The Atheist Movie Journal

Shooting is done!

2007-12-28T03:10:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm sitting at my computer, it's 1:15 in the morning, editing away. This to me is the fun part. For a movie to come out sort of neat, a couple of minutes of film can take days of editing.

There are two parts to this movie. The first is more dynamic. It's fast, zippy-dy-zap, back and forth. The second half is the heaven scene. This part is more didactic, a tiny bit slower, but nonetheless, I have to say, the acting is superb, very well done thanks to Mike and Konrad.

I'm hoping to have this all done in another week or so. Until then, here's a little taste of the heaven scene. This isn't the final look at all, I just put it together quickly for a preview with no blurs, glows, or any other effects. Enjoy.

The amazing stunt team

2007-12-13T11:19:00.000-08:00

This was perhaps one of the most fun days of shooting so far, the accident scene, shot in downtown Honolulu. Everyone was fabulous, and even though I don't show everyone but the three stunt guys, I can't forget all who were very helpful: my wife Grace, of course, Mike who's developing into an amazing actor, Laura, Craig, Paul, Josh and Savannah (who shot the behind the scenes footage).

More to come!

Mike Devenny's Blog

2007-12-01T00:33:00.000-08:00

Today was a very productive day! It started with a one hour walk, in the hot sun, to break in the bus pass that Tony and Grace found me. Once I got to Tony’s, he and Grace made an awesome lunch! Our first shot of the day was the wedding. Not bad, I’ve been on the island for 2 months, and I’m already getting married! We had a few churches in mind to shoot in front of. Some of the ladies on the set decided to ask for permission to shoot at the church across the street from the apartment, and luckily they agreed. The church had a beautiful courtyard with a fountain. The sun was great, and we got some great shots.

But sadly…I haven’t seen or spoken to my “on screen wife” since that day. I think we’re going to end up “seeing other on screen people”.

Immediately after the rice was thrown and Tony yelled, “That’s a wrap”. Laura & I headed back to the apartment to apply my horrendously abused makeup. Laura did the amazingist job she’s done so far. (That’s right, it was so good I had to make up a word.) The next shot we decided to tackle, was an artistic idea that Tony had. I don’t want to give away any details, but it involved James driving the truck around the block, me laying in the bed with my head hanging over the tailgate, Tony crouching over me with the camera, and Grace sitting on my leg and holding Tony’s shirt. It was scary, nerve-racking, and awesome all at once.

James took Laura home, and the rest of us were pretty exhausted. We thought about calling it a wrap for the day, but we didn’t want to waste time with good makeup. So we shot the hospital bed scene. Grace bandaged up my wounds, like any good nurse would do. But the real pain came from the chopped onions that I rubbed under my eyes to produce some tears. It worked well…a little to well! For a hospital gown, we took the shirt of a set of scrubs and cut it right down the front. I put it on backwards, and it was wide open in the back. Tony put on a full set of scrubs for moral support. It’s a shame he wasn’t on screen with the scrubs on, because he looked awesome! So awesome in fact, he kept the scrubs on to go shot me walking on the pier.

We realized there weren’t any transition shots between the hospital bed and me and James in Waikiki. So we got a few shots of me taking my crutches for a ride on the pier. We got some great shots, and were really exited about the volume of footage we pulled out of the day. So we rewarded ourselves with homemade steaks! Not only can Tony direct…he can cook!

Hey, thanks, Mike, I appreciate it. But you remind me of the latin word for the coyote from the Road Runner cartoon, Coyote: eatubus almost anythingus. So that's not saying much for my cooking...

The Laura Ferreri Tritube Video

2007-11-28T10:25:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentlemen, Laura Ferreri... enjoy.

Finally some internal shots!

2007-11-27T23:02:00.000-08:00

After so much shooting outside, having to configure the iris, filters and so forth, nothing like a totally light and atmosphere manipulatable internal shot.

These are flash back scenes Jeremy is having while in his apartment. Craig Graham was very kind to support us by allowing us to use his apartment.

The epiphany of the evening (: a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience. Webster's Dictionary.) was Laura discovering for the first time that she had been brainwashed in believing her eyes were brown when in all reality, they are green. It was a shock for the whole cast/crew.
Click on the eye to look deep inside it. Window to Laura's soul...

This eye made me think for a minute, back to a fantastic book I read last year entitled "Darwin's Black Box", by Michael Behe. Mr. Behe is every atheist's nightmare, and they try very, very hard to discredit him as a scientist, but the facts are in: he is a professor of biological sciences at Lehigh University and taken very seriously by his colleges. Point is, he coined an interesting phrase, "irreducibly complex". What this means is that biological systems are much too complex to have evolved from simpler predecessors. A classic illustration he gives is a mouse trap. You look at a mouse trap and you see all of its components. The board, the spring, the bait holder and so forth. The mouse trap works as a whole. If you are to take one part out of it, the whole mechanism fails. Without the spring, for example, it's not a mouse trap anymore. Well, how could these parts have "evolved", little by little, by time and chance, and lots of time and chance, to get it working perfectly? Which came first? In a living organism, which came first, the lungs or the veins? All biological systems are much too complex to have evolved, yet this is taught in classrooms as science and not a "not yet proven" theory. Yes, I know this is a bit controversial, but the human eye is one of the most irreducibly complex biological systems in the universe. One part cannot work without the other, or have "arrived" in a functional sense without the other. Just by looking deep into this picture, I am amazed at how intrinsically and wonderfully made Laura's eye is. It keeps me in awe.

November 11, 2007

2007-11-11T13:59:00.000-08:00

This was a very technical shot, scene number 14, the internal ambulance shot. Let me first lay down some stills and then I'll talk about our shooting experience.

This is the "before" shots, with color correction, bleach bypass and contrast added.

I guess the very first thing to say is about Laura's make up. Unbelievable. It was so realistic, and so well done, that some of us that were there at times would ask Mike if he was really all right. The reason is because he had a neck imobilizer on, was lying down in character the whole time, never smiled or anything like that, and just lied there, with his eyes rolling up. At times Grace would ask, "Mike, are you alright?" It was a freaky experience. Laura was amaaaaaaaaazing. Don, our DP, gave some ideas for lighting, and stood by the lights raising up and down a reflector to give the idea of the ambulance passing under bridges and whatnot. That looked really sweet as well. Grace gave the idea of a slight camera shake to give the illusion of a moving vehicle, so it all came together extremely well. I'm very pleased with the results!

November 3, 2007 - Day 1

2007-11-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

The very first thing I want to say about day one is that I had a blast. It was loads of fun, the energy was extremely high, every one was working high paced, and the actors were cool and performed brilliantly.The day started in my apartment at 2:45 pm. Mike arrived and we went over some lines. Then Laura arrived at around 2:45 along with Josh, the script supervisor, and started putting make up on Mike. The whole make up process took about 45 minutes.

Laura working on Mike to make him look a week after the accident.We arrived at Waikiki around 4 o'clock p.m and started to set up everything. Don (DP), Mark (sound), Josh (script supervisor) Grace (prod.) and I set up for the opening and closing scenes of the movie.

DVX100A with Brevis35 adapter and Nikon 50mm lenses on tripod and dolly over PVC tracks. Setting up LCD screens.

Laura: final touch ups.

Examining her work, which looked pretty good.Setting up the first shot.

Mike was prepared, delivered well:

Action!

Preparing the crane shot:

Either James or Traci took this extraordinary picture of our crane shot. It really looked great! We were just waiting for the sun to hit the perfect spot.

James acting.

Laura directing the extras. Everybody pitched in, it made things go incredibly smooth.

The phenomenal Glauce, aka, Grace, with an extra.

Don: shot some beautiful images.

Due to the type of lighting that I was looking for we only shot half of all the scenes. Next week we return for more.

October 26, 2007

2007-10-26T11:22:00.002-07:00

We got together today at Spada for our first cast/crew meeting, where everyone got to know each other. Well, somewhat, I guess. But it was really great to see what our crew looks like, and I tell you what: we gots lots of talent tied up in this here bunch. Funny thing is that as I was driving home I realized that I never even tasted one bite of pizza because I was so into the cast and crew. I'm really excited about what we're going to come up with. I made some announcements right at first, what to expect, shooting schedules, what we're still needing, etc.

Then, pizzas ahoy

Talking with the stunt team about.....well, stunts.

Mike DeVenny, Eddie Picollo, me (doing heavens knows what), Josh Morgan, James Hadde.

More pictures to come.

We're looking at everyone's schedules as we speak, and shooting begins this coming week. We'll let everyone know. More than likely, the first scene shot will be the downtown scene of Jeremy and Steve sitting in front of the waterfall and coming out of Paradise Cafe, another location we got thanks to Sharooz, the owner of the cafe and Spada. The people there were exceptional last night, please make sure you do some word of mouth advertising for that restaurant because they're awesome. We might also do our wrap up party there when we're done, and then we'll get the whole buffet extravaganza.
Also, Craig has offered his place where we'll shoot the interior of Jeremy's apartment, so thank you Craig! And we'll be looking for a bookstore/library as well this coming week for the Angel/Jeremy scene. So things are rolling and looking good! Stay tuned for more!

October 21, 2007

2007-10-21T11:32:00.000-07:00

Don setting up camera and lenses in Waikiki.

Don, Grace, the kids and I went to Waikiki today to set up the gear and test out the opening and closing shots for the film. It was fantastic! We wanted to see if we were going to get away with shooting the way I had in mind, which is to keep one subject ouf of focus while Jeremy was in focus and Don made it look superb! Many curious people gathered around asking us what we were doing, so I imagine when we go there to actually shoot, with reflectors, boom poles, 5 or 6 crew members, we'll attract many more. It made me think that we all have to be prepared to keep it cool, keep doing it as if no one were around, specially the actors, where more pressure will probably be on, sorta' speak.
We learned today that we're going to need a dolly and a track for this shot, due to the nature of the zoom we're looking for. We also saw that we're going to have to bring some kind of beach towel or a blanket to put all the equipment, tripods, etc on, due to all the sand. Speaking of which, when you just go to the beach to swim, you don't think of or sense that palpable saline-ness in the air. When you have expensive equipment, you do! So we'll have to find a way to protect all this stuff against the salt. What? Did you just say "just use the opposite of salt, which is sugar, to repel it!"? Oh, man, whatever!

Shooting Grace, as Jeremy. The shot came out beautiful.

Next up is the following week's schedule. I want to start rehearsing the lines with the actors so we have it down-mama-joe-brown.

First Post

2007-10-20T11:29:00.000-07:00

Director of photography Don and I at Waikiki testing shots

Well, it's been a couple of months since I wrote the script. The story started back when I was in Bible College, 7 years ago. The professor for our apologetics course wanted a paper on the differences between creationism and evolution. I decided to write a script on the subject and make a short movie on it. A small group helped me out but it came out really, really bad. We knew nothing about lighting, shooting, editing, acting, nothing. I took some courses on production and editing, and had the idea of remaking it someday. The years went by and as I started a Youtube account and saw the growing numbers of atheists on Youtube attacking Christianity with horrific fallacious arguments, I began to defend the faith there. Then I heard about the San Antonio Christian Film Festival and it all came together.
Grace and I thought we'd been doing most of this on our own. I knew I needed and actor for the Angel, and at least a cinematographer to light up the sets and shoot the film, but everything else would be just us. Then we began praying for this project, putting some ads around town and the internet and the Lord started bringing in all the talents. We got talent now to make a real good, top notch low budget film. I don't think I ever saw these words in a phrase before, "top notch low budget film." Hmmm...
90% of pre-production is done. We got all the actors locked. We got all locations down except for a bookstore. Still looking for an older, classic looking, with creaking wood floors bookstore somewhere in the island. Oh, man! I know a perfect one in downtown São Paulo, Brazil. But there's just no way I can get visas in time for all the crew. Oh, well... Anyways, storyboard is almost done, scene board is done, Scene board. Altogether 20 different scenes.
green screen is set and ready to go. We found a nice, brown real human hair goatee for Mike's character which will give him a real cool look, we can't wait to to slap some spirit gum glue and derma wax on that boy. :)
I'll be posting up on this blog my experiences as the director of this movie. Mostly, so I can read it in the future and learn from my mistakes and new things that I learned. Mistakes like, "Argh! I knew I shouldn't have cast that guy!" Just kidding, I don't have those thoughts. Yet. Ok, scratch "yet" out, that wasn't nice either.