Mark Blackman, Lauren Meley and Eric Elizaga in “The Spaceship”.

THE SPACESHIP | Production Diary by Eric M. Norcross Entry 13: Filming Wraps

With one pick-up left to do, filming has officially wrapped on The Spaceship (at least the first wing of filming).  90% of the movie is “in the can” so to speak and we’re now going on hiatus until the last week of August in an effort to pay the bills, assemble the footage and set us up for what is going to be a very long post-production phase.  My productions have always gone down in a way where principle photography takes the shortest period of time, while post can often take up to a year.  In fact, Lipstick Lies was exactly a year of post before it premiered and that’s only a 20 minute film with no effects or serious digital intermediate process.

Since I didn’t have the time or mental capacity during principle photography to make any entries onto this production blog, I will be diving back into writing as we proceed to create the first assembly.  I will be commenting on the scenes as they come to life in the edit, rather than write about them before the fact.  Thus far we’re still trans-coding and syncing audio for our “offline” FCP edit.  This will be going on until June, mainly due to a lack of experienced help (and a budget to hire such help).

Gerard Adimando and Jim Heaphy in THE SPACESHIP.

With a cast of 40+ actresses and actors and a crew of 10, we managed to get the “Staten Island Science Fiction Movie” shot in full sensor, 5K resolution within four weeks, on a Red Epic – the highest resolution digital cinema camera available at the time we began production.  That’s not to say it was easy – it was the single most toughest film shoot I’ve ever been on and I feel I’d be misleading a lot of young filmmakers if I weren’t up front about how this was one of the worst experiences of my life.  I never thought anything would top the experience I had going to film school in Vancouver, but The Spaceship officially takes the cake.  Everything that could go wrong on an indie film production, had gone wrong (including getting in a whole hell of a lot of trouble with the villainous SAG-AFTRA thanks to a complaint from one of our actors and having some of our crew bail on us after the second week).  While we’re just about crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s on all the union issues, and most of our other problems have subsided or gone by the wayside, the production is close that it’s tough not to write about it and still feel a little peeved.  Despite the ridiculous challenges that we faced, somehow, someway, the footage turned out REMARKABLE and we managed to get most of everything I wanted and certainly everything we needed.  Absolutely astounding, actually.  The performances are top notch and the originality of the story and its delivery are awe-inspiring.  The artistic approach both on a technical and aesthetic level made some days harder than they needed to be, but the struggle has paid off enormously and will continue to as we push forward to complete the film.

Some of the key moments that stand out as having been crazy awesome include the filming of the love story elements, between Lauren Meley’s character “Anna” and Tim Eliot’s character “Brad”.  While I cannot reveal much about this on screen relationship as it relates heavily to the greater plot, I can say that it’s by far some of the most touching scenes I’ve ever had the honor of directing.  Lauren has always been an impeccable talent and I told her a few times on set that I couldn’t believe I had access to her.  She should be A-Lister by this point, that’s how good she is in everything she does and this film is no exception.  I cannot wait to exhibit the film, if for no other reason, than that it features Lauren.

The cast of 40+ NYC film, tv and stage performers are another element that I am baffled by, or more specifically, that Lauren somehow managed to keep track of them all, pretty much on her own.  How this was managed is beyond me, I still can’t fathom how it was pulled off .  With Lauren on Call Sheet duty, somehow she managed to figure out who belongs where and what day and when the schedule got changed, all of the little elements got moved appropriately.  Aside from being a phenomenal talent, her management skills were the primary force keeping this production afloat.  Scheduling, re-scheduling and managing the call for 40+ actors is no easy job and to be doing this in addition to acting and in addition to putting up with me?  There is no pay rate high enough to be suitable for what she has done here.

Some of the science fiction elements, while common for most Hollywood productions, have knocked my socks off.  To see scenes of the quality we have achieved in an ultra low budget indie film is mind blowing to me.  It’ll be a while before I fathom just how much bang we got for our buck as far as production value goes, and rightfully so.  It shouldn’t be shrugged off as commonplace, because for this level of production, it’s not.

Lastly, and I know this is a typical filmmaker thing, but it’s necessary, we’re still fund raising to help pay the expenses and keep us moving forward with the project.  Principle may be one pick-up away from an actual wrap, but we still have a lot we need to cover and have an IndieGoGo site set up so we can collect funds from contributors like you.  Please spread the word about our fund raising campaign so we can get THE SPACESHIP out to the public as soon as possible.

Thanks all!

-E

THE SPACESHIP | Production Diary by Eric M. Norcross Entry 12: Filming Begins

Look at the faces to the left. Sans three people – this the cast of characters that will be bringing the crazy story of THE SPACESHIP to life and I couldn’t be more proud of the group that we’ve meticulously put together.  I’m in a poetic mood this morning, thinking more like an artist than the producer that I have been for the past few months.  I’ve produced the hell out of this film and Lauren Meley has produced it even more.  We both have much to gain with this project and much to lose if we were to stop at any point – quitting was never an option and thank goodness for that!  My poetic mood doesn’t have me thinking about that though.  For the first morning in a lot of mornings since this project was thrown into development – the fears of this thing shutting down have subsided and the real task of storytelling actually begins.

There are two types of fires that burn in the belly and in the heart.  There is the kind that scorch and the kind that create – sometimes they feel the same and other times it’s clear cut which is which.  The kind of fire that scorches is the fire that burns when we’re hurt emotionally – when we’re betrayed or beaten down by a system that doesn’t work – whether it be social or personal.  The sister fire is the fire that burns in the belly and drives certain people (like myself) to deplete personal resources and test the bonds of every relationship in an effort to bring a specific vision to life.  This morning I mutter the mother load of “OMFG“.  Not just once but consistently.  It circulates, revolves and recurs in my head over and over again. I say to myself “OMFG” and then I try to concentrate but I say again “OMFG“. Then finally I finish it off with “OMFG I can’t believe we start filming today“. I can’t even sleep.  I’m stoked to the core with a fire that burns, but it’s that good burn because there’s something growing from it, unlike with that other wretched fire, (which by the way I’ve managed to tame into becoming something useful from time to time). )

Today the filming of our “Staten Island Sci-Fi Epic”  officially begins and I am both nervous and excited, scared but confident and for Heaven’s sake… man – this truly feels like a feature and a huge undertaking. I have not felt this before on any project.  Perhaps this means it’ll work out. Perhaps it means I’m naive.   I’d like to think that perhaps, it just means I thought this through quite a bit more than my previous films – in which case, it should all work out and in the end, be kick ass.

Onward!

Eric Norcross

04/13/2014

THE SPACESHIP | Production Diary by Eric M. Norcross Entry 11: Script Read

On April 7th (this past Sunday) we had the “table” read of the script for THE SPACESHIP. This milestone of production was attended by all of our entire cast (sans three people) who came out to Ripley Grier Studios, Suite 17D and read allowed, line for line, every single word of THE SPACESHIP – some even doing it while in character.  The read-through is a wonderful way for the cast to understand the nature of the story, the dynamics of all the characters and the intricacy of the plot.  The experience of seeing 40+ people at the same time, in one room, dedicating to reading my words and understanding them is an incredible feeling. Many are friends whom I collaborated with before and others were found through the network or with a casting call and so forth. They are all high quality performers and to have them be a part of my production is absolutely unbelievable. I cannot wait to see this movie finished – now more than ever.

Here are some more photos from the script read (hosted on Flickr): http://www.flickr.com/photos/norcrossmedia/sets/72157632887562002/  

Movie still of Lauren Meley on the John F. Kennedy, on approach to Whitehall Terminal in New York City.

The long awaited “Day Zero” has come and gone. Day Zero was the first day of the shoot where no real setups or complicated scenes are filmed. For my productions it’s usually just b-roll and snippet scenes. In the case of THE SPACESHIP, we started out at Canal Street & Bowery in lower Manhattan, filming NYC foot & vehicular traffic.  We then proceeded to the roof of a nearby building to acquire some shots of the Manhattan Skylines (both downtown and midtown).  Thanks to my friend Rene for hooking that up.  After a brief coffee break, we took a cab down to Whitehall Terminal, an important Manhattan location for this story.  Our producer and main actress Lauren Meley provided us with some walking shots: exiting the subway and entering the terminal etc.  Rene ended up being an extra a few times here and there.  We finished off the first mag with more b-roll of foot traffic, this time at Whitehall.

The first official teaser still of Lauren Meley in THE SPACESHIP.

Following our wrap at Whitehall we proceeded onto the Staten Island Ferry where our DP Brian grabbed us some nice shots of the harbor.  After arriving to St. George Staten Island, one of the primary neighborhoods of our story, we sat down for lunch while we dumped the footage from the RedMag to our external G-Raid drive.  One mag of footage took a little over an hour to dump.  In the meantime DP Brian grabbed up some shots of Borough Hall and the surrounding neighborhood.  After we packed up we headed into the St. George Train Station and got on the Staten Island Railway (yes, there is a train on Staten Island).  We filmed another snippet scene with Lauren and Rene, while taking the train all the way to Tottenville (the most southern end of New York City and New York State).

We filmed Tottenville for Montauk, essentially cheating the beach location to avoid the overnight affair that filming in Montauk would essentially be.  For this sequence we filmed with actor/associate producer Gerard Adimando as he is portraying a key supporting role in the film.   Setup and filming in Tottenville was brief (altogether took an hour), we then packed up and headed back for Manhattan.  Brian and Lauren took it upon themselves to grab up some shots of her character on the ferry, for specific use at a certain point in the story.

Lauren Meley in THE SPACESHIP | scene on the Staten Island Ferry.

As I write this, the footage is still being archived to back-up discs. The footage is heavy on size.  One RedMag holes up to 120 GB’s and we blew through four mags.  Crazy! I predict 30TB’s of storage needed by the time principle photography has wrapped.  That’s without the backup storage.  By this point I have had the opportunity to view all of the footage from Friday and I’m choked up by the impeccable quality and look of the movie.  In addition, the characters that we’ve worked so hard to fine tune, are beginning to emerge in physical form and it’s absolutely breathtaking.  I definitely cannot wait for this film to be premiered!

The official script read with the entire cast is April 7th – a week after that we fall head first into full production mode.

-E

Joshua Griffith, Gerard Adimando, Mark Blackman, Nikita Francois, Lauren Meley

THE SPACESHIP | Production Diary 9: Character Building

The past couple weeks and future couple of weeks have been and will continue to be consumed with building up the intricacies of all the various characters that pop up in our ensemble driven story THE SPACESHIP. One on one meetings, or group meetings with the various players have been an important and necessary mechanism for allowing us to figure out the nuances of how the various characters will be played.

Some of the most complicated characters I’ve ever written have been peppered into this story, with histories that we can all relate to in one way or another. Some of them are normal run of the mill characters who would rather not want to be involved in the circumstances they’ve wound up in while others are so intrigued by the events that are unfolding, their curiosity makes them prominent characters in this epic story.  These are the kinds of people who just cannot stay away from their work.  I find in trying to explain many of the histories of the characters to the cast, that I tend to pluck real personalities from the long list of people I’ve encountered throughout my life as reference.  I have no real knowledge of what other screenwriters use to build up the fictional characters in their stories, but I can’t imagine it’s far off from what I’m doing here. I will write more about my approach with specific characters as we go through photography, as I don’t want to elaborate on them until each character has wrapped production. I will say this: our antagonist threat isn’t being approached as evil – which is not something that is often done.  I like the idea of not recognizing evil, but recognizing evil acts.  I think using evil as an excuse for evil acts is lackadaisical writing and alienates a large percent of the movie going audience who tend to look for deeper reasons for people being the way they are.  With that said, what some of these characters do in THE SPACESHIP is extremely evil.  That to me, is a fascinating study.

The film’s wide range of characters are divided into several different groups.  The antagonist threat is one group, then there are the protagonists which are divided into three groups (including Feds and University/Science types) and then a fifth group that transcends all of the various boundaries and exists only as a presence  and not a defined clique. Considering the title of the movie, you can probably guess who the fifth group is.

-E

Of course the film is also partially shot right here in New York City as well as Philadelphia, although we haven’t yet explored screening in Philly at this point, perhaps after the BIFF screening we’ll look into it.  We recently screened in Williamsburg Brooklyn, at the first annual Philip K. Dick Science-Fiction Film Festival and have submissions out to other NYC based film festivals.

The Big Island Film Festival will be held from  May 23 – May 27 at the Mauna Lani Resort and  feature films from around the world.  More info to come and will likely be posted on the film’s Facebook page and Festival Portal.  The film stars Samantha Rivers Cole & Matthew Krob with music by Omer Ben-Zvi.

-Eric Norcross

THE SPACESHIP | Production Diary 8: Camera & Workflow Test

As principle photography for THE SPACESHIP draws near, the more interesting (and dare I say *fun*) tasks begin to emerge. Yesterday we had a camera test to demonstrate the true capability of the camera we’ll be shooting the movie on: The Red Epic.  The most important part of the day yesterday was to figure out a solid workflow for the project, to ensure a smooth transition into post-production.  In addition we worked out what the minimal lighting and grip package is, that will be needed for the bulk of the shoot.

An interesting thing occurred when we tested a shot of Lauren Meley standing next to a door with a mirror.  Going into this shot I assumed the mirror would be treated like a “painting” within the same focal range as Lauren, but apparently the Red saw it as a mirror and pulled the reflection completely out of focus.  Everything I had assumed about how imaging technology works has once again been thrown out the window.  The problem of course is easily solvable: split screen!  We’ll essentially tripod the shot, shoot it twice and layer it together in post so that both individuals are in focus.  Easy task, easy fix. If anyone is interested in this interesting happening with how cameras deal with mirrors, check out this website called the “Focus Project“. It’s an interesting experiment.

The beauty of yesterday’s test put anxieties aside about lighting and moving from setup to setup quickly.  Shooting 90% of a feature film in three weeks is a bitch in and of itself, it’s important a system is established early on.  Now I truly feel like I can put my *focus* back on all the other areas of production, knowing that this movie is going to look pristine.

Onward,

-E

03/13/13

NYY / SI

Pre-Production of THE SPACESHIP continues to move forward as casting slowly comes to a wrap. With production applications out to various locations, guilds and rental houses, we move forward at a steady pace, crossing our fingers that we’ll be ready when the first day of the shoot comes in April (technically March 29th, but that day we’re only shooting b-roll and scenic plates).  Our camera test is on March 11th and I’ve never been more stoked for seeing how my cast will look in these tests. Present will be our actor/producer Lauren Meley and actor Tim Eliot, playing her character’s fiance.

Casting has, as it always is, been a stressful experience.  We have managed to find a  crop of incredible talented and dedicated actors, all of whom are so right and so perfect for the parts that they landed, I can really see this film panning out if for no other reason than that. You can check out the developing cast list as it begins to appear on our work in progress IMDB page.  With the awesome luck of having a good cast forming, we blew through a lot of irresponsible, self-centered types who believe some roles were too small for them or that they deserve supporting or lead roles because another director somewhere in their past gave them a supporting or lead role.  They pay no mind to what the role is, what it entails and whether or not they’re actually right for it.  Only in this industry can someone turn away work, even in the worst of economies.  Ugh.  My casting process is streamlined to weed out these types of people long before the auditions actually take place, but somehow they still manage to get in, but no worries… all is revealed when the offers go out. Not everyone can be a lead ‘nor a support – so those with an open mind and truly want to be a part of this movie regardless of the specific capacity, will… but they need to be willing to let go of the crazy pre-conceived notion that there are roles out there that “anybody” can do.  It’s just not true.  I don’t think acting schools, agents or managers help this situation either.  From what I understand, that shit mentality is developed early on by these schools and nourished by agents and managers and is ultimately damaging to their students career should the student not be smart enough to shake off all that bullshit.

So with only three roles left to fill, I concentrate now on crewing, leaving the rest of the casting to some of our backdoor deals with contacts we’ve worked with in the past.   We’ve signed our Cinematographer – which wasn’t an easy task. I interviewed upward of 20 individuals over the past three and a half weeks, who are all more than qualified for the job. Some weren’t down for the three week shoot, others were incredibly happy, giddy etc. etc.  One individual had no interest in coming out to Staten Island and another tried to get me to buy a separate insurance policy for his camera.  Although with that last one, I suspect he didn’t have insurance for it at all and was trying trying to pawn the expenses off on a dumb kid.  A few DP’s specialized in the horror and sci-fi genres and were more than willing to camp out on Staten Island to make the shoot days.  In an effort to not ask too much but also have people who were willing to go balls to to the wall if necessary, I narrowed the list of candidates down to five, then to three, then two… and we finally hired our DP.  Check out the IMDB page for deets.  Names get submitted at the end of each week, using completed work for hire agreements.

Hiring the sound mixer was relatively easy. He reached out to me, I dug his attitude, his work, references, resume and practically hired him on the spot.  When you got a guy who answers all the right questions, then BAM, we’re good to go! Papers have yet to come through, but we’re not worried. His first day of work isn’t until mid-April.

With all this casting and crewing, we’ve also made time for location scouts. Recently I had the exciting honor of scouting the Wagner College campus as a filming location.  Amazing school with an amazing staff of people who were more than willing to let us have a gander at their different spaces.  We’re still negotiating on how to make our production work around their on-going schedule of classes so I won’t say too much about this but I can say I’m stoked!  While we already have a university location, being a SI movie, Wagner is of course our first choice and extremely important if for no other reason than to generate local support for the project. You can check out some of the stills I took with my cellphone camera by visiting my flicker page gallery, dedicated to all pre-production photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/norcrossmedia/sets/72157632887562002/ 

So it is and so it goes, THE SPACESHIP continues.  More location scouting later today, budget, make-up and talent meetings all week.  After that, scheduling rehearsals in between client work, paperwork and camera tests.  We’re making a feature… and it feels like it.

-E

I used Mark Blackman’s film WELCOME TO HARLEM as the mechanism to navigate this learning curve.  Blackman is in need of a master disc to create duplicates off of, so he can distribute them at his festival screenings.  I think it’s important to help out other filmmakers where they may need it because they will in turn help you when you need their support for projects. Being a huge fan of Welcome to Harlem and in complete appreciation for what Blackman’s Block Productions had done in creating an indie musical comedy, it just made perfect sense to help them out this way.  This day and age so many filmmakers see one-another as rivals and not peers and my mission in the past couple of years has been to set an example in an attempt to change that.

Shaking off that mentality has given me an opportunity to pick up knowledge and networking opportunities that wouldn’t have otherwise been available had I subscribed to the usual mentality   With that said, the first test burn of the WELCOME TO HARLEM dvd has been a success and I’m stoked! Now for the challenge of integrating special features. Yikes!!!!!

For those in need of learning how to burn DL discs, check out these two websites that I found enormously helpful:

http://www.larryjordan.biz/technique-creating-a-dual-layer-dvd/

http://www.geniusdv.com/news_and_tutorials/2009/04/dual_layer_breakpoint_in_dvd_studio_pro.php

Of course it’s for DVD Studio Pro, so if you are using a different program some light research may be needed.

-E