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How Many Takes it Takes: To Get One Long Shot

Posted by lujhei on

If you’re a connoisseur of fight scenes, then you’d know that many fight scenes in this modern movie making age are a compilation of cuts and edits that highlight the actor’s movements. Some times the edits are to emphasize certain movements, but most of the time they are done in a way that makes an actor (who doesn’t know how to fight) look like they know how to fight. True martial arts prowess is not demonstrated through a fight scene with all these jarring cuts and edits, but rather through wider angles and (if you dare it) longer shots.

Since we boast that Rise And Fail’s action centers around fights that do showcase martial arts ability, we tend to prefer these long shots that allow the audience to fully grasp the extent of our actor’s skills.

While this sounds like a great idea, the problem is that with longer shots, there are a lot more places to make mistakes – one wrong move and you have to start the whole sequence all over again.

Watch this video to see for yourself the effort (and number of takes) it took to make a single long shot.

Really makes you appreciate these long fight scenes a lot more, doesn’t it?

Interview with Sean Rochford, “The Secret Action Star”

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During the course of filming, we were also able to find time to interview Sean Rochford, who plays the role of “Joe” in Rise And Fail.

Sadly, many of Sean’s stunts were cut from the final cut after being deemed “too mind-boggling” by the editors (evidently the footage was shown to a cage filled with hamsters to gauge the “awesome-quality”: only 1 of the 400 hamsters survived, the rest died from their heads imploding from awesome overload). But don’t worry, many of Sean’s other scenes were able to grace the final cut.

Also, if you missed our Dec 1 blog post, we are excited to announce that our fearless leader Eric Jacobus has started his own personal blog called The Actionist, where he shares his insights on the choreography of fight scenes and the process of creating an independent action film. And since Eric has far superior intel, he has already blogged about this very same Interview with Sean Rochford. So feel free to check out his post as well (we won’t be offended).

And remember, we still need help getting this film finished. We have a Kickstarter campaign up now, so if you’d like to help us get this movie get made, this is your opportunity! A $30 donation gets you a signed copy of the DVD (complete with bonus footage & special features), plus even more rewards for higher donation thresholds, so there’s no reason to not donate today!

Reminder to Vote!

Posted by lujhei on

We are still entered in the TenLegs contest and still need about 300 votes in order to get into the top 3 to qualify for the prize. Unfortunately the contest ends TODAY, so we need your help ASAP!

Again, all you need to do is follow the link below, register for the site, and cast your vote for “Rise And Fail”!

So PLEASE click the image below and cast your vote for “Rise And Fail” now!

Voting ends TONIGHT October 23rd, so please take 5min out of your day and get your vote in now!

Vote for Rise And Fail!

Posted by lujhei on

Our IndieGoGo campaign is drawing to a close (only 2 days left!), and we are still sadly far from our fundraising goal. However, we have found another opportunity to raise some of those needed funds in the form of “The Butterfly Effect” contest on Tenlegs.com.

Essentially this is a film contest (other artistic categories are included but judged separately) with a grand prize of $5,000! Winning that money would be of great help to us, but we need YOUR help!

All you need to do is click the image below and cast your vote for Rise And Fail!

Voting ends this Sunday October 23rd, so please take 5min out of your day and get your vote in now!

The Stunt People and Speed Ramping

Posted by lujhei on

Throughout their history as a stunt & fight choreography team, The Stunt People have often heard the line:

“I bet they sped that up“.

This would imply that the people in the fights in question aren’t actually moving as quickly as they appear to be, and require the aid of post-filming effects to achieve the speed and effects ultimately seen in the video.

However, The Stunt People are proud to say that they do not actually use such post-filming effects in their fight choreography. Every video and fight sequence you see from them were really filmed as fast as they look. In fact, insisting that the fights are sped up is actually a compliment to how fast they are.

That said, there are times in which the process of “speed ramping” does produce quite an awesome effect. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, “speed ramping” is the process of changing the frame rate of a shot to speed up or slow down the action. It produces a sort of “time slowing” or “time speeding-up” effect. You see the effect used in movies like “The Matrix” or games like “Max Payne”, in the form of “bullet-time”.

While The Stunt People don’t speed up their fights, there are times in which the “speed-ramping urge” kicks in. And when it does, this is what we get:

Interview with Johnny Yong Bosch

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If like me, you were raised in the 90′s, I imagine you might remember Johnny Yong Bosch from his tenure as “Adam Park”, the Black Ranger on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Or perhaps you know him from his many (and more recent) voice acting roles in anime and video games since then (including Ichigo from Bleach, Vash the Stampede from Trigun, Nero from Devil May Cry 4, etc).

But do you know what Johnny’s doing next? We do!

That’s right! Johnny Yong Bosch will be playing lead villain “Torch” in our Rise And Fail movie! In between filming, we had a chance to talk to him more about his role and experience working on the film, and here’s what he had to say:

Remember to Donate!

Posted by lujhei on

As you may already know, Rise And Fail has been desperately trying to raise enough funding to complete film production. You might also know that we’ve been trying to do so through a means that rewards the donor as well! For every threshold of contribution the donor gives, we will give them certain gifts in return (ex. a signed copy of the DVD, the official movie t-shirt, tickets to the film premiere, your name in the movie credits, etc)

So if you think about it, there’s no real downside to donating. Not only do you help fund the completion of an amazing action film, but you also walk away with official movie merchandise! What a deal!

So if you love our style of authentic Action Kickback martial arts action, and witty dark comedy and thriller films, and indie film in general, — or any of those really — you won’t regret contributing to Rise And Fail!

So what are you waiting for — click the link below to donate:

How Many Takes it Takes: To Get One Take of a Fall

Posted by lujhei on

As mentioned in the previously-posted series, The Makings of a Stuntman, a stuntman has to be prepared to do more than just take a beating. He has to be able to perform the same stunt (and take the same beating) multiple times, each with equal skill and safety — which might beg the question: “how many times do they have to do each stunt?”

The answer is naturally that “it varies”, but in general a stunt will take at least two or three tries to get it right.

While anyone can fall, a stuntman can make the fall look painful while avoiding serious injury, and do it several times. For example, let’s take Eric’s fall in the Museum. It’s a pretty simple fall that anyone could do. However, the difference lies in whether you can do it without ending up bent over nursing your hip like a bandaged up old grandmother.

Here is some footage behind the making of a single fall, and the numerous times we had to do it over again just to get this single stunt.

P.S.

Technically, the answer to the title question is “one”, since it really only takes one to get a take (hah). The point here, however, is that to get a “good take” might take several takes, as evidenced by the above video.

Filming Locations: Museum Bathroom

Posted by lujhei on

Note: This is part of a series. Find the first post here: Film Location: The Museum

Now, you might think that a bathroom set would be an easy thing to procure. After all, restroom facilities are plentiful and can be found in nearly every building where people reside (this is a direct cause of most civilized people’s preference to use specialized waste facilities rather than taking a shit in the woods). However, finding a bathroom set for “Rise And Fail” became a bit difficult when we gave our requirements: 1. It had to be the right size for a fight sequence. 2. Other people wouldn’t be allowed in it for a few days. 3. We wanted to destroy it.

With these criteria in mind (especially #3), it’s no surprise we had trouble finding someone willing to loan their bathroom to us (I say loan, but we’d really be destroying it, so it’d be more accurate to say “giving it to us”). So instead, we decided to build a bathroom of our own!

Here are a few shots of the set:

This is the Before shot of what the area looked like.

This is the aftershot. As evidenced by these photos, we can see that Eric does a lot of sitting around. But at least he manages to change his clothes to fit the scene.

The Bathroom from another angle.

You might be asking “How did you turn that musky old warehouse into a pristine bathroom?” (Oh, you weren’t asking that? Well, whatever I’ll tell you anyways). The answer is quite simple, but involves several steps.

First, our production designer Ejay Ongaro erected a wall of 2×4′s and sheet rock to partition the warehouse into a space appropriately sized for a bathroom. After we painted the walls and the floor their respective colors, Ejay returned to erect the stalls, add the toilets and sink, and a few more decorative set pieces. Then we finished it off by adorning the room with flowers and lights and pretty framed pictures – anything we’d be willing to break.

Unfortunately, we don’t have many photos involving the construction of the bathroom, since we used all our time and energy documenting the destruction of the bathroom. And while much of that footage will be used in the actual film (that I won’t spoil for you), I’m sure we’ll be able to procure a few Behind The Scenes clips and photos of the destruction for you in an upcoming post. So stay tuned!