MUTANTVILLE PRODUCTIONS

Silent Hill in Left 4 Dead.

Communication is Key

With it comes to making films with your partners there really is nothing more important than keeping the lines of communication open. Film making is stressful. The more the folks sharing the load communicate, the more things will magically fall into place when you’re on the set.

The members of Mutantville Productions meet 2 – 3 times per week via phone conference when we don’t have any shoot scheduled for the weekend and considerably more frequently when we do. Take today for instance, we’ve already had a 3 way phone conference and will have a business lunch meeting at 12. From lunch, we’ll take a short break and meet up again at 2 to start preparing the triage set and getting folks into makeup. The shoot will most  likely run until 11 tonight or so.

Before you ask, we all work standard 40 hour per week jobs in addition to our duties in MVP. Experience has shown that the more we communicate, the better the finish product, ultimately, the film on DVD will be in the end.

Increased communication with your cast & crew will likewise make your life so much easier while in active production. Don’t presume that because you’ve sent the details in an email that everyone has taken the time to read it or has the important stuff present in mind.  People get busy and forget. Put in the extra time to make that phone call and make sure every remembers the shoot schedule, what to wear, not to cut their hair when to arrive etc etc. You’ll be glad you did.

Remember this above all else Mutantville Players, Johnny Brento loves ya!

LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION

Johnny B With Gene Starnes

Many people have asked how we managed to get access to such an amazing location as the historic Albemarle Opera House for our current project G.H.O.S.T.. In truth it takes fineness, accountability and most of all relationship management skills.

I first met local business man and downtown Albemarle champion Gene Starnes many years ago. It was only last year that I discovered the amazing piece of history located above his place of business, Starnes Jewelers. Gene is a member of virtually every civic organization related to doing business in Albemarle and has a list of community contacts that boggles the mind. I began to ask him about the possibility of a tour of the opera house which his grand father originally built in 1908. Gene readily agreed and before you knew I was filming our walk through.

I, of course instantly realized the cinematic potential for the space, with it’s aged walls, circular French balcony windows and extremely high ceilings, but it wasn’t as simple as winning Mr. Starnes over to the cause. The space covers a neighboring building as well and is co-owned by the adjoining business underneath. There was the matter of establishing a certain rapport and illustrating that Mutantville Productions can be trusted. I really needed Gene to sell the idea to the co-owner of the space with whom we personally had no contact.

To satisfy certain insurance requirements a few ground rules had to be established. For instance, no smoking up there or out in front of the building. As far as I know this only inconvenienced one or two cast and crew members the whole time. As Dave Mustain of Megadeth  once said, “We don’t smoke in this band!”

Contact numbers in case of power failure had to be maintained. I think there are 6 – 8 numbers in that call chain for instance. It turned out that we needed these on the night of the black out so that preparation paid off.

I recall a solid 3 months of discussions before final approval was granted. Even after that through the 9 months of pre-production I kept in constant contact with Gene, say on a bi weekly basis at least, keeping him up to date on the productions progress.

Throughout the process and even in the face of what I’m sure must have been an annoyance to him personally, the night the power went out and it took us 4 hours to find the fuse in the 100 year old structure Gene has really been amazingly supportive of MVP. At this time he is reaching out to a few contacts to help us possibly locate a local resource where the civil war period dream sequence can be shot.

Jumping back into to our mammoth half decade horror film production C 4 Chaos, we actually managed a ton of real locations. If a bar was called for, we were shooting in a bar. If the script called for a bunch of scenes in a comic shop, of which there are precious few around these days, you betchya we were in a honest to goodness comic shop. This really, really elevated that production to be working in the great locations instead of sets.

Like they say, it really is all about LOCATION! LOCATION!LOCATION! Remember this above all else Mutantville Players, Johnny Brento loves ya!

P.S.

Visit the most amazing Jewelry Store in Stanly County. Gene Starnes wants to be your jeweler. Tell him MVP sent you.

MVP Presents the Patron Saints of Guerrilla Filmmaking: Quentin Tarantino

Motivation Moments with Johnny Brento

I find that the life of a productive artist is one that requires constant motivation. The creative process for film is so multi-faceted and long that it’s easy to get side tracked. Take my role in MVP for instance. As editor and visual effects artist, much of the hoopla and excitement has died down by the time my work begins in earnest. The actors have moved on to other projects and except for the occasional “When will it be done” message I’m left to my work. In the case of Streebo as a director, we’ll he is a bit of a control freak and thusly is here for %100 of the assembly edits. So there is that to help keep me motivated and it helps quite a lot, but the visual effects work is a whole different matter. I always try to push the envelope with each project and assimilate new techniques. I spend a ton time alone watching tutorials, finding new After Effects plug-ins and generally researching how things are done by the pros.

Music is another great motivational tool. It constantly shapes my artistic mood. I’m fond of all kinds of music and can be found listening to Pandora.com radio almost all of my time I’m in the editing suite.

When it comes to branching out to assimilate other skills such as improving my writing or building myself as a director, I find that nothing motivates me more than someone saying or implying that I can’t do it. For instance, “I don’t think you have what it takes to be a director.” or “You don’t know how to build a story.” Ha! I’ll be damned before anyone else defines me as an artist or as a person. OK, so here comes my arcane movie quote. Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis’s character from Armageddon) “I have never missed a depth that I have aimed for.”

I truly believe that we make our own reality. Very few people start out as great artists or directors or guitar player/songwriters. These are skills one acquires and hard work beats talent that doesn’t work hard. Mutantville is all about defying the odds and breaking boundaries with very little resources. All of us are capable of so much more than those around us would ever believe through dedication and focused effort.

Remember this above all else Mutantville Players, Johnny Brento loves ya!

My Band is Called Mutantville

This past week with the cancellation of one shoot and aggravation of some misunderstandings about a pickup shoot schedule have served to  remind me of just how much like a music band or even a family our group of merry guerrilla film makers really is. I can only speak for myself when I say that I love these guys I work with. They are my best friends on the planet Earth. I really do think that I have more in common with my partners than really anyone else. Sometimes, just like in a band, the singer might think that the guitar is walking all over his lead, or the bass player can’t hear himself and insists on turning up his amp until everyone gets nauseous.

The core members of MVP have been working together for the better part of a decade and that hard work is starting to pay dividends, but from time to time myself or one of the other fellas will slip into a little bit of burn out and get caught up in a quagmire of interpersonal B.S. I want to jump up like Valentine McKee , Kevin Bacon’s character in Tremors, and yell at the top of my lungs, “No! No! No! We HAVE GOT TO GET OUT.” Get out of the muck and drive on. Why? Because that’s what we do. Another shoot, another script, another project. I feel that remaining productive is the key to success as any sort of actor or film maker. George Romero himself advised Streebo this way. “Finish that first one and the rest will come.”

So, if any of you Mutantville Players are missing the invigorating G.H.O.S.T. shoots in the Albemarle Opera House, or feel your creative yen waining, remember this, if it was easy to make movies, anyone could do it. It’s not and and not just any group of people can hold the band together. You are a rock star already for being active creating your art!  Above all else remember that Johnny Brento loves ya BABY!

Blockbuster and Netflix Film School

Hello Mutantville! I want to discuss something that helped us out immensely when embarking on our first feature film “C for Chaos.” A few of us had gone to art school to develop our eyes, since of composition, etc… But we hadn’t gone to “Official” film school. We were lucky that Streebo had been studying storytelling since he was young and I had been behind a camera since I was young. Brento had been making and editing movies since he was young. So now that we’ve established that at one point we were all young, we’re ready to move on.

When preparing for “C for Chaos,” we all studied feverishly. We read all the books we could find but another thing was watching movies. I know this sounds like a “Duh” type thing but…we watched them from as if we were making them. Streebo and I would get together and point out camera movement, lighting, pacing, screen directions, composition, coverage, etc… If you really watch and dissect films in this way you can see how different directors can cover similar situations. Some may use more wide angles, some may go in for close ups, etc… Commentary tracks are another great resource. Of course not all commentary tracks are created equal. If you’re a low budget filmmaker then I recommend lower budget movies. Robert Rodriguez has great commentary tracks. Some of his you need a note book and the pause button to keep up. Be sure you keep an open mind when listening to the commentary. You may only get one or two gems, But if it saves you a night of shooting or makes something easier, I’d say that was worth 2 hours of your time. For example, on the commentary for Ronin, he talks about the scene when they’re buying the weapons. They purposefully wet the entire area since they were filming outside, that way if it rained, it wouldn’t mess up their shooting schedule. Either write this stuff down in a journal or file it away in your brain somewhere.

Streebo is a big believer in only watching what you’re filming. So when we shot “C for Chaos” for about 3 years, that’s pretty much all Streebo watched. Thanks to places like Netflix he showed me horror films from all over the world. This can give you a lot of insight into the genre.

So before, while and after making your film, study as many films as possible. Notice I said study and Not watch. Watch is passive. Study is active.

Below Please leave comments about films with good commentaries for other filmmakers to go and study! Thanks!

Brent Develops New Independent Web Series: Respawner.

Poor weather conditions forced the postponement of shooting our dream sequence this past Sunday.  Not wanting to rest on one’s laurels, Brent decided he would rather spend that time developing a new sci-fi based web series.  The project is titled Respawner about a heroine who’s super powers are activated after she’s killed. For more information join the group on Facebook.

MVP Picks Up More G.H.O.S.T.S at Opera House.

Last night saw the Mutantville Players return to the opera house once more for another round of pick up shots.  Luckily we weren’t just shooting windows and door frames this week as we were able to suit up and get bloody for another cool special make-up FX shot.  Alan Whitley out his boomstick down and picked up the latex to play the part of our supernatural visitor.  Alan underwent a grueling 3 hour session at the hands of special make-up FX kingpin Todd A. Britt.  The air was chilly but Alan’s spirits were warm under layers of silicon, tubing and buckets of blood as he brought our ghostly friend to unatural life!  With this shot in the can – we have only two major FX shots left and G.H.O.S.T. will be complete.  This Sunday, the Mutantville Players are heading to the green and grassy hills of South Carolina for our final pick up shots with two of our leads – Kathy Sandvoss and Scott Thomas.  The journey to make G.H.O.S.T. has been an amazing one.  It will be sad to see it all come to an end.  Be sure to keep checking Mutantville.com for your up to the minute MVP news!

~~Streebo

Quentin Tarantino Discusses His Favorite Movies Since 1992.

Quentin Tarantino discusses the movies that he wishes he had made since his directorial debut in 1992. Quentin briefly covers Battle Royale, Audition, Boogey Nights, Fight Club, The Matrix and more!