FORGE: A Feature Film by 500 Cuts

Alex and I met through the Art Institute of Portland, and truth be told, the part of Jimmy was written for him specifically.  Something about Alex’s carefree demeanor and affable personality made him perfect for the goofy younger brother who is remade into the ideal sibling.  In reality, Alex is among the most professional actors I’ve had the pleasure of working with.  In school, he had a reputation as a party boy, but on the movie, he showed up fully prepared every… single… day.  Not only did he have his lines nailed, but he truly understood the scope and purpose of every scene.  He made it really easy on us, and I’m thankful for that.

Here’s his reel.  Look him up!  You won’t be sorry.

Alexander Mendeluk Acting Demo (2009) from Alexander Mendeluk on Vimeo.

FORGE trailer 10.16 from 500 Cuts on Vimeo.

Paul, a recently fired chef, decides to check on his older brother, John, after an explosion at the research facility where John works.  Paul arrives at the family cabin and learns that John is holed-up in a hidden underground lab, and to complicate matters, Paul’s sketchy younger brother Jimmy is there hiding from loan sharks.  Paul rebukes Jimmy and reaches out to John whose history of mental illness dates back to the death of their father.

A visit from lab officials tells Paul that John was let go from the lab months before and may be working with stolen technology.  In an effort to help John stabilize his mental health, Paul agrees to connect with the technology to improve its ability to make decisions.

When Paul’s dreams come to life, he pleads with John to shut the system down only to find that John is farther gone than he originally thought, and that John’s intentions for the mind-reading tech are deeply rooted in his madness.

As part of my sabbatical obligations, I need to bring my experiences from the movie back to the Art Institute community.  I’ll be giving a 1 hour talk about the process which will include behind-the-scenes clips and scenes from the film.  The exact date has not been confirmed, but it’s looking like November 11th or 12th.  For those of you associated with the school, that’s week 6.

The presentation will be followed by Q&A.

The official full length screening of FORGE will take place in early January.  Why the delays?  (insert time is money speech here:  less money = more time)

Keep an eye out for the trailer release later today.

I met Luke through the coffee shop almost two years ago. He showed me some short films by Jalal Jemison in which Luke performed and I was really floored by his acting ability. If you’re making a film, hit him up. He’s among the best people I know.

Luke Clements Acting Reel from Luke Clements on Vimeo.

Forge Scenes 38 – 41 from 500 Cuts on Vimeo.

After John (Jeffree Newman) kills some thugs with The Tech, Paul (Luke Clements) scrambles to grab the keys to their car. To his surprise, Amanda (Jana Lee Hamblin) has come looking for him. He does his best to convince her everything is fine. He returns to the lab to find Jimmy (Alexander Mendeluk) and John have cleaned up. Dinner conversation isn’t what it used to be in the aftermath.

Usual Disclaimers: The mix, color correction, and vfx are all temp.

So principle photography for Forge is complete! The shoot went so smoothly it feels like those two weeks just flew by. It’s been awesome to have a few days off, but I can’t wait to see the whole thing cut together. Co has been working on syncing sound and putting together a rough cut of our circle takes. A “circle take” is simply a term for the take we thought was best while we were shooting. So for instance, if roll four takes of shot 33B, and I like the fourth take the best, I would say, “Take four was great, circle it.” This basically just gives us a list of shots for the entire movie to start working with. So the plan now is to assemble a rough edit of all our circle takes, then go back and examine all the other takes. This way if we run into a problem editorially, we can seek a solution in other takes. It will also keep us from missing great performance moments in takes that may not be circled.

Early Monday we got into an awesome bar on SW 13th and Washington called Cassidy’s and shot our last scene, which happens to be the first scene of the film. James Sweet came down to play the roll of Lawrence and totally nailed it. We rolled our first shot right around 7am and were wrapped out and eating breakfast by 9am. Here’s a rough cut of Scenes 1 and 2 (nearly the only scenes in the film that don’t take place at the cabin or the lab):

Forge: Scenes 1 & 2 from Jason Windsor on Vimeo.

Paul isn't handling unemployment well.

This was shot at Tom Roback’s condo on the West side.  Pat can confirm the stop, but it’s just natural light and a 50mm lens.

Paul did what he could.

This was shot at Cassidy’s in downtown Portland.  My all time favorite place to get a cocktail.  Pat can tell you what the specs were on this.  I’m thinking the 50mm and wide open, but I think he was trying to go for a f/2.8 for most of the movie.

Check out a scene from the lab set.  Again, super rough.

FORGE Sc30 Temp from Colin O’Neill on Vimeo.

Just testing a video clip of scene 32.

This rough assembly isn’t color corrected and only has production sound.  The purpose of posting it is to give a little look at our cabin location, and to streamline my workflow for posting clips in general.  The link above is one that I made, the one below is from Vimeo.

FORGE Sc32 Temp from Colin O’Neill on Vimeo.

Feel free to post comments to this and any other blog entry.  Thanks!