SHOOT!!!

Script, Schedules, Budgets, Financing Plans, Marketing Plans, Cash Flows, Creative Packages, Synopsis, Sell Sheets, Script Rewrites, Location Scouting, Casting, Crewing, Contracting, Distribution Numbers, Phone Calls, Meetings, Networking, Brainstorming, Sell, Sell, SELL!! 

Eventually... one must shout the most daunting of words…SHOOT!!!!

For me, it’s music to my ears…The song goes like this… “Stand by…Quiet Please, Roll Sound!” … “Speed”.  “Roll Camera”… “Frame”. …. “Aaand… ACTION”!

FINALLY I will be back in my world. The set is where I’ve grown up and where I’m most comfortable. I belong in the world of lights and grip-stands, actors and lenses. I love the long hours and extreme tension, the drama, the dance of equipment and creative personalities.  It’s where we all work to create something fantastic. A film.

We are pleased to announce that ROCK BOTTOM will SHOOT in February!  

THE RAVEN AND THE EAGLE

I’ve just returned from shooting in the Haida Gwaii (Canada’s stunning Queen Charlotte Islands). This is the wild country where ravens and eagles, whales and sea lions compete for our attentions and food. A dreamy, wind torn part of the country where an isolated society, not unlike the futuristic world of Rock Bottom exists. Go backwards to find the future.  The raven and eagle clans of the Haida aboriginal people impart age old wisdoms to us as we film a documentary and I understand that my sojourn away from Rock Bottom is a gift.

 

The desolation of the Haida Gwaii islands makes for a creative and one might say “wiley” people.  They save everything. Recycle, reuse. Invent. It’s difficult to get supplies on or off the islands and I think about Rock Bottom’s cut off society. How the design of the picture will incorporate reused & recycled materials, no plastic (my own injection) so bits of glass or metal become buttons, jewelry or weapons.  How our characters have squirreled away anything that might be useful or at least tradable. Money holds no importance (again) – like the old days it’s “things” that denote power. And so Blake’s black market business thrives and creates the raven and the eagle mentality fighting for food, power and our attentions. 

THE SOUND OF MUSIC - ROCK BOTTOM

The dawn to dusk sound of the helicopters never let us forget the fire drama outside. Reminds me of the great Robert Altman movie “Shorts”, (one of my all time favs).  In that movie, like my life these days, the helicopters hold the intertwining stories together. A must see!  

I’m working on the storyboards for the film and those choppers are my sound track.  Our latest coup for Rock Bottom came yesterday when the GREAT Ennio Morricone gave us a vote of confidence. He’s composed music for over 500 films from the iconic The Good Bad and the Ugly to Cinema Paradiso , (one of the best movies of all time) to the upcoming Brian DePalma film, Capone Rising. Mr. Morricone is a huge proponent of Indi-film (yeah A HERO!) He loves our script and will discuss composing our theme when our fine cut is complete. Rock ON Rock Bottom!!! 

A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words

In the movie business there's a rule that you NEVER show AND tell, it's show OR tell! So...there you have it. 

Glen and I, like Jake and Alex in Rock Bottom will never forget the night our world burned. The Bright Light, Rock Bottom's apocalypse, should be embedded in the souls of our characters. We filmed and photographed the fires across the lake for reference material for our actors and for the PREQUEL which we have planned (after a few Sequel's of course). Rock Bottom's post apocalyptic world SURELY will entice viewers to wanting more!!!

THE DRAMA CONTINUES Rock Bottom

Don’t give it all away; spin the story out slowly…give tidbits for people to chew on before you give them the whole meal. Keep the mystery. Let the audience wonder “what the hell’s going on”. Keep them guessing, then surprise them or reward them with an “ahah!” moment. Intrigue makes for good drama.

We’re experiencing this first hand as the “authorities” tout that our fire is 90% contained. It ‘s been downgraded to a “ground fire”. “All is good”…Then why the HELL did the glow across the lake turn into fireballs in the wee hours of this morning? We watched as hundreds of trees “candled” (the comfortable, spin-doctored word for “exploding into flame”). Candling is the most dangerous and out of control type of forest fire there is. We watched until 3:00AM as towering plumes of fire ate their way down the hill. Our view will never be the same.

Today, not a word from the media about what has changed, or what is coming…Usually the pressed shirts are pretty good at fear mongering. But so far today …silence…Except mind you, the CONSTANT growl of water-bombers and the movie-familiar chop-chop of helicopters that exude a sense of panic in the smoky afternoon.

With all the mystery, I’ve got to tell you we’ve been glued to the binoculars and the internet forum where people like us are twittering and conjecturing about what they’ve witnessed. The drama is unfolding and we wonder why no one is telling us “what the hell is going on”. We are rapt…tense. So taking a lesson from the information police we put on our writer’s caps and do another tweak of the Rock Bottom script. Play with the tension, draw out the intrigue. Make it ebb and flow like the flames and smoke dancing above us.

Post Apocalyptic ROCK BOTTOM

GENRE: Post Apocalyptic Industrial Noir (P.A.I.N.) ...and a PAIN it is to get movies made these days! A producer friend of mine likens film making with learning how to strum her new guitar, "down, down, up, down"... indeed.

Ups and downs, fact and fiction, heroes and villains all bubble together to wind out a helluva story.

On the fact front... our fires are being contained. Calm is restored. 4500 hectares still smolder in the blistering sun. 200 heroes are still working, digging, dumping, flying. We are safe...for now.

Jake and Alex's post apocalyptic world may never be safe. "Power loathes a vacuum" and villains and scoundrels rise up after the "Bright Light" to fill the void.

ROCK BOTTOM takes place in 2040 after the Bright Light. Glen and I have imagined what this would be...NOTE: when you're writing, as in real life, all the characters have complex back-stories which we invent; so we know who they are, where they came from, what shaped them...This helps in the writing/directing process to know how that person will react in a situation and why...Because our story takes place in a future world we began with the back story of the times...

BACK STORY: 2010 – 2035. The world was being ruled by super-powers. Those who controlled oil ran the world. Later, it was wars waged for water. Humanity was buckling under over population and need versus supply. Prices for necessities sky rocketed, wages lowered due to competition for jobs. People worked 24/7 just trying to provide for their families. Crime was rampant; the poor trying to survive, the wealthy trying to stay on top...They didn’t have time to fight the world’s injustices being dealt out by the few. As Jake says, "you can't have one self righteous body telling the world what to do without some sort of cataclysmic retaliation".

THE BRIGHT LIGHT 2035 -was an explosion of unimaginable proportions. Wars for water around the globe ended in a new, bigger than nuclear weapon being used and the chain reaction it caused was catastrophic. Whole cities and countries were knocked out. Satellites were downed. Centers where governments ruled from were flattened. Those who survived were not in big cities and had no communication, no transportation. Connecting roads were destroyed. No airplanes or trains. TV, radio and the internet are things of the past. The little surviving cosmos all over the planet were cut off from the rest of the world. The sick, the very young and the elderly in these towns died quickly. Being cut off meant no medical supplies get in or out. Everyone lost someone. This left a society made up of strong bodied but desperate and lonely people. And these are our characters. Welcome to Rock Bottom's world of P.A.I.N.

ROCK BOTTOM LIFE IMITATES ART

Photo by Mike Prokopetz

Surreal is an understatement. After a quiet day, Glen (co-writer of Rock Bottom) and I are again besieged. Like Jake and Alex in the movie, the shoot out begins again. We are armed with stills, video cameras and binoculars. The weather and the story’s again taken a turn for the worst.

Lightning flashes, winds pick up, waves crash, helicopters drone. Three choppers with buckets rush across the lake to put out a new fire. Two behind us hover over cherry orchards drying the cherries after a wicked storm. Both, in this area of fruit and fire, are equally important.

CTV has set up camp in our driveway, directly over our house. They have realized what we have known all along... that we have the BEST view on the action.

A water-bomber crashed into the lake in front of our beach-house today…the pilot made it out with cuts and bruises…the plane did not.  One of our heroes is downed. What will happen next? Stay tuned as Rock Bottom rockets towards pre-production!