My Life as a Film Maker (so far...)

  Since I will be periodically reviewing new movies that come out for you I figured you would probably like to know a little bit about where I'm coming from - here goes...

                    

          Film making is the greatest interest in my life. I love every aspect of film making. I can remember when I was about 10 years old I was introduced to a video camcorder. It was meant for the whole family, but I took the liberty of keeping it for myself. I mainly filmed things like Hot Wheels cars and action figures. I also had a   huge interest in movies and television programs. When I would watch a movie, I wouldn't just watch it to  enjoy it, I would study it.

            Even at a young age, I understood the difference between what was real and what was fake in a movie. I did not like horror films though. Tom Holland's movie "Child's Play" was one of the main reasons. At the time I was into collecting action figures, especially the full sized GI-Joes and after seeing that movie I was left traumatized! I didn't touch my toys for the longest time because I worried that they were going to kill me in my sleep!  (hey, I was young and stupid.) Soon I overcame my fear of horror films and developed a great interest in them.

z             Throughout the years my interest grew in film making. During my middle school years, I was very involved in church and school activities so I had a lot of friends. I introduced them to my hobby of movie making. They were quickly fascinated by this hobby and wanted to be a part of it. We would spend our days and nights making movies, filming whatever our young minds could conjure up and would show it to family and friends.The first real movie we made that actually had a story-line to it was during high school and was titled "News Channel 4", a short film about a television station that is reporting on very unusual events taking place all over the city and ends with a ninja raiding the news building and killing off the crew... It was GOLDEN! We even sent the script to James Cameron. Unfortunately, Mr. Cameron declined the script  because he was already in production on a similar movie, "Avatar" (just kidding about that last part...)  We then decided to officially form a group so we could put a name and logo on our finished work. We called ourselves "Outcast United Productions".

  Throughout high school I made several films with the group including action, horror, and even comedy. "Hired to Kill" for instance was a  action/drama favored film that the group filmed together, we traveled everywhere to get the most out of some of the scenes. We learned alot about location planning, digital effects, and the development of our main character "Mason"  Another movie we filmed was a horror movie called "Blood Runners". We learned more about special effects such as blood and flesh make up for zombies...When I finally graduated I decided to pursue a degree in Digital Video Production at St. Petersburg College. During My first year of college I gained a lot of knowledge and experience of film making and video production. A year later, I was the owner of my first HD Digital Video Camera. I went on a film making frenzy with my friends, making lots of action films; Some even getting entered into contests.

                      As my knowledge in the profession grew I came to realize that you can't make a good movie with just a camera. You also need good lighting and sound equipment as well as a whole lot of other accessories. I most certainly could not afford that. I had a job working for Publix Super Markets but all of the money was used for paying for my cell phone, car insurance, food, ext... This was when I decided to put my skills to use and begin freelance Videography for money. I filmed weddings, concerts, commercials you name it!. All of the hard work payed off as I was soon able to purchase more accessories for my camera, but it was still not enough (Videography is expensive!!).

               A couple of months later I looked to someone to help me with my financial situation - my Dad. He helped me purchase the remaining equipment I needed and even helped out with some of my freelance work. He also soon took interest in my hobby and even wanted to create a movie himself. He typed up a script, financed the film and even cast the actors. We were soon on our way to producing our first feature length film! The name of the movie was called "Little Blind". The story  is about 5 down on their luck amateur poker players who join a high stakes underground tournament that comes with an unexpected penalty for losing - they get whacked! Written and directed by Glenn Register Sr. under the Outcast United Productions (OCU) label. This being our first full length film we had many people interested in helping out. The filming was a blast and we had so much fun working together making this film. Although we considered just completing the movie to be a success, we encountered many problems in and off the set and saw a lot of room for improvement. Several of the actors and crew members we worked with had very tight schedules. We had to learn to work around the last minute calls from people not able to make it. Other problems included our camera's inability to film in low-light conditions (a deathblow to horror movie making!) and the audio quality was not as good as it could have been. I could go on and on. Ultimately,We considered this to be more of a learning experience than anything else. To us, completing the film and putting it on a DVD to show to everyone was a great accomplishment, and we succeeded with that. When we presented the film to the public, we received a lot of feedback:

OH  THAT WAS AMAZING! WOW THIS IS AWESOME! CAN I HELP WITH YOUR  NEXT FILM!?
We were astounded to hear that the film was good. This really boosted our confidence as well as the other people that helped us out.

                     The next movie we created was a horror feature film called "Cold Rage". "Cold Rage" was the second feature length film from OCU Productions. the story line is about a small town sheriff who leads an investigation to find out what's been savagely killing the local towns people. This movie was once again a huge learning experience. Although we completed the film we still had  issues involving the actors and a new issue - copy-write violations. Some scenes we had to re-shoot for those reasons, and some we had to edit out of the script. Our goal for this movie wasn't to only complete it, but to submit it into a film festival.  Before entering the film in into our first festival, we had another screening party to show the cast, crew, and other friends the video.







OH IT WAS AMAZING! WOW THIS IS AWESOME! CAN I HELP WITH YOUR FILMS!?

            Really? It's awesome the support we get. People love the fact that they're a part of something amazing - something that they can tell their friends about what they are a part of. Although "Cold Rage" didn't turn out like what we wanted it to be, the fans appreciated the film, and we are greathearted for that. It's the fans and their interest that motivate us to continue what were doing.

           "Spooky Empire" holds a yearly horror film festival in Orlando and we decided to enter "Cold Rage" in it. Unfortunately, we didn't get picked for screening, but we had a fun time attending the event. We had the chance to meet a lot of famous  icons in from the horror film industry. John Carpenter, the director of "The Thing" and "Halloween", Robert Englund from A Nightmare on Elmstreet (Freddy Kruger), Danny Trejo (Machete), and Sean Busey from Star-ship Troopers (Gary Busey's son)  just to name a few. Along with getting the chance to meet some awesome celebrities, we did a whole lot more over there. Zombie walks, celebrity parties, and most importantly the screening of other films that were entered into the festival to check out the competition!

               When we got home, my Dad and I had a talk. We had a new goal for OCU. We were going to get one of our films entered into a festival. Of course that means more spending, more learning, and more cooperation. Well we had the money and experience covered, but the commitment from the actors and crew is what we were worried about. You can't make a great movie without cooperation from people. And everyone has their own things to do so it gets tough sometimes. The movie we are currently working on  is called "Resurrecting Evil". The story is about an apprehensive, wet-behind-the-ears detective in a backwoods town that is forced to come to grips with his past and lead an investigation into a string of grisly murders that have been committed in a style similar to that of a fictitious horror movie character that was created by a local, once famous screenwriter long ago. We started production early 2011 with writing the script and casting the actors. We bought a new camera and some new accessories to help  improve the quality of this movie 


(spending - check!)

 I continued with my college classes and my Dad began studying film making books from the library

(learning - check!)

Lastly, we met with all of the
actors one on one to get their commitment to stay with us through completion 


(cooperation - check!!)

              And before we knew it, we were off to our first scene. First scene was finished successfully! No copy-write issues, no camera issues, and no cast or crew issues. This was a huge step for us! It meant that we learned from our mistakes and were ready to proceed. As production has continued we encountered  minor issues, nothing too serious though. Right now, we are about ten percent done with the movie but have a long way to go. We spent about five to six months filming our other movies but this one will take much longer. With this movie our plan is to take our time and work at our full potential to make sure that every scene is as good as it can be. We have high hopes for this movie and I look forward to continuing to work with the OCU team on this film.


              OCU prides itself on being a full-service film company developing quality, full length feature films at a fraction of what a typical feature film would cost. We have filmed many commercials, music videos, weddings, Interviews and other various projects. We even have a website (see link below) I am amazed to see what my life as a film maker has become. I couldn't  have done it with out my friends and family and I am very great-full for them. Who knows what my future holds.
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I hope you enjoyed my blog about my life as a filmmaker.


Interested in seeing what I've done? Check out the links below:


- OCU website: http://ocuproductions.com/
- My personal YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/xWarHawk85x?feature=mhe
- OCU YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/OCUvideos

Movie Review: Super 8

Hello everyone! 

          OK so bear with me. This is my first movie blog. Recently a couple of buddies and I had the opportunity to see the movie Super 8. This movie was written and directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by the mighty Steven Spielberg, two amazing people in the film business. I really enjoyed the camera work and techniques used to film this movie. The cinematography was phenomenal! I enjoyed the fact that they made the film look old and classic. To me, I felt like I was watching a film from the 70's. Maybe it was the lens they used, I'm not sure. The music I really enjoyed and the actors played their roles very well; very believable. Ha ha, another thing that was going through my mind was the group of friends throughout the movie. They most certainly reminded me of "The Goonies" (tell me you thought of that as well). But seriously, I really enjoyed the fact that the group of kids had a passion for film and movie making. It kind of reminded me of myself and my friends back in the day. We were big film-making junkies then, and are still film-making junkies now (with a little bit of schooling and professional experience of-course).

So back to the movie. In Super 8 the deputy played by Kyle Chandler (whose name just so happens to be Deputy Jackson) in the movie was just about the only familiar face I noticed in Super 8. If you didn't get my little reference about the Deputy Jackson part, I made a feature horror film about a year ago in which I played a role with the same name and profession =P. Although Kyle Chandler was the only actor I knew, I was glad to see some unfamiliar faces in the film. The young character Joe Lamb played by the actor Joel Courtney very much reminded me of myself when I was young. Besides the movie-making interest, I enjoyed being creative collecting models and painting them. Although I was never good at paint I had a blast collecting the toys. Oh, and I also have an amazingly loving relationship with my family instead.

Here is my opinion of the pros/cons of the movie: 

---- SPOILER ALERT ---- 

Do not read the following if you have not seen the movie...

Pros

- Amazing camera work and cinematography

- Character development was very well established

- Actors were casted well

- Story line was very well thought up

- Music synced well with the movie

- Frightening and jumpy moments (least expected)

Cons

- Wasn't too crazy about the CGI or graphics

- The gigantic, ten armed, spined ,bat-looking monster/alien, looks like the monster from Cloverfield and somehow can develop and operate a technologically genetic, shape-shifting, super crazy spaceship just so happens to sneak through the city and rip out engines and washing machines with no one noticing. ( got a little detailed there ) 

- The train wreck was a bit of an overkill if you know what I mean

- Lastly the doctor who just so happened to survive a train wreck... Ill let you figure that one out

So basically the little things were a disappointing to me, but hey you cant let the little things distract you from the purpose of the movie.

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Overall, I give the movie a 8.5 out of 10 which is really good in my book!


Fun facts about the movie:
- The movie's budget range rounded to $45,000,000 and when it opened Friday It made an whopping estimate of 12.2million at the box office.
- Steven Spielberg apparently put all his ideas that he had for his older movies such as E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind into Super 8

Super 8 mm film (often simply called Super 8) is a motion picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement of the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format.

The film is nominally 8 mm wide, exactly the same as the older standard 8 mm film, and also has perforations on only one side. However, the dimensions of the perforations are smaller than those on older 8 mm film, which allowed the exposed area to be made larger. The Super 8 standard also specifically allocates the rebate opposite the perforations for an oxide stripe upon which sound can be magnetically recorded.

There are several different varieties of the film system used for shooting, but the final film in each case has the same dimensions. By far the most popular system was the Kodak system.


- sources provided by Super 8 wiki

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Well I hope you guys enjoyed my very first movie blog. Please comment! I would love to hear input and maybe some feedback on what else I should blog about.