Southside of Elsewhere

Logline: Where would you go if all that you were... was erased?

A researcher and his family become fugitives when his former employer becomes interested in his young daughter's intellectual abilities.

Southside of Elsewhere is the second of a trilogy of short films that are precursors to a future-noir feature that is in pre-production.

PRODUCTION
Pre-production began back in November '08. I met with Bob Lanoue and Katherine Taylor of Friendly Universe Productions, and Antonio Lexerot of Lexerot Entertainment. I had asked Katherine and Antonio of they would play the leads, Callie and Sam Merrill, a divorced couple with joint custody of their daughter, Vivian.

From there, Bob and Katherine helped by introducing me to many talented actors and crew. Unfortunately, Bob needed to back out due to family matters though has followed us as closely as he could. Katherine introduced me to Carrie and Paul Dawson, a fantastic MUA and Photographer couple. Carrie helped me round out the rest of the supporting cast and did an AMAZING job making everyone look pretty. Check out her portfolio at HD Makeup Ready . Carrie also helped with a crucial special effect in a shootout we shot.

Trevor Hawkes also returned to help. He and his brother Trent, along with their company, T&T Costumes and Props, outfitted us with an arsonal and helped with many of the atmospheric effects that we needed.

I also asked my long time associates and friends Todd McGowan (Love's Confession, Finnegans, Corner of the Mind's Eye) and Michelle Poe (Maybe, Salt of the Earth) to help. Todd was to be the Director of Photography. Todd was happy to oblige, and we garnered some fantastic footage, and Michelle helped Produce.

I also asked David Adamic to be our location sound mixer. I met David through Russ on the set of Oisin. David is fantastic, professional and extremely helpful. He was gracious enough to let us use his equipment.

Principal Photography was from the end of January to the beginning of February 2009. We had many sets, the largest being a lounge that became a pinnacle scene and involved 15 on screen actors, lots of drama, some physical action, a shootout and a desperate escape... but it doesn't end there, and the rest of the plot is under wraps until we can premiere it.

We are now in Post Production. I was doing an offline edit, however have tapped Todd McGowan yet again for his cutting prowess to help finish it. We had shot about six hours of footage, and we still have a few shots that we need to get.

I will also have a full CAST and CREW list very soon!

Life happens while you're making other plans...

Salt of the Earth
Reshoots? Nah… we had several discussions and even planned on reshooting our first scene- but ultimately schedules and money has prevented us from doing so. The original scene stands very well and we are planning on using ADR which we had recorded on location instead of entire reshoot.

Composer? We have signed on Gunnar Spardel as the composer to Salt of the Earth. Gunnar’s work is awe-inspiring, you can hear his work here: http://gunnarspardel.com/.

VFX? After speaking to a few VFX artists, we are still looking for someone to help with some effects. The first shot is a full shot of a satellite in orbit, the rest involves composite work (including heat distortion effects). There are opportunities for matte and title work.



Oisin
Russ Adams of Ritual Pictures had reshot the first scene in Oisin to establish the lead character a bit better. I think this will help and returned as the Director of Photography to shoot it. Oisin is already playing at a number of festivals, but this new director’s cut will be the permanent film.

I met Chris Arrington of 3IFM Independent Studios during the reshoot of the beginning scene. Chris is very talented and will be working with Russ on a number of future projects.



Southside of Elsewhere
This is the second of the trilogy of the future noir prequel trilogy that we shot last February. The original intent was to place it into the DVXuser.com’s Lossfest, but while editing, there was no way to cram the story into the 6 minute time limit. We had a baby immediately after shooting, so SSOE as well as all my projects (including Freelance) had (until just recently) went to the back burner.

I will post the specifics of Southside in a separate post, but I had met some amazing talent during the course of it. I have just recently brought on Todd McGowan to edit it. Todd was also the DP.



The 48 Hour Film Project SLC 2009
Yup! We did it again. We decided to go lean this time with cast, crew and locations. We picked the “Film de Femme” genre. The story we came up with, “Prudence”, is about Prudence Espinoza, an art theif who is unhappy with her witless accomplice’s failed attempt at an inside job. When she arrives to finish the job, betrayal boils to the surface.

“Prudence” is the debut lead role for Laura Earlewine, and features Trevor Hawkes, and last year’s lead Chris Harvey. “Prudence” premiered at the 48 Hour Film Festival on May 21st at the Jordan Commons Megaplex in Sandy, UT.


More to come…

Spreading the WORD

It's been a little bit, hasn't it? We'll, we've been extremely busy. I'm still trying to compile a load of stuff and process it into some sort of managable chunks.

UPDATES

- Lost Skies Productions is currently looking for a sound designer, VFX artist and a composer to help bring Salt of the Earth to completion. Interested parties, please contact the director Juan Maestas at jmaestas@lostskies.com!

- Salt of the Earth is on IndieGoGo! Please, please, PLEASE help us promote it- go to the IndieGoGo site and get the code for the widget below, and post it to your site or blog! Spread the word!



- We've also posted a project on MyProducer.tv! MyProducer.tv is a new social networking site for filmmakers, and it's currently in beta.
Salt of the Earth on MyProducer.tv

- Russ Adams has finished Oisin, and has submitted it to eight festivals! Best of luck, Russ and MAKE US PROUD!! :)

Next Post: We've finished shooting 98% of the second of the Future Noir Shorts Trilogy and am now compiling all the HD footage into something managable to do an offline edit… I’ll have a full post on “Southside of Elsewhere” very soon! Stay tuned, thrill seekers!

Happy New Year from Lost Skies!

Click for a larger poster. The majority of the photos are from Benjamin Bamba which include behind the scenes and premiere for the 48 Hour Film Project "Maybe...", behind the scenes from "Salt of the Earth" and our involvement in Ritual Picture's "Oisin".

I personally want to say thank you to everyone who had participated in all the projects we were involved in... we made a lot of new friends and created some memories I will carry for the rest of my life. Thanks everybody.

I'm not kidding when I say we're just getting started. We have plans for the second and third 'future noir' shorts and we are considering on participating in this year's 48 Hour Film Project!

As for 2009, this year will be faster and more intense. You can count on that.

Salt of the Earth Poster

Salt of the Earth Poster #1.

I've also set up a "Salt of the Earth" group on Facebook- if you have an account, check it out and join!!

Peppering the Salt

Howdy! It's been a wild and busy month. I've finished helping with Oisin- editing, editing sound and color correction and have handed it back to Russ Adams.

With that, I have turned my attention back to Salt of the Earth, which I have gone down and dirty with the edit- refining it so the pace is appropriate to all the scenes. I've also been storyboarding out the pickups which will give the first scene an entirely different context than just a simple conversation in a plaza. As I have been editing it, I've been color correcting it as I go. Here's some more grabs:

I've also asked my long time associate Brett Stagg to create an animation for me that will play at the beginning. Once all of that is done, it's the business of cleaning up the audio, doing the sound design and scoring it. I was really hoping to have been to this point, but projects and freelance kept popping up!

The second of the "future noir" shorts has been written, and I have been working with a few people on getting it planned. More on this as we get all the i's crossed and the t's dotted.

Back to the Future... again.

The final cut is almost finished on Oisin, than the audio edit should go fairly fast, than it will be passed back to my friend and fellow filmmaker Russ Adams to finish his sound design, than he'll send it off to the composer to get scored.

Salt of the Earth needs pickups. We're working on what and when, but it will be a bit before we can go back out. Than sound design, etc etc and that will be finished.

While I've been home, I've been hit with a ton of inspiration on the re-write of an old friend: Corner of the Mind's Eye. Essentially, being away from it for a year or so has given me an opportunity to look on it again with fresh eyes, and I can see within the story structure why it didn't make the cut for the Slamdance Screenplay Competition a year ago. The "B-Plot" was underdeveloped...which I knew, but once I went and wrote up a "history of the story's world" everything came together: The intrigue- the conspiracy- the drama- the heart ache and the heroism that will make Joseph Crowfoot iconic.

Haughty words for a low-budget filmmaker, huh? That's because I'm feeling really confident about how it's turning out.