The Cinecoup Film Adventure Thus Far...Part 1

"There's something about shooting on an icy lake in the middle of the night. Where the edge of the giant set-lights reach their end it appears as if the entire world drops off into nothing..."

 

The Challenge

You may have heard of it: The Cinecoup Film Accelerator. Here's an article on the aspirations of its creator:  http://cultmontreal.com/2012/11/futuristic-film-funding-j-jolys-cinecoup/

Basically you make a 2 minute "fake" trailer for your movie, much like the infamous ones you probably saw during  these movies.  After that, what follows is a weekly gauntlet of video production, photoshopping, promotion, the full script, and eventually crowd funding. The top ten movie ideas get a distribution agreement with Cineplex, the winner gets that plus a cool 1 million dollar budget.

Having grown once again tired of Ye Olde Government Funding Application Process, (which is much like spending weeks working on a painting and showing it to a room full of people you can't see, believing it is exactly what they want, who then offer no feedback upon rejection) we decided to throw our collective hats into this ring.

What follows has been the journey thus far:

The Idea

I had been reading a lot of books on mysticism, including the Don Juan books and a lot of old and new Dr. Strange comics. I told John that somewhere between the two worlds I kept seeing a possibility for a truly unique and mind-blowing movie experience. I loved the descriptions of transcendence and all the infinite cosmos that they claimed lay just beyond the edge of our shared perception. More inspiring still was the notion of a secret art that was only handed down by a select few that was capable of making the illusory physical world a mere plaything for those devoted to it. It had all of the spectacle and mystery my favorite kinds of stories had. But, it would only become a thrilling cinematic experience if the story had a heart. The story we developed found that heart in Rose, a woman who has two of her loved ones inexplicably torn from her by a dark sorcerer at the opening of the movie. After her tragedy, her unbending intent toward revenge takes her down a strange and dark path. The realm of the sorcerer is one into which few mortal beings would have the stomach to tread, let alone a young, city-dwelling waitress. But, her teacher would come in the form of Mr. Shine, a wise, powerful man that has transcended the concerns of the ordinary world in order to teach new pupils of this mysterious art.

A modern-day sorcery thriller named "Ascendant" was the result.

Round Up the Team

I took my friend, Chayse into the Edmonton River Valley forest and took some pictures of her for our concept art. After it was over I realized it would have made much more sense to photograph her in front of a white wall or a green screen instead of an actual forest. Oh well, lesson learned. 

These photoshops were fun to work on, I've always felt that some good concept art can rally people to your banner much faster at my level than a vague description or listed resume of previous work. Also, I find every actor I meet craves a role where they get to look cool. Who wouldn't? For the most part, actors in this province spend a lot of time existing as people in coffee shops, kindly old grandpas, "hot girls", social workers and waitresses. NOT that those aren't cool, they just aren't girl-floating-above-the-ground cool.

We wrote the trailer and immediately began scouring Facebook and Star Now for actors. We assembled most of our crew from Whisper Creek and The Corrupted and began planning a weekend shoot in the middle of winter. And, thanks to Kris Wedgewood, we would use the Red One Camera once again!

(We did digital submissions, since its much cheaper than renting a hall or office somewhere and people can audition for us from the comfort of their homes!)
In the end, Mark Kandborg (Nightmare Island 2) and Kirsten Erin Wendleant...Wendle...fuck...anyway we found some good local actors that I'd seen before in other people's films so it was fun to add them to our team. (It always feels like worlds are colliding in these scenarios, the different indie film crews being socially isolated from each other so often)

*As a side-note, I think I'm developing some sort of sixth sense for auditions. The MOMENT the one we end up picking appears on the screen or walks in the room, before they've said anything, I get a sort of chill and I just know its them. It feels like being hit with a beam of reverse-time-traveling tachyons from the future where you've already filmed the actor.

The Shoot on Icy Lake Wabamun

There's something about shooting on an icy lake in the middle of the night. Where the edge of the giant set-lights reach their end it appears as if the entire world drops off into nothing. When a grip ran to grab a gel that was being blown away from the shore, there was a brief moment where he vanished entirely into the darkness. We joked that if this was a horror movie, one-by-one we would go after the missing grip until each of us had been lost to the void forever.

This is Kirsten Erin Wendlant...Wendlandt...She is a brat. Back there is our trusty Boom Operator (notice I capitalize that shit) Michael something-or-other. 

 Here's our Camera Operator being very masculine. This is a friend's place who let us film the entire opening sequence in her apartment.

 Here's how nice my friend is. THIS IS HER BEDROOM.

Here's Priya getting ready for the first scene. Quite the little girl. You should hire her at Priya Kamdar - Child Actor

The GOOD:

We were very happy with the footage we got, despite having to start later than expected. It was one of those shoots that felt almost surreal at times. I also got to do some makeup for Gina Cicero and was quite pleased with the resulting "Frankie" character. Also, Jason built some excellent pre-cut trees which were a great amount of fun to see on the screen without having to wait for CGI to be done. Also, shameless  Lady Venom Cosmetics plug! We used all her stuff (and some from Theatre Garage in Edmonton) also I accidentally froze some. Did you know MAKEUP FREEZES??

After Mark Kandborg delivered his lines there was this moment that was still and silent, except for a single blast from a train far away. The scene just kept hovering in the air, I didn't want to say 'cut'.

The BAD:

We went late into the night on the second day, having to cut a scene (Rose at the graveyard) before finally finishing sometime around 3 or 4 a.m. All tallied, we ended up with an injured hand, a near-frost bitten actress, a truck full of equipment getting towed, and a neighbor informing us very loudly from across the hall, THIS ISN'T A FILM SET YOU GUYS CAN'T JUST WALK AROUND ACTING LIKE IT'S A GOD DAMN FILM SET THIS IS AN APARTMENT. (Such events are  common-place on a set though, so I'm basically like a bitching farmer here.)

The UGLY:

This actor's own friends did not recognize him in set photos.

Post-Production

For post-production we had Mindmasher on music and sound, our friend J.D. Buzz on FX (Century Arc Entertainment), a nice local green screen studio (King Oak Productions)  and our friend Sam had taken some good behind-the-scenes stuff from the first day. And then a bunch of stuff happened and ta-daaaaa! We uploaded at the absolute last minute, as expected.

Ascendant Extended Trailer <<<CLICK me :)

Due to time-constraints we had to upload the short version a bit early, you'll notice the title and a few other fx look much better in the above version. Compare and contrast, if you need to: www.cinecoup.com/ascendant (we aren't sure if they'll let us replace our trailer with an updated version yet) Also, due to a fatal hard drive crash the city shot at the end was supposed to zoom away from her while slowly spinning upside down until the title ASCENDANT appeared in between two of the skyscrapers. Oh well, next time!

Party at the Bottom of the Spiral Staircase

At one point I remember being somewhat nervous (as the emotional state of others about to offer up their babies to the world can easily transfer) as I climbed a dark ladder up into a DJ booth 20 feet above the dance floor, using my cell phone as a flashlight. WHY is it like this? I wondered, why is THIS the only way to the DJ booth? ADVENTURE, that's why. The only things worth doing are at the top of darkened ladders. This reminder was comforting, after the trailers played I could finally relax and try to get laid. 

 

With the Cinecoup launch date approaching, we thought it would be fun to invite everyone else in Edmonton that had made a trailer and have a party! So they let us occupy the bottom bar at Public House, with people's trailers playing on eight different screens. Things went mostly without a hitch, except that my favorite trailer: Tales From the Last Video Store played without sound and appeared to have no sound on the file for no rational reason. Luckily, its creators were not in attendance (don't tell Kevin) so we went on with the rest of the trailers and I believe a fun time was had by all.

(This night was full of a lot of awesome pictures I'd love to show you, but it was also one of those nights where I barely remembered to take any. )

Next up: How to Make a Woman Scream, and Mind Bowling Will Bowl Your Mind