The project is still in development hell, but we do have our creature waiting for his moment in the spot light.
This is Big Beak, a mutated black vulcher, and as mischievous as they come!
Hopefully we will see him in action one day!
Back to formula!
From the start, we have been calling this project “Film School 101″…because we are learning as we go. The greatest lesson learned is that we don’t know what we are doing lol!
We shot a great majority of the film, had a great many setbacks and a few fights along the way. A couple of weeks ago everything went to crap! We ran into schedule problems, realized the film wasn’t working and our locations were to hard to shoot in.
I will admit, this newbie filmmaker was ready to quit…but some really good friends set me straight. After a little pity party, we regrouped and came up with a plan…WE ARE TAKING THIS MOTHER BACK TO FORMULA!
The lead characters are changing personalities, Doug (Danny) will be the straight shooter to Book’s (Dylon) wild card. The locations will change to make the process go smoother. We are even adding some character development to pull on the old heart strings.
I am working on convincing a very talented amateur and local writer, will give his name when I get his say so, to write the new screenplay…everyone keep your fingers crossed…no seriously…cross your fricken fingers!
We have also added a new character nicknamed “the cow lady”, she will be played by Kim Lindsey…she is going to crack you guys up!
Long story short…we aint given up yet!
Dylon Kiker
Dylonkiker@yahoo.com
Second Day of Shooting
We finished all but one shot at Bald Rock yesterday. Had the place to ourselves for once and knocked it out. Almost got eaten alive by all the gorramned gnats, but it was worth it.
Jimbo should be putting up pictures and video later.
Next up is Devil’s Den on the 25th…
-To clarify, Jimbo is Dylon, as in James Dylon Kiker. James, Jimmy, Jimbo; you get the picture
-Dan
First Day of Principal Photography Part 4
We ended up at the last Scenic View parking spot; the one on the way out of Cheaha Mountain. The scene we were shooting is to be a lead up to a pretty cool action sequance.
Scene Break down: Doug pulls up to the spot, looks out over the horizon, hoping to catch a glimpse of a certain giant black vulcher. He recieves a phone call on his cell, Book is screaming “Big Wings,Big Wings”! Just then Doug looks up to see Big Beak…and something else that he can’t fricken believe; you will just have to watch the movie to find out what that is lol!
Screen Shots…
To give you an idea of how blown away he is by what he has seen; here is an un edited clip of Doug reacting to it…
*The video has been compressed by youtube, was in HD before upload.
We did a few more shots after this; tried to reshoot boardwalk scenes and were again thwarted by pesky campers and the like. It was decided to call it a day, and so we packed everything up and headed home.
We have plenty of more shots to get, and I will keep you guys posted! Thanks to everyone for the supportive comments, keep them coming!
Dylon Kiker
First Day of Principal Photography Part 3!
The sun was starting to shine, the team ready to go…and the campers were rolling in. Apparently these people were just waiting for the sun to come out, cause when it did…they topped the hill and came in fricken droves! Our first scene was of course in the parking lot!
The scene breaks down like so…
The van pulls into the parking lot, Doug (Danny) and Book (Dylon) get out and start for the board walk entrance. For reasons I can’t go into, Book is not in the right frame of mind lol. He loses control of his legs and goes straight to the ground! Doug turns, gives him crap, Book reacts and recovers…the two make their way out toward Bald Rock.
Here are a few screen shots…
The scene went better than planned, and we headed for Bald Rock. Once there we found campers, kids and even dogs! We tried to sneak in a few shots, but they were screwed up due to the folks around us…thus we reshoot some of that scene next week lol!
Now good and frustrated, we decided to go get some shots at another location…the Scenic View Parking Spot on the far end of Cheaha! I will get some screen grabs and post them in the next blog…
Coming soon: Danny reacts to a fake phone call, watches a giant bird that isn’t there and cracks us up with the funniest improvised line I’ve heard in a long time!
First Day of Principal Photography Part 4 COMING SOON!
First Day of Principal Photography Part 2
As we started up the mountain, we noticed something pretty cool above. The clouds were floating through the area we were driving to! As we reached the parking lot for Bald Rock, visibility was between sorry and no damn good…but it looked spooky as hell. Danny opted to catch a power nap in the van, Kevin and I went out to take a few pics and play in the cold…
It was absolutely freezing, little drops of ice were more or less floating around us…all of this would have been missed if we had been sitting at home on our collective ass! After a bit we went back to the van, hung out and joked around. I believe mother nature got so jealous of us having all that fun; she finally let the sun shine through…and filming finally began! As our luck would have it…more troubles were ahead, and more fun as well!
Check back in next time as the “boys of the lodge” battle lack of acting talent, sleep, and worst of all…campers!
Coming soon: First Day of Principal Photography…*que dramatic music*…PART 3!
Dylon Kiker
First Day of Principal Photography Part 1
Woke up at 4:30, checking account was showing less money than was budgeted for…Van was on empty…I networked until some gas was donated to us. Turned out that nobody could print the script out for refference, so we downloaded to our smart phones! And to top it all off, it was like 40 degrees and the heater went out in the van lol! All of this occured before our 7am meeting at Huddle House! This should give you a good indicator as to how the day went lol!
We all met up for breakfast, looking as tired as we were…
Kevin Moss(Director of Photography)
Dylon Kiker (Producer,Director, Actor: Book Kaiser)
Danny Ford (Producer, Actor: Doug Kaiser)
Around 8 or so we rolled out to get our first shots of the day. These shots were for some driving scenes, and required footage of the van coming into and away from camera. This was accomplished by a process we came up with…called Stop-Go’s. Kevin Moss, Director of Photography, drove ahead of the van and posted his camera. We would drive past, pull over and wait for him to go up the road a bit. He would post again, in a spot he thought looked cool, and we would drive by again.
We repeated this process more than a few times, with Danny Ford and myself in the semi warm van…and Kevin posted out in the cold! They don’t call it “suffering for you art” for nothing lol!
Here are a few screen shots…
After all this, we made our way up Cheaha Mountain…where the shoot got even more out of hand lol! Check back for Part 2 of of this blog…if you don’t I’m gonna tell my mommy!
Dylon Kiker
