Watch “Doctor with the Red Houseware” on Tubi!
Today I’ve post the 5th and final installment of the behind the scenes process of creating “Doctor with the Red Houseware.” I discuss the specific challenges of this day that included prop design, time management, and acting in a scene when you are feeling delirious.
Doctor with the Red Houseware is available for free streaming on TUBI!
I’ve been working on a video about the strangest conspiracy you’ve never heard of, and look forward to posting some thoughts on it here. In the meantime, check out the video above about day 2 of production for “Doctor With the Red Houseware.”
Doctor with the Red Houseware was filmed over the course of 5 days. I intend to summarize each of the challenges and obstacles throughout the filmmaking process through a series of videos, and this video summarizes day 1.
A Thelemite belief is that humanity can be divided into a series of Aeons that was accompanied by its own forms of magical and religious expression. The Aeon of Isis, the Aeon of Osiris, and the Aeon of Horus. Crowley believed that Magick was a bridge between art and science with the involvement of mystic forces.
Isis was the Egyption Goddess of fertility. The Aeon of Isis was characterized by maternal values such as the pagan worship of mother nature and pagan worship. This Aeon took place during the pre-Christ era.
The Egyption God Osiris was the God of the underworld. He symbolized death and resurrection. This era was marked by self sacrifice and submission. These values are reflected in Christianity and Islam, the dominant world religions during this period.
Aleister Crowley believed he ushered in the Aeon of Horus, where individuality and the exploration of self will are the dominant belief systems. I find it intriguing that commercialism, psychology, and secular societies encourage core elements present in the basic premise of Crowley’s book of the law – or “Do what thou wilt.”
Crowley’s second most important book was “The Vision and the Voice.” He believed that along the journey to self discovery the individual could find harmony with the universe and develop the ability to openly communicate with higher powers. Through meditation, concentration, and discipline an outer body experience could be achieved. I feel the techniques Crowley developed were the foundation for current belief systems that provide a methodology to astral projection exploration in the modern age. In the 1970s, the CIA embarked on a mission to study the possibilities of psychic powers and the existence of a sixth sense. Crowley’s rituals and techniques added a learnable methodology to ancient mystic beliefs that influenced humanity’s pursuit for discovering a connection between spirituality and science.
My upcoming short film, Mountain Cult, incorporates themes of Astral Projection and occultism. You can view the trailer below.
They cut the wifi from personal devices at work… so I haven’t been able to update here as much. I’ve had a great time filming Mountain Cult 5 so far, check the video below if you’d like to see the progress.
Well good morning.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on any form of social media. The truth is I’ve been busy filming Mountain Cult Ep 5 and in fact only have 1 scene left to shoot. Beside wordpress, I was making a habit of posting “film journals” to my youtube channel. Believe it or not I recorded a new episode of FJ about a month ago – I just haven’t gotten around to editing it.
As a matter of fact I have so much material I’m hoping to edit that it overwhelms me at times ( I want to remaster former episodes by fixing audio issues, send each actor from mountain cult a 1 minute clip for their acting reels, film a youtube “short” everyday, and – unrelated – but I’d also like to try my hand at singing to see if the vocals would improve the songs I’ve put together). The important thing is that I’ve edited much of Episode 5 already. However, it’s been a unique experience after learning so much about audio this year – I never thought that sound mixing would be more time consuming than coloring.
I’ll give you an example – imagine you film a scene on your porch where all that you’re doing is speaking on the phone to an offscreen character. Sounds simple, right? Well that all depends on how involved you’d like to get. If I were to go all out this is what I would do –
I think those are enough pertinent tracks to make the scene. When I get to the editing room, I’ll isolate each sound on a separate track – ie, dialogue, sound effects, foley, background noise, special (like editing a normal voice to sound like its coming through a telephone… or cellphone since nobody uses the word telephone anymore)
So now each layer is on a separate track. From here I’ll place audio effects to each track – EQ, highpass filter, dehummer, deesser, and finally mastering. The less effects needed the better. Often Dialogue needs the most. (the better the recording, the less I have to do in the editing room).
Once the sounds are placed I’ll add cross fades and some quiet audio to the start and beginning of dialogue bits. This prevents those sharp, millisecond blips that you hear when an audio level changes dramatically in an instant.
After all the audio is placed, I would import the tracks into ableton. Here I can design a score that is specific to the scene I am editing. It is important during every step of the process to level your clips appropriately – dialogue should always be the loudest, most distinguishable track. I like loud, crisps sound effects (the phone being picked up and placed down). Foley, or the cloth movements, should fit the scene appropriately. In others words the common viewer should not even know that track exists. Ambient noise should also be at a low level, but consistently present. The music volume depends on how important it is to the scene. For something such as this I would keep it at a low volume. I might even sidechain it to dialogue so that it lowers in volume during each moment a character speaks.
After all this is finished, I would focus on panning – or speaker assignment for each layer. Dialogue will be front and center, but the other sounds and noises can be panned to the side speakers. Panning audio is something I still have a lot more to learn about. For example, I am uncertain if it is better to pan most sounds far left and far right, or to settle them closer to the center.
The cool thing about making my own score is that I can pan each instrument separately along the speakers. I am also unsure of where sound effects should be placed – I enjoy panning them according to the object creating them in relation to the visual scene.
My biggest question when it comes to panning is how it effects surround sound. I believe that exporting in 5.1 means that each track will go directly to the speaker it is assigned even if it is not panned. What I am curious about is whether a hard right/left pan makes any change to the speaker it is assigned to. 5.1, for those that don’t know, means that your audio set up includes 1 center speaker, a front left and right speaker, and rear left and right speaker, and 1 subwoofer that plays the low frequency waves (explosions are popular).
The final step for audio would involve leveling it once again. Where will the clip be posted? Youtube, broadcast television, and film festivals each have different leveling specifications. Youtube requires audio that is much louder than the other platforms. The other consideration for this is surround sound – cable and youtube will not support surround sound audio. I believe most film festivals will.
The other major concern for me has to do with kickstarter – I desperately want to offer episode 5 of mountain cult on a DVD. I want it to supply 4k video with surround sound. I’m sure it’s just a few web searches away, but I have some big questions before I can promise this. #1 – can basic DVD-R support 4k and surround sound? #2 – Do I need a special DVD writing drive, or is a simple CD Rom drive capable of writing these specs to a DVD? #3 – Do I export 2.1, 5.1, and 7.1/7.2 to the same disc? Or do I write the most advanced surround sound tracks to the DVD and allow the AV receiver to fold the surround sound according to the viewers audio setup? For example, you can upload a surround sound clip to youtube, but youtube will fold the rear left & rear right speakers so that it is incorporated into the stereo track and plays through front left and right speakers. I believe Youtube supports 2.1 audio, but I could be mistaken.
Anyways, thank you for listening to all this audio gibberish. Definitely not what I intended to write about when I sat down here but I’m glad I got it off my chest. I hope to begin posting stills from my footage soon I’m just too lazy to press the upload button now.
The date that I have been working toward all year has finally arrived and past. On Monday, July 19th, I finally got to film a scene that involved 4 other actors at a public location. The amount of preparation required to complete this scene is difficult even for me to comprehend:
The list goes way deeper than this, and I imagine I will talk about the preparation involved in the next film journal. The day of the shoot was Tuesday. I worked Saturday night, came home, and slept for 3 hours. From noon Sunday until the shoot completed at 8 pm Monday I did not sleep. Then I came home and parked in a tow-away zone and stayed awake until 5 am when a parking spot opened up in my apartment complex.
Now it is Wednesday. I have all my footage and audio stored on my computer. The proxies have been created and the media has been backed up on an external hard drive.
I am very excited to move forward. I am extremely pleased with how everything turned out, but will not have a complete response until I have begun editing. I will try and get some stills posted here soon. The rest of the film includes scenes that only require 1 additional actor and can be shot anywhere.
I should add that having a crew assist me on Monday helped things run smooth and more efficient than ever before. It was truly rewarding and a breath of relief to have competent individuals behind the cameras who you trust to frame a shot appropriately. It was also encouraging to work with people who enjoy every aspect of the filmmaking process as much as myself. In our every day lives, it is common to work with people who will never understand the passion and desire to produce art. To find myself surrounded by other artists was enough of a reward in itself to make all the work, expenses, and time that went into this day worth it all on its own.
Today is one of the most important of my filmmaking journey. I have 2 days off prior to the start of my work week so I need to be aggresive and feel prepared to film next week’s sequence prior to the end of those days. If I’ve learned anything throughout this process it is that preparation will make the difference between laughable nonsense and a decent looking production.
I have a major prop involved in the scene next week and wish to be done creating it today. The major feature of this prop is a circuit board. I decided to make a trip to the local thrift shop and I wasn’t disappointed – it’s not everyday you come across blueray DVD players for less than $10. It’s such a good deal that I actually purchased one for personal use.
So now I get to take it apart today. Once I’m done with that I’ve got to determine how I wish for the prop to appear. As long as it appears like a usable, albeit mysterious piece of functioning technology, it will pass the test.
The other major part of my prepartion includes making a shot list. More specifically, nailing down the angles I will use to feature a sequence that relies on digital editing and masks in order to produce a special effect in the final product.
This evening I will meet with the cast via zoom to discuss how the filming is going to be done next week. I can’t wait to get the meat of this project; but that doesn’t mean I’m not still nervous to actually get this critical task underway. We’ve got 10 pages to film (!) a week from now, so the preparation starts today.
Check out my latest episode of Film Journal and make sure to subscribe if you want to continue staying up to date with the short film’s developments.
We finally began production on Mountain Cult episode 5 this week. It’s obviously been a long time coming, so I’m thrilled to finally have completed a day of footage. From first glance everything looks and sounds great, but I won’t know for sure until I’ve had time to sit down and dig deep into the edits.
Too say I’ve been overburdened is an understatement. Our major film date is July 19th. In order to get everything in order, I’ve had to cast 4 actors, order necessary props and wardrobes, assemble a crew of 2-4 assistants, and order additional equipment. These expenses obviously add up, but I’ve done well to save throughout the year and have a proper expectation for how much the entire project will cost me.
I will launch a 30 day kickstarter campaign in August. My initial plan was to launch it in July, but after some thinking I feel it would be more wise to wait until I can give it my full attention. There is a good chance we will be filming for 1 more day in August, but that shoot requires much less preparation. I’ve set my target goal on Kickstarter for $3000. That will cover my budget along with the cost for the merchandise I plan on offering. I have learned how to apply graphics to T-shirts and coffee mugs -two items which I feel may incentivize willing investors.
Another major goal of mine is to release the film for an audience of 1000-10k on youtube. Episode 4 has amassed over 500 views. That’s really a pitiful number in the grand scope of youtube but getting random internet strangers to watch your short film certainly isn’t easy. I’ve come out with 5 episodes of film journal as of now and so far the experiment has proved embarrassing, waste of effort, and almost exactly what I anticipated. The key concept behind the “show” is to use it as a platform to discuss myself and my films – neither of which currently have any marketing attraction. My theory, however, is that by remaining consistent, entertaining, and informative, I will gradually develop an audience over time and that audience will look forward to the release of the film being routinely discussed.
I have been strongly considering releasing videos about various conspiracies because I feel that is my target audience for Mountain Cult. The major drawbacks for this direction are 1) In order to add value to the topic, I will have to do research and spend more time than I am willing and 2) Doing “reaction” type videos puts you in danger of copyright strikes, which could effect monetization down the road.
I have created a discord channel for the show as well as an instagram page for “TMW productions.” It is so funny to me that I’m learning all these social media platforms because I hate them so passionately. I already know I likely won’t utilize either of these two mediums but I do know that I should. I am so pressed for time as it is, but I am convinced that devoting 1 hour per day to marketing will make a bigger difference in viewership than simply pouring in more hours in the editing room.
On July 19th we will perform our big shoot. I must go into that day prepared beyond anything I have done before. I desperately seek to film 9 pages, which will definitely be a record for me if I accomplish it. I will survive if we need to return for a second day, though I will be greatly disappointed.
Anyways, I miss writing here and hope to do so more often in the near future.
My journey toward production continues as I’ve recently begun casting the film. I’ve found an outstanding actress to play my character’s wife and am truly excited to have her on board. We begin filming next week.
I’m casting 5 other actors for another scene that will be filmed in July. That process is well underway and I’ll be viewing their auditions tonight. I have also ordered more film equipment and believe I have everything ready for the big shoot in the future. There are some more props that require purchasing and I don’t yet have the crew members set in stone. Regardless I am very tired and working hard at being prepared well in advance.
I have set up a Kickstarter pre-launch page here. From what I understand I am unable to accept any donations or contributions yet, but I’m excited to further develop incentives for individuals looking to support my bad habit.
Check out Film Journal – Episode 5 below if you’d like. Any time you comment or like a video it helps me immensely.
Words and Images by Richard Reeve
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