I bet you’ve never noticed the giant buddha looming above the Pickering nuclear power plant. Sanford has.
Terry designed Google’s logo after the company’s repossessed by China.
Ian sketched out how it’ll look on Oscar’s uniform.
Author:
Friday Eyecandy
Posted by – August 21, 2009
The Death Touch Draft
Posted by – August 15, 2009
…is here. Some dialogue tweaks, and some wardrobe details added from our recent brainstorming. Most significant changes are that I have replaced all references to real products with fake products, and that I’ve given Karen-as-battlebot a more feasible/less cheesy treatment.
This is the shooting script for all the scenes except the bowling alley scene and the introductory show scene, which will probably be rejigged a bit.
Mature Actors, Where are You?
Posted by – August 10, 2009
Got an older uncle or a relative who’d like to be in a movie? Check out the roles below!
So we’ve finished the pre-production meetings and will be starting to shoot in a few weeks. We’re trying to fill a couple of last roles/positions, so please feel free to forward the following URL to interested parties:
http://nomediakings.org/vidz/help_us_destroy_toronto.html
…as it’s visible to the public. Or just forward them this via email.
Actors
- The Documentarian: An older Asian man, 40+.
- The restaurant owner: A 30+ Asian man or woman.
- The down-on-her-luck lady: A 40+ Caucasian woman.
- The high-flying businesswoman: A 30+ Asian woman.
- A well-off older gent: A 50+ man.
- Extras/Backgrounders: If you don’t fit any of these, we’d love to have you as one of the crowd of doodlefaces.
Art Dept./Crew
- Sound: if you’re available and reliable, we can train you.
- Lighting: If you like to sculpt with shadows, let us know.
- Wardrobe: Can you imagine what folks will be wearing in 2040? Know how to customize Value Village finds?
- Set dec: We have to dress up locations so they look different. Hopefully you have better ideas than “a lot of tin foil”.
- P.A.s: If you’re willing to be an extra pair of hands for the experience.
Locations
We have insurance.
- a luxury car/limo
- a bar
- a doctor’s office
- a doctor’s waiting room
- a convenience store
- a toy store
Get in touch at casting@ghostswithshitjobs.com/productionblog.
Bountiful Scarborough
Posted by – August 5, 2009
I’m vacationing at my mom’s place this week and took a break from insurance research to snap some pics along the lake for possible locations. It’s at Port Union and Lawrence in Scarborough and a few years back they opened one of my favourite parks in the city here.
I specifically came out here to see if I could find a place to matte a giant buddha onto the bluffs but then we came across this very photogenic bridge above water that would suit the Anton/Toph section well.
There’s a footbridge near it that allows for a bunch of different angles.
…and a bunch of nooks that Toph could be hidden in.
I made a little 360 vid under the bridge too.
Just like we found with Infest Wisely, Scarborough is a treasure trove of great underexposed locations!
Cinematography Notes for Directors
Posted by – July 29, 2009
As we’re having our directors/producers meeting on Thursday to discuss cinematography I thought I’d pull together some ideas I had on the subject — these are notes, mind you, not directives.
For the doc segments:
- No shakycam.
There are a lot of movies that parody the documentary style, and for this to work it’s gotta be more than “Blade Runner meets Cops”. There’s lots of comedy in the movie but I hope we’re able to pull off such a straightfaced and deadpan style that the word mockumentary never occurs to people.
- Heavily intercut and constructed.
For the segments, we’re working with a very specific documentary model — a high-minded, constructed type of storytelling. Some touchstones are the visual composition of the This American Life TV show, the social anthropology of the 7 Up series, the documentarian-as-character style in Errol Morris’ First Person.
- Intense focus on the subjects.
The explicit intent of the documentary is to get the mainlanders to emphathize with the Torontonians — but there’s an undercurrent of “look at how strange and fascinating these poor people are”. Like the tragic-documentaries that focus on say, a Cambodian rice farmer and zoom in on his scars and pockmarked complexion, that linger on the strange angles of his face — ours will do the same but with white people.
For the in-world adventures:
We need to distinguish this from the documentary. Different camera settings at least — perhaps this is shared with the in-world time with Oscar at the beginning — maybe distinctive transitions. The documentarian has pieced this together, so maybe it’s told via a number of static shots as if from a number of security cams. This is the only footage where people don’t think they’re being filmed, so maybe he’d take the opportunity for extreme closeups.
For the mainlander show bookends:
Smooth and slow camera. Classy, sedate, intelligent is the tone. Maybe even trying too hard, like Inside the Actors Studio. I’m thinking Oprah in her book club discussions, with a bit of the YOU-get-a-new-car! Oprah slipping out.
For the flycam bowling alley scene:
At the moment the scene is written so that it all happens around a table, but I think it should follow people to the counter, to the alley to take their turn, and land in weird places and at weird angles. It can catch people in the middle of conversations, and maybe give the disjointed feel without the time lapses. Slight distortion when it hits the glass trying to get out.
Insurance Research
Posted by – July 23, 2009
I talked to an insurance broker yesterday and learned a couple of interesting (OK, that’s an exaggeration — useful, then) things pertaining to the movie:
The minimum cost to getting the $2M insurance required by the city to obtain a permit is $1300. So, we won’t be getting any permits for our shoots on public laneways. However, when I talked to the lady at the city about shooting guerrilla-style, she said that although it is possible we could be fined we will probably just be moved along.
E&O insurance will require releases for the mention of any brand name or slogan. I thought we might be able to get away with it if we didn’t show the logos, but apparently not without paying much higher premiums. We might be defended by an argument of satire in the court, but the insurance company will charge us for the risk. Since it’s mostly in Tate’s spammer section, Tate and I discussed it and decided to shoot a real brand version and a fake brand version (ie. TimBucks instead of Starbucks) of the affected scenes just to give us some options.
E&O insurance will require releases even for exterior shot of distinctive buildings. I had previously assumed we could shoot the outsides of buildings with impunity, but apparently not. But if it’s enough of a background element — similar to a big enough crowd of people, for instance — it’s not a problem.
What Will You Be Wearing in 2040?
Posted by – July 20, 2009
If you have an answer to this question, we’d like to know. We’re looking for people to do wardrobe and/or makeup — and despite this being SF, it’s not enough to get a roll of tin foil / silver facepaint. We’re going a little more subtle than that.
We’re also looking for people to take on set decoration, prop making, and art direction. So if dressing up a laneway to look like a post-collapse illegal black market sounds like your kinda fun, or have ideas for people who’d be good for it, please get in touch.
The directors and producers have started our weekly meetings and things are chugging along. We’re hoping to start shooting mid-Aug and to be wrapped mid-Oct.
Because Paper is Cheaper Than Film
Posted by – July 8, 2009
By editing to make sure key things are working in script form, especially at the beginning of the movie, I’m hoping to save us the hassle of trying to fix it at the end: here’s the fourth draft.
Tweaks aplenty, but most notably:
- the “flycam” device only used in the bar gettogether scene, cut elsewhere
- restructured the end studio show to end on Serina/Oscar
- changed the beginning to be less of a crazy game show
Most of the changes are in Oscar’s seg:
- cut the Willy kid character
- restructured a lot of the segment to clarify that the setting is 2040 though he works in 2020, and clarify what his job was
- cut the collision detection bits
- made it so that he’s running from the doodlefaces because they’re transferable viruses, and that this is what ends up putting him into the clinic
Inside Out City
Posted by – June 30, 2009
Sanford and I scouted some possible locations for establishing 2040s Toronto. Based on conversations with people and previous exploring, we’ve hit upon the idea of using alleys that have front doors leading onto them — there’s something inherently strange and inverted about them to begin with, and the narrower scale and ramshackle construction gives the feel of a third world country.
On revisiting them I realized a lucky thing — that the laneways with front doors were also public laneways with street names, as opposed to the majority of the private laneways. The private laneways require releases from the owners to clear E&O, while the public laneways do not.
The permits are free but you need to be a production company insured for $2M to get them. I talked with Patti at the city today and she said that while hypothetically you can be fined for shooting without a permit, it’s more an issue with liability — if someone trips over a cable, you can be sued. The day we visited was really quiet, however, no cars or people in sight.
Revisions A’Rollin’
Posted by – June 22, 2009
Above is my favourite variant of the 2040 Tower that Sanford’s done.
And here’s my latest variant of the script, taking into account the excellent feedback I have gotten from folks directly and indirectly involved with the movie. This will be the shooting script, apart from the tweaks and additions and changes that come with next month’s weekly meetings.
We’re currently meeting with potential DOPs and directors to fill the few remaining slots we have. Feel free to encourage folks to send their reels to casting@ghostswithshitjobs.com/productionblog. We’ll be scouting some alleys later this week to brainstorm ideas for futuristic set-dressing and costuming, so email me if you want in on that.