It has been a year and a half since we filmed the movie. And while we it is not finished yet, the project is very much alive. The last year-and-a-half for me has been focused mostly on family and my day job. My wife and I are raising two energetic little boys now, so the film has had to take a necessary back seat for a while.

But I’ve never lost sight of the goal. Every single day the film has been on my mind in one way or another. Remember that this project has always taken a while to produce. The 19 page script took several years to craft. That’s just the way we rolled with it considering that it was a “side project” in our everyday lives. We filmed the movie over the course of eight days, and have since taken our time in preparing the way for the final stretch.

So what has been done so far? Well, we’ve gone through several rough-cuts. The first “assembly” edit of the movie was 36 minutes. The edit after that (which I actually think of as the first true rough-cut) was 24 minutes. The current edit is sitting pretty at 19 minutes long, which is dead-on exactly what we expected with our 19-page script.

We’ve done a lot of visual FX tests. We’ve experimented with color correction. We’ve experimented with music. We’ve experimented with alternative ways of telling the story.

And now, we’re actually tracking shots, building and animating 3D models, implementing visual FX (lots and lots of particle systems… sigh), and doing sky replacements.

In the very near future we’re going to start publishing weekly updates to this blog. You’ll hear from me, as well as our Art director, our Director of Photography, the lead actor in the film, and from one of our fight choreographers. Each of us will talk about our areas of focus and give you some insight into what its like to attempt to make a professional-quality short film with a mini budget and lots and LOTS of time.

This is an exciting time, and I hope you’ll continue with us on the journey. We just opened up a Facebook page, so if you’re on Facebook, head over there and become a fan.

If you are interested in owning one of these swords, use the coupon code “SPECTRE” when you check out, and you’ll get a 15% discount off the price.

You can view the details of this item, as well as see some new behind-the-scenes photos, over at the Arms of Valor website.

One of the tools a filmmaker has at his or her disposal is a process known as color correction. It’s where you change the color palette of a film to give it a different feel. These days its usually done digitally, but back in the day it was done by literally developing or modifying the film stock that the movie was stored on.

One of the plans I made early on with Spectre was to approach the filming of the movie with color correction in mind for post production. The idea was to film the movie as “flat” as possible in order to maximize the potential for different “looks” later on. (This approach, by the way, is a direct result of me reading Stu Maschwitz’s excellent DV Rebel’s Guide)

Here’s a still frame from the movie. This is how it looked originally when we shot it.

(Click for a full-size version)

Now here is the same image with some stylized color correction applied.

Want to see some different takes on this image? Some of the awesome people over at the Rebel Café have posted their versions of this image. Thanks, guys!

To mark the occasion of going into post-production, I’ve updated spectre-movie.com with a few neat things. First, I’ve updated the main page of the website to be far more interesting than the one that was there before. Take a look if you get a chance.

Secondly, I’ve added a Photo Gallery with 89 photos taken during our 9 days of production. I’ve mentioned before that over 2,100 photos were taken in total. What I did was rate them from 1-5 stars. Anything that was 4 stars or higher was considered for the website. There were 300+ in that category. I then did a final pass and weeded out photos that were more appropriate for the crew DVD (which, yes, will have more photos), and for photos which might reveal elements of the story that I prefer to keep undisclosed for now. So I hope you enjoy this photo gallery, and I’ll be sure to add to it over time.

Also, I added a link to sign up for a mailing list. So if you want to get email updates when something big happens related to the movie (like, a trailer comes out, or we finish the movie), then sign up and we’ll keep you posted.

Now that the photos are up and the cat’s out of the bag, I want to talk about the Spectre sword. A couple of years ago, when our then-small-sized team and I realized this movie was actually going to get made, we knew that the Spectre sword was going to have to look good. There’s a lot of swords available to be bought online, and many of them are great. But we did not find one that “looked” like Spectre. So I called up the owner of Arms of Valor, an arms and armor catalogue company based in Florida, with whom I had had previous dealings. I asked him about the possibility of making a custom sword for our movie. He loved the idea and agreed to do it.

Vicky and I went through many, many sketches before we settled on our final one. Here’s what we settled on, and what we sent to Arms of Valor. (Click to enlarge)

Arms of Valor then sent this design to a sword manufacturing company in Canada called Dark Sword Armory… an appropriate name! They forged it, and here’s how it came out.

Three copies of the sword were made for our movie. Two were identical, and the third had a slightly different pommel. The flared pommel was an improvised addition that the manufacturer added to help give the sword some extra balance. I debated whether to use that one or not, but certain factors led us down the road of using it in the film. So when you watch the movie, the sword will always have that flared pommel.

Of the three swords that were made, only one survived until the end of shooting. The first one to break went before shooting began. I had asked Jason (the owner of Arms of Valor) to “age” the sword and make it look beaten up. So he took one of the three swords and clashed it against some other swords he owned. Spectre made a lot of dents and dings in the other swords, but those swords failed to make any real impact on it in return. (It is, afterall a “magical” sword!) So Jason took the only thing known to man to be stronger than a Spectre sword: a lawn mower. Being the professional that he is (ahem), he used a lawn mower blade to carefully nick-up the sides of the blade. It was going well until it just went a little tooooo far and SNAP! Spectre #1 broken.

But that was okay! We still had two for filming. Always the optimist, I asked Jason to square off the broken edges. The sword blade had broken at a really great place and we could use it for a scene in which Spectre is driven through somebody’s chest. That’s exactly what we did in filming, and it looked great.

The second Spectre broke right before we were about to film the first scene where it was needed. It was about mid-day through the first day of shooting, and Jason (who flew out from Florida to be a part of the production) and another crew member were doing some basic sword rehearsals off to the side. The first time Spectre got a good hit, it broke right at the point where the blade meets the cross-bar. It was a pretty clean break, and fortunately one of the crew members, Kurt, knew how to weld. So he and Jason left to go to Kurt’s shop where they were able to repair the broken sword. We were able to completely conceal the weld, and it held great! Actually, that particular sword was the one that we used for the majority of the movie. It easily survived everything we put it through, including the big sword-fight scene where those swords were hitting each other hard at times. (I’ll write about how we staged the sword fight another time)

Alas, even our weld didn’t hold up in the long run. On the last day of shooting I was showing David how I wanted him to drop the sword for a particular moment in the movie. I demonstrated, and the sword hit a rock just right. That was the end of that sword. It broke in the same place it had before. Oddly enough, the camera happened to be running when I did that, and we captured the moment forever on film. I’ll be sure it gets into the behind-the-scenes features we plan to put together.

Today, here are what the three swords look like:

With all this talk of breaking swords, I want to be really clear about something: Darksword Armory and Arms of Valor made a great sword! The first one to break was our fault, and the second one was probably due to a small flaw in manufacturing. But remember, this was a prototype! Like any new product, these initial ones are really just proof of concepts. And we were really putting the swords through a lot. Most people don’t swing swords like we were anymore. (BTW – We had two professionals on set who had safety in mind at all times!) When Darksword heard about the broken blades, they immediately offered to replace them at no cost to us. These are excellent swords. Not fake props, but actual, real swords.

Finally, if you love the sword and want one yourself, you’re in luck because they’re for sale! Arms of Valor is now taking pre-orders for Spectre swords. Get one for yourself, or buy one for a friend. They look fantastic on a wall.

Shooting Spectre was an amazing experience overall. As expected, I learned a lot from doing it. I learned a little more about my style, I got insight into where I am strong, and I had plenty of insight into where I start to break down. I could sit here all day and write about the mistakes and missed opportunities. We missed some shots, we probably have some continuity errors, and there were a bunch of technical break-downs too. But that’s production, right? All things considered, it went really well! We have enough footage to make this movie. I plan to do some green-screen and other pick-ups in the coming months. That way, we can fill in some of those holes.

The crew was awesome. Even though this was the longest shoot I’ve been on so far, with the largest crew, we had surprisingly few complaints or squabbles. People seemed to get along great, and I noticed afterward that a lot of them were making plans to either get together or collaborate on something in the near future.

To just people’s names here in a general “Thanks” would not be doing their work justice. I might be bad about doing daily production updates, but I would like to take the time and give each person or team a shout-out in a more thorough manner here on the production blog.

So where are we at now with regards to the movie? Well, to be honest, I’ve barely looked at the footage that we’ve shot! I’ve verified that it’s there, and I’ve backed it up (with the help of two uber-camera geeks Chris and Alan). I’ve imported it all into Final Cut and started marking the good takes and putting meta data into each one. But I’ve not really begun to actually edit. The reason is simply that I need a break. Sure, there was a 9 day shoot, but that wasn’t really what drained me. I think I’m mostly tired from the long months (years?) of planning and writing and re-writing and re-planning every little detail of the movie. Since we wrapped I’ve read a few books that had previously been put on hold, I’ve caught up on Guitar Hero, and now I’m playing the “new” Zelda (which has been out for 2 years) like a fiend. I’ve also been negligent in updating Dragonmount, my other big geek-out hobby, and need to get back on that. Oh, and, getting the household ready for the new baby.

But, in the end, I just can’t stay away too long. I’m starting to feel Spectre burning on my back. The urge to draw it forth is rising in my gut. Soon I’m going to get deep into post-production.

If the baby doesn’t keep me up all night, of course. :-\

Over 2,100 photos were taken during out 9 day shoot. (Thanks, Lou!) I’ve rated and catalogued each one. I plan to post some soon.

Unfortunately, that summary won’t come from me today. Too tired, and too much yet to do before bed. In brief, however, we had a full day of prep yesterday. This proved to be invaluable to everyone. By the time we go to set at 5 AM (yes, a 5 AM call time on the first day of shooting to get the sunrise!), we were decently prepared. The heat got to unbearable levels today out in our battlefield, but fortunately there was nice cool river nearby. I’m not a “let’s go swim in the ‘crick’ type guy”, but man… it felt good to go in there.

We took close to 5 Gigs worth of photos in the first two days so far. That I know of anyway. We did 24 setups on our first day. We have 26 tomorrow. We’ve shot two complete scenes, out of 11. Those may not be very impressive numbers, but that seems on par for the productions I work on.

David Lawlor is amazing as Garin and he BROUGHT it. He was so raw, so dead looking, so exhausted (as his character should have been), that there were REAL vultures circling over him. That’s not a joke. I wish it was.

Anyway, I’ll do my best to post as we shoot. After the shoot’s over, I’ll be back to being able to communicate like a proper human again.

Pics to come as well

“I have hunted you for a long time.”

Today is the first day of production on Spectre. It feels strange to be marking this post in the “production” category. This is both the first of that section, and the last of the pre-production one.

In a few hours, the cast and crew will show up at my house and we have an entire day of dress rehearsal, make-up tests, camera tests, discussion, food prep, prop creation, etc. There are SO many things to do! It’s both exhilarating and nauseating. How strange that after 15 years of imagining, 3 years of writing, and 1 year of active development… I’m still not as ready as I could be. We’ve done a WHOLE lot, and accomplished a great deal, but… wow.

So today Garin and Spectre will truly come to life for the first time. Like any babe in this world, they will come kicking and screaming and yucky all over. But the cast and crew are ready, and we’ll nurture this one to life. I trust in ourselves enough to know that it will grow into something we’re all proud of.

I’ll try to post as much as I can during the actual shoot. I set myself a goal of doing a daily End-of-the-Day post, but I don’t know if that’s realistic. Certainly not while we are camping early next week.

Let’s hunt.

I was about 13 years old when I really got into fantasy-genre novels. I started out with the Prydain novels, and graduated to Dragonlance and then after that anything by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. After them, I moved onto David Eddings, and eventually to Robert Jordan.

The Prydain novels featured a powerful black sword that much of the story focused around. Weis and Hickman had an entire series called The Darksword Trilogy (which they also released a supplemental book for at the time, and a follow-up sequel over a decade later). I have not, however, as some people asked, read anything by Michael Moorcock. Apparently he has a series about a magical soul-eating blade.

In addition to those fantasy books and many others, I was also really into fantasy computer games. Back then I poured myself into games like Pool of Radiance (the first of the popular “Gold Box” style games), Might & Magic, Wizardry, King’s Quest, and Ultima. My favorite game, and the one to which I lovingly dedicate the name of this movie, was The Bard’s Tale.

I played the Bard’s Tale on a black-and-white Mac Plus (with a whopping 1 MB of RAM and 20 MB hard drive). The graphics were great, and the black and white design actually made it more appealing than the PC version that most people are probably familiar with. It was one of those games that only allowed you to save the game if you made it back to the guild hall where you started. Yes, kids, that means if you died while you were out in the dangerous dungeons, you died. None of this weak “Load Saved Game” crap. There was no auto-mapping, no auto-saving, and I swear the monsters hit faster and harder than they do today. (God, I’m turning into an old geek now!)

Anyway, two things came from The Bard’s Tale that were directly translated into Spectre. The first, is Garin, the main character. In the Bard’s Tale, you created a group of up to six characters to adventure together. Because the game was so hard for new characters to survive, I often lost many of them before they got very far. Gold was scarce in those early levels, so it was cheaper to make a new character rather than resurrect him. So when some characters would actually manage to live to become level 2 or 3, I’d get exicted and become a little attached. Eventually, once all of my heroes had grown up and were really powerful, I went and wrote some elaborate back-stories for them. I would use the same character names for each character between games, and that led to the invention of these elaborate but goofy story-lines for them that attempted to explain how all their adventures in all these games linked together.

The leader of my standard adventuring party was always a Paladin named Sir Gary. (Don’t laugh, give me a break, I was 13). The name Gary was probably some weak derivative from “Graham” which was the name of the main character in the King’s Quest series. (No offense to all the Gary’s out there). And for those of you nodding your head because you know the name “Graham” came from King’s Quest… you have even less cause to laugh.

Sir Gary was always at the head of my adventuring party. He wasn’t necessarily the most powerful warrior in the group, but he was always my go-to guy. Mr. Reliable. I envisioned him as being older than all the rest of the young twenty-something’s in the party; a grizzled veteran leading a young team. He was the patriarch in the group whom everyone respected and loved.

On one memorable adventure in the Bard’s Tale, I was trying to get into a well-defended castle. A stone golem was blocking the gate. This creature was well beyond the party’s skill at the time, and it managed to wipe out almost everyone. The one person that made it through and finally killed the monster was good ol’ Sir Gary. So excited was I by that success that I daydreamed and probably wrote all about it. To this day I can still see how the battle played out in my head. Keep in mind that battles in those old games were text-based! Because I was so into the game, I would dream up what the action and sword-strikes looked like. Now-a-days, you see the battle pretty clearly with all the high-end graphics. Which is cool too, of course.

Eventually, as high school, sports, and later college caught up to me, I had less time for these computer RPG’s. My thirst for fantasy was satiated by (ahem…) Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. Sir Gary and the others became just an archived save-game on a floppy somewhere, and I moved onto other things.

But those characters have lived with me for so long now. About 4 years ago I decided I wanted to try and make a movie featuring one of them. I chose one of the characters I especially liked (Norell, a wizard character I had made) and developed an elaborate plot for him. But that story proved to be a little too big for what I was ready to handle. Instead I found myself drawn to Sir Gary and some of the stories I had written around him. One in particular… about his encounter with the “Spectre Blade” … stood out to me.

Thus, the initial spark for the first draft of our script showed up.

At first the main character of this movie was simply referred to as “The Lone Warrior” because he was the sole survivor on a battlefield. Once Brad and I fleshed out his back-story and changed the script so he wasn’t the only survivor, it was time to give him a name. “Gary” might have worked for me 17 years ago, but it clearly needed a little tweaking. So with that, Garin, the once great Paladin, was born.

Personifying Garin is a fine local actor named David Lawlor. I was drawn to David’s headshot because he had that “Sir Gary” look I remembered as a kid. He was the right age for the role, and it took only a very short time after meeting him for me to realize that he was indeed the right man for the role. I’ll talk about David and the other actors on this project soon enough. They deserve a lore more attention than this silly blog entry can do justice to.

But as for inspirations, there’s one more source I have to mention: Where Spectre itself came from.

In the Bard’s Tale (yeah, I know,… can you tell I liked that game?) the most powerful weapon in the game (and the one that was most difficult to acquire) was called the “Spectre Snare”. It gave you a fantastic armor bonus, it landed a critical hit with every attack, and it had the ability to take command of (“snare”) almost any monster in the game; anything up to the power of a spectre. Hence, the name: the spectre snare. Naturally I was fascinated by this weapon. But what the hell does a “Spectre Snare” look like? Was it a sword? An axe? A bazooka? I guess nobody really knows. Other than maybe David W. Bradley who wrote the game back in the 80’s. And since I’ve never met him or asked, I’ve taken it upon myself to answer that question.

The point of all this reminiscence is that it wasn’t just one book or game that inspired the story of Spectre. We are constantly influenced by our experiences. As artists, we pull ideas from our catalog of life events and respond to them. I’ll never fully know every little thing that inspired this particular story. Just like I’ll never know what helps David to create his interpretation of Garin.

Certain intentional inspirations will stand out: such as the name Graham becoming Gary which then became Garin. The spectre snare later became a Dungeons & Dragons style holy sword with the Vampirism ability. It was that odd combination of powers seemed contradictory to me: a “holy sword” and vampirism? I asked myself, “Wow, if only that sword could talk, what a neat story it would have to tell.” So what did I do? I made it a talking sword.

The look of the Spectre sword in the movie might have been born initially of something I imagined in the Darksword trilogy or Prydain, or maybe not. Vicky and I worked on what may have been around a hundred designs before we landed on the one you’ll see in the movie.

Rather than “copying” or just mirroring what I’ve seen elsewhere, I really like to think of all these inspirations above as “responses” to the fantasy genre I’ve come to love. Part of what drives my desire to tell stories like this is to satisfy the 13 year old still inside my heart. (I’ve got enough age now for 2 of them and a few toddlers as well) Part of it is to give a tip of the hat to Weis, Hickman, Jordan, Tolkien, Alexander, Lewis, Eddings, etc. But most of it comes from a desire to simply craft a good story. A story that might in turn inspire somebody else. Maybe some other 13 year old out there who loves fantasy books and games. Maybe my own kids.

BTW – I can’t wait to buy computer RPG’s “for my teenage son” in 10 years.

There are some who believe, as I think I do, that stories are not invented or created, but are actually found through the tools and technologies of our imagination. Perhaps every story that could ever possibly be told floats out there in some ethereal plane. Every now and then we can glimpse into that plane and those stories. Maybe when a story is just ready to be told, it finds us, like it or not.

Like the old man in a rocker that finds a cat jumping on his lap, something about me and my situation at the time is comfortable to that story and so it chooses me be the storyteller. We all have this ability. We do it every single day. Train yourself to gently reach out and see if one of those stories sticks. Don’t hunt it. Let me fall into your lap.

I’m darn happy that the story of Sir Gary and his spectre snare decided to stick around so I could tell you all about it.

Good ol’ Gary…. Leading the way for his team. Maybe one day I’ll get around to telling the stories for those other 5 adventuring heroes. If I do, it will only because he blazed a path for them with Spectre in hand.

“Tonight, when the second moon sets, the Temple will be overrun by ghasts. Go there. You can still be its shield.”

These are the words spoken by the mysterious little Girl-in-Blue who haunts Garin, our main character, and drives him into action, and leads him to the most important decision of his life. Garin, a Paladin (a holy knight), serves the Temple of the Twin Goddesses. One of the great challenges of producing this film is in trying to find or create the Temple itself.

Originally I envisioned the Temple as a outdoor location. Maybe even something like Stonehenge; a shrine open to the elements. The Twin Goddesses are moon goddesses (hence the twin moons you’ll see in the sky of the movie). It therefore seemed likely to me that the people who worshiped moon dieties would want to have their ceremonies and traditions outdoors where they have a clear view of the sky. As I developed the rest of this world (mostly to support the story we were developing for Spectre), it turned out that many traditions of this world and culture are linked to the heavens: the stars, moons, etc.

So where does one find an outdoor temple? Oddly enough, there happened to be one just a few miles from where my in-laws live in Redwood City, CA: The Pulgas Water Temple.

Pulgas is an amazing place. I took my camera out there a few weeks ago and took a bunch of pictures. It’s not a full-blown temple, but nor is it as simple as Stonehenge. It’s a beautiful outdoor location with some amazing architecture. You can see all of my photos here.

A few phone calls, a few assurances that we won’t break anything, and a handshake later we were in business. Our production will be there right before Memorial Day, and Garin will have his chance to save it from the ghast hordes.

It’s both incredibly exciting, and overwhelmingly scary to be so close to production time where it will come to life. This movie is the most ambitious production I’ve done, but amazingly, I find myself equal to the challenge so far.

If you’ve been reading this blog, or are involved in the production, you probably know that I’ve had the story in mind for about 15 years, and I’ve actively been developing it for the last few years. It’s a tale with a lot of heart to it; it’s about coming back to life and finding faith in yourself and others in difficult times. I only hope the final product does justice to the moral it offers.

Here are some factoids about the project:

- The script has been developed and tweaked for about two years. There have been approximately 9 major revisions to it, with easily well over a hundred iterations between myself and Brad, the co-writer.

- 150+ actors applied for the various roles. We have cast everyone except for 2 roles, both of which we have a couple of leads for.

- Recently, a whole new world of locations and and resources has become open to us. Although not all of the locations are set in stone yet, we’ll be setting up cameras in some pretty cool places both around Sacramento, and the Bay Area.

- We now have a professional make-up artist on board, a professional costume designer, at least one, possibly two sword-fighting choreographers, half a dozen professional actors, several well-respected cinematographers, and a mini-army of PA’s. And none of that is counting the normal list of experienced crew that you find on all of our movies!

- Our list of props is pretty intense: costumes, armor, swords, jewelry, fancy dresses, and more. Amazingly, most of it is on loan, or comes to us at low cost. It never ceases to amaze me at the generosity people are capable of. Which brings me to…

The reason this movie is actually going to get off the ground is because I’ve had A LOT of help so far! From Chris, Brad, and Vicky (my production “leads”) who have put in a lot of hours already, to rising stars on crew like Jennifer, Kristi, Andi, Jen, Jason, and Neil. Thank you for your on-going support!

There is, however, a lot more work to be done. Our shoot days are from May 16 – 25th. We’ll be shooting all day in mostly outdoor locations, and at least one green-screen studio. (Which could either be a “real” studio, or somebody’s garage depending on how the cards fall!) There’s still a need for more help. If you have any interest in helping out in any way, just let me know! Even if you don’t have “movie skills”, you probably have a talent that would be useful to the project: sewing (for adjusting costumes on set), photography or videography (behind-the-scenes stuff), cooking, note-taking, management skills, skill with a laptop, etc. You don’t have to commit to the entire production, of course; we’ll humbly accept whatever time you can give.

After the movie is shot, the long process of doing post production will begin. Editing, visual effects, music, sound design, etc. I intend to take my time and do it right. There’s no deadline that we need to hit, so my goal is to focus on quality rather than speed. (Besides, Jennifer and I are expecting our new baby in in July, so it’s probably a good thing that we’re filming before (s)he comes!)

The Spectre storm is now rising and I’m loving the ride.