot from an actor's camera of a scene we were filming of Cyborg Special Forces General Gail Storm busting human Amazon Colonel Alkaia for drinking on the job for the second time.

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Galina's acting is getting better. She was surrounded with a stronger cast. And, she put a lot of effort into getting better, which I observed. She was very focused with her acting. Plus, it was her second time around with her character, Gail Storm.

It was a novelty for the cast to have someone from the original I, Creator in the cast with them too.
 
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You can see we only ended up with 4 cyborgs--all good guys. That meant we had to revised the script as we went along.

One actress took ill after one rehearsal day and was out of the production. And, the other only wanted to give us 3 hours a day of her time and she couldn't even find the shooting location to make matters worse. My DP pulled me aside and advised me to cut her role short. Otherwise, she would drag down the production. So we did.

I was trying to be nice with 8 hour shooting days. In the future, we will work 12 hour industry standard days.

Also, if I have to recast a role more than two times, I will jump on a SAG agreement. I made the mistake of going all non-union when I had lots os SAG actresses interested in working in this production and some recommended agreements with SAG that would allow both union and non-union actors to work together in the same production.

These are lessons learned from this production.
 
Looks very cool MDM - glad you went with SAG in the end, cost more but as you've found out more accountable - all the best for the 10th, kudos Jim.
 
Thanks Jim.

SAG is absolute for any future productions, but too late for this one.

The actors are more accountable and there is a way better selection for stunt coordinators with SAG over non-union people. We can even work out a deal for a name talent, if they like the production enough. I'm not talking about a major big screen talent. Just TV actors who were popular for the last few decades close to retirement now.

I will get SAG waivers for as many as these guys who want to return for a future production who stuck it through and gave it their all.

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I want them to be with kindred souls who make acting their life. These are all serious hard working people in these 3 shots.
 
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All actor footage is shot. My DP will shoot the spaceship exteriors on his own and send me the footage over the Internet. He will help me with the editing on his AVID from home and we will exchange scenes over the Internet.

Another thing that happened in this production is 2 actresses gained weight frrom the time they auditioned to the first day of rehearsals. One brought her 2 copies of her costum to a tailor and had it fixed up into one. The other dropped out from illness. When they have to wear skin tight outfits, they can't afford to gain weight, especially 20 to 30 pounds.

I will have to stipulate in future contracts that they must maintain their weight so that their costumes will fit.

We had a GREAT shoot under a very hot sun with insect problems. The cyborg actresses and silver demon hunters were troops in their costumes under a hot sun. We got good footage for great fight scenes. We wrapped the story by foreshadowing things to come in a growing conflict between Ares and Artemis, just as there is a growing tension between humans and cyborgs.
 
Goddam, those are some serious elevator-boots! :eek:

If you could travel back in time, you'd make serious cash selling those at 70's glam-rock concerts. :cool:

My fave guy is the one on the right:

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I really have to see this sequel now, just to make sure he's not the grip who wandered into the promo pic by mistake. :lol:

Just kiddin'. I know you've put a lot of work in to this. Had a lot to think about, after watching the original film.

Might want to resize some of your pics, btw.
 
Truth be told, I ran out of money to have a costume made for the guy. And, he is playing the civilian husband of the woman to the left of him in the picture.

I'm sure he'd rather be wearing that than just a loin cloth. He has to turn Amazons on and not the other way around on an Amazon world.
 
The wonderful thing about the television market is the range of material they take in. Everything from the very serious and high budget to low no budget stuff that is very campy and sexy, like Wonder Woman from the 1970s.

SWAT was so low budget, they recycled footage from episode to episode. As long as the editing and final cut convey the market, it can work. There has to be a consistant style with the editing.

The only good Amazon movie I ever saw is called Amazons and Gladiators. I have all 3 seasons of Wonder Woman on DVD--very campy.

We are competing with Amazon movies and The Asylum. They end up on TV. I'm looking for investors and a higher budget for number 3.

Let's see how 2 goes.

This is going to be better than the last production, hands down.
 
Much better footage to work with. I'm only working on the opening and there are lots of good reactions shots to choose from for the military base scene.

I'm just using available backgrounds for the rough cut assembly. They will be replaced later when I can afford a 3D animator.

I will show some screen grabs tonight and may upload the rough as an Mpeg to Vimeo, if I have the time. 200 Mwg uploads are slow with DSL service.

The audio for the opening narrations are perfect. They were recorded in my friend's sound recording studio.

With some stock music that is not sci-fi takes away from the opening. That will be corrected later as the footage gets more developed.
 
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