On another note, originally we were planning to release Sakooz to the Internet community on the first day of 2009. However, we have since decided against this for a couple of reasons. The main reason for the delay is that we want to get the “trailer remix” function (a website which allows you to edit together your very own version of the Sakooz trailer and share it with the world) up-and-running from the very get-go. When we release the Sakooz trailer to the world, we want it to land with a bang – so as much as we’re so eager and excited to let it out of its cage, we need to contain ourselves, take a deep breathe, and release it at the RIGHT time, with everything ready to go. So for those that haven’t seen it yet – unfortunately you’re going to have to wait just a little bit longer.

Well… that’s all for now. Again, a MASSIVE thank you to EVERYONE that has supported us in 2008! We certainly can’t wait to see what fun and adventures lies for 2009… Exciting times certainly lay ahead!

Merry Christmas! Happy Festivus! Have a great holiday break and we’ll catch you again in 2009!

Chris!

In terms of Principle Photography, everything pretty much ran exactly the same as if we were shooting on film. We lit it exactly the same way, and Ben (our DOP) still had his light meter by his side. Because we needed to shoot so much very quickly (time wasn’t on our side), I decided against setting up a “video village” and even a directors monitor – preferring to be there in the action, behind Ben, peaking over his shoulder to watch the on-camera LCD. This worked really well.

Although the plan was always to shoot to card for safety reasons (we’ve all got disaster stories to tell about Firestore’s dying and hard drives being dropped!) – we decided to gamble and record straight to the RED-DRIVE (a special drive designed for the camera which can store 320GB in a RAID 0 configuration). Not only that – but we decided to leave the dumping to the end of the day. This was a HUGE risk, because if the drive died at the end of the day, we’d potentially loose a whole days worth of shooting. However, we didn’t have the crew available to have a dedicated “data technician”, nor did we have the hardware to dump the cards on a regular basis. This may seem really silly (I mean seriously – all you need is a Mac laptop and a card reader!), but we had neither of those things at the time, and it was just easier to use what we had available. Luckily – nothing went wrong, and the RED-DRIVE was faultless – it never dropped a single frame! However, to anyone else planning to shoot on RED – I strongly recommend you do the complete opposite to what we did! Record to CF card and dump as soon as the card is full.

Although in the end we didn’t end up using any of the sync audio – we recorded audio separately to a Sound Devices 744T, which was synced to a Smart Slate. Originally we had planned to sync the camera to the 744T as well, but for some reason we couldn’t get it to work on the first day of shooting, so we gave up. I believe the problem has since been fixed with one of the RED ONE Firmware Updates. We only had one microphone on set – a Sennheiser 416 on a boom. We basically just recorded sound to use as a guide track for when it came to adding sound effects later on.

At the end of each shooting day we dumped the RED-DRIVE and the 744T to two seperate 1TB SATAII drives. For the duration of the shoot we managed to borrow a brand new MacPro Tower from Julian at Eidolon Creative and used this machine to do all the dumping as well as the transcoding. We put the two 1TB drives directly into the MacPro. We ended up with 508.34GB of camera footage, and a couple of GB of audio. We ended up purchasing two additional 500GB SATAII drives to make another backup of all of the R3D files – which we then stored at two separate locations away from our master edit suite, just in case. We called the drives Pinky (Master Edit), Bluey (Backup of Master Edit), Tumbles (R3D Master) and Splash (backup of R3D Master), because that’s what the names of the Sakooz creatures are called. Anyway… Now normally, on a “proper” production, you would have RAIDs and RAID 5 protection, etc. But unfortunately, we simply didn’t have the money for that, so we just had to make do with what we had. We had to manually copy and paste the files for backup purposes – we basically did this at the end of each day. We also kept a copy of the Final Cut Pro project on two USB thumbdrives just in case. Just for laughs, here’s a photo of some of the drives from our rather odd-ball collection. The top right one is Pinky. We ended up taking the covers off the enclosures as we found they got too hot when in use all day and night long.

After principle photography was wrapped we set the MacPro to work trancoding the R3D files using REDrushes (a free application which can be downloaded from the RED site). We were transcoding the R3D files to Apple ProRes 422 HQ files at 1920×1080. We were using the full debayer quality, and REDSpace for both the Colour & Gamma spaces. This took a HUGE amount of time (almost two weeks of none stop processing), but at the end of the day we ended up with some terrific Quicktime files that we could throw into Final Cut Pro and start editing, plus we could also send these clips to the visual effects kids so that they could start playing. We did run into one slight problem after we THOUGHT that everything was done. On inspection of the transcoded files, we realised that all the Quicktimes for Day Two of shooting were EXACTLY the same as Day Four. I’m still not sure whether that was human error or REDrushes being annoying – but either way we had to re-transcode all of the day four footage. Unfortunately at this stage we had to give back the MacPro, so we had to do all of this on a stock standard first generation MacBook. It wasn’t quite as fast as the MacPro, but it got the job done. Eventually.

Offlining using such high quality media may seem a little silly – I mean, really, we could have done a quarter res transcode to DV, and save a huge amount of time and disk space. Also, considering we were doing the offline on a bunch of eMac’s over Firewire 400 drives (that’s right… really old school eMac’s!), it would have also made the whole editing process a lot more fluid. However! By editing at such a great quality, it meant that whenever we did test screenings or had to show potential investors or sponsors, we could easily burn off a high-quality 1920×1080 Quicktime Movie that looks simply gorgeous even before grading. Here is a photo of our main editing machine.

…and the other babies:

I’m not even sure how this is possible, but we were able to play one video track of 1920×1080 ProRes on the eMac over Firewire 400 in realtime without any issues. And so, we basically edited away for several weeks in Final Cut Pro 6. We ended up doing a very rough grade using the 3-way Colour Corrector just so that when we showed other people to get opinions, they were looking at something that looked half decent. We tried a huge amount of different things in terms of the edit – we used a lot of different music as guide tracks. We even copied the audio from other big Hollywood trailers (such as the Dark Knight) and cut our footage to their soundtrack just to see what we could come up with. It was a very painful, long, but fun and creative process that I certainly won’t forget any time soon!

Whilst I was trying to lock down the picture, others were playing around with the visual effects. Initially, tests and trials were done by the various VFX artists using the ProRes Quicktime files. However, once we had locked down the trailer in terms of the edit, we used REDCINE to export out 4K TIFF sequences and 2K/1K DPX sequences for the visual effects people to work on. Ashley Smart (who did the effects for the Shed Explosion Sequence) was using 4K TIFF Sequences in After Effects on a laptop (which is quite incredible). James Otter used 1K DPX sequences in Nuke, and After Effects to achieve a lot of the effects shots, on a PC. And I used a good old MacBook, running After Effects and Shake to do the remaining shots. I ended up using After Effect’s own tracker for most of the tracking work, although I did use PFTrack for one of the shots. I also used Syntheyes on an old Dell Laptop for a small section of another shot. For Pinky eyes, I ended up brining in 4K DPX sequences into After Effects – which was fairly interesting on the poor old MacBook! But it worked, and the shots came out OK considering…

We ended up with 16 visual effects in total (including graphics). Once a visual effect shot was completed it was exported as a 1920×1080 DPX sequence ready for grading. For your viewing pleasure, here are some photos of After Effects genius James Otter, working away! I have no idea what the cardboard cartons are for, or where he got them. Needless to say, these photos were taken at some ridiculous early hour of the morning, after James and I had been stuck at uni for AT LEAST forty hours STRAIGHT!

Once the offline edit was complete, we tidied up the timeline so that everything was on the one track (where possible) and printed off an EDL. This then became our bible. At this stage, all the audio had been done in Final Cut Pro, with the occasional effect being done in Protools LE and Soundtrack Pro, and then exported out as an AIFF. We were still using guide track music.

By printing off the EDL we now had a hard copy of the trailer’s edit – which is always a good thing! But more importantly, it allowed us to easily track and manage everything. Because we couldn’t afford to purchase software such as Crimson Workflow, and we didn’t have time to write up our own proprietary software, we ended up doing a lot of things manually. For instance, we ended up going down the EDL line by line, and exporting a 1920×1080 DPX sequence from REDCINE. We made minor adjustments in REDCINE to get the most clean image and exported away. We put each shot in a different folder based on the EDL number assigned to the shot. For example, the first shot in the trailer was called 001_000001.DPX. This kept things nice and simple. Once every shot was exported out of REDCINE as DPX sequence (which took a night), it was ready for grading!

Originally we had planned to do the grade at one of the major post houses in Melbourne, but due to a lack of time and money, we ended up getting a very talented film school graduate called Nick Reid to do the grade in Apple’s Color. Getting the DPX files into Color proved to be a bit more tricky than anticipated! We ended up purchasing yet another 1TB SATAII drive (called Gizmo) for the colour grade.

What we ended up doing was wrapping all the DPX files as Quicktimes manually using AJA’s free DPXtoQTTranslator utility. Once all of the DPX’s were wrapped (including all the visual effects), we manually re-created the Final Cut Pro timeline based on the printed EDL using the newly wrapped Quicktime files. We then exported out a XML file from Final Cut Pro. This XML file was brought into Color and grading could commence. Nick took a couple of days to do the grade, and once completed, he handed back Gizmo, ready for the final stages!

With the grade now completed, we exported out AJA 10-bit Uncompressed RGB Quicktimes. We then used the AJA QTtoDPXTranslator to unwrap the Quicktime Files back to DPX files. As the AJA tool simply “wraps” the files – it doesn’t transcode them or anything like that, this process is really fast, although you do have to do it manually. For me, that means I have to do everything 69 times which isn’t too bad. The only annoying thing is that you have to rename all the clips again, as Color names everything sequentially, and we wanted everything named as per the bible (i.e. the EDL).

Now with a whole heap of beautifully graded DPX sequences, it was time to do the online. I ended up doing this at University on a nice and speedy MacPro in After Effects CS3. I imported all of the DPX sequences, and then manually put them all in the correct places based on the printed EDL. Once that was complete I simply rendered out a Quicktime File using the Animation Codec. Here is a photo taken at about four o’clock in the morning after I’d been at uni for about fourty hours STRAIGHT working on Sakooz. You can see the insanity in my eyes.

The only thing left to do was sound! Once Frank (our composer) finished, he simply gave us a 24-Bit 48KHz Broadcast Wave File, which we threw into Final Cut Pro. After a bit of tweaking – adjusting the sound effect levels to suit the new score, the sound was ready to rock and roll! Originally we had planned to do a quite complex 5.1 mix just for fun – but at the end of the day, no one was ever going to listen to it in surround sound anyway, so we decided to skip on that idea (for now at least). Once the sound was done, we exported an AIFF and then merged the Animation Codec video and AIFF together to create the Final Quicktime Master!

From that Quicktime master we than could do any DVD, web, Blu-ray, etc. encodes using Compressor.

And that is the workflow we decided to use for Sakooz! At the moment we are just archiving all the project files to DVD, and keeping all the media on the SATAII drives. At some stage we will eventually put everything to LTO drives as a final backup – but we don’t have the money at the moment.

This wasn’t exactly the quickest workflow in the world (we did a lot of things manually that could have been easily avoided by using software such as Crimson Workflow, plus we used extremely old Mac’s and PC’s in a lot of cases), but a lot of it came down to money vs time. In some cases money won out, but more often than not, we decided to save money and do things the manual way. To be perfectly honest, it actually felt really nice to have a printed out EDL on which to direct everything! It felt much the same as the good old days with film!

If you have any questions about the workflow or how we did anything, feel free to post a comment. At some stage in the future we also hope to post some more detailed information on the various visual effects that featured in the trailer, so stay tuned!

Chris!

To be perfectly honest, I was as nervous as all hell in the lead up to the screening. A lot of the cast and crew attending the screening hadn’t seen the trailer at this point, so I had no idea what the reaction was going to be. But luckily, no bricks have gone through my window, and everyone seemed to genuinely enjoy the trailer. The general consensus seemed to be: “I loved it! It looked so cool! I really want to see the full feature! Oh, but I had no idea what it’s about”! Now, I’m not sure if that’s a problem or not. Right throughout the editing process it’s been a constant battle between “telling too much” and “not enough” when it comes to story telling in the trailer. The fact that we don’t yet had a locked down feature film script doesn’t help – but at the same time, trailers are meant to “sell a concept”, not just give away the whole plot. The fact that people seemed to really get excited about the whole idea is great – regardless of whether or not they knew what was going on. One of the best thing about listening in to other people’s conversations after the screening was hearing people arguing with one another about what it was actually about. Everyone seems to “read” the trailer differently, and come up with a whole of unique and intriguing meanings and metaphors. But the best thing of all is, that once both parties eventually give up arguing about what the film is actually about, they just agree to disagree, and say, “I guess we’ll just have to watch the feature film to find out”! Now, this is exciting! If people actually want to watch the feature film, then we’re onto something! Oh, and the fact that the audience clapped twice after the trailer is always a good sign (especially as none of the other films recieved the double clap!).

It was fantastic to see the trailer shown in a theatrical environment at such a great cinema! ACMI has to be one of my favourite cinema’s in Melbourne, simply because the visual and audio quality is faultless, the seats and comfortable, and it’s in such a great location. The trailer was shown in HD, via a HDCAM deck, so it looked and sounded amazing! One of the biggest things I noticed was how much faster it seemed being shown on such a big screen. Having watched it a billion or so times on a 17″ monitor, and a few times on various small scale projection screens, it seemed to run so much quicker on the bigger screen – which is actually great! It seemed so Hollywood – so action packed. Even I got excited watching it!

Sakooz made it’s second public screening at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, for another Swinburne event on the 4th of December. Unfortunately, the actual screening itself was fairly horrible, as the 12 students films were just played on a looping DVD player in a small section of ACCA, on a crappy little cheap projector with an incredibly bad sound system. It certainly wasn’t the best viewing enviroment to see the trailer, but even so, when Sakooz did play it certainly got a big reaction! As a lot of the other films were dialogue driven, as no one in the audience could really hear what was going on (due to the bad sound system, but also the huge amount of people in the venue chatting away, drinking and socialising), when Sakooz popped up, I think everyone was pleasantly shocked to see a piece that was purely driven by visuals. So once again, Sakooz made a reaction, which is what it’s all about!

So what’s been happening since ACCA? In terms of Sakooz, nothing really noteworthy. To perfectly honest, after several months of hell, I just needed a little bit of a break – not that I’ve been resting! I’ve been attending a lot of the other film school screenings the last few weeks (Holmesglen, VCA, RMIT, etc.) to “check out the competition” and see what other amazing up-and-coming talents are out there. As always with these kinds of screenings, there was some really great stuff, and also some really average stuff. To be perfectly honest, and I know this is going to sound biased, but I really feel like the Swinburne University screening was by far the strongest this year overall. VCA’s work was brillant as always, but there was a lot of films that seemed quite pretentious and “out there for the sake of it”, and I was also quite shocked that not all of the films were as technically perfect as they should have been. Normally everything out of the VCA is technically spotless (i.e. perfect sound – no nasty pops or clicks, no visual artefacts, etc.), but this year there were a couple of films that obviously missed quality control. That said, a couple of the films were terrific (for those that went, I really loved the opening film on Screening A about the boxes, as well as the film starring the killer wombat!). The Holmesglen screening had some really great films on display – but it also had a lot of average content. To be honest, the majority of the films seemed really amateur – almost verging on “home movie” quality. What was most surprising however was the 3D animations. I was expecting to see some really great stuff – but with the exception of two little shorts (one involving cups, the other involving a mime artist), the overall quality was fairly poor. But, as I said, with all these kinds of screenings, you had the good, and you have the bad. The scary thing is however, I can’t believe how many new film graduates are going to be trying to get a job next year. If you add up the enrolments from all of the various film schools in Melbourne – well, you get a lot of people all looking for employment.

So what’s in store for the near future? I am currently still trying to work out a plan of attack for the Sakooz feature film concept. I had a lot of ideas in the pipeline, and a few people that might be interested in getting on board the Sakooz freight train to help it get made. We are planning to release the trailer to the world on the 1st of January 2009 – although with everything else we do with Sakooz, this is subject to change. At this stage, we’re considering releasing the trailer through YouTube first, simply because it’s got such a good community, and word tends to spread fast between users. Obviously however, this brings up a lot of copyright issues, which we are currently considering. But rest assured, we’re certainly not sleeping – and Sakooz is very much an “alive and kicking” project! We’re also hoping to get some behind the scenes footage, and also some more information on our workflow, etc. onto this blog as soon as possible.

As always, exciting times certainly lay ahead! Onward and upward!

Chris!

What an adventure it’s been! I never thought that post production would be as exciting, dangerous and challenging as the principle photography, but hey, you learn something new every day! I can’t tell you how glad I am to finally be able to file away all those printed EDLs, editing notes, colour grading notes, and stop thinking about DPX sequences and colour sampling! In fact, I just can’t wait to finally get some sleep! It’s been a long time coming!

So what now? Well, to be perfectly honest, I haven’t thought too much about it! I’m just glad we got through today, and everything is ready for the ACMI screening! So I guess first up on the agenda is ACMI. This will be the first semi-public screening of the trailer – so if you want to get a glimpse before the masses, I strongly suggest you come along! Then after that, we begin our big marketing campaign! Originally I had planned to launch this directly after the ACMI screening – however, I’ve since decided to push things back until either later in December or the first week of Janurary, just so that I have a little bit more time to get things organised. Oh dear! Despite the fact that I’m in DESPERATE need of a holiday, December is going to be once again a busy month it seems – website to make, DVDs to produce, meetings to organise, the list goes on! Well, at least live isn’t boring!

It’s going to be so interesting to see what reaction the trailer gets. To be honest, most people that have seen the trailer so far (before it was completely finished), have said, “Wow! It’s cool. It looks amazing! But I have absolutely no idea what its about”. Fair enough! But to be honest, I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I think I’ll have a better idea if I’ve made any horrible mistakes in the aftermath of the ACMI screening. As always, time will tell!

So once again, thank you to EVERYONE who has supported me over the last year and a bit! It’s been an AMAZING ride! I hope once you see the trailer you think it was worth the battle. Personally – I think it certainly was. I’ll be posting more over the next couple of days, and a heap more in December about the post production process and how we went about things. We also recently came across a whole heap of old Happy Sundaes behind the scenes footage, so we might upload that onto this blog as well for you to all have a look at.

Until next time!

Chris!

The whole post production process has certainly been an exciting and challenging one! We’ve definitely spent a fair bit of time hanging around at the Red User forum, trying to work out the best workflow with our limited resources and budget (you can read one of our threads here). But, so far, so good, and we’ve been able to develop a nice little pipeline that seems to be working. At some stage in the future we’ll explain everything in nitty-gritty technical detail.

I’ve unfortunately got to get back to work – so this is just a very quick little update. But rest assured, we’ll be posting more and more stuff in the lead up to 2009. How scary is that? The year is rapidly coming to an end.

Until next time…

Also, just to give you a quick update, we are still madly cutting together the trailer. We’ve gone through a few drafts now, and are still experimenting trying to put together a trailer that explains the story (but doesn’t give everything away), introduces the characters, looks and sounds amazing, and isn’t boring or clichéd. It’s not an easy task, as we’re limited to what we shot on our very hectic five day shooting schedule – but it’s a lot of fun just messing around with the edit and trying new things. One of the big problems I’m finding so far is putting together a sequence that won’t confuse the audience too much – because I know the story so well, it’s easy to forget what the audience do and don’t know. Also, a lot of things that looked good on paper, simply don’t translate through to the screen – so it’s a challenge thinking outside of the box, and messing around with the edit to give certain shots new meaning and context.

I’m off to Sydney tomorrow for a few days for work (so that I can pay off some of my Sakooz debts!), but when I return it will be full steam ahead again in the edit suite. Also, still on the to-do list, we will eventually put up some more detailed posts on what happened during the shoot, and add some more videos and photos. We’ll also start putting an official Sakooz website together, in which you’ll be able to view and download higher resolution versions of the above photos (and lots more)! So stay tuned – lots of exciting things are certainly coming up! We’ll also EVENTUALLY put up all the camera test stuff we talked about months and months ago, plus some R3D files for people to mess around with.

Until next time… Chris!

Ok – so what’s happening Sakooz related? Well… unfortunately it’s been quite a slow couple of weeks. After completing principle photography, I started on a hunt to try and lock down a professional trailer editor. Although I had an AMAZING response, and lots of people really wanted to help out (especially as many of them hadn’t had a chance to cut together RED footage yet), no one was willing to sign up given the deadlines. And so, after many discussion with various editors and mentors, I have decided to cut together the rough cut myself, and then get advice from various people to complete the edit. So yes, I guess I’m also going to have to add “editor” to my credit list. Luckily however, because the footage just looks so good (and I really love what footage we ended up with) – it’s quite fun to cut together. It’s hard work however, because you have to cut basically mute – as there’s very little location sound, dialogue and we don’t have any music yet. But hey, nothing like another challenge!

So yeah, we’re basically stuck in “post production hell” at the moment. Hopefully we’ll have the picture locked by the first couple of weeks of October. Fingers crossed! As promised, we’ll also be adding stories from the principle photography on this blog, as well as photos over the next few weeks. Here are some little happy snaps for you to have a look at for the time being… Enjoy!

Get Flash Player to see this video.

We’ll be posting lots more videos and photos over the coming days and weeks, so make sure you keep an eye out on this blog!

David is working away on Pinky's head.

This is Pinky's skull before skin is applied.

This is inside the spaceship structure.

David taking Pinky's head for a test drive.

Chris attacks the spaceship with a jigsaw.

Catherine & Karen sorting through all the rubbish.

The frame that will later be transformed into the rear of the spaceship.

Chris (with very little building experience) struggles to make the structure hold together.

The spaceship structure sits comfortably on a couple of arm chairs.

This is Pinky's Skull before skin is applied.

This is the unfinished space ship just lazing around.

Chris is busy nailing away.

This is the spaceship construction site.

David is hard at work putting together the puppet components of Pinky's head.

This is the Creature Laboratory, where Pinky is put together.

And, don’t worry – there will be plenty of more photos and videos coming over the next couple of weeks! Until then… Chris!

Ok… so I decided that the trailer must go ahead on the Wednesday night. That meant I had six days until day one of principle photography. Had everyone still been on the project, that deadline would have been a challenge but not impossible. Given that I was now producing, directing and art directing, this was going to be one of the toughest tasks I’d ever undertaken, but hey, I was up for it!

After an extremely tough Wednesday night of one minute thinking that Sakooz was dead, to the next deciding to take on the world, after many phone calls and some quite heavy discussions with friends, family and mentors, I finally went to bed at some unhealthy hour. Then Thursday it was pedal to the floor!

The morning was dedicated to working out a basic plan of attack. Given that my work load has now tripled, I had to do some seriously thinking and evaluating. There was a lot of work still to be done, so I started hunting down people I could trust to pull it off given the tight deadline. Once I had a very rough plan of attack, I then headed to Animal & Odd-bod Creators to pick up the Pinky body. I must say, Colleen, Karen and everyone at this company has gone well and truly out of their way to help us out. They have been so tremendously helpful, supportive and flexible, it’s been amazing. So thank you! The Pinky body was perfect, and so off I went, with a Pink alien body on the passenger seat. The adventure continues!

Then in the afternoon I had to pick up a work van and pick up all the props, sets and other odd-ball stuff that was still at Isaac’s. This was a very strange moment – almost an ending of an era. Isaac, Caithlin and Anli were all there, and together as a team we tried to get the uncompleted space ship set into the van. Thanks to our good mate Murphy (who seems to be following me around like a stalker), the ship was about 1.5cm too big to fit into the van (“missed it by that much!”). And so, we got some hammer out, and in a typical Chris fashion, we just “bashed” it in. After a good forty minutes of near death experiences, and some serious struggles trying to get everything into the now completely jam packed van, we won – and we went for coffee to have a debrief. To be perfectly honest, it was horribly awkward. I guess this was the point of separation. Anli, Caithlin and Isaac were heading off to work on something completely new and different, and I was continuing on where we all left off. There was no yelling or screaming – and everyone looked, although very sad, fairly relieved. And so, after I had one of the most hardcore Hot Chocolates I’ve ever had (it was like drinking a block of pure chocolate that had been turned into liquid form by a bunch of high precision lasers), we all said our goodbyes and headed off in different direction. Anli went off on a train, Caithlin jumped in a car, Isaac walked home, and I drove back home in a jam packed van. But I made it!

Once home I unloaded everything (which was surprisingly easier than trying to get it into the van in the first place), and then dropped the van back off at work. It was now very late, but I continued on working out schedules and attempted to nail and glue back the spaceship set together. At about 4:30 in the morning I finally got around to writing an e-mail to all the cast letting them know the situation. Some of them knew already – as I had spoken to them soon after I found out that Isaac, Anli & Caithlin will no longer be continuing on – but others had no idea. It was a very tough e-mail to write – as I didn’t really know what to say. I didn’t want to scare them away from the production (as loosing the director is quite a big thing!), but at the same time, I wanted to ensure them that I was more than up for the challenge and still really believed in the concept and the belief that this could be big.

After an hour or so of sleep, it was back to it. One of the main problems I had at this stage was that due to various reasons I no longer had access to the animatronic Pinky head. The head had taken months to build (as still wasn’t 100% finished), and so it was kind of scary knowing that I had to come up with something within a few days. But luckily I had a secret weapon – my brother! Although we couldn’t make an replica animatronics head given the time frame, we could still make a really great puppet! So I spent most of Friday driving around like a mad man picking stuff up and buying bits and pieces – fabrics, foam, plastic, metal, wood, cleaners trolley, wires, steel, bottles, tools, hard drives, etc. I also borrowed a Mac Pro from Eidolon Creative, for the on set capture. Julian, who runs Eidolon is amazingly helpful and supportive! We’ve worked together on heaps of various indie film projects over the years (Grey Days, Jumping Jack, Union Jack, Behind Crimson Eyes Clip… the list goes on!), and we constantly bounce ideas off one another, and have become quite good mates. If you ever want a great video clip produced, Julian is your man.

By the time I got home with all the bits, it was quite late and unfortunately I had prior engagements for the night – it was my brothers 21st! And so, despite the fact that my brain was racing at a billion miles an hour, I had to stop, put on some crazy clothes (it was a movie themed dress up karaoke night believe it or not!), and have fun. But of course, once the party was over (and I must say, it was a REALLY fun night!), when I got home it was back to work. Eventually I went to bed… I think.

Saturday was a big day. Luckily I convinced some of my brothers friends at the party to come and help me complete the spaceship. And so, with a team of talented people, we started work. Four of us took on the spaceship outside, whilst inside my brother started cutting up foam and fabric to build Pinky’s head. It really was a race against time. I wish I had some behind the scenes footage of us building everything outside, as it would be been seriously funny. None of us were really builders (although Karen at least knew how to operate all the scary power tools!), so we were just pretty much making it up as we went along. It was fun – a little scary at times (whenever I had the jigsaw in hand!) – but certainly not a boring afternoon! By the end of the day, we had made amazing progress. Outside, the ship was starting to look as if it would actually work, and inside, Pinky’s head was slowly coming to life. Thank you to Catherine, Karen, Shaun, David, Jacqui and the rest of my supportive family for all of your help! I got about one hour sleep that night, and just my luck, during that one hour of turning my back, it started snowing!

As we woke up on Sunday morning, the whole backyard was covered in snow! I couldn’t believe it! What are the chances? Unless I’m working outside, I tend to spend most of my time inside – and it was just plain bad luck that the one time I decided to build something outside (that is, the space ship), it started snowing! Crazy! I’ll post some video footage of the snow soon…

So, we continued building in the freezing cold with snow all around us, whilst inside the nice and warm house, David continued on with Pinky’s head. Once I had done all I could do outside, I spent the rest of the day in front of the computer doing call sheets. By Sunday night everything was looking good – call sheets were done, the space ship was ready for transportation, and Pinky’s head was done except for the eyes. We hoped that we could get the eyes from the animatronics version of Pinky, but failing that we ended up just making a new pair. They’re very similar, however, not quite as good. But luckily, you can’t really notice the difference on camera.

Then Monday, the day before shooting, it was a MASSIVE day of picking up and testing gear! First up we picked up all the uni gear (which was a completely full 4WD load – actually I’m pretty sure we seriously overloaded the car but anyway). Then we headed home, unloaded, and headed back out to pick up the camera from Inspiration Studios. As always Cail and Pete were AMAZINGLY helpful and supportive. These guys are the RED gurus – so if you ever need to hire a RED in Melbourne, give them a call. They really go above and beyond! Then it was off to Frazier Film Lighting to grab some more lighting. Les is amazing, and we are so grateful for all of his assistance and support. Like everyone else, he really went out of his way to help us out. So thank you!

Now with a RED, and enough lighting gear to sink a battle ship, we headed off to Hub Productions to pick up the lenses. Although I had heard a lot about him, and spoke to him on the phone and via e-mail I’d never met Jim (who runs the hire department). But all the stories were true! He’s just a really great guy! Super helpful and supportive! We did some quick tests to make sure the camera plays nicely with all the hardware, and then off we went. We were ready to rock and roll…

On the way, we grabbed an old JAG from work (thanks Frank!), and off Jacqui and I went back home to prepare for day one. At home, we started sorting through all the gear, and loading it all into a massive trailer.

Unfortunately that night I didn’t get much sleep either. We just had so much to do. But, despite all odds, we got there. We were ready for day one. Despite all the obstacles, despite all the problems, we had at least got to this stage.

So that pretty much wraps up this entry! In the next few entries we’ll give you a run down of what happened during the shoot – as we certainly had some exciting times!

Again, thanks to EVERYONE to helped get the trailer footage in the can (or on the hard drive as the case may be). I HONESTLY truly appreciate everyone’s hard work and dedication. I couldn’t have done it without you all. So thank you!

Photos and behind the scenes footage will start appearing soon, so stay tuned!

Until next time… Chris!

Lets flash back to the start of August. Things were stressful and chaotic, but we looked as if we were heading in the right direction. During the first weekend of the month was spent urgently trying to get some of the more creative and construction elements of the production finished. Isaac and Tim (our animatronics guru) continued work trying to get Pinky’s face finished, and the rest of us frantically started building a massive space ship in Isaac’s back yard. There were a couple of trips to Bunnings, a few trips to dodgy parts of town to grab unloved furniture, lots of hammering, jig-sawing, cutting, pasting, bleeding, gluing – everything was happening! Most of the ship was constructed out of things we got for dirt cheap at the Reverse Art Truck (RAT), in Ringwood. Basically you purchase a plastic bag for $25, and then you can fill it up with whatever “junk” you want. We bought two bags and filled them up with all kinds of weird and wonderful items (bits of foam, wires, tubing, cardboard off-cuts, bottle lids, malformed containers, etc.), and also purchased some large chipboard-like panels for $2 each. Most of the wood we used for the spaceship came from one of Isaac’s old beds, however we also picked up some other bits and pieces from Bunnings, as we didn’t have the time to hunt down more free wood. Despite the fact that neither Caithlin nor myself are builders, and Isaac wasn’t around for some of the time – we did a pretty good job. Things were starting to come together!

Given that we were building the craft in the middle of suburbia, as soon as it became dark, we had to stop building, not because of the lack of light – but because I don’t think the neighbours would have been too happy with us smashing wood with hammers, attempting to use power tools and singing songs from Triple M at some ungodly hour of the morning. So at night, we put down our tools, and continued work on other things – schedules, animatronics, the Pinky baby, call sheets, etc. With only a week to go until shooting – we had a lot to do

Caithlin and I continued building the craft on Monday, with Isaac up in Geelong continuing work on Pinky’s head. It was “full speed ahead” with the deadline looming, and still a lot to do. But despite all this – we were slowly winning. Although it was going to be tight (and by tight I mean to the nano-second), but we should have got everything built and ready for filming in time. Anli dropped in for a bit during the day, and over lunch we had some heavy discussions about the script and the overall direction of the production. She seemed to be loosing faith in the production, but given that we were only days away from shooting, and everything was gradually falling into place, I made the terrible assumption that she would just continue to ride aboard the crazy roller-coaster! I thought I’d been able to convince her once again that what we were trying to do what unique, exciting and in many respects ground-breaking. We weren’t just putting together a film for the sake of it – nor were we trying to cut corners or do things the easy way. We had a massively ambitious plan that involved lots of actors, locations, pyrotechnics, special effects, animatronics, shooting on a camera that is basically still in a prototype stage, and doing all this on basically no budget at all. The concept of Sakooz is hardly your average film student production – it’s an epic, big budget, fire, flames and smoke motion picture! Basically, we wanted to make an Australian version of The Host (visually and thematically that is), without the 10 billion won (which works out to be about $11 million Australian) in our back pockets. Challenging, yes. Impossible – hardly!

On Monday night, we continued working around the clock – building, sewing, writing, calculating. And then on Tuesday, the first bombshell exploded. We were all spending the day away from each other each working on our own things – Isaac was up in Geelong working on the head, Caithlin was at home working on baby Pinky, Anli was busily trying to put together some additional script and character information for our actors, and I was also at home busily trying to work out the logistics and financial of the whole production. Then, just after midday on Tuesday, Anli sent us all an e-mail:

Chris, Isaac and Caithlin, I really don’t know how to say this in the best way possible, and I apologise for not being able to tell you this in person but I don’t think I could explain it properly at all. To put it simply, I can’t mentally pull myself through this project any more. After being sick and being away from you guys, I took on a different perspective about the whole project which I can’t seem to reverse no matter how hard I try. I want to be there for you guys, as your friend, to support you in everything you do, but I also really care about being a writer, and from a story point of view, through nobody’s fault except for my own, I feel like I’ve compromised too much of what I really care about. I’ve known this for a long time, but have always maintained the mentality that I can put it on the back burner and ‘fight’ my way through. But now, without a true belief in the story, I can’t physically do this. I know this will seem very unfair, selfish and weak of me to do, but I hope you somehow understand, and not take this personally.

And with that one short e-mail, everything started to very slowly fall apart. As soon as I read that e-mail, my mind went into overdrive. Anli deciding to leave the production was obviously a massive shock, and a big reality check. She had obviously lost complete and utter faith in the production, and more importantly, she had lost faith in the concept and the story. This was a big problem – but what scared me most of all was what Caithlin and Isaac would think. Having already lost Dave (our ex-Production Manager) earlier in the year, and now Anli, was this the end of what was heading to be an absolutely amazing production? Anli obviously takes her writing and all creative elements of film-making deadly serious. And despite all the hard work we had put into trying to get the screenplay to a point were everyone was happy and genuinely in love with the script, we obviously never reached that point. Her fears that we rushed the writing process, and were planning to shoot something that simply wasn’t ready, story wise was completely valid. At the end of the day, I guess what makes a film is STORY, STORY, STORY, and if the story is wrong – the whole film will fall apart. This is obviously what scared Anli to the point were she decided she couldn’t go on. Of course, the fact that we were only days away from shooting and there was still so much to do must have also been a deciding factor – as well as the fact that this whole venture was going to cost us so much money! And so, Anli left the project.

One of the biggest problems that Isaac and Anli have always had about this project is that they have felt as if we have been writing the script to a deadline – which is exactly what we’ve been doing. Last year we decided that we wanted to make a feature film, and after thinking about a couple of different ideas, we all decided that “TV Tubsters” (which became Sakooz), was the way to go. And so we started developing the idea. At first we started trying to put it together as a group and we did this for a couple of months. Then we decided that it was too hard to write together with three people and so we left the task to Isaac. Despite my objections, we also decided that it was going to be way too hard to complete a whole feature film in a year at University and so we scaled back our production to a three minute promotional teaser/trailer. Although I still really like the idea of the trailer, and think it will lead to bigger and better things, deep down I still believe if we just “went for it”, we could have pulled off a feature length film – but I guess we’ll never know! Isaac then spent his whole summer stuck in front of the iMac writing away. He wrote and he wrote and he wrote. At the same time I started studying every single writing book there is from Story (Robert McKee), to How to Build a Great Screenplay (David Howard) and even books like Screenwriting for Dummies (Laura Schellhardt). Having attended many, many script writing lectures at all kinds of institutions over the years (both as a student and as a technician in charge of making sure the presentation runs smoothly) – I actually have a really good understanding of the screen writing process and the techniques and principles behind it. However, I’ve never considered myself a writing, and therefore have never practised the craft. Anyway… A first draft was very close to being finished by Isaac. In March, Isaac, Anli and myself went to beautiful down-town Hong Kong for a couple of weeks for the Hong Kong International Film Festival. Of course, the plan was that when we weren’t watching films, we would be further developing the script. As could be expected, this never happened, and we spent most of our time doing touristy things and going out on the town. However, when we finally returned to uni, and Anli and myself read the draft in its latest state, I don’t think either of us understood it. It was funny, it was quirky, it was out there (one of our biggest inspirations at this stage in development was Gremlins 2), but I for one just simply didn’t “get it”. And so, I made the EXTREMELY tough decision of trying to convince Isaac that we should re-think the first draft in its current form. It was hard (especially as he had just spend weeks and weeks in front of his computer busily typing away), but eventually that’s what we decided to do. We went back to square one. And then, one more as a group, we started busily “smashing” together another feature film concept – obviously along the same lines (i.e. aliens on a kids TV show), but just with a different approach and direction.

Having read books like Rebel Without a Crew (Robert Rodriguez) and Peter Jackson, A Film-Makers Journey (Brian Sibley), I guess I’ve never seen the problem with just making the decision to just sit down and write a really cool screenplay that I for one would personally like to see. I’m a strong believer in just making films that you would like to see, as I’m sure that there are at least one or two other people in the world that have the same taste and humour as me. And if I can create a reaction from just one person, then that’s what I think it’s all about. Film-making, in my opinion is about creating reactions from your audience and about making people really think and question the world they live in. Some people may say that most films are purely just in it for the money, and they don’t change anything. I disagree! Take for instance Jurassic Park (1993). At first glances, you might wrongly assume that this movie was just solely created to sell tickets. And I guess, in some ways it was. But just like most (if not all) of Steven Spielberg’s movies, this film also addresses all kinds of things about what’s good and bad about the world we live in. Although you might not notice it at first – this movie makes you question things. Should we mess with nature? Is family the most important thing? Is your life more important that your loved ones? Although this film is a big, action-packed roller-coaster ride – it also has messages embedded into it, and morals. And I think you’ll find that with all GOOD movies, one of the key reasons that makes them good, is the fact that they question the world we live in, and make you ask questions in your head. That what I wanted to do with Sakooz! Sure I wanted to create a really “cool” movie with lots of action, explosions, cool aliens, etc. But I also wanted to create something that made you question things. I wanted a film that had the heart of Garden State (2004), with the action of Transformers (2007), and the humour and visual style of The Host (2006).

And so, Anli, Isaac and myself started rebuilding the story, character and plot outline. We started to question everything, and ask ourselves and each other heaps of questions. What would Leodore do in this situation? Why would he do it? We did pages and pages of character notes and questionnaires. If we couldn’t answer a question, we sit down as a group and run around in circles until one of us had a brainwave and everything fell into place. The process was hard work – it took a hell of a lot out of you, but it was (in my opinion at least), worth it. Not only were we creating a story that was beginning to have some kind of a backbone – but we were also learning just how hard it is to create a complex story from the ground up. I’ve read a million times just how hard the writing process is, and how much pain writers go through – but until you do it yourself, you just have no idea. Like most things, when you sit down staring at a blank screen, it all seems almost impossible. How can you possibly fill all these pages with magical words? But once you start getting into the swing of things, slowly by surely, everything starts falling into place. Of course, what you write the first time won’t be perfect – you’ll no doubt need to stop, go back, and re-write what you wrote (and probably took you three days to write!), but that’s all part of the process. It’s hard work – but someone has to do it! Flash forward to the 26th of April, and that’s when we started this blog!

So, in an attempt to get this post back on track, what happened after Anli’s e-mail? Well the next day was absolute hell. It will go down in history as of my the toughest days I’ve ever had to go through. Now this might sound like an overreaction – but believe me, it wasn’t. And I’ve been through some pretty tough dates in the past, believe me! Isaac, Caithlin and I met at Isaac’s house. When I got there, I went round the back, as the original plan was that we would continue to build the spaceship all day. But when I got round, no one had hammers or glue in hand. And so, we started talking, arguing and discussing. It was like some kind of a crazy triangle. Isaac had decided that for various reasons, we shouldn’t continue on with the trailer. Caithlin was still (at this stage) in the middle. She saw everything from Isaac’s point of view, but at the same time, we’d put so much work into everything, and were so close to filming, that she also felt that it would be a shame to throw everything in. I was at the other end of the spectrum. I REALLY wanted to make Sakooz a reality. And the discussions continued. We were hitting road block after road block. I’d tried to convince them both we should just finish what we started, because despite what they might think, I still believed in the concept and story and honestly believed we were heading in the right direction. Isaac tried to convince me that we should stop now as the whole production had bad foundations from the get go. Caithlin tried to see things from both points of view. Eventually however, I lost the battle. They both decided that they definitely didn’t want to do it. I was shattered. But what could I do? Without a Director, Assistant Director or Art Director, it was just me all alone. I was outnumbered, and I lost the war. And so, in Isaac’s backyard, we made the INCREDIBLY tough decision that Sakooz was not going to be finished this year. I was devestated – seriously. After all the money, blood and effort I’d put into this production (that I TRUELY felt strongly about), everything had blown up in my face. One of my final words were “I don’t care what anyone thinks, I’m going to get this film made one day”. We decided that I would keep everything in storage at my place. And so, I left. The drive home was a so hard. At first, I just expected it. It almost felt a bit like a relief. I no longer had to worry about all the problems and issues that Sakooz brought with it. But it was an easy way out. As I got closer and closer to home however, I started to break down. To be honest, I just didn’t know what I was going to say to my family and friends. The fact that I’d have to tell my family that we’d basically just given up (and yes, I know it wasn’t as simple as that), was too much. As I got closer and closer to home, with Lovers Electric blasting through the stereo, I started to ball my eyes out. It was all too much. I nearly ran off the road a couple of times. But all I wanted to do was get home. I felt like a three year old again that had just been bullied in the playground. When I got home, my family thought something SERIOUSLY bad had happened. Had someone died? I know it seems really silly, getting so worked up about a stupid university project – but when you put so much heart and soul into something, only to have it taken away from you in one foul swoop, it’s tough. I knew deep down that it wasn’t the end of the world, and I knew that I shouldn’t be getting so worked up about it, but at the time, my body and mind just gave up. It was all too hard. But, after much calming down, and hugs from my amazing family (and yes, this all sounds very lame and stupid – but anyway!), I started to regain some kind of composure. They started to ask me serious questions – why did we decide to give up on the trailer? What needed to be done? What are the pros and cons of the situation? Could I just do it myself? Slowly but surely my brain started working again. I started to seriously consider everything.

I’ve never been one to just give up, regardless of how tough things get. It’s just not in my nature. However, this situation really put me to the test. I felt trapped – I couldn’t see a logical way out. But after discussing things with my incredibly supportive family, I started calling up friends and asking for their advice. I was still shaking like crazy. I had no idea what lay in the future. After calling up heaps of people, the general consensus was that I should just go for it. Don’t give up no matter how hard things get. Just continue on. I started thinking back to all the books and stories I’ve ever read. Every film has these kinds of issues. But they always get through it with a bit of hard work and determination. It was decided – despite loosing the Director, Art Director, and Assistant Director (and my co-writers), the show must go on!

In the space of one day, my whole world collapsed, and then I suddenly found myself no longer as just the producer of this crazy project, but also the Director, Art Director and everything else. It had gone from a group project to a solo mission. But I wasn’t alone – I had an AMAZING team behind me. I had a incredibly brilliant crew in place, and an equally impressive cast. Despite all that had happened, I all of a sudden felt like maybe, just maybe, we could pull this off. It wasn’t going to be easy – but we the support of my family, friends and the rest of Team Sakooz, I felt that we might just win the war after all…

And so, the start of the real adventure continued! The first step was going to be tough – real tough. I had to call up Isaac and Caithlin and explain to them, that despite everything that happened today, I had decided to take on everything myself. Isaac wasn’t impressed. It had been an incredibly tough decision for us all to throw in the towel, and he didn’t appreciate my sudden change of heart. But in my defence, at the time I didn’t really have much of an option. It was two against one, and I didn’t think I could even remotely possibly think I could do everything myself. What I didn’t realise at the time was that I wouldn’t be doing it all by myself. I would just be the “ringleader” – my fantastic cast and crew would be the one’s that would help ensure that everything goes to plan. Although neither Caithlin or Isaac liked it – they didn’t really have a choice in the matter. If I wanted to go ahead, then that was my choice. They both warned me that it was going to be hell and that I would probably end up with something that was just plain “crap” – but that didn’t really bother me. At least I’d give it my very best shot. And at the end of the day, I believed in the concept. I believed in the story. In fact, I loved the story and the characters. After all, despite the fact that Isaac, Anli and myself developed the Sakooz story as a team – at the end of the day, I felt as if it was always my story. I had worked on the Tweenies over a period of four years (I first travelled around Australia as a minder and animatronics assistant at the extremely young age of 15). It was a MASSIVE part of my life, and the experience really made me the person that I am today (for better or for worse!). Although Leodore was a fictional character, there are so many elements of him I can relate to (which is kind of scary).

So, despite all odds, and despite all the issues and problems, regardless of the fact that we lost our director, art director and assistant producer, the show must go on! Over the next few blog entries, I will start filling you in with what happening in the days leading up to filming, and then what happened on Day One through to Five of Principle Photography. It sure was one hell of a ride!

Now to finish up this post, I’ll leave you with a blog entry that Isaac wrote the day after I decided to take on the project solo, that explains his reasons for why he chose not to complete Sakooz. It’s been really tricky writing this, as I don’t want to put words into his mouth – so hopefully this clearly states his point of view:

Well, I am the Director of Sakooz, or at least I was the Director. Yesterday we completely scrapped the film, it was an extremely hard decision for all of us, and it would have been far easier to continue along ignoring it’s problems just to finish the damn thing. However if we were to continue along we would have not only been wasting our own time. Not that this is a problem considering the fact that we have already spent over 10 months on this project. One of the problems is that we would have been wasting many other people’s time and resources. We were lying to everybody involved, convincing them all that it was a good idea when we didn’t truly believe in it ourselves.

It is nobody’s fault; the film just didn’t have any depth, heart, or substance. The primary problem behind this is that we attempted to develop the idea as a group of three, each of us taking turns at it and sometimes developing it together. With a project this big it really needs to begin as one person’s idea or baby, they can seek consultation from the people around them, but the story remains theirs enabling that person to immerse themselves entirely in the story. This film was nobody’s baby and then at the same time it was everybody’s baby. We all knew the story in different ways, which constantly caused major confusion.

We worked like this primarily so that we could achieve the result by the deadline, this is the second problem. When developing a feature motion picture a deadline is rarely a good thing. These problems lead to the overruling problem, it became a business, it felt like we were a factory churning out a pre-packaged microwavable instant-movie-matic 3000.

But why didn’t we stop and work things out? Well, here we come to the biggest problem. We are a great team here at latenite films, we have made great films and will continue to in the future. However with this film the three person creative collaboration is where we went most horribly wrong. Of the three key members of latenite, (becoming four) there are two creative minds and a technical mind. The two creative minds knew there was something wrong, we felt we couldn’t just do it as factory work. We needed to be working on something we truly believed in, something we believed in beyond the surface, beyond it’s colourful furry exterior. However the technical mind was of the mindset that if we just continue pushing and ignore the problems we will get past them. This is a great quality to posses especially as a producer; you need a person who is so stubborn who can push people through the bad times with sheer force. However, you also need to know how to stop, when you can see that things have been going in the wrong direction for a long time and that all which was the idea of the film is lost.

It was more than just this; we the creative minds should have spoken out. But we did, we tried to change the direction of things at various points along the journey. Whether it is 5-minute attempts or an hour trying to get rid of the ball and chain, which held us on this one blind path to… well? We were strongly opposed by the technical mind and were shut down, I admit after my last objection I just went back in my hole, knowing that the opposing opinions were not open to change.

I shut myself down and just thought of it as a shit-house ass-munching job of which I have done many. I stopped thinking about what it meant and just went along with it. It was impressive at times, I had formula pitches I would use to bullshit to people that it was a good concept.
But at times it shone through, like when we pitched our final proposal to the lecturers at our university. I thought I should try to actually think about it and what I believed about it, I had nothing, and this film was no longer a positive part of me. It became a cancer, filling me with anger and rage, I began to hate everything it represented.
Even beginning to hate those I worked with, though underneath the rage I loved them dearly. I went along with it during the day going about it as a job trying to distract myself from its dark side. I even enjoyed parts of it, but only because I was able to disconnect myself from the deeper elements of the film.

It was at night when these elements caught up with me, causing me to lose many nights of sleep, fighting with my head. To a large degree it was the fault of us creative people, we tried to voice our opinions and were shut down, but we should have tried harder. I guess because we loved Chris so much we wanted to diplomatically convince him, but once you have pressed the go button on Chris there is no compromise, no change, until the project be completed, no matter what the outcome.
We obviously should have tried harder, but would it have changed anything?

And so, I had shut myself into a thoughtless capsule, in the daytime blind to the negative elements of the film of which there were so very many. I didn’t have the balls to try to escape, my thoughts were along the lines of “just finish this piece of shit and move on”. Luckily because of sickness the other creative Anli had time to herself to think clearly, she managed to rack up the courage to make the harder decision to leave while we were weakly continuing on.

I came to my house from Clifton Springs dressed in work clothes prepped to finish the spacecraft for the film. I was blocking out all my rational thoughts as I commonly did during the daytime. Caithlin (Art Director) came to my house to work on the ship and I could tell instantly that something was wrong; she had a distressed look on her face as she explained to me that Anli had quit. When Chris arrived we sat down in my yard and had a very long discussion, going round and round in circles weighing up the pros and cons. We all decided it was best to pull out, all of us quite reluctant; knowing though it was undoubtedly the harder route, it was the smarter one.

We don’t know what will happen from here; Chris has changed his mind overnight and has chosen to pursue the film. Why? Maybe partially for fear of the alternative. This is ok, though I must admit I feel betrayed, even though I know this was not his intention. I understand why he is not ready to make such a powerfully destructive and painful decision. Whether he finishes it or not I hope he learns the many valuable lessons I have learned from this experience.

I am going to pursue some ideas I have been working on for some time and see what comes of them. Above everything I have learned to push my opinions a little harder even if it compromises relationships.

I was listening to a podcast the other day, from the amazing team at fxguide where they were running a   fxguide/fxphd hosted a roof top party at Siggraph. Although the whole podcast was fantastic, there was one section that Mike Seymour was talking about (in which he himself was quoting Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar) that really caught my attention. He explained that: you need really good people because the idea itself isn’t neraly as important as the execution. And a good team with a bad idea, will actually just fix it or replace it. A bad team with a good idea will just make a bad film.’If you haven’t listened to the podcast already, I highly recommend you do, because there are some other words of wisdom that are just really helpful and inspirational. And I guess, this point perfectly sums up why I wanted to make the trailer despite all the problems. The idea was good – not perfect, but the initial concept has so much potential. However, more important than that, we have an AMAZING team working on this production. We have the most incredible DOP I could have asked for, the most amazing production team, the more incredible crew that went above and beyond, an amazing pyro and special effects team – in fact, everyone was just so terrific, and I can’t thank everyone enough for all their hard work. We ran over schedule ever day – and not once did anyone get angry or start putting up a fuss. So thank you to everyone that helped get Sakooz through principle photography!

Well… that’s all for now! In the next post I’ll start going through what happened in the days leading up to the shoot, and then explain what happen during and after filming! Lots of exciting things still in store, let me assure you!

If you made it this far down the post – thank you! This has turned into a bit of an essay!

Until next time, onward and upward! ( Which reminds me – congratulations Chris Jones on all your recent success with Gone Fishing! Bring on the Oscars 2009! )…

The ringleader… Chris!

Chris!

We were originally planning to have our first day of principle photography THIS COMING WEEKEND believe it or not. But, for better or for worse (votes still to be counted), we have had to reschedule due to actors availibility. On the negative side, this has meant that we’ve had to re-think a lot of things and call up and cancel stuff, and reorganise things for another time, but on the positive side, at least we get a bit more time in pre-production. So now, our first day of shooting is on Tuesday 12th of August. We have SO much to do up until then. At least now we have our cast and locations sorted, but we still need to build sets, props and costumes – write up call sheets and schedules, do rehearsals, complete visual effects tests, and numerous other things! Some how, the list of things to do seems to get bigger day by day even though we are ticking things off at an amazing rate! The best news is that Anli is back in action, after fighting with Glandual Fever for several weeks – so it’s really nice to have her smiling and happy face back! We really missed her, and are very happy that’s she’s feeling a fair amount better (not perfect – but these things take time).

So anyway – I must be off… I have a stupidly big list of things to achieve tonight, so I’d better get back to it. Apologies for not writing more over the last few weeks, and also for not putting up many photos. We still need to upload some of the camera test footage as well – so many things to do! But all of these things will come in due course. Thanks to everyone who has spent us e-mails asking questions, and giving us positive feedback – we honestly really appreciate it! Ok.. time to get back to it!

Chris!

I’ve just looked through my diary, trying to remember what we’ve been doing since I last wrote on this blog, and to be honest – I have no idea. It’s been chaotic. I wish I had some exact stats – we’ve driven so many km’s, wrote thousands of e-mails, made hundreds of phone calls, seen hundreds of people, drank so much coffee, watched no TV, ate very little food, seen many fantastic locations, begged countless times, etc. over the last few weeks. I know I say this every single blog entry – but it’s true. Everything is getting rapidly more intense with every day.

Due to the fact that we’re pulling in so many favours, this also means that we are restricted to certain shooting dates (i.e. a gaffer might be willing to donate a light or two, but he can only do it on specific days when he’s got nothing else on). This has forced us to shoot even sooner than planned – our first shoot dates are now on the 26th and 27th of July! That’s not that long away… 16 days to be precise! And we’ve still got so much stuff to do before then… Luckily, however, we’re not shooting again until the 11th of August, which means we have two weeks in between to sort out everything else. It’s not a lot of time – but at least it’s something.

So where are we up to in terms of the production? Casting is now almost completely locked in. We only have one major character that we haven’t cast yet. We’ve locked in 80% of our locations. All the majors ones have been finalised – we’re now just after some of the smaller (yet still important) locations, such as hallways and store rooms. Costumes and animatronics are coming along slowly, but we should JUST make the deadline. Set Construction is a big issue at the moment – we have a lot to do in this department, and not a lot of time (or money!) to do it. Which brings me to our biggest issue at the moment: money! It’s so incredibly hard to find the funds to get things off the ground.

This is one of the biggest problems with university courses. Sure you get access to all this great gear – but, as a student, you are not allowed to apply for any of the various federal, state or local government grants. This seems really stupid! Surely the whole point of all these grants is to help create the best possible content possible? If students could get access to these grants, then not only would they have access to all of the great university facilities, but all the money they save in equipment hire could be devoted to other departments. The result? Vastly better production values! Also, because students would have to spend less time trying to find money for their products, they can spend more time actually making their films!

I think that’s one of the primary reasons why a lot of crap comes out of film schools – students simply don’t have the funds to boost their production values. Now I’m sure I’m going to get e-mail after e-mail abusing me about all this. Everyone’s going to say, “you don’t need a lot of money to make a good film”, “you just need a good story”, “you just need a good script”, “a good story shot on a mobile phone is better than a bad film shot on 35mm”, etc. And of course, this is all true! But I’m not suggesting that governments just throw money at any old project! Obviously there would be very strict guidelines and procedures, and only the best scripts would get green-lit and funded. And for this simple reason, I think this would push students to spend more time creating beautiful scripts, simply so they can get the funding to make the film. As sad and bad as it is, money is always such a strong driving force. I think if there was some kind of funding incentive, then it would help force students to really fine tune their script drafts, and help ensure that the shooting script is really at the best it can be.

Anyway – this isn’t going to happen in the short term, so in our case there’s no point worrying about it! What we need to do is focus our attention on finding money via untraditional means. We have a couple of tricks up our sleeves, but the biggest enemy is time. As we’re shooting very shortly, and we have so much other stuff do it, we simply don’t have time to pursue our other money-making ventures. It’s such a difficult thing to try and juggle!

I guess the one thing we’ve all learnt so far this year, is that in the film world, a year isn’t a very long time. We’ve been working much more than full time on this production all year, and yet we’re still so far behind. Now I really do understand why it takes so many years from concept to creation to get a film up. And we’ve made it a lot harder for ourselves – even though we’re only doing a two and a half minute teaser/trailer, we have to basically treat it like a feature film. We need to work everything out – and then only shoot sections of it. But I guess, all this work means that when it eventually becomes time to make the feature film, we’re going to be so prepared it’s not funny… Well, I say this, but no doubt when it comes to making it we’ll have 9 billion new problems!

So what’s in store in the weeks ahead. Lots. We need to get so much done, it’s really not funny. But at the end of the day, it’s just a matter of doing it. Some might say it’s impossible. Some might say it’s crazy. But we tend to keep our mouths shut, and just get on with it! Oh, of course with the exception of keeping you all informed via this blog!

Finally, to wrap things up, for those that haven’t already, make sure you sign up for the Red Centre podcast, courtesy of the team at fxguide/fxphd. It’s the one thing that’s been keeping us entertained while we drive around location scouting.

http://www.fxguide.com/redcentre

Seriously – if you haven’t listened to any of the episodes already, open up a new tab, and start downloading!

Well, that’s all for today. Time to get back to work!

Chris!

So what’s been happening since my last confession? Well, as I’m sure you can imagine, a lot! After writing the last blog entry it was straight into “fundraiser” mode – all hands on deck were devoted to ensuring that the Lens Flair event at loop bar was going to go to plan. That meant sending THOUSANDS of e-mailing, ringing up HUNDREDS of people, and biting our lips and approaching hundreds of shop owners face to face, to see if they would be interested in donating anything towards our little event. Anli and myself literally just drove to big shopping complexes (such as Chadstone) and one by one visted every single store in the complex “selling” our story. And it was hard. We got rejected a lot – which was demoralising! But for every five or so rejections, one person felt sorry for us, or got honestly excited about the project and gave us a small donation. So we walked away with quite a lot of stuff – from shampoos, to gift vouchers, towels, chocolates, books, free hair cuts, all kinds of weird and wonderful things! If you were one of the people who donated something to us – THANK YOU! It’s actually quite incredible the quantity and quality of “free stuff” we actually got! So for all the other film makers out there looking at ways to raise money for your film – don’t be afraid to ask for free stuff and then auction or sell it off! If you’re persistant and hard working, the amount of items you can get is quite high.

As I said, the rest of that week was just getting everything organised for the big Thursday night event! Putting together hampers, encoding videos for the DVD screenings, doing sound checks, printing labels, etc. It was one crazy week – there was so much to do, and to be perfectly honest, just not enough people to do it, which meant everyone had to work around the clock pulling everything together. But soon enough it was Thursday, and we got everything done in time! To start things off, here are some photos of the event:

Overall, I think we can classify the event as a success. We had a massive turn out – probably around 200 people at it’s peak, although we had people coming and going all night. Not sure how many unique people turned up, but I would imagine it would be around the 300-350 mark. A lot of the people that were there for the first screening didn’t hang around for the second screening, but luckily were replaced by new people! From all reports, everyone had a fantastic time! We’ve recieved quite a few e-mails saying “thank you” for putting on the night, and saying how much fun they had which is great! Word has even got out into the “low budget” film making community in Melbourne saying how fun the event was – and a lot of people who didn’t attend for whatever reason have said to me they wish they made the extra effort, or changed their schedule around to fit it in.

However! The only downside to the night, and it is quite a big downside unfortuantely is that we didn’t make a huge amount of money. Don’t get me wrong, we turned over an OK profit – but we didn’t get the numbers we were hoping for. Unfortunately for us, it seemed that most of the people that came along were poor. No one could afford to spend big money on anything. It’s almost criminal, but some people walked away with some of the most amazing auction items for so cheap! For instance, in one of our hampers, not only was it jam packed with so many great things (the whole hamper value was estimated at around $200) , but it also contained a $50 Sanity voucher, and the hamper only sold for $40. Even if you just consider the Sanity voucher, the punter did well – but when you take into account everything else that was in there, but person did fantastically! One of the biggest issues for us what that in regards to the silent auction, the few people in the audience that did actually have money got everything for cheap because no one was up for bidding against them! Despite all our best efforts to attract the more wealthy crowd, it just didn’t work out that way at the end of the day. In retrospect, instead of putting on a really fun and cool event (which was focussed primarily at “art” people – as we had a film screening and auctioned off lots of artwork), next time we should do something unique and “out there” that reflects the film. I don’t think we took enough risks, and by having a very “safe” event, there was not enough reason for people to come along. I think we also went about raising money the wrong way. All our income was coming from raffles, the silent auction and a lucky dip box (full of brand new CDs!). If instead we had a book charge, and we took some of the profits from the bar, I think we would have done a lot better. However, that said, if we had a door charge, then we may not have attracted the large crowd that we did. It’s a bit of a catch 22!

So, at the end of the day, we are still in need of more funds to get this trailer off the ground. As I said, we did make a fair amount of money, but no were near enough to cover all the expenses of the trailer. We still have a lot of work to do!

The day after Lens Flair we had yet another road bump – one of our key production team members has pulled out of the production for various reasons. Although we can “live without him” it just means that individually, we now all have even more work to complete – which is tough. We may find someone to fill his place, although it could be quite tricky considering our time frame. Which brings me to a very good point – the hardest thing about film making (especially in the low-budget world) is finding great people who can work happily together, and then keeping everyone happy and together! As the producer, I spend a lot of my precious time just keeping everyone motivated and excited about the production. You become even kind of like a “mother goose” type figure – you’re responsible to cheering everyone up when they get depressed about the production, and generally just try and keep everyone on the right track. It’s hard when the hours are horrible, the work load is huge, and no one is getting paid. Personal life vs The Film is always a big issue. But the show must go on!

After several deep and meaning fulls, I then had to head off to Sydney for the week for work. The timing couldn’t have been worse, but there was no way out of it! So I spend a week away from the production – but meanwhile, back at base camp, lots of things were happening! The animatronic head continued to be work on, as did all the costumes. Special effects tests were completed. Despite my absence, the show certainly continued!

But when I got back at the start of this week, I fly into yet another road block – but this time an even bigger one than last! One of our key production members, Anli, has “Glandual Fever” and will be out of action for several weeks. Now with two key production members down and out, it meant that we had to push back our shooting schedule. Originally, we were planning to shoot in July – but with Anli sick and David off doing other things, we had no choice but to slam on the brakes. This is quite a big pain – as it means that we have all kinds of new issues, especially in regards to equipment availibility.

Step forward into the present – today. We obviously have a lot of work to do, and now with Anli sick, it means that everyone else has to do even more work. But, with a little bit of luck, we’ll survive! We still have a huge amount to do, but I guess one bonus is that we have a little bit more time to do it now. We’re planning to shoot in the middle of August. Exact shooting dates have not yet been confirmed, but we’re trying to work them out as I type.

So that’s what’s been happening the last couple of weeks! It really has been a bumpy ride so far! Whenever we think we’re starting to win the war, something else comes and bites us in the butt! But I guess that’s what film-making is all about! You just need to push your way through regardless of what happens and get your vision up there on the screen, regardless of the obstacles.

I’m still planning to upload some of our camera test material on the blog – hopefully we’ll have something up by the end of this week. But I’m also going to start posting other intersting things as they pop up – like links to cool websites, and podcasts. So keep an eye out on this blog (or subscribe via RSS), as I’ll start posting more and more in the coming weeks, months (and if I survive that long) years.

That’s all for now! Thanks for taking the time to read! Until next time…

Up & At ‘Em!

Chris!

The Monday after location scouting was the start of an exceptionally big week ahead. On the upcoming Friday, we had our “pitch” for university, so before that, we had a lot of work to do! The whole week was basically dedicated to putting together pre-production documentation – scene breakdowns, location documentation, post production pathways, schedules, budgets, bla, bla, bla! So much work to do, and so very little time! Of course, this was mainly our fault – as we left a lot of it to the last minute. But we’ve also been so flat out with other things – location scouting, organising costumes, casting auditions, camera tests, and the list goes on, and on! Time is just ALWAYS against us. Lesson to new film makers – not matter how much time you think you have, you’ll always need more! Monday through to Thursday we just kept our heads down and kept on working away with very little, if no sleep. On Thursday, Isaac and Anli came over to my house, and we continued to just throw together our “production bible”. After Anli left in the afternoon, Isaac and myself kept on smashing away, and soon it became 4:00am on Friday morning – another night of no sleep! After an hour of shut eye, it was time for breakfast, and then off we went to uni – slightly exhausted, but we had put together our production bible – mostly finished. To be perfectly honest, the pitch went pretty horrible. I’m still not sure whether I should be saying this in our blog, for the whole world to read, but I guess when we decided to start this blog, we made the decision to keep it honest, as it’s primary purpose is to help out others by explaining what we’ve done and tried, and also failed, so that you can learn from our mistakes (and so that you don’t have to do them as well!). So, anyway – the pitch was bad. Not only were we under prepared, but due to the fact that our brains were all running at half speed (if at all), we couldn’t answer even the most simple of questions. What’s worse is that the only things we were asked, were about story – and we’ve spend so much time, energy and resources on the feature film story and concept development! The main problem was that we were having serious trouble expressing our ideas out loud – mainly because we were tired, but also because some of us were sick. We knew all the answers, and despite our best efforts, we just couldn’t convince the panel of four that we knew what we were talking about. Lesson number one, never go in to anything under prepared! Lesson number two, never go into a pitch exhausted – as you’ll need your brain! It went bad – we stuffed up – but the show must go on! We all knew were we went wrong, and we now all know how NOT to do things. On a positive note, despite the bashing, the panel didn’t really question anything BUT our story, which means at least we have the production side of things remotely under control. We also have a huge amount of faith and belief in the concept, so we’ve taken there hints and suggestions on board, and are continuing on the adventure as per planned! Just a minor little speed hump, but I think we came off OK…

Last weekend was then a chance to recover from the pitch – we really needed a break! Although, I don’t think any of us really had a break – we just continued on doing all our other stuff that needs to be done, that isn’t Sakooz related. We still had all our individual university projects and assignments to do – so all of our “to do” lists were quite full up! Which brings me to lesson number three for today – if you want a life, then don’t go into film making – it takes up EVERY single moment of your time. Seriously! But I guess, if you’re crazy enough to be reading this blog entry, then there is probably very little chance of convincing you that the film industry is a horrible place to get into. Anyway!

We all hoped that the new week would bring with it a new slate. But the Monday after was a disaster as well. It seemed like everything was against us! We had to pick up gear in the morning, and just ran into problem after problem! Then in the afternoon, it just got even worse! Everything just went WRONG! But somehow, we survived the day – JUST. But luckily for everyone Tuesday was a FANTASTIC day – the complete polar opposite! Finally!

In the morning we met up with Cail & Pete from Inspiration Studios to try out their new RED camera. If you don’t know what a RED camera is, and you’ve got anything to with the Film & Television industry, then stop right now, and check out the RED website, because RED is BIG!

Right through pre-production for Sakooz, we have very much loved the idea of shooting Super 16mm, because it looks fantastic! However, there has always been a whisper that if there was anyway we could shoot on a RED, then it would DEFINITELY be worth looking into! There are only a very limited number of them in Melbourne at the moment – and not even that many in Australia as a whole, so just getting hold of one is quite a challenge at the moment, because there under so much demand! But luckily for us, Cail & Pete had a rare day when the camera wasn’t booked out, so we jumped at the opportunity to do some tests! To start things off, here are some photos!

We basically just followed the same procedure as per our 16mm tests. At some stage in the near future we’ll upload some of the footage from the tests for your viewing pleasure! But we also did some slow motion passes, which looked amazing! Overall, we had a really fun and educational morning playing with the RED camera – and we must say, even with the stock standard RED zoom lens, the results from the camera are incredible! Unfortunately we didn’t get to shoot any night time footage (it’s on our to-do list), but all the day time material looks great!

And the day continued to be fun and exciting! After playing around with the RED for a few hours, and having some “training lessons” on how the whole post production workflow takes place, we headed off to Digital Pictures to do a one-light telecine session of our 16mm tests. On a properly calibrated big monitor, the footage looked incredible – especially the 500T VISION3 stock, which was virtually grain-less considering the scene was only lit by candle light! Again, at SOME stage, we’ll post some stills of the footage, so that you can compare the RED to the Super 16mm footage.

After a truly fantastic day – it soon became Wednesday. But with all our university assignments due on the Friday – Wednesday and Thursday was dedicated solely to getting all that work done. Again, two nights of very little sleep – if any.  Then Friday was the day all the work was due. We all got it in – just. We did some good stuff – and some bad. But we survived – and that’s the main thing! In the middle of all the mayhem, we also had a meeting with Loop Bar to discuss our fund-raiser night – which is THIS COMING THURSDAY! Make sure you come along – it should be a great night!

Then on last Friday night – it was finally a chance to let our hair down. We all went out to a local pub near uni and celebrated with everyone the fact that we survived the week! And what a week it was!

This weekend we’ve just been concentrating on getting things ready for the fund-raiser. Again, like always, so much to do and so very little time!

So that basically sums up what we’ve been doing lately, and why you haven’t heard much from us! Busy! Busy! But despite all this whining, and despite all the problems and complications, it’s all a lot of fun! I wouldn’t recommend it to ANYONE – but if you’ve got the film-making bug (and you’ll know if you’ve got it), then you can’t live without the thrill and excitement of trying to make the impossible possible.

Now, exclusive to all you blog readers, I’m going to show you something very special to end this post! Here is a sketch of “Pinky” (one of the Sakooz characters) for your viewing pleasure! As with all the images on this page, just click it to enlarge. Enjoy!

…and remember, feel free to e-mail us at ANY time should you have any questions or queries! You can also post any questions directly on this blog. A BIG thank you who has already e-mailed us thus far, and also a MASSIVE thank you to everyone that has been helping us with our fund-raiser! Until next time…

Well, as I said previously, Saturday was camera test day. We piled up James and Doris (the names of my 4WD and Isaac’s van), and headed to a football grandstand in Melbourne to test some Super 16 stock. We shot several different things (colour charts, grey scale charts, city skyline, people running, etc.) using the different stocks (specifically Kodak 50D VISION2, 200T VISION2 and 500T VISION3) at different exposures, and using different filters. We also shot the exact same material using a Panasonic HVX202 and Sony Z1P (using the fixed lenses) to use as a comparison. Originally we intended to use a P+S adapter on both the digital cameras, however we couldn’t get one that weekend. The day went pretty much as planned – although the weather was horrible and freezing! Here are some photos of the day for your viewing pleasure:

As you can see, we had a lot of fun! Especially when Anli and myself had to run around pretending to be Sakooz creatures! After many hours of freezing and burning film, we wrapped for the day. On Sunday, with a substantially smaller crew, as a lot of people got sick on the Saturday, we headed off to Lara (near Geelong) to find a location for our big “crash landing” sequence. After much searching, we eventually came across a road that, although not perfect, seemed to look pretty good. We shot some camera tests at the location, and then when it got dark, we did some night fire camera tests. We especially wanted to test out how the new Kodak 500T VISION3 stock compares to the VISION2. And all of a sudden, the weekend was gone! Dear, oh dear!

Monday through to Friday was pretty much, what is becoming a stock standard week. Meeting after meeting, discussion after discussion, no food, no sleep, millions of e-mails! Who would want to live this life? Really! It’s all so crazy! Thursday was probably one of the bigger days, with meetings non-stop all day at various places around Melbourne for all different things. It was great though – we got to meet up with so many interesting and diverse people, all interested in what we are trying to achieve.

This weekend, it was all about location scouting. Anli, Isaac and I jumped in Doris (the 4WD) and zoomed around Victoria looking for suitable spots to film. Yesterday (Saturday), we mainly looked around the Geelong side of the world looking for “places in the middle of no-where” for the dramatic opening of the film. Then today, we headed down Mornington way, and around Portsea and Phillip Island, looking for the epic ending location. All things considered, we did quite well – we’ve found two locations that are almost exactly what we’re after, which is fantastic! They’re still not locked in 100% as of yet, but they certainly look the part. So we’re getting closer – which is great, as we haven’t got that long to go till we need to start shooting!

But there’s also been some huge announcements recently! Singer-songwriter Katie Weston is now opening our fund-raising night with an acoustic set, which is fantastic! But also, we’ve made the Nigel blog live! There currently only one episode online (plus a bunch of random blogs) – but another is coming online very soon (maybe even tonight). The production values aren’t great – but it’s quite funny, and well worth a look and listen! As the weeks go on, there will be more and more stuff appearing on Nigel’s site, so stay tuned!

So what’s in store for this coming week? A lot! A hell of a lot! On Friday we will be pitching our concept to our university, so that we can get “green lit” and given official permission to hire the gear required for the teaser/trailer. We have a lot of work to do up until then! Storyboards, shot lists, budgets, bla, bla, bla! The list goes on and on! We also need to lock in the final Sakooz costume designs, continue work on the animatronics, start building sets, etc. So more work to do, and so little time! What’s even more annoying is that now I’m starting to get sick! How annoying! It’s only a cold – but it’s not something you want when you need to get so much done. But I’ll survive! Unfortunately however, Anli and Isaac are also both still slowly recovering from their various bugs.

Anyway, I must be off! As always, if you have any questions or queries, feel free to either post a comment on this blog, or send us an e-mail! We’re ALWAYS more than happy to answer any questions you have about us, our work or about movie making in general. Until next time…

Chris!

Monday brought with it a whole heap of meetings. We met up with a whole collection of extremely talented costume design students, and other people interested in helping out with the Sakooz characters. You’ve really got to be careful when you do meetings all day, as you really do intake a massive amount of caffeine, simply because generally speaking we’ve been having crew meetings at the local coffee shop. After a very massive day, and exactly 318 e-mails later (for me alone that is!), after a quick two hours sleep, it was suddenly Tuesday! Once again, we had more meetings and discussions. This time with actual costume builders (more about this in the coming weeks!) and sound designers. I can’t really go into too much detail at this stage, but all the meetings went exceptionally well! Everyone seems genuinely excited about our concept, and they all really want to help us transform our idea into an actual feature film! It’s actually really inspiring to see people get inspired themselves, from an idea that we came up with. It really makes our day, when the eyes light up of the people we are pitching to – and start getting carried away thinking about how we can various bits and pieces to make the film happen. We’ve had so many great ideas and suggestions!

Wednesday was audition day again! 9:00am till 6:00pm – one audition every half hour. It’s only just longer than your standard working day – but I’ll tell you what, sitting in the one place for 9 hours straight, having to repeat yourself over-and-over again, and having to really concentrate on what in front of you, really takes it out of you! It’s just so exhausting! Once again, we had a great mix of audition’s, and some more interstate travellers. Unfortunately though, by the end of the day, our fearless leader, Director Isaac’s body had finally given up – and he started getting really sick again. Unfortunately he was too ill to make it on Thursday, so Anli and myself had to do it alone. But, as we’ve been developing the script and story together, this wasn’t a big deal, as we all equally know the every aspect of the production and story back-to-front. Despite the fact that Isaac had to take a “sickie” – despite the doctors request – he still continued to work at home. I’m not sure if it’s just a complete and utter devotion to the project, or whether he’s just clinically insane. Probably a bit of both. And then, he did something even more crazy – he still went to work on Thursday night, despite nearly being on his death bed. Unstoppable!

Today it was back to uni for a rarely attended class or two – and we also had to pick up gear, as we’re doing camera tests this weekend. We’re planning to do some tests using different stocks (Kodak 50D, 200T, 500T VISION3, etc.) on both a ARRI SRII 16:9 16mm and AATON A-Minima 16mm camera. We’re also going to have a Sony Z1P and Panasonic HVX202 set up for comparison. More on the camera tests in the coming days!

There’s lots of exciting things coming up as well! Within the next few days, we’ll be introducing a new blog to the site! I don’t want to give away too much just yet, but I can tell you now, that a person called “Nigel” has joined the team, and will be following us around. So keep and eye out on our website, as Nigel will soon be here to entertain and inform all! We’re also running a fund-raiser night at Loop Bar in Melbourne on the 12th of June. We’ll post information about it on the website soon – but in the meantime, if you join our Facebook Group, you’ll see the event we’re talking about. It’s going to be a fantastic night, with a silent auction, DJ, raffles, and lots more! So please, if you live in Melbourne, come along and help support our film! We’re planning to raise around $15,000 to help make the best possible trailer we can.

We’ve also been getting a lot of e-mails asking us various questions about the production, and why we’re doing certain things. Over the coming weeks I’ll explain all as to why exactly we are making a trailer, and not just a short film. I’ll also talk at some stage about our marketing strategies, and how we think we can actually achieve in making Sakooz a commercial success.

Ok… That’s about all I’ve got time for tonight! I need to start getting ready for a weekend of extensive camera tests and potentially heated discussions about how we intend to film the trailer, etc. I leave you today, with some photos of the week that was. Have a great weekend readers! And thanks to everyone who has sent us e-mails of support and encouragement! Already this blog is getting a massive number of hits, so thank you! But also, please tell your friends about it – as the more the merrier!

Boy, oh, boy! What a week it’s been! On Tuesday it was back to uni for our production class. We had a discussion on post production, which was actually really helpful for us. Of course, once class was over it was just back to work – replying to e-mails, working on the script, completing documentation, drawing up costume designs, researching, the list goes on! Looking back in my diary, the “to-do list” which came out of Tuesday completely filled the page from top to bottom, and there was even righting horizontal on the page. So many things to do – so little time!

Then Wednesday it was all about meetings! I had to get up really early to pick up Anli, and Isaac (we all live on different corners of the globe!), and off we headed to having a meeting with Frank Strangio, an extremely talented and well respected composer. Rather than write for hours about all the amazing stuff Frank has done in the past, it’s probably best if you just check out his website. Apparently it’s a bit out-of-date (as he’s done heaps more in recent times), but it still gives you a very good idea of just how talented and remarkable this bloke really is! We spent nearly two and a half hours in his beautiful studio just chatting about each others projects. He’s one of the most lovely people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting – and I mean this in all honesty. He has such a passion for film making, and the industry – it’s very inspiring! I’m sure we’ll be talking much more about Frank over the next few months on this blog!

After meeting with Frank, it was off to Digital Pictures to talk about all things post! At this stage, we are looking at shooting the Sakooz trailer on Super 16mm using an ARRI SRII film camera – so we need to somehow get the footage from film to our editing system. This is done through a process called telecine. For those that have never been to Digital Pictures – the facilities are incredible and very much world class. The staff are fantastic, and they all genuinely got excited about our project.

Then it was off to Soundfirm – another leader in their field. Once again, the staff are not only the very best at what they do, but extremely friendly, and excited about what we are trying to achieve.

In an effort to jam as much as we possibly could in the one day, we then headed off to Federation Square to attend a special industry forum called MINDSHIFT, run by Film Victoria. Although it was a very interesting discussion – and lots of good points were raised, the fact that there wasn’t any young up-and-coming film makers on the board, nor was there any full-time script writers, was kind of a disappointment as the purpose of the event was to talk about the future of the industry, and about the lack of good ideas and concepts coming out of Victoria.

So, after a very busy day, it was time to head home for a couple of hours sleep and get ready for another day of auditions! Thursday brought with it another 18 auditions… Like previous days, there was an amazing array of different talents! There a few people that you knew straight away, when they walked in the room, that they could just play their chosen part. It’s a fantastic feeling to know that this up-and-coming actor could one day be the next Hollywood icon! After a very long day, and another night of very little sleep, it was Friday…

After some great acting workshops at uni, we headed off to have a meeting with Chris and Tim – our animatronic gurus. After a lengthy discussion at a pub in Richmond (next to Barnes), we finally got to a point were the duo are ready to actually start making something! Exciting times!

Friday night was set aside to finally catch up again with our own family and friends. However, even when we decided to have a break from one another – for just a night – we still end up running into one another! Out of all the venues in all of Melbourne, amazingly I still ended up running into Isaac completely randomly. I guess after spending two weeks together stuck in the same hotel room in Hong Kong, we are just drawn together whenever the alcohol is flowing – weird! Eventually, Friday became Saturday. We continued work in the comfort of our own homes, and Saturday soon become today – Sunday!

What was on today? Well, despite the fact that it was mothers day – we had auditions from 9:00am to 5:30pm! Sorry mums! As always, we had a great mix of different peoples, auditioning for different roles. For some reason, we also had a large amount of people travel from interstate today – some from Perth, others from Brisbane, and a couple from Sydney! It’s absolutely terrific that people get so excited about Sakooz, that they are willing to fly down to Melbourne, at their own expense, just to attend a half hour audition. I’ve been thinking a lot about why people actually do this – I mean, seriously, it’s only an unpaid student film after all! But, I guess, at the end of the day, you never know where one of these unpaid jobs may lead. In our case, we are confident that we’re going to get Sakooz “off the ground”, into a feature film and onto theatre screens world wide. In fact, we’re almost certain – it’s just a matter of when! So I guess, keeping this in mind, auditioning for a freebie gig could lead to something big and amazing. It’s probably worth the risk! So, a MASSIVE thank you to everyone that flew in today to audition! And I guess, at the end of the day, I’d personally be more than happy to fly to New Zealand to work for free on any Peter Jackson projects! But yeah, I guess we’re not exactly Peter Jackson… yet!

So anyway, I must be off! Since I started writing, my computer has already beeped about fifteen times – signifying fifteen e-mails to read and reply to. The fun never ends! And I leave you with some snap shots, of the auditions from today… Enjoy!

So anyway, illness’ aside – what have we been doing since last Saturday? Why haven’t we been sleeping? Why are we so stressed? One simple answer – casting! We started advertising early in the week, and since then it’s really been “all hands on deck”! We had a MASSIVE response – I’m generally getting around 60+ e-mails a day from people all over Australia. To be perfectly honest, we’re really surprised! We knew our concept was pretty unique and exciting, but we had no idea people would be willing to fly interstate (at their OWN expensive) just to attend a half an hour audition! It’s all been really exciting! We had our first auditions yesterday (as it’s now after mid-night), and it all went very smooth considering Isaac’s lovely cough. We did plan to get some behind the scenes footage, but unfortunately, we just ran out of time. We really need to get someone on board to just take care of all our behind the scenes stuff! Anyone interested? Well, if you’re one of the few people who actually read this, and you are interested in documenting this – lets face it – AMAZING adventure, then get in touch!

So what else has been happening? Well, the search continues for costume designers/builders for our Pinky character. So far we’ve had quotes ranging from $60,000 – $3,000. We’ve been in touch with so many different costumes companies, it’s been incredible.

We’ve also been hunting down crew, further developing the feature film concept, working on the trailer script, doing budgets, schedules, and generally sending and replying to HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of e-mails each day, not to mention many, many phone calls and SMS’. And it never stops. However, at least we’re not alone – believe it or not, but when we put up our first online ad for casting at 3:00 in the morning, we had a reply by 3:30 am! Seems actors don’t sleep either…

So what’s in store for the next few days? More auditions! Meetings with various post production houses, costume design companies, composers, crew, etc. Script sessions and internal production meetings. Really – it just never stops. And it’s not going to stop for a while – we have so much work to do over the next couple of months (and of course, years).

So stay tuned! Lots more exciting things to come! We’ll TRY and get around to recording some video footage at our auditions on Saturday and post it up here on the blog, or at least some photos so you can see how lovely we all look.

Over the next few weeks we’ll also start posting up information on the production and the story on this blog, as well as some of our development documentation and drawings, so you can start to piece together how this whole nightmare came to be. Lots of things planned – and we WILL actually get around to it at some stage.

Ok… I’ve now got 45 unread e-mails sitting in my inbox. I’d better get back to it…

See you in the soup!

Chris!

One thing that I’ve always wanted to do, ever since working on the BBC Kids show “Tweenies“, is create a movie about a bunch of kids show characters that are actually aliens. And so we started work on “TV Tubsters” – a full length feature film concept. However, due to the fact that our doco took over our lives for a lengthy period of time, the first story outline wasn’t completed until the start of November. It was also hopeless and massively incomplete. Then throughout November and December we continued, as a team to build upon the general outline. It grew and evolved. Characters were introduced, and then destroyed. Plot outlines grew in size. What started out as a 1000 word outline became a 2000 word outline, and then 4000 word outline. Ideas were accepted, and rejected. Christmas and New Years came and went. Then in the new year, despite our better judgement, we decided to stop trying to develop the story as a team, and sent Isaac to work solo on a first draft of the script. While he went absolutely crazy writing like a mad man, the rest of the time started organising all the pre-production elements – despite the fact that we didn’t have a completed script. After a few weeks or writing it became very clear that we were never going to pull off a feature film script in the time that we had. As heart breaking as this reality was, we decided to press on writing the script, and actually produce a teaser/trailer this year to use as a promotional tool to get the funding required to get the feature film script off the ground the following year. Everything continued along slowly but smoothly. The script grew in size and complexity.

And then Anli, Isaac and myself went to Hong Kong for the International Film Festival. We all had an amazing time – saw lots of great films, and also got to see all the sights and sounds. But when we came back, after some quite intensive script sessions, we came to the conclusion that we were in the world of shit. Because Isaac was writing solo, the idea was morphing, re-shaping and changing – which is fine, as it was definitely turning into a really fantastic script – however, Anli and myself just weren’t involved enough. We didn’t really know the characters on the page – nor could we relate to a lot of events that were taking place. This normally wouldn’t be a problem, as the writer could have continued to do his or her thing, and after a few rewrites, the director could then bring the script to life in their own special way. But because we’re really building this film “as a team” from scratch, everyone needed to be across everything.

We learnt a valuable lesson – in our case, we needed to do everything as a team to achieve the best results in the given timetable. Sure, if we had years to write the script that Isaac could have taken the first pass, then we could discuss it, make changes, move on to the next draft and continue along like that. We also made the fatal mistake of tackling the first draft without a clear plan of attack. We had a beginning and a middle, but no end. I don’t think you should start writing a draft without any idea of what direction you want the film to go.

So, despite having written thousands and thousands of words already, we made the tough decision to go back to the start, and revisit the story from line one. It was tough. We spent several weeks going back to basics and seriously reviewing all our decisions. What’s the story about? Who’s story is it? We started re-reading scriptwriting books, and re-visiting fantastic movies from the past. We spent a lot of time locked in confined spaces, forced to just put pen to paper and come up with something of value. Slowly but surely, things started falling into place.

Now it’s time to step into the present. Where are we up to now? What’s going on? Well, the good news is that we have a completed story outline – it has a very well defined beginning, middle and end. The characters have been completely built from the ground up, and we basically know everything there is to know about them. We’ve started work on the teaser/trailer script (based on the story outline) and everything is heading in the right direction. Costume design is under way, and next week we start meeting up with our Director of Photography, and other key crew members to start working out how exactly we’re going to pull this off.

This really isn’t the right way to make a movie. You shouldn’t really “force” a script out of people – although it seemed to work. Ideally, we would have loved to have spent two of three years developing the feature film script, spent all of last year getting funding, and then actually made the feature film this year. But that just didn’t happen. So the plan is, to create the basis for a feature film concept NOW, produce and shoot a teaser/trailer this year (to mainly use as a promotional tool), and at the same time start writing the 1st draft of the full length feature film so that it’s ready for a re-write later in the year. The aim is to have a completed teaser/trailer, as well as a feature film script, promotional website, and extensive marketing tools all in operation by the end of the year. Can we pull this off? Only time will tell…

But by far the most frequent question we get asked, is why are we “jumping the queue” and working on a feature film now? Seeing as we’re studying 3rd year university – why not just produce an amazing short film? If it’s really good then we’ll get into all kind of fantastic International festivals, and who knows were we’ll end up… Well, that all very well and good, and sure it works for some people, but we don’t want to head down that route. Why make shorts when you can make a feature? We’ve very much of the opinion that if you want to do something, then just get out there and do it. I’m personally a huge fan of Peter Jackson – despite all the limitations, he just pushed every boundary and made amazing films. Sure, he made a hell of a lot of short films before he started work on the bigger features – but so have we. Although Happy Sundaes is the first narrative film under the latenite banner, individually, we’ve all worked on well over one hundred short films, video clips, television commercials, low-budget/independent and professional feature films, etc.

Don’t take me the wrong way, we haven’t learnt everything – and we’re by no means experts when it comes to film making. But, we think, for better or for worse, we’re ready for the next step. It’s time to make a feature film! Unfortunately it’s going to take a bit longer than we originally hoped (as we’re making the teaser/trailer before the full length feature this time round), but that’s all part of the fun.

So that’s the current situation! It hasn’t been an easy ride so far. Ignoring all the script/story problems, we’ve also had many other unavoidable set backs: marriage break-ups, couples break-ups, team member partings, sickness, car crashes… the list goes on. But we’re all alive (although you probably wouldn’t think it by looking), and feeling great about the project thus far! It’s not going to be easy – but that should at least mean that this blog will be half interesting…

As Chris Jones always says, Onward & Upward !

Chris!