On behalf of all of us, who made "Fight or Flight", I'd like to extend a serious thank you, to the SURGE Film Festival. Leaving aside the honour of you selecting our film to be a part of a socially-conscious programme, it is touching and exciting that our ultra-cheap, homemade movie was picked for theatrical screening.
Thank you all, from the progammers to the audience.
Showing posts with label fight or flight. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fight or flight. Show all posts
Acclaim for "FIGHT OR FLIGHT"
This was taken from an online review, on TriggerStreet Labs, from Tombola Pictures.
Adrenaline Pumping!
"I really like the political and social message at the end of this film and talking shop from a filmmaking perspective, Fight or Flight was in itself a really useful masterclass in "how to" in terms of low budget/guerilla filmmaking. Great innovative use of shots, colour grading that adds suspense to the piece itself, good soundtrack and use of wild-tracking in the woods. Also, employing cleverly the use of open spaces, which I know personally saves on budget, and not getting too involved in twisted and convoluted story lines which could overcomplicate things, which can cause problems logistically/financially when filming low budget filmmaking. Aside from the fighting looking a little staged at times, this was a great short, keep up the good work! :-)"
Adrenaline Pumping!
"I really like the political and social message at the end of this film and talking shop from a filmmaking perspective, Fight or Flight was in itself a really useful masterclass in "how to" in terms of low budget/guerilla filmmaking. Great innovative use of shots, colour grading that adds suspense to the piece itself, good soundtrack and use of wild-tracking in the woods. Also, employing cleverly the use of open spaces, which I know personally saves on budget, and not getting too involved in twisted and convoluted story lines which could overcomplicate things, which can cause problems logistically/financially when filming low budget filmmaking. Aside from the fighting looking a little staged at times, this was a great short, keep up the good work! :-)"
Making "FIGHT OR FLIGHT", Part II
Hi, everyone. My name is Stephen Bryce, and I'm the director and main writer for "Fight or Flight". Now that we've gotten the technical side of making the movie, out of the way, I'll take a few minutes to talk about what the SURGE community is probably more interested in: the social and political reasons for making it.
While we definitely didn't want to beat people over the head with it, it is indisputable that there are political currents to "Fight or Flight". Yes, it is basically a seven minute chase scene, but it all comes about because a peaceful protester -- not even a protester, an activist posting signs! -- has attracted the attention of someone who really doesn't like what he's saying. What does this critic do? Hunts him down and kills him.
It's all too common to hear about exactly this kind of thing happening in the Middle East and Third World, but here in North America we don't like to admit that it's happening on our streets too. Yet everyone reading this knows, for instance, about how the Republican Party (with Fox News and its Tea Party nutjobs), view anyone who even suggests helping their fellow Americans get affordable health care:
Most Canadians are aware of what now happens, under our right-wing government, when we peacefully protest near something like the G20 summit -- or even just sing our national anthem:
The police brutality inflicted on the Occupy protesters, because they've stood up for regular Americans, goes without saying. But we should also remember the words of Fox News pundits, particularly when they use metaphors bound to infuriate viewers who think that crosses should be burned into the skins of unbelievers:
While we definitely didn't want to beat people over the head with it, it is indisputable that there are political currents to "Fight or Flight". Yes, it is basically a seven minute chase scene, but it all comes about because a peaceful protester -- not even a protester, an activist posting signs! -- has attracted the attention of someone who really doesn't like what he's saying. What does this critic do? Hunts him down and kills him.
It's all too common to hear about exactly this kind of thing happening in the Middle East and Third World, but here in North America we don't like to admit that it's happening on our streets too. Yet everyone reading this knows, for instance, about how the Republican Party (with Fox News and its Tea Party nutjobs), view anyone who even suggests helping their fellow Americans get affordable health care:
Most Canadians are aware of what now happens, under our right-wing government, when we peacefully protest near something like the G20 summit -- or even just sing our national anthem:
The police brutality inflicted on the Occupy protesters, because they've stood up for regular Americans, goes without saying. But we should also remember the words of Fox News pundits, particularly when they use metaphors bound to infuriate viewers who think that crosses should be burned into the skins of unbelievers:Even in supposedly peaceful and progressive Canada, a right-wing Prime Minister who cheated his way into office at least once, with a long track record for harassing and silencing anyone who questions it, managed to get re-elected to a majority. Anyone who criticizes him further, is met with public threats. I should know: I've received threatening phone calls at my house, for writing letters to the editor pointing out that Stephen Harper is corrupt.
In fact, the protagonist of "Fight or Flight", Mike Bridger, is named for Canadian Senate page Bridgette DePape. Ms. DePape made headlines -- and attracted death threats -- for protesting Harper, in front of the entire Senate and the media.
Suffice it to say, that within our homemade suspense movie, is an extremely important message: standing up for your country MUST NOT be turned into a crime. It especially must not become a crime, punishable by death.
In fact, the protagonist of "Fight or Flight", Mike Bridger, is named for Canadian Senate page Bridgette DePape. Ms. DePape made headlines -- and attracted death threats -- for protesting Harper, in front of the entire Senate and the media.
Suffice it to say, that within our homemade suspense movie, is an extremely important message: standing up for your country MUST NOT be turned into a crime. It especially must not become a crime, punishable by death.
Making "FIGHT OR FLIGHT", Part I
There's a lot of nuances that went into making our suspense film, "Fight or Flight". A future entry will address the more socially relevant parts of that, but for now we'll start with the fun stuff -- and how anyone can do it, now.
For a crash course, here's our throwback to Rodriguez's Ten Minute Film Schools, with the Mad Twins Film Class on our picture.
To start with, having great locations is a huge asset. Of course, what "great" means to you, will depend as much on the story you're telling, as your own personal tastes. But in general you'll want something that is visually a bit complex, with a lot of detail. And for my money, nothing beats going out to real places and just seeing what strikes a chord with you. Even if we had the cash to build sets, for a lot of things nothing beats the look of just being in a real house, or a real forest.
In the case of not only "Fight or Flight", but nearly every movie I've made so far, I shoot in forests a lot, not just because they can be both soothing yet a little sinister, but because I live in an area that has many forests to choose from. When you're a micro-budget filmmaker, your neighbourhood is effectively your backlot by default, so look at what's around and figure out a story that uses it.
As I said in the video, preparation is VERY important. While this movie has stunt work as an extra reason for that, even in a quieter movie you want to have some idea ahead of time where you're going. It's okay to discover the story as you go along, but you're never going to make a compelling film by just wandering aimlessly with a camera and taping everything willy-nilly.
When you're doing a scripted film, an extra advantage to this is that with no more than a digital camera and a walk through the locations, you can plan every beat of your movie, and know exactly what you're going to need on the day you shoot it for real. Because of work like this, as well as the simplicity of the story, and knowing the locations very well from hiking in that area many times, we were able to shoot all of "Fight or Flight" in about five hours.
Furthermore, we were able to shoot the movie almost entirely in sequence, once again due to this planning. And with the efficiency of digital video technology, this meant that the first rough cut of the film was finished, just two hours after principal photography was completed. Incidentally, all post-production on this movie was done with built-in editing software -- meaning that anyone with a recent computer, can do what we did.
One of the more ambitious things that we did, while making this movie, was do all of our own sound effects and dubbing. Between background noise and a poor on-camera microphone, much of the production sound was unusable (as in many "real" movies). Fortunately, we had bought an MP3 recorder for another project, and we re-used it on this movie (if you have to splurge a bit for one of your own, you can buy one for around $100 in stores, and the onboard mic will usually be decent enough to record on its own). To do our looping on "Fight or Flight", we had to determine ahead of time what sounds would need to be emphasized in the final movie -- usually footsteps, a bit of ambient sound, and anything that a character on-screen did with his hands. And since we live in the area that the movie was shot in, it was no trouble to find somewhere outside that was out of the way, and re-record the sounds there. You get much better looping done that way, versus a studio, because they are essentially natural sounds, just done separately from the picture shoot.
All of this takes some time and work, but it costs very little money, and the only special equipment you need, is between your ears. Go out, and create art!
For a crash course, here's our throwback to Rodriguez's Ten Minute Film Schools, with the Mad Twins Film Class on our picture.
To start with, having great locations is a huge asset. Of course, what "great" means to you, will depend as much on the story you're telling, as your own personal tastes. But in general you'll want something that is visually a bit complex, with a lot of detail. And for my money, nothing beats going out to real places and just seeing what strikes a chord with you. Even if we had the cash to build sets, for a lot of things nothing beats the look of just being in a real house, or a real forest.
In the case of not only "Fight or Flight", but nearly every movie I've made so far, I shoot in forests a lot, not just because they can be both soothing yet a little sinister, but because I live in an area that has many forests to choose from. When you're a micro-budget filmmaker, your neighbourhood is effectively your backlot by default, so look at what's around and figure out a story that uses it.
As I said in the video, preparation is VERY important. While this movie has stunt work as an extra reason for that, even in a quieter movie you want to have some idea ahead of time where you're going. It's okay to discover the story as you go along, but you're never going to make a compelling film by just wandering aimlessly with a camera and taping everything willy-nilly.
When you're doing a scripted film, an extra advantage to this is that with no more than a digital camera and a walk through the locations, you can plan every beat of your movie, and know exactly what you're going to need on the day you shoot it for real. Because of work like this, as well as the simplicity of the story, and knowing the locations very well from hiking in that area many times, we were able to shoot all of "Fight or Flight" in about five hours.
Furthermore, we were able to shoot the movie almost entirely in sequence, once again due to this planning. And with the efficiency of digital video technology, this meant that the first rough cut of the film was finished, just two hours after principal photography was completed. Incidentally, all post-production on this movie was done with built-in editing software -- meaning that anyone with a recent computer, can do what we did.
One of the more ambitious things that we did, while making this movie, was do all of our own sound effects and dubbing. Between background noise and a poor on-camera microphone, much of the production sound was unusable (as in many "real" movies). Fortunately, we had bought an MP3 recorder for another project, and we re-used it on this movie (if you have to splurge a bit for one of your own, you can buy one for around $100 in stores, and the onboard mic will usually be decent enough to record on its own). To do our looping on "Fight or Flight", we had to determine ahead of time what sounds would need to be emphasized in the final movie -- usually footsteps, a bit of ambient sound, and anything that a character on-screen did with his hands. And since we live in the area that the movie was shot in, it was no trouble to find somewhere outside that was out of the way, and re-record the sounds there. You get much better looping done that way, versus a studio, because they are essentially natural sounds, just done separately from the picture shoot.
All of this takes some time and work, but it costs very little money, and the only special equipment you need, is between your ears. Go out, and create art!
FIGHT OR FLIGHT Trailer
To date, SURGE is the only festival to have accepted our short suspense film, "Fight or Flight". It is a simple movie, shot in a few hours by four friends, with a Digital 8 camcorder and an MP3 recorder. It is, first and foremost, a throwback to thrillers by Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles (with a touch of early Robert Rodriguez).
However, it is also a movie that needed to be made. In the last four years alone, we've seen rising extremism, even in the supposedly enlightened Western world. It is becoming all too common for people to be harassed, assaulted, even murdered by various parties, just for wanting peace and compassion in the world. While "Fight or Flight" was made as a response to the Tea Party's violence, and the police brutality of the Toronto G20 summit, it can also speak to the Occupy movement, the Norway terrorist attack, the Arab Spring, and countless other actions.
So "Fight or Flight" is a testament to not only how important it is to say these things, but how easy it is for anyone with imagination to say them.
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