CG, reshoots, and mouse poop.

We're deep into post world and inching towards the finish line. We've been staring at and fussing over this movie for what seems like years now. Having shot and edited another movie in the meantime, we gained a lot of perspective on Intersect and decided to capitalize on that experience.

: : : VIDEO BELOW : : :

Over the past few months, we organized a few key reshoots to jazz up existing scenes and to add a bit of value or visual interest in between others. One that was particularly rewarding was to finally bring Miskatonic University to the screen. The use of MU in Intersect is a reference to the works of H.P. Lovecraft, which was only a less than explicit nod up to this point, but we decided something more overt was called for. So we took over a portion of the ASU campus and brought it to life.

Having secured funding to complete the CG, we also needed to shoot a variety of items and animals on green screen to help illustrate some of the important scientific experiments that take place in the story.

Once the edit was locked with the new reshoots and green screen footage added in, we engaged the help of the amazing, Emmy award winning CG company, Tomahawk Visual Effects. (Or TMHK for short) These guys really took the ball and ran with it. Eventually we all realized that sports based idioms were way out of style, and instead, they just went to work.

TMHK blew us away with their hard work, their designs, and their ideas for this movie. Finding the right people to gel with your project is difficult thing, but these guys 'got' the movie right away and continuously impressed us with the art they delivered to us.

Tune in next time when we discuss music, foley, and the final mix!

-Luke (D.P.)

A celebration, a protest, and a bomb scare...

Abe Ruthless... just a man, with a beard... and a sign

Welcome back loyal listeners! Phase 2 of this giant Intersect project kicked off this past week... and we knocked out the first 3 days of our remaining 24-day shoot.

Check out a little wrap up VIDEO:::

Miskatonic University

All 3 days took place on Arizona State University campus. We were able to get some amazing footage thanks to the use of the brilliant architecture, and to Keith Jennings and all of the ASU staff that worked with us on the shoot, and a very special thank you to all the background artists who gave us hours and hours of their time over the weekend for nothing! You guys were awesome!

Being out of our cold, safe laboratory was an interesting change for our crew. The outdoors provided a new set of challenges for us, not the least of which being the intense Arizona sun! But we pushed through... and a lot of new film making gear was also debuted, including my personal favorite, the Steadicam!

I'm going to keep this post fairly short, there is a lot of work to be done for this week's shooting schedule... I'll let the photos and video do the talking.

Oh yeah... PS... we have some ridiculously exciting news... for the next post!

Watch this SPACE!! (Oh... you'll see why that's funny soon enough!)

-Luke (D.P)

Principal photography begins!

Remember remember, the 27th of November. Saturday was day 01 of shooting on "Intersect". After a mad dash of final preparation and cleaning, the laboratory set was finally ready for filming.

Windows were cleaned, the portal was wired, and software was installed into the robots. It had all finally come together. Months of sweaty preproduction and planning was mopped up and squeegeed into the first concentrated drop of the movie.

2 legit 2 quit

Saturday morning, 8am was the official first call time. Everyone was charged to be on set. The cast and crew funneled in, and the old warehouse was finally transformed into the high-tech temporal sciences laboratory at Miskatonic University.


Meet the cast (Left to Right):
Kate Kugler as Dr Claudia Pilkington
Abe Ruthless as Dr Nathan Beaumont
Jason Spisak as Dr Ryan Winrich
Leeann Dearing as Dr Caitlin Webb
Garrett Boyd as Dr Geoffrey Lucas

As the actors were running their lines and the crew was setting up the scene, we heard a very loud grinding sound coming from next door. After a few minutes of it, we went to investigate. Apparently the vacant warehouse to the east of us (attached) was being renovated for a tenant to move in. There was a single dude running a floor scraper inside a 3000+ square foot room. The plan was to tear up all the floor. At the rate the guy was working, it would have taken him 2 weeks to get it all done. Seven members of our crew and family volunteered to go next door and help him knock it out so we could film. It took till 4pm.

Luckily, during our down time we had a number of lavaliere mic issues to iron out. So we spent that time working on sound and rehearsing the scene. A lot of time was lost, but in the end, we got things smoothed out.

By Sunday, our second day of shooting, we were a fairly well-oiled machine. Our actors totally rocked the script, the set looked incredible on camera, and we got some amazing footage.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, is day 3 of shooting. I hope to keep the blog posts rolling! Another video clip too! Stay tuned!

-Luke (D.P.)