Indie Filmmaking: Summit the Movie Pt. 2

At the beginning of March I traveled to New York City to interview to independent filmmaker and director of Summit Christina Raia and actor Lauren Ashleigh. I posted the first part of this article quite a few weeks but hit a few snags with updating it. Between starting a new job and lots of Canadian film coverage plus the deeply confusing nature of my own notes I wasn’t able to get it done in a timely fashion.

When I spoke to both Christina and Lauren Ashleigh in New York, they both talked about the rarity of truly strong female characters in the horror genre. It was very important to Christina that the cast get along well, which Lauren reiterated definitely happened. Much of the cast have become great friends, often getting together in the New York City area to have horror movie marathons and other social activities.

Lauren plays Jesse, the girlfriend of another character Sean. Jesse, whose grandmother passed away recently, is younger than the other characters and kind of tagging along with them.

The other day I got the chance to catch up by phone with Christina Raia, clarify a few things and chat about what she has coming up in the future.

Blog: Can you tell us about how production went on Summit?

CR: In total we were shooting for about 11 days out of the 16 days that we were on location. It was incredibly hectic because the first two days were devoted to building our process trailer for all the driving scenes; which was really just kind of a U-Haul with a flatbed that I put my car on and we kind of built a platform for my cinematographer to stand on. We had looked up a tutorial online but it was definitely DIY [do it yourself –Greg] and sort of dangerous. But luckily it worked; nothing bad happened in that regard and my cinematographer John is on the side of this car as we’re going about 15-20 miles per hour on these icy wet roads in pitch black in the woods in Massachusetts. It was great, we managed to get really awesome driving scenes that look really professional and steady on a really limited budget; and I have to thank my grip for that because he actually built the platform and it was sort of his idea of how to do it safely. So in general we lost two days just to the building of that that so we were kind of playing catch up, and that’s why we ended up shooting these ridiculous hours [In my previous conversation Christina told me they filmed for 25 hours their first day on set –Greg]; and not sleeping.

It was an interesting shoot because in the beginning it was kind of one disaster after another but they always kind of worked out; it was just me having to make some really tough decisions on the spot. It was hard balancing this idea of being a producer and procuring everything needed with being the director who wanted to get more artistic-type shots. I really had to compromise a few times but in the end we got everything.  We definitely had a lot of disasters. Like the whole process trailer thing, luckily no one was hurt building this giant thing but it did get stuck on a hill the first day of shooting and we lost about three hours in the middle of the night trying to figure out how to get this thing of this icy hill. That was a huge headache.

Other than that I wouldn’t say we had a smooth production, but we definitely were productive and we got everything we needed and the crew was just brilliant. Negative ten degree [Fahrenheit], running out there and setting up the lights. My gaffer was awesome, just my camera crew in general were really awesome. But it was definitely an experience. I know Lauren mentioned there were 20 of us living in this house on top of each other and that was almost like we were living the film in a way. As things became more horrific in the film tension grew on set; though that’s sort of to be expected on a film shoot, especially when you’re so low budget and living on top of each other. It was interesting because we sort of formed this bond over how much we hated what we were doing but also loved what we were doing. Luckily now nobody hates me for putting them through that and a lot of them are working on “Kelsey” with me. I definitely thought there was a possibility that everybody would just hate me by the end of it because of the weather and stuff that kept going wrong and the crazy schedule that we were on.

But ultimately production was a success and it really is a miracle. We had a budget of less than $20,000 [USD], we shoot it in technically 11 days and we had such a skeleton crew. My camera department was 5 or 6 people. But that just speaks to how brilliant John is; he made the lighting look beautiful. Obviously in a horror film you don’t need truly beautiful lighting but he was still so incredibly creative with lighting and collaborating with him was awesome.

Blog: So where did you film?

CR: The majority was in Lennox, Massachusetts. Then some of the driving stuff was in Canaan, New York. And we did some interior shooting in North Adams, Massachusetts.

When we would go the gas station people would ask us what we were doing there, if we lived in the town. But what’s great about pretty much anywhere outside of New York City is that local people find it awesome when they come across a film crew; they are excited and interested. In New York City people basically say oh more film people, I hate them, get them out of there. Anywhere outside of that people are very open. We had a lot of people come by when we were shooting at the gas station. Luckily the woman who owned was getting ready to go on vacation so she basically shut it down for a day and let us shoot there. So we had a lot of people stopping by thinking it was open because we were there and then they would ask us questions. That was in Canaan, New York.

Blog: So tell us about your upcoming webseries, Kelsey.

CR: It is based on one of my best friends, whose name is Kelsey and she is the writer of the series. It started because she was dumped by her ex-girlfriend and we were going out to dinner maybe two months after. And she was in such a bad place, you know how you are after break ups [I know of it intellectually –Greg] you are in such a terrible place. She was just very self-deprecating even though she is one of the finest people I know, but she was making fun of what she was feeling at that time. She told me this really ridiculous story about meeting this girl at a bar and that is pretty much the pilot episode of the series. She was telling me this story and I thought it was hilarious.

It had been in my head for quite a while that I wanted to do a webseries focused on New York City, young people sort of like mid-20s being in that place where you don’t quite know where you’re going, but you’re out of school and in that middle place. [Kelsey] told me this idea that was really interesting and incredibly depressing but in a hilarious way. But it’s also very relatable and would probably hook people and also has an entire audience that is very untapped I think at this point, especially on TV, in regard to her being a lesbian. I thought that would be a great central character to focus on. Anyone can relate to post-breakup feelings but then you also have this audience that doesn’t really have much network TV being targeted to them.

So we started talking, I pretty much proposed the idea and she said she loved it. Like I said she’s a really great writer and she’s hilarious and we have always been talking about collaborating; but I was still pretty busy with Summit. So that was last summer and I kind of put it on the backburner during Summit but I knew we were going to do it immediately after. So after Summit for about three weeks I just slept and recovered and then we jumped right into pre-production [for Kelsey] and started writing scripts together. She was the main writer but we were coming up with storylines together and I am the director and co-producer.

After the first episode it kind of goes off in a different direction; it’s not completely her life. It pretty much is initially this idea of what do you do post-breakup, how do you get back into the dating world, how do you recover from having your heart broken and open it back up again? But also what is it like to be in your 20s in Brooklyn in 2013 and how is dating different in regards to online dating and text etiquette and things like that.
———-

So there you have it folks! There is still some audio left that I may turn into a part three but for now this concludes our series on the indie horror film Summit. 

Summit’s webpage can be found here and they can be followed on Twitter here.

Canadian Filmmaking: Rose Lagace on Long Distance Movie

This is the second in my series on the CineCoup Film Accelerator. The first was my interview with Eric Thiessen, director of the film West. This article has a bit of an interesting history behind it. Well OK, I think it’s interesting because it involves me, you may have a different take.

Way back in the dark ages of July/August 2012 when I was just starting on this journey of film and TV journalism I connected with the Twitter account for the Collective Friction Film Collective, an organization dedicated to making meaningful Canadian films and promoting Canadian films in general. They were very supportive of both the Falling Skies Blog and the Road Less Traveled from the beginning. Lots of sympathy for me as one of the lonely voices trying to increase awareness of Canadian film in the US. So when they told me that Collective Friction was participating in the CineCoup program I was pretty excited.

The film, Long Distance, is a romantic drama about two people in love separated by the distances of Canada. From the beginning I was surprised by how much I liked the things I was learning about the film. You all know romance is NOT my thing; I don’t seek it out in my personal life and I don’t usually relate to it on the screen. But I was won over by interesting premise, the obvious passion of the team behind it, and the amazing weekly CineCoup mission videos the team put out.

I’ve gotten the chance have very quick chats about the film with a few members of team on Twitter and Facebook but the timing never really worked out to have my usual long phone chat about the film. With the CineCoup deadlines looming on the horizon I asked Rose Lagace, Collective Friction member, Canadian filmmaker and director/writer of Long Distance, to send me some info on the film and the story behind it. The following is some highlights from her response which I hope to flesh out sometime soon!

November 2012 Rose attended the launch event for CineCoup in Toronto. It was apparent that CineCoup that intended to shake up and “moneyball” the run of the mill Hollywood financing and marketing, using social media as a way to grow audiences before a film is even made. They were looking for films with an emphasis on appealing to the much coveted 18-35 demographic. I’ve mentioned previously that CineCoup is offering up to 1,000,000 CAD in financing and guaranteed release in Cineplex theatres, a huge boon to a Canadian film which would if released at all would normally only get limited runs in big cities like Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal.

An experienced and avid social media promoter through Collective Friction Rose was immediately interested, as CineCoup seemed to be, in her words “Preaching the gospel I had already been singing.”

“While I’ve wanted to make films obsessively since I was 14 years old, I’ve also always promised myself that if I am going to make a film I want it to have an audience and that is up to me.” Says Rose who continues on to say, “Filmmaking is a lot of work and I value my time as well as my crew’s time. While I personally love and am inspired by art house, independent, Canadian and foreign films I recognize that if I am to make those kinds of films I need to keep my marketing in mind on the onset and not as an after thought.”

One impediment to using CineCoup was the focus on a youth demographic while Rose didn’t think any of the film ideas she was tossing around had an appeal to a youth-oriented demographic. But after a conversation with a friend who was in a long distance relationship with a person in Germany that he met while vacationing in Cuba. Despite the distance and language barrier this friend was endeavoring to make a relationship work with this person whom he connected with so deeply.

Rose realized how many of her friends were either in long distance relationships (or LDRs) or had previously been in one. She found herself wondering why, even though she had haphazardly done LDRs in the past, she was telling herself she would never be in one at her age.

In Rose’s own words “I found myself asking why I would never do it at my age. Which led my internal thought process to questions like ‘What would make me get into a long distance relationship?’ Which the answer was immediately ‘Well maybe if it were a cute stand-up comedian.’ That was my LIGHTBULB MOMENT.  An art director and a stand-up comedian meet and fall in love online and struggle to juggle their careers with their relationship. So I started researching long distance relationships to see if there was an online community for it and to my surprise there was. It was bigger than I thought. That’s when I emailed my producer, Sara Basso at 4am and told her I thought this new idea I had could work really well for Cinecoup given the built in market. She agreed and said if I wanted to move forward with the idea that she was on board.”

After this lightbulb moment, the story eventually evolved to take on aspects of womanhood in general and the pressures young women put on themselves in their 20s. This includes pressure Rose Lagace has put on herself, with a goal to make her first feature film by age 30 which gave her added incentive to push forward and work with CineCoup.

“At some point in January…in the middle of the night my internal dialogue went something like ‘You’re going to kick yourself if you don’t do this. You have nothing to lose right now and that may not always be the case. You promised yourself you’d make a feature by 30. What are you waiting for? Times almost up,’” Rose told me.

Once the decision was made, the entry fee paid and both Rose and producer Sara Basso were working ahead they knew it was time to find a third member of their CineCoup team. Things got a little complicated here, as Rose explains, “We knew our third member should be a female since our project is from a uniquely female perspective. We spoke to a couple people who didn’t feel quite right. We were losing hope. Then one day Sara introduced me to Emma [Sutherland] not long before we had to go to camera on the trailer. Not only did she love the idea but I could tell right away her personality was perfect for our project. So our power trio was born.”

Rose was very honest about all the work involved with CineCoup, which requires a weekly mission video with a different theme every week, “We had no idea what we were getting into in regards to the amount of work required by Cinecoup but it has made us all stronger because of it. I think we’ve all surprised ourselves and each other. It’s been really challenging and exhausting but in the end I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

Long Distance has been a front runner in the CineCoup Film Accelerator from the beginning, not only because of the appeal and resonance of the film itself, but also no doubt helped along by the team’s extensive contacts and experience in the Canadian film industry. I am very excited to see this project move forward and as a voting member of CineCoup myself I can assure everyone this film has something special about it.

“Long Distance follows Sarah, an art director and Jay, a stand up comic who fall in love online and struggle to overcome the distance. When their careers start to build momentum and they begin to choose overtime over quality time, the couple finds themselves frustrated at being under-appreciated by their equally busy, distant partner. Jay and Sarah must decide where their priorities lie, and who or what they will sacrifice in order to have the life they want.”

“Rose Lagace is a filmmaker and production designer based in Toronto. She has designed over 4 dozen projects and won 4 best production design awards on the festival circuit. For the last year she has been working on a documentary about art direction and developing her ideas into scripts.”

CineCoup is in its final round voting, for the Top 15 right now. Voting continues until Sunday. While on this site I can’t endorse any specific projects, many of my opinions can be found on our Twitter page.

Long Distance’s CineCoup page, including the trailer(s) and links to each week’s mission video can be found here.

Keep Calm and Watch a Canadian Film!

Canadian Filmmaking: Marc Almon, Producer of Blackbird the Film

Earlier today I got the chance to chat with Marc Almon, Canadian filmmaker and the producer of the film Blackbird. Marc and I met at the after party for Blackbird’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, and since then have struck up a pretty good rapport and communication via Facebook and Twitter. Despite some technical difficulties in the middle we ended up having a great long talk about Blackbird and Canadian film in general. Without further ado, here is the interview!

Blog: Standard question I always ask at the beginning of every interview, tell us a little about Blackbird?

Marc: I see Blackbird as a film about identity and about really understanding who you are and coming to terms with that. It’s a story about a troubled teenager, this kind of punk-goth kid living in a small town, classic outsider. Because of a terrible misunderstanding because of something he writes online he gets accused of planning something really sinister: a school shooting. He gets arrested and put in prison and kind of has to fight for his redemption while trying to survive the system.

Blog: Now you and the director Jason Buxton go back together? How did you get involved with Blackbird?

Marc: We go way back. About six years ago I had been making some short films with some success, Jason had mad some short films too at this point and I really admired his work. It didn’t seem like anybody was really stepping forward to try and collaborate with Jason and help get his first feature made and I thought this was basically a terrible shame. At the time I was thinking of getting into producing because I had worked for other producers and I felt like it was something I could do well. So I was thinking about who I would want to work with in order to start producing and Jason really came to the top of my mind because I thought he was really brilliant, so I approached him and said let’s work together. So we put together a proposal for a film that was not Blackbird for Telefilm, as you know Telefilm provides development funding for filmmakers here in Canada, and they turned it down. But they said we really like you guys and we like your work, so come back with another idea and come back soon. At this point Jason knew that his daughter Sadie [who plays Lily, Sean’s young sister in Blackbird –Greg] was coming along the way soon, so he was really under the gun and he said he did have this idea that initially pursuing as a documentary and it didn’t work out because the subject of the documentary didn’t want to move forward. But this subject had gone through a bit of a similar situation as Sean [Connor Jessup], he had posted something online and gotten in trouble for it; and Jason and had his research and there are a lot of examples of kids who had done this: said something online or through social media and it came back to haunt them. So Jason said it would be really interesting if we fictionalized this and made it into a film and I totally agreed. So that was the basis of Blackbird: us desperately needing money and trying to come up with something fast and having this interesting documentary idea that fell through.

Blog: How did you guys get hooked up with Agency 71 Productions and Agency 71 Entertainment?

Marc: So Telefilm loved our idea and started giving us money, Jason started writing and I worked closely with him on the script. I went to the Canadian Film Centre about a year after that pursue some producer training. I had met David Miller [president of Agency 71 Productions] on the film festival circuit promoting one of my own short films early on, and then I got to know David further at the CFC because he and the Agency 71 guys help support CFC and come in to speak to the emerging producers and talk about their marketing services. I just started thinking that David would be a really good match for me to work with. At this point we pretty much knew Blackbird was going to go ahead, we were pretty advanced, Telefilm and other funding agencies liked the project; but it was my first feature and I really wanted to team up with a producer who had some more experience. David was kind of perfect because he didn’t have too much experience, he had only produced a couple features at this point so it wasn’t going to seem like too small a project for him; but at the same time he definitely had more experience than I did and a really good understanding of how to market films.

Blog: How involved were you with the casting process and on set?

Marc: Hugely involved. I have to give kudos to Jason; Jason is kind of like the classic director who puts an enormous amount of work into casting. He definitely abides by that old maxim that casting is 90% of directing, he put a huge amount of work into it. That being said, David and I were involved with all decisions regarding major cast, Jason wanted us weighing in on who he was casting for each role, so I like to think I had a fair amount of influence on the decision-making process.

I was either on set or at the production office. David was away for about half of the shoot because of prior engagements, so I was sort of the main producer on the ground dealing with the production itself. It was really challenging, we didn’t have a lot of money to do a project like this so we were really struggling. The first week of prep we were basically told we didn’t have enough money and each week it just worse. So there was this constant worry about whether we were going to even finish the film. There were these absurd conversations where I’m writing checks for people to get paid, just these giant checks to go to the payroll service, hundreds of thousands of dollars and I’m not getting paid anything. On top of that we were still negotiating with the bank trying to get everything lined up; so every credit card I owned, every line of credit everything I had was maxed out at one point. Because you need to keep everything going, you need to buy those props, you need to set those actors up in their hotel rooms. Some of it I got paid back, some of it I frankly didn’t because there were cost overages.

Blog: And of course people have to eat.

Marc: Yeah! It was really a weird thing where you’re signing these checks and everyone’s coming to you to cover these costs and you’re just like I’m not getting paid anything as I’m paying all you guys. It was just a really ambitious project and we had a very limited budget; it’s one of those things you learn working on your first feature. You’re so used to the short films, cobbling stuff together, but when you start working with unions you have to start taking a more systematic approach to making films and you don’t have as much flexibility in terms of how you spend your money.

[Right about here is my mother calls my cell phone and I had to pause the interview –Greg]

Both Jason and I are kind of waiting because there hasn’t been any money flowing from Blackbird yet. There have been sales of the film but it takes months for these things to go through and at the same time we’ve been waiting for opportunities to apply for development money to start other projects. So everything’s just been on hold, our entire lives have been on hold; we can’t buy anything.

Blog: So can you tell us about the Canadian Film Centre?

Marc: It’s sort of the equivalent of the American Film Institute. It definitely has a real sense of family which nice. They really look out for their alumni and they make a point to keep in touch with them and encourage them. It’s a two-way street; you can reach out to them and ask for their assistance and advice on certain things. I’m going up to Toronto on Friday to be on the jury for the next series of applicants; which is nice, it’s kind of my way of giving back and using my advice and expertise about what it was like to go through the Centre. The neat things is we actually did a lot of Blackbird while I was at the CFC, at that point it was a very early treatment phase; so I went to the Centre and was able to get a story editor and get feedback from my peers. The funny things is I remember pitching the story to my fellow producers and they were really lukewarm about the idea. They read the story and were saying “Sean’s a [jerk]. Who’s gonna care about what happens to this kid? They should just lock him up and throw away the key!” So that was pretty illuminating, we really had to work hard at trying to make Sean more identifiable for people. That had a big impact so that was kind of my mantra every time Jason dropped off a new draft; I would always say we have to make Sean if not more sympathetic, we need to make sure that people are really seeing the world through his perspective, trying to understand what’s happening to him.

Jason and I had big sort of talks about [the character of] Deanna. Because I always thought Deanna should be a very sympathetic character. I think Jason sort of felt that way over all too. However his choice of framing the entire narrative from Sean’s perspective is quite a bold choice; there are no scenes in the movie that don’t feature Sean and that was problematic for me because we don’t really get the chance to see more of Deanna’s life and understand a little better about her difficulties. She’s in a tough spot in this whole situation; she has parents especially a father who is very controlling and basically very suffocating. She also has friends who are pushing her to not have anything to do with Sean and to just keep on being this popular but kind of vacuous person. The fact that she does strike up a friendship with Sean and then start becoming more and more attached to him and supportive of him is kind of a triumph in a way for her character but it’s hard to see it in the film because she does not have a lot of screen time and we don’t get to see things from her perspective.

[And right here is when Marc Almon’s phone dies. We scrambled around for a few minutes trying to reestablish communication.]

Blog: Okay, where were we; something about Deanna?

Marc: Yes. There was a lot of discussion about her character. I hope she comes across as being human. People may have a little trouble connecting with her, but from my perspective it was important to try and get a sense of her world across and what it would be like for her.

Blog: So, what is your background as a filmmaker? I know you mentioned short films.

Marc: I started out writing and directing and myself. I wrote and directed a series of short films that did well in their own right, they traveled to close to 40 international film festivals and appeared on BBC, Sundance Channel and Bravo, those kinds of channels. I was having success but I had frankly a series of bad experiences where I just didn’t have very good collaboration with producers on a couple of my shorts and that had sort of a big effect on my work and how I was approaching my work. I came to the understanding that there was this need locally for a creative producer; a producer who can really understand the creative side of things and what it’s like to work with writers and a directors and encourage them to produce their best work. That was my interest as I started getting more and more into producing. I can do that organizational side of stuff so I did that for other producers but it’s not really what gets me up out of bed in the morning; it’s more the idea of telling stories.

Blog: Any good stories from the set of Blackbird?

Marc: With Blackbird we definitely had a very intense film shoot in terms of our times and locations. Right off the bat there was this worry that we were in over our heads. Jason had a very unusual approach to filming; because we had these limited resources we wanted to do something quite different with the style of the film and this is something he worked on with Stephanie our Director of Photography. They basically wanted to try to do as many scenes as one-offs as possible. There would be this elaborate thing where you get the entire scene in one shot. So there are a lot of traveling shots in the face of Connor or other characters and it almost becomes a bit of a theatrical performance, the actors have to hit their marks precisely and the camera has to hit its marks precisely; as a result it takes quite a bit of time to set up. But once you get it in the can you can go oh great we just finished a whole scene, now we can move on. But it was really freaky for the first few days for our crew because they’re used to working on things like movies of the weeks, which are very conventional in terms of coverage. All the different things likes master shots and follow up and close ups, that allow you to then piece different things together. We didn’t have that, we just had shooting this whole scene in one take and then we’re gonna move on. So from the planning standpoint it would look like we were several hours behind and then all of a sudden we’re done with that whole scene and we’re back on track. So there were concerns early on, people looking at us and wondering do these people actually know what they’re doing? People were scared that we were just totally screwing ourselves over.

I was having to deal behind the scenes with a lot of questions about whether Jason actually knew what he was doing. There is a fear that we finish the movie, we get into the editing room and then we don’t have enough stuff to actually tell the story, or there’s a bad performance and we can’t cut around it. It really requires and enormous amount of faith in your actors and your camera crew, cause if they don’t do their jobs then that’s it, you either have to cut the entire scene or live with a problematic scene for the rest of your life.

And there were times where I was worried, oh my God is he going too far? A perfect example is there was a scene Sean admits to perjury in the courtroom and the last half of the scene is one long shot of long slow dolly onto Sean’s face. He’s talking to the judge, you don’t see the judge; his lawyer is talking at one point and then is off the frame. At one point you see Deanna come in the door, which is to me a really important moment because it shows that Deanna’s starting to think independently and support Sean and she’s just sort of off in the background. So I was freaking out saying it’s Deanna’s big moment and you’re not getting any coverage of her! Jason and I ended up having a bit of a fight over it but he said no, this is how I want to shoot this film. So in the end he got his way and it is actually quite a powerful scene. It just shows that if you have that confidence in what you’re doing you gotta stick to your guns and not let other people convince you that you’re wrong. It’s important to take into consideration other people’s perspectives but in the end the director’s gotta make the decision.

Blog: And Kimberlee McTaggart ended up getting nominated for an Achievement in Editing Award for her work on Blackbird.

Marc: It’s amazing about her nomination. Because I would say over 40% of the film were those one offs I mentioned. The scene begins, you have on edit which carries through on one shot and cut and that’s the end of the scene. A lot of what makes that work is the timing, knowing when to come in and when to leave. Kim is really brilliant at that, she understood how to really make that work.

I do have one more funny story from the set. When I started the production it was a lot for me because it was my first feature production and it was a lot of responsibility. Jason was off on set shooting, David was away and we were facing some serious budget overages; and then these concerns were we going to have enough coverage, enough time to shoot everything. On top of that there were massive cash flow issues, every week I was wondering am I going to make payroll? There was weeks of this, it was really grueling after a while. [When do we get to the funny part? –Greg]

When we first started Blackbird and met Connor, I had met Connor before because of the auditions, but he came in and we ended up having to talk a lot about his hair because of the implications of Falling Skies. Everybody said you don’t want Steven Spielberg’s office calling you and threatening to sue. So it was pretty funny talking about what we could to Connor’s hair, pretty intense conversations. Then over the course of filming it was so stressful that literally my hair started turning white; in the space of the four or five weeks, especially on one side of my temples started turning really white. So at one point at the end of a shoot Connor came up to me and said “You should go report to hair and makeup, cause I think you need to do something about your hair.” That’s when I realized that Connor’s a sharp kid, he could see what was going on.

Blog: So Blackbird has had a great festival run, winning a lot of awards, any thoughts on that (beyond, it’s great)? Were you surprised?

Marc: I think for us we thought the film could do well. I mean you finish a film and it really is sort of finished in a bit of a vacuum. You wonder, well I think it’s good but does anybody else think it’s good? So it gets out there and people start responding to it and it is really gratifying. Every stage you’re left wondering, is this really going to find and audience? Yes, film festivals it has been doing really well but it’s going to be coming out in theatres soon in Canada and the US and France and other places hopefully and that’s going to be the big test: are people really going to embrace the film and go and see it in theatres? Are they going to be watching it online or on TV? And that’s the big remaining question for us. Everyone on the team is sort of holding their breath wondering if this film will find its audience.

Blog: Any projects you’re working on coming up that you can talk about?

Marc: I’m working on a comedy project right now called “A Good Girl”. It’s at sort of an advanced script stage right now. I’m trying to attach a director to it right now. It’s a comedy about basically a mid-30s guy who’s an inventor and he’s kind of got a bunch of these cool ideas on the go. At the same time there’s a lot of pressure for him to settle down and he’s trying to hold onto his youth. He ends up dating this much younger girl, who he discovers is 18, and she’s a real firecracker; totally inappropriate for him in some ways. As well he meets this older woman, a little older than him, sort of more sophisticated. He’s struggling to make a choice because they represent two different paths to him in his life. I think it’s a powerful metaphor for how people are struggling to settle down, taking on that responsibility of commitment and family. I have a science fiction project I’m working on.

Then I’m working on an international coproduction I’m working on with an Indian filmmaker that’s set in northern India. The project itself is being presented at Cannes Film Festival to financiers in this very select group of 15 projects selected from around the world and they match you up with distributors and financiers and hopefully we’ll put together the financing this summer and shoot it this fall.

Blog: Any final thoughts about Blackbird, or Canadian film in general?

Marc: I think there’s some big changes on the horizon. I think funding-wise things are really tough but in terms of the ability to tell stories things are really opening up. The cost of making films with high production values is decreasing the opportunity to get them seen is increasing with video on demand and online subscriptions models like Netflix and digital downloads. There’s really cool stuff happening and I think it’s important for filmmakers to embrace that and find a way to connect with their audiences. I think social media is going to be so key. As we develop projects we should be getting people involved at as early a stage as possible; give them a way in to talk about what they like about a story, a character. That can be taken too far, you certainly want to maintain a sense of your own authorship but at the same time it’s just great to look at people’s feedback and to get people excited in the early stages of what you’re working on.
———-

There you have it folks! I hope you are all getting excited for Blackbird’s Canadian theatrical release on May 10^th! Find the locations here and if you’re in Toronto for the premiere, let us know and we’ll try to say hi!

Season 3: On the Horizon

Contributing Author Elizabeth swings by to give us her reactions to the newly released season 3 teasers.

The first preview “No Hiding” is clear– there isn’t no more time for hiding, the Second Mass needs to get out of Charleston, they are coming for all of us, because the Overlord wants to destroy the whole human race (well I think this is the Overlord’s plan). Since the Second Mass has become so comfortable in Charleston, it is most likely that something very bad will happen that will lead to the Second Mass back on the run.

In the second preview “Earth Rises” I wonder what this is—is this some kind of alien weapon? Is this something the aliens are using to harness children, or to speed up the transformation, or heal children?

And what is this? Is this how someone can get power? Is this how Karen gets all of her power? 

I hope with one alien baby already the writers won’t be trying to create another one. I’m thinking this is Hal and Karen since Sarah Carter has said there will be a love triangle between Maggie-Hal-Karen. The harness is now inside of Karen’s back. Will this affect Ben? Ben has been deharnessed but will his glowy spikes soon disappear into his back as well?

I know that in this scene the new alien and the Second Mass are fighting side by side each other. As of right now, I still don’t trust the new alien. As I’ve said before the new alien is using the Second Mass to take out the common enemy “Overlord”, and will then later turn on the Second Mass. In the third preview Weaver does say we are collaborating with the enemy which makes me believe the new alien will turn on the Second Mass.

 

In the third preview “Earth Rising” you hear screams and you see the Second Mass running. Maybe this is when Charleston falls under attack, and the Second Mass, and only a few of Charleston survive the attack. 

 

I don’t believe this is Ben, I think this is Hal and that is Lourdes’s arm. I think Lourdes will have to be the one to remove the bug that Karen implanted into Hal at the end of season two. If she is not removing it, maybe Hal is strapped down to protect himself as well as the Second Mass to prevent any harm he could cause. Truthfully it is very hard to tell if this is Hal or Ben, it could be either of them.

 

I think this shock face Tom is showing while looking at whatever is in front of him is when he meets Anne’s half alien baby. I think it would be cooler if there was a half alien baby on the show whereas another normal Mason running around. If the baby is not alien, or is not turned into an alien it will be a letdown to me because this pregnancy storyline was rushed and thrown onto us. Don’t let me down writers! Whatever it is, it is bad, and I can tell this in Tom Mason’s reaction to whatever it is.

 

Mega Mechs! The Skitter Resistance (maybe, it could be a bad group of Skitter’s working for the Overlord) and the Second Mass fighting! Looks like a lot of action this season which I’m looking forward to seeing. The lack of Anne in these make me happy, maybe my wish of something happening to Anne will come true.

Elizabeth is Contributing Author on The Falling Skies Blog, a Tom Mason fanatic, and will not rest until Anne’s baby is an alien.

She can be reached and and should be followed on at @7sweetprincess7

Keep the Resistance Strong!

Awesome Con DC

Saturday I had the opportunity to attend Washington DC’s inaugural comic convention, brought to you by Awesome Conventions. The experience was a lot of fun. I was super impressed by how well put together the con was and how smoothly everything ran. Running around, taking pictures and asking questions, I only had the chance to attend a few panels, but the ones I did go to were amazing. When asked, many people told me this was their first convention ever but based off the experience they were definitely excited to start going to more. All in all a great experience, and my hat’s off to the folks who put it together.

I took A LOT of pictures but I tried to sort through and pick just a few to share. And by just a few I mean quite a few.

Myself and Ben Templesmith, one of my favorite comic book artists of all time.

Myself and Ernie Hudson, star of films like GHOSTBUSTERS and many others.

Myself and Theodus Crane, “Big Tiny” on THE WALKING DEAD.

Myself and Justin Jordan, comic book author and illustrator.

Myself and Nicholas Brendon, Xander on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER.

 

Sam Ellis, the guy behind ARCHER.

 

The members of the “Star Trek vs. Star Wars Debate” my favorite panel. I got the chance to chat with them a bit before the panel, really nice guys.

New Season 3 Trailers

Last night TNT premiered three new Season 3 trailers. Well OK, they actually released two new ones. They claim it is three, but one of them consists entirely of Season 2 footage.

Thankfully the ones entitled “Earth Rises” and “Earth Rising” are chock-full of new footage. Here are some highlights that stood out to me.

We get a glance at humanity working alongside the New Aliens. At the same time we also see what the New Aliens unmasked and unarmored, wearing some kind of paramilitary-style gear, fighting right alongside Tom on horseback as Skitters pour down a canyon towards the 2nd Mass. You may remember that in the “Scorched Earth” extended trailer previously released, a New Alien is trussed up to a chair being guarded by human soldiers, seemingly a prisoner. So, which scene comes first? Are we initially hostile towards the Aliens (Welcome to Earth, we’re gonna beat you up now!) and then come to use them as allies, or are we originally allies and then take them prisoner when their true intentions are revealed? A clue may be that the Alien prisoner previously seen is wearing his armor seen in the Season 2 finale. 

 

In the same vein of the New Aliens, we hear in a voice over Weaver displaying his usual compassion and tolerance, stating “This is a human war! We’re collaborating with the enemy!” Every should remember how Weaver was consistently unconvinced of the existence and intentions of the Skitter Rebellion, only voicing his belief in it in solidarity with Tom against General Bressler in the Season 2 finale. We also hear Maggie stating “We’ve survived by doing things none of us thought possible.”

Another scene in particular that stands out is a young boy appearing to be tortured on a table. I am almost 100% convinced this is Ben. Now, we all know I get way too emotionally invested in fictional characters, so I have to be honest I get a visceral reaction of anger towards seeing one of my favorite characters treated in this way. If he’s not being tortured, could this be a look at the New Aliens helping him overcome the harness effects, with it simply being a painful process? Another theory I don’t hold is that this Hal on the table. If it is, could this be the scifi version of shock therapy? Helping him break the control of the eyebug?

 

We get a glimpse at Karen and someone who appears to be Hal sharing some *cough* private time in the woods together, which lends credence to the Evil Hal theory. While they are “together” Karen’s spine, which is strangely sans-harness, glows brightly. Possibly as a nod to Battlestar Galatica, where Number 6′s spine would glow while spending time with a man. Remember a lot of Falling Skies actors were also on Battlestar Galatica. But what does the absence of the harness mean? Possibly nothing, as we know Karen remained (perhaps willingly) under the control of the Overlords even unharnessed in “Homecoming” and the opening scene of “Molon Labe”.

Is it possible that humans have discovered a way, possibly with the help of the new aliens, to restore the funtionality of some modern technology? We see a few scenes of humans flying aircraft. Now the cockpit of these craft look like they could be a few generations behind the most modern aircraft, but I am not an aviation expert so I cannot say for sure. They are in a dogfight with some blurry crafts, most likely beamers. There appear to be bright flashes of laser weapons but whether these are coming from the human aircraft (could the New Aliens have provided some upgrades?) is not readily clear. Perhaps the President of the United States, whom we learned a few months ago would make an appearance, has discovered some way of restoring technology, there are some smart people who are supposed to be with him in NORAD or whatever bunker he has been in.

We also get a glimpse at the vaunted “Mega Mech” which appears to be man or slightly-larger sized.

 

We also see Ben being his usual badass self. Knifing Skitters and never bothering to take names. No word yet if he chews bubblegum while doing this, or if he is out.

So there you have it. My quick take on these new revelations. The clips can be viewed here (it will automatically play the old extended trailer, so make sure to click on the new ones) and Robert Prentice of Three if By Space’s thought can be viewed here. What are your thoughts? 

Keep the Resistance Strong!

 

Why We’re Here and Thank You

I haven’t done this in a while, but I wanted to take a minute and seriously thank all our readers, followers, fans, and everyone else. We would be absolutely nowhere without all of you.

I started the Falling Skies Blog so I could stop talking to myself about science fiction, Falling Skies in particular, and because trying to hold an intelligent conversation on the IMDB boards with anybody but Lauren and KidCarnival was basically impossible.

Along the way I made some awesome friends and got the opportunity to write for one of my professional heroes, Robert Prentice at Three if By Space. Robert was basically my mentor first starting out. He freely gave me advice on how to write, what to write, what to avoid and how to avoid going crazy as a member of the indie internet press. He took a chance on me and let me write for him covering sci fi news and reviewing TV shows back when the only writing sample that I was able to submit was a 400 word character review of Ben Mason.

The awesome folks at Agency 71, Rock It Promotions and Story Engine Pictures supported me 100% every step of the way, opening doors for me that I wouldn’t have been able to on my own even if I kicked at them for years.

Yes, I started writing about BLACKBIRD because of the Falling Skies connection via Connor Jessup, one of my favorite actors of the past few years. But I started the Road Less Traveled because I love Canadian film. It deserves to take its place on the world stage as much more than a subset of the United States film market, way more than the “Hollywood North” mentality that has prevailed for the past decade at least. Canada has a unique and storied history, and that comes out in the amazing films this country puts out every year. I knew that I had to do my part to make sure that people in the US and Canada KNEW that these amazing films were out there and new ones were being made all the time.

I had no idea that all this would take off at all, let alone become a place where 100,000 people came every single month to read our crazy opinions and theories. I am absolutely stunned and humbled that even when there was no Falling Skies news, thousands of people still checked out the site everyday. Even when I was writing pretty much exclusively about BLACKBIRD and totally ignoring the fact that Falling Skies is in the name of the blog. Then I merged the RLT on here and the people starved for Canadian film content came pouring in, reading my stuff.

I don’t know if I can take much credit, seeing as most of the great Falling Skies stuff you guys read is written by my amazing authors. We are a ragtag group of FS enthusiasts who somehow came together and made it all work.

So once again, thank you so much for sticking by us and above all:

Keep the Resistance Strong!

And:

Keep Calm, and Watch a Canadian Film!