FORGE: A Feature Film by 500 Cuts

My buddy from Oni Press, Cory Casoni, IM’d me the other day with this!

Grey goo is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all matter on Earth while building more of themselves—a scenario known as ecophagy (“eating the environment”).

The term grey goo is usually used in a science fiction context. In the worst postulated scenarios (requiring large, space-capable machines), matter beyond Earth would also be turned into goo (with goo meaning a large mass of replicating nanomachines lacking large-scale structure, which may or may not actually appear goo-like). The disaster is posited to result from a deliberate doomsday device, or from an accidental mutation in a self-replicating nanomachine used only for other purposes, but designed to operate in a natural environment.

The term grey goo was coined by nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler in his 1986 book Engines of Creation.^[1]

So I ran out to Powell’s and picked up Drexler’s book and Greg Bear’s Blood Music.  Great stuff!  It’s like we’re predicting the future!

See Tom?  Your $5 donation will educate the world about its imminent destruction!

We are on the site! For those of you potential donors who would rather donate online, Film Action Oregon has posted our link!  Click here to check it out!

If you’d like to make a donation, it’s like buying tickets for a show, but 95% of the money goes to our production.  So your donation supports two great causes:  Film Action Oregon with its historical Hollywood Theater, and our film, FORGE.

CLICK HERE! Then click ORDER NOW in the upper right and follow instructions.  The credit tree is listed on this page.  You’ll get your name in the movie!  And 100% of the donation is tax deductible.

We really appreciate anything you can afford.

This week we’ve been gearing up the camera and lighting side of the production for the shoot. The first week of shooting will be at our Sandy  Oregon location. While it’s only about 15 minutes away from “civilization” we still have to have all of our stuff in order so that we stay on schedule. This week will involve gathering all of our supplies and gear items, organizing everything, taking inventory, and filling in the gaps. Something as simple as forgetting AA batteries can be a big set back, and usually it’s the no-brainer details that fall through the cracks. Luckily, this doesn’t happen often- but nevertheless we will still check and double check everything before loading the vans and heading out there.

On this shoot we have a very small camera and lighting crew. Everyone will be wearing different hats, and helping out where they can. On the shoot, a lot of the camera duties will be handled by our first (and only) assistant camera person, Cameron Carey. He’s in charge of getting building the camera, keeping the lenses clean, clapping the slate, and the general well-being of the camera package. In addition to this, he’ll probably operate the camera at times, and will also just make everyone’s life easier in general…He’s a really solid person, and a great crew member.

Tonight I’ll be conducting some tests for our laboratory lighting scenario, which will involve the use of a bunch of flourescent fixtures and clear visqueen.

This morning, I did a full script breakdown for scheduling.  When you first send a script around, the different “department heads” (I put it in quotes because in our case, the “heads” are actually the whole department) do their own little breakdown and pick out the elements they’re responsible for.  Wardrobe, props, cast, etc.  But today, I figured out which actors are in which scenes and what else needs to be there.  Each character gets an index number so it’s easier to read and you get more info in a single glance.

For example,
SCENE: 44  CAST: 1,2  EXT   DAY  STORY DAY: 3    SYNC    PROPS: car4

I’m doing it in a spreadsheet so it’s laid out nicer than this, but you get the idea.  In scene 44, I have to do the following…

- Make sure Luke and Alex are on set.  Characters 1 and 2 need to be there, that’s Paul and Jimmy, so I need Luke and Alex.
- Make sure it’s not raining.  EXT = outside
- Make sure it’s daytime.  Can’t shoot if it’s getting dark.
- Make sure Luke and Alex wear the clothes for day 3 of the story.
- Make sure Shawn is there to record dialog.
- Make sure Car 4 is there.  That’s Treadwell’s car.

There’s more, but that’s the basic deal.  In one glance, I can see all that stuff without having to cross reference 10 pages of info.  Not only that, but as I start to schedule the daily shot order, I can cut and paste the whole row into a new spreadsheet in the right order and all the info comes with it.  When I’m done, it should list the scenes in the order of the character appearances.  That is to say, all Boyes’ exteriors should be together.  He’s character 5 so when the schedule is done, all the scenes with 5 in it should be stacked in the shot order.  That way Robert doesn’t have to come out to the location multiple days.  Make sense?

Ok, back to it!

My old man once told me that filmmaking would take constant focus.  “If you want to get good at this,” he said.  “You have to be a fanatic.  To the point of obsession.”  He said this when I was 22 and I thought I was about as fanatical as a person could get.  Of course, as in 100% of the cases where we think differently, he was right and I wasn’t.  Back then, I figured that as long as I was watching a movie a day and making notes once in a while, I would know more than the next guy.  Seems so ridiculous now.

The problem was that I was in a vacuum.  I had no frame of reference for how things were done.  The producer Robert Evans always said, ” Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.”  See?  I wasn’t putting myself in a position to receive opportunity.  I needed to be out there meeting people and getting my work viewed.  I might have had the preparation part going (not well, but better than nothing), but I wasn’t looking for opportunities.  Even if I had received one, my youthful arrogance would probably have dismissed it as “not good enough.”

So the lesson is this… it’s not enough to want it.  It’s not enough to watch 3 movies a day and impress your friends with your knowledge.  And it’s not enough to wait for your chance.  The old man also said that I had to keep the pressure on.  No waiting.  No hoping.  DOING.

Make work you’re proud of.  Generate all connections you can, big and small.  Rinse and repeat.

Go get ‘em, kid!

With one week to go until the first shoot day, things are looking pretty good.  The mood is relaxed, yet confident.  The stress level is motivating and not debilitating.  And ideally, the loved ones are preparing to be largely ignored for at least two weeks.  It’s like a decompression chamber.  Maybe I’ll suggest to the guys that they practice ignoring their girlfriends at random one hour periods during the day so the young women don’t get the bends when the boys disappear for 15 days straight.

Making movies and youthful relationships don’t go so great together.  I think people grow up accustomed to the high school way of existence where all friends and lovers hang out together all day and night.  When they get to the big world of production, they struggle with the long separations and diverted attention.

Boredom is the key enemy.  If your boy/girlfriend relies upon you for killing time then you become responsible for the huge void left behind when you go (physically and mentally) to work on a movie.   And you’re blamed for the boredom that follows.  I’ve seen so many of my friends in the biz try to find hobbies for the wives or husbands to fill the void.  “Hey honey, how about piano lessons?”  That’s an actual quote from my producer buddy to his wife.  Did he really think his wife would sit around and play piano for six months while he was in London?  Desperate men take desperate measures.  I’ve seen wives become drunks, sleep with other men, switch to women, get arrested for shoplifting… and in one case, all of the above!  Sounds like I’m exaggerating, but sadly, no.  And not just wives, obviously.  Men do the same things, and usually add violence to the mix.  People do crazy things for attention when they’re bored.

What’s the answer?  Well, besides ditching all hopes for lasting romance before you’re 30, I’d say make sure your significant other has something significant in his or her life besides you.  If not, it will be an unpleasant shoot.  That much I guarantee.

A week from tomorrow (Sunday) we will start shooting Forge. At this point everything feels really good. Most of us just can’t wait to get shooting! As planned, this week will mainly be filled with final planning. While we have pretty much everything big figured out including food, cast, crew, and most of our locations, there is still plenty of work to do. We’ll be prepping the camera, gathering gear, taking inventory of expendables and picking up more as needed, and just generally getting on the same page.

We had a great meeting the other day regarding the construction and design of the lab set. Selena Persiani is the production designer for our film, and Jack Shay is in charge of set construction, and they are both very good at what they do. The lab will essentially be a 12′ x 15′ room that is made to look like a DIY cleanroom. The lighting plan we’ve come up with will make use of a large bank of fluorescent lights from overhead. The idea with this scheme is to create a very clean, brightly lit interior that will be in stark contrast to the rest of the film, which takes place mostly inside a wooden cabin or outside in the forest. A helpful side effect of our lighting plan is that it should allow us to shoot anywhere in the set with minimal/no lighting changes. This of course will do a lot to help keep us on schedule. Furthermore, having all of our lights overhead and out of the set makes it a much more pleasant, uncrowded space for crew and actors. In addition to keeping our lights out of the set, another helpful feature will be the addition of movable walls to aid in camera placement. Keep an eye out for pictures of the set as soon as it’s built!

We’re going to try and post as much as possible in this last week before shooting, so stay tuned!

Since we’re finally an official non-profit partner, I’d like to put the call out to people who may be interested in helping us out on FORGE, the feature film project I’m making for my sabbatical from the school.

All donors will receive a tax deduction certificate, a thank you letter from FAO, and an invitation for two to the cast and crew wrap party in June.  (And I should add that an affordable $2.50 is the minimum donation.)

There are three ways to donate to The Forge Project:

1) Go here:  http://www.filmaction.org/donate.html and follow instructions for mailing or calling in a donation. Be sure to mention Co O’Neill’s FORGE project (write it directly on your check if mailing).

2) Hand a check to Co, Jason, Patrick, or Walker made out to Film Action Oregon with FORGE in the memo.  You can also donate cash, but don’t hand it to Walker!

3) Wait until our link shows up here: Robot Tix and donate with a credit card through the website.  Hopefully that will be available soon.

There is a credit tree associated with donations:

Executive Producer = $2500 and up
Associate Producer = $1000 to $2499
Ultimate Special Thanks = $500 to $999
Business Class Special Thanks = $250 to $499
Special Thanks = $100 to $249
Thanks = $5 to $99
Thanks, I guess = $2.50 to $4.99

Awesome!  I really appreciate anything people can do to help whether it be money, time, or equipment.  EVERYTHING is tax deductible.  That means if you put in a few hours for us or loan us your huge garage, you will get an in-kind donation certificate for a deduction on your 2009 income tax.  No obligation at all, but every little bit helps.  Call me directly if you have any questions or concerns.

We start shooting in 10 days!  But we can take donations through August to cover post production costs.

Thanks, and see you soon.
Co.

Last week a few of us went up to the cabin location to work out a lot of the cabin location shots. A term we use to describe the placement and movement of things on set is “blocking”. Blocking can refer to any number of “things” that might be moving around a set, including people, cameras, cars, animals etc…and in terms of planning, knowing the blocking of any given scene is very important.

Jason, Walker, Eli, Co and myself headed up to the location for our cabin interiors and brought along the camera and lens package that we’ll be using for the shoot so that we could essentially shoot the scenes that occur at the cabin as a rehearsal. It was tremendously helpful to see how people fit into the space, and while we were there we figured a lot of things out as far as actor placement, lens choice, camera placement, and even lighting. All of this will do a lot to help us prepare for the shoot.

The location that we’ll use for the cabin is located in Brightwood, Oregon in the shadow of Mount Hood. It’s extremely wet there, and it gets pretty cold in the winter. I headed up a day early to prepare the place and open it up for the spring/summer. This involved repairing the water system (the water comes from a stream up the hill), flushing the pipes, hauling wood, sweeping leaves, and warming the place up- it was 40 degrees inside when we arrived, and since the sole source of heat is from a wood stove, it takes a little while to get the place warm. The good news is that we’ve got full-time access to the cabin which opens up so many opportunities such as the blocking rehearsal that we just did.

Here are a few photos of the cabin interior:

I just received news that Film Action Oregon has approved FORGE as a partner project.  That rocks.  I’m meeting with Ellen on Thursday to seal the deal.

More as it develops!