I’ve uploaded the second draft of the script here. We had a meeting and most of the directors are planning to shoot in July and August.
Also, Infest Wisely got an entry on IMDB — they’ve been slow to update the credits, so not everyone’s on there yet, but pretty neat! If you care about such things, I welcome you to get an IMDB account and input your credits via “update data”.
I put a call out for DPs a while ago and at the moment i have four DPs that have contacted me back. Two of them have mentioned that they are interested to work on the project, another one is a jim munroe fan, and there is one last one that just joined the races recently.
So the candidates are: Chris Frampton, Christopher Giroux, Ioana Vasile, and Jacob Stein.
Christopher Giroux will be sending me his reel this friday (that’s what his e-mail said).
With all of this fear-mongering going on about Bacon Lung… er, I mean Swine Flu, it’s good to see the creativity of human beings continuing to shine through. People in Mexico have begun to decorate their surgical masks, and it could make a great, cheap production design element.
Here’s a photo gallery.
Remember, only you can kung-fu swine flu!
Sanford, who’s offered to do a matte painting for the movie, just sent me the above concept drawing for a Toronto after the giant spiders have their way with it in 2025. Very cool.
As if that isn’t enough, he’s also been to Shanghai recently, and sent this collection of shots for possible references.
When I was staying with Kent in San Francisco a few weeks back I was talking about the doc style of Ghosts and he recommended the phenomenal “Alive in Joberg” by Neill Blomkamp. Blomkamp grew up in Vancouver but was born in South Africa, and makes great use of the style of movies made about SA and Africa in general.
When I got home I saw this great lo-fi sci-fi discussion thread referring both to Infest Wisely and Blomkamp’s short, so obviously I was meant to see it. There’s lots of interesting shorts on the thread, including others by Blomkamp, but “Metalosis Maligna” is my favourite. It’s a pretty amazing surrealist approach to lo-fi sci-fi, with the crazy growth on the x-rays giving the viewer a chance to imagine what the condition looks like.
Just typed up the notes from the brainstorming session and workshop we had last week. Some really great ideas to explore. I’m wondering what an Asian-dominated future will look — when most of my previous near-futures assume the continued ascendance of western-style capitalism, a more intense corporation-mediated reality. I’m also going to be looking into how people in India have developed their outsourcing foothold.
If you have any thoughts/suggested links or reading on this, email me or post a comment. And if you get a chance to read the script, I’m soliciting feedback until April 20th at which point I’ll be diving in again.
This Sunday we’re going to be shifting GWSJ to the next level.
Directors, can you please arrive at 11 with the following prepared, in order of importance:
We’ll be starting with a script brainstorming at 11am. At 1pm the actors will be arriving for the workshopping session. We’ll be done by 4.
I’ll be in touch with everybody via email later this week with the location.
Hey all –
Jim has invited me to take the lead on a video documenting the filmmaking process of ‘Ghosts With Shit Jobs’ (I will also be involved in the main production in some capacity or other).
I’ve worked on several documentaries in the past and have a few ideas about how to do this. It’s still pretty embryonic but I wanted to share some thoughts and encourage people to think about this aspect of the production as things move forward.
First of all, I am NOT interested in making what I would describe as an interview-led documentary. This doesn’t mean that there will be no interviews; it does mean that interviews would take a back seat to footage drawn from actual unstaged incident and interaction, on set and behind the scenes. This requires a greater amount of shooting, less predetermination of content and more involved editing. Very roughly speaking, it steers the project toward cinematic documentary traditions and away from television models.
It also requires a greater amount of indulgence and consent from cast and crew as subjects. The model only really works under what I’ll describe as a ‘negative option’ consent arrangement – that is, you can ask the camera person to stop filming, but barring this, all on-set happenings are considered fair game. In exchange it would be understood that the documentary cameraperson’s presence will not be physically disruptive, and that the approach of the documentary will be respectful. In short, it requires trust on both sides
To pursue this, then, I would require a generalized consent policy that the production as a whole can endorse; so I hope you have time to discuss this and arrive at some conclusions at the meeting on the 5th.
The other thing that needs to be said is that I will not be present for every day of the shoot, and you never know when something interesting is going to happen; so I would be interested in working out a protocol which would allow other cast and crew to pick up the documentarian role in my absence. More broadly, it would be great if a general consciousness of the documentary pervaded the overall production, so that, for instance, the feature cameraperson might roll camera during rehearsal to capture that process, or individuals with something to say might feel at liberty to request an interview or even tape themselves.
The issue of documentation in my absence comes up immediately in the context of the meeting on the 5th. This meeting will be key to the evolution of the overall project, and it would be a great loss to the documentary if it weren’t recorded in some way. And I’ll be on an airplane!! I’d appreciate any help anyone can offer in documenting this meeting – even a (clean) audio-only documentation if video would make folks uncomfortable at this juncture.
If anyone is prepared to take the lead on the latter, please let me know. And if folks feel that this initiative calls for a special ‘documentary’ skill-share, I’m happy to facilitate that as well. Otherwise, please share any thoughts you might have on this idea.
Whereas it is unlikely that Ghosts With Shit Jobs will make a profit by being sold to broadcasters and/or distributors given that it is a no-budget production,
I nonetheless desire to work on this film project either out of an interest in science fiction, the aesthetics of film-making, the principle of autonomous creation, the development of professional skills, the comradery of teamwork, or some combination thereof,
So long as any hypothetical compensation should be as equitable as possible according to my efforts, and the process itself should be as fair, transparent and accountable as possible,
Therefore, I hereby agree to the following contract:
1) I will log the hours I spend working on this project, with the understanding that my percentage of the profit will be equal to percentage of the total hours, irregardless of role, after having worked ten hours (eg. If there is a $100 profit and I have worked 10 hours on a project that took 100 hours, I will receive $10).
2) I will log hours for, but not limited to, the following activities: organizing or taking part in the preparatory film workshops, contributing to the project blog, research, securing locations, working transport, securing actors, acting, working sound or lights, constructing props, shooting video, assisting in catering or craft services, working in makeup or wardrobe, creating special effects, editing sound and/or video, or promoting the screening of the film.
3) I will record my hours as diligently and honestly as possible as soon as it is practical to do so after taking part in activities related to the film project, given that padding hours amounts to taking hypothetical money away from other project participants who are being accurate in their logging, while under-reporting hours ultimately amounts to ripping myself off.
4) I will be asked via the website email notifications to submit my hours at three points i) after pre-production is completed; ii) after production is completed, and iii) after post-production is completed. I will have two weeks to do so, failing which my hours will not be counted.
5) I understand that my payment, should I receive one, will be deferred until incurred film costs have been covered, and as such I will attempt to reduce incurred costs by posting any expenses over $100.00 to the project blog so that other project participants can be aware of the expense, suggest cheaper or free alternatives, or contest the expense.
Name: ________________________________________________________________________
Signature: ____________________________________________________________________
Date: _________________________________________________________________________
The first draft for Ghosts With Shit Jobs is here in pdf form. Feel free to give it a read and post comments to the site or email them to me.
The directors and producers are meeting on Sun. Apr. 5th (11-5pm) to brainstorm ways to improve it. Sean will be leading this with an improv-inspired “Yes, And” model. After that the directors will be workshopping some scenes with actors (1-4pm).
Things are firming up, so if there’s a crew role you’d like to try, if you’d like to give input on the script, or know someone who’d like to act, now’s the time to speak up!
Also: we’re having skillshares for anyone who’s interested in learning about editing on Sun. Apr. 19th (Beginner, led by Rose) and Sun. Apr. 26th (Advanced, led by Tate), 1-4pm. Get in touch for final details.
