Timeline

Haven't been a lot of newsworthy items on the Sixufus front lately.  Seems post was mostly shut down over Christmas, while Anaik Films is gearing up for other productions - A short, two other feature-lengths. 


Looking back, I see where the script was finished in early September, 2009.  The project started before that, so you could say this film has been a work in progress for one and a half years.  Flies by when you're working on it - Honing it, building it up, scraping away the rough edges.  But it positively crawls by when you're waiting in the wings.


Post production has claimed it's victims, film-wise.  I've already lost one to post.  But the good news is, Sixufus is not one of those -


The latest from Maurice Moore is that the going is slow, but it's steady.  The film is being edited by the brothers Rios in Spain; Maurice is in LA.  There's a time gap (9 hours) that they must cross on a regular basis, with Moe seeing rough cuts of various scenes and the brothers working off his notes.  Meanwhile, everyone has to keep the bills paid via their day jobs.  


At this rate, we expect a rough cut of the entire film at some point in February.  


This doesn't mean it will be done.  No.  This is merely the foundation of post, upon which all of the shining key pieces (such as music and sound) will be built.  But it is a significant milestone on the Sixufus timeline....  

Trailer!

Whilest you and I have been lazing about and snoozing and taking our ease, Maurice Moore's team has been working.

Well, despite our guiltiness of sloth, I do hearby present the first Sixufus trailer known to man:


Sixufus teaser from alex rios on Vimeo.

It's a Wrap!

Got the message last night.  Not by phone, not by telegraph.  Oh no.  This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Era of Facebook, which means I found out via my Facebook news feed:  An update from our director, Maurice Moore:

THAT'S A WRAP!!!!!!!! Wow...we did it. A beautiful feature film in 18 days. I am a blessed man!! To my AWESOME cast and crew- you guys were amazing. U made me look like I knew what I was doing. I'm forever in your debt!! Time to Party. See you tonight at the wrap party. Much Love...ANAIK FILMS 4-EVER!!!!

Along with the news feed, turns out that Laura Perez, our Line Producer, posted some on-set photos.  Which I quickly, but silently, pilfered for your Betterment.  You're welcome.

So's as not to spoil, I'll just present these shots without any details about the scene itself.  

That's Maurice and Nathan in the foreground, Director working with Leading Man: 

That's Maurice on the far left, with the camera pointed at Raney Branch sitting on the right.

Here's a great shot of the locale they're using.  Looks nice in LA, eh??

That's Moe on the left, our sound expert Jordan next to him, and that's Frank and Alex on the right. 

Here's a much better pic of Alex Rios, our producer/camera/post-production force. 

Here's his just-as-talented brother, Frank Rios, our Director of Photography:

Here's a pic of the source of our photos, Line Producer Laura Perez:

Thought I'd close out this post with one of my favorite pics:  One of the props.

Lights, camera...

Got the phone call last night - Principal photography begins on Sixufus today, 5/4/10, at 9 AM Pacific time, in Los Angeles.

OK, so this isn't a big post.  Maybe you feel cheated.  But Hey, this news alone deserves it's own article, dontcha think?

For my sins, how about a new pic?  Here's an action shot of our director, hard at work:

Getting closer....

... to shooting, that is.  The latest word is, the Brothers Rios arrive in LA 4/24/10, do a week of pre-production strategizing, then out come the lights, cameras, and action! for principal photography beginning 5/1/10 (or therebouts).

And in typical indie fashion, Maurice got in touch with the writer (ahem) with a change for one of the key scenes.  Turns out we couldn't get a locale for Mayor Doreen's office, but we COULD get a restaurant locale.  (I would have thought it would be the other way around, but that's showbiz.)  Change in script required.

Fired up the last version of the script (Draft 6, dated 2/25/10), changed the locale in the slugline.  In a fit of inspiration, called Moe and asked if we could add a character.  He said go for it.  Back to work I went, and ended up with a scene that got more done, story-telling-wise, than before.

I love it when a spontaneous plan comes together.

Be back soon with on-set stills.  As they become available, of course.

A new year, another pre-production update

Halloween.  Thanksgiving.  Christmas, New Years Eve.  And Sixufus is still in pre-production.  Like all things announced, it runs the risk of never happening.

Sometimes delays like these are staff-based, as in we can't find the folks to do the work.  But that's not the case this time:  Maurice has identified and recruited all his actors.  And his production and post-production staff, a team that Moe has worked with before, are in place and eager to take on the challenges presented by Sixufus.

The problem in this case is the stereotypical indie problem:  The almighty dollar.  Or lack thereof.

So even though the script was written with a goal of being a zero-budget shoot, money must still be found for various and sundry items.  To wit:

The Shoot
Locations, meals, props, time.  Though Sixufus has a bare minimum of these, they still require an outlay.  Even if someone is willing to turn their apartment over to wacky indie filmmakers for a couple of weeks, the talent and crew still need a burger and the accompanying fries.  Let's say one meal for 8 people for 2 weeks:  At the wildly unrealistic 5 bucks a head, you still need (8 * 14) * $5, or $560.  Too bad that stuff doesn't grow on trees.

The On-screen Talent

The actors in our production are undeniably talented, but also undeniably members of a union.  The Screen Actors Guild, to be precise.  If Maurice wants to work with the actors in his town, he has to pay cold hard cash to the on-screen talent of this production.  That, or be blackballed for life; unable to hire a SAG actor again.  (And just to be clear, most actors are, or are aspiring to be, SAG affiliated.)  This is not an option, but a reality.

The Off-screen Talent

Maurice's team is made up from folks in Austin and Spain.  Austin, as in Texas; and Spain, as in Europe.  Getting to LA, on time and with all their gear in tow, is not going to be cheap.

Realistically?  A 0-budget feature-length film needs some money.  Sure, you hear of guys producing $70 movies, but that number is not an accurate accounting metric of the assets used to produce it.  Cameras, lights, microphones, software, hardware; plus the time and expertise to use them, has a financial value.  As an indie filmmaker, the question is "What can you trade to use them?"  Burger King won't trade fries for video editing favors.  Typically.

So, to tackle this goal, Maurice has generated a budget and is eliciting interest amongst his contacts in LA.  Only a matter of time, really, until someone sees the value of the team and project, and ponies up for a slice of the pie.

Talent Signed: Raney Branch

In any noir film, it's the baser, seedier motivations that drive the morally-ambivalent characters to their self-destructive acts.  And by "base" I mean those lusty, primal drives that we all struggle to keep under some semblance of control. Or not.


Though the primary motivator of all of the characters in Sixufus is greed, we need to see other motivators too, just to flesh out the universe a bit.  And when you think about it, most noir films show sex as one of the paths to destruction (Body Heat, Double Indemnity, etc.).  


This was the original purpose of the Hillary character; a young woman who's amazing physical charm and diabolical scheming fouls things up for Darwin.  


But as the story unfolded, I found she had a much better purpose than mere sex appeal.  And in fact, I ended up picturing her as something less charming.  Less made up, more shrewish and isolated, with her own problems to overcome.  Which is why her name is Hillary; something we hope snags on some previously-existing associations. 


And of course, what happens?  Our director Maurice Moore ends up casting a beautiful young woman with amazing physical charm to play Hillary.  Ah well.  Never hurts. 


The actress of which I speak is Raney Branch; who was one of the leads in Maurice's Lovely project:


A little about Raney:

While studying at Emory University - where she received her BA in Environmental Studies and minored in Arabic - Raney performed in the regional touring company ENACTE Repertory Theatre.  Upon moving to New York to teach science, Raney returned to her musical roots, performing in local blues, hip-hop, and neo-soul bands.  Since returning to her hometown, Raney has performed in several theatre productions including Hair, Anything For You, HUE , and the multimedia production Twenty-1: The Age of Ultimate Change.  In film, Raney starred in the independent feature Family Curse. as well as the shorts Freakin' Funny, the aforementioned Lovely, and LA Sales.  Raney also guest-starred on the House of Payne TV show  ("I Got the Hook Up" episode). 


Having read all that, you should now head over to YouTube to see her demo reel:  Raney's demo reel

Concepts and Storyboards - Intro scene and the "Sixufus Location"

When this project was started, it was me and...

Well.  Me and my mouse.  Computer mouse that is, and I wielded it with abandon; firing up various pieces of software, generating concepts and storyboards and spreadsheets and whatnot.

Now that Maurice Moore and his team are doing the hard production work, thought I might share these concepts with the interested world, lest they fall into digital oblivion.  That, and I thought they're kinda cool, in a geeky sort of way.

Before presenting the media, however, a few explanations are in order.

Intro Scene
During preproduction, it's the natural order of things that the director bring his/her vision to the story.  Translated, that means re-writes to the script.  Typically, this is a good thing for the project, for a myriad of reasons.

For Sixufus, Maurice thought we needed an additional scene at the start.  An introductory scene.  It adds interest and backstory, perhaps enough to even give our main character a little much-needed sympathy.  Because this was fresh on my mind, I generated a few images that I thought were appropro.

Sixufus Location 
In our story, the main character, Darwin, has multiple personalities.  All of Darwin's personalities know that the others exist, and there's a fair amount of argument, banter, and unpleasantness that goes on between them.

These interchanges, though interesting, would lose some (if not most) of their impact if we just used voice-over.  We need to see them; their expressions and their gestures (or lack thereof), in order to understand Darwin, to see what it would be like to have a group of people living inside of you, and them rarely agreeing on anything.

Thus was born the "Sixufus Location".  It's not a physical place (though it resembles one), but a meta-setting.  A place where there are just the six characters, around a table, and nothing else.

Technical Details

I'm the world's worst hand-draw artist.  However, I do know how to run software, generally speaking, and that's what I used to generate these images.

The intro scene stuff was generated in Poser 7, using the toon renderer.  Has a nice hand-drawn look.

The "Sixufus Location" concepts started life as Poser 7 scenes, which were then imported into Vue 7.  Added  a stock table, some chairs, and a pistol, then rendered 5-second animations, using radiosity.  I then brought those clips into Adobe's After Effects CS4 and applied the Toon Effect for the final hand-drawn look.  Heh, not perfect, but as Maurice says, it is what it is.

Finally  
These are concepts generated by me, the writer.  These are NOT concepts generated by Maurice Moore or his team, and the final film will look much different.  That said, I'll then add that this will give you an idea of what my mind's eye saw as I wrote the script.

Talent Signed: Nathan Huntley

For the lead actor, Sixufus will either be a real show-piece or a masochistic acting exercise:  He must convincingly play 6 different characters.  At some points, he will have to morph between characters, insinuating this shift to the audience without the benefit of dialog, much less voice over.

Guy's gotta have chops.

Lucky for us, Maurice Moore, the director who has optioned the Sixufus script, has already identified the leading man and got him committed (so to speak):  Nathan Huntley.

Maurice had the privilege of directing Nathan in "Inseparable Hearts", a short romantic comedy that's now making the film festival circuit.  That piece has Nathan playing an actor, roaming through various roles with the ease of a shark in bloody water.

With Maurice's permission, we've managed to create a small clip from his performance in "Inseparable Hearts":

Here's a bit more about Mr. Huntley:

Nathan holds a B.A. in theater with an emphasis on performance and a minor in playwrighting from the University of Tulsa. While attending the University of Tulsa, Nathan received the American College Theatre Festival’s commendation for excellence in the arts.  Not just once, but twice:  Once for his performance as Billy in the 1996 production of "The Game Room” (a role he originated), and again in 1998 for "Mr. Lucky’s Pub and Grill" (his original work). While in Tulsa, Nathan also co-founded and served as a co-artistic Director for OK REP! (the only theatre company in Oklahoma that consistently produces a full season of equity plays).

Nathan’s most rewarding work is as an actor.  In the summer of 1997, Nathan had the opportunity to premiere "Nation", a play by Tony Award nominee Joe Sears, in the principal role of “Tassel”.  This honor comes second only to being asked by Yvegeny Yvevdeschenko (Russian Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize Winner) to create and perform in opening piece for Yvevdeschenko’s poetry performance  in 1999.

Since moving to Los Angeles, Nathan has performed with THE PROP-TARTS comedy team. He also served as an actor throughout the process of developing a new play called A Place at Forrest Lawn (written by Jim Bontempo and Luke Yankee). This piece was honored with third place at the Palm Springs International Playwriting Festival, where Nathan read the play alongside Pat Carroll, Barbara Rush, and Ian Abercrombie.

Talent - Director/Producer Maurice Moore

In earlier posts, I blithely mentioned Maurice Moore as "the director", without so much as the briefest explanation, as though you and he needed no introduction, but were already good friends from waaaay back.

Let's fix that.

I met Moe... I dunno, 4-5 years ago.  We've worked on different projects together, in a variety of capacities: I directed him in Mind Reader 8 (which he also acted as producer on), I edited his short film "In One Lifetime", he directed (the short version of) a script I wrote, "The Maid".

And those are just the projects I've worked with him on.  The man's got a ton of other credits to his name, in a bunch of other capacities.  He's been busy acting, writing, producing, and directing.  And not just movies, but plays, classes.  Etc.

As an actor, he started early:  When he was a kid, he had a speaking role in Spielberg's classic "The Color Purple".  He's since gone on to work for other high-profile directors:  Alan Parker ("The Life of David Gale" with Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet), Marcus Nispel ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre" with Jessica Biel, produced by Michael Bay), and Steve Mims ("One Eye Peeled", where Moe played five different characters).

As a producer, he founded ReelEyes Productions in Austin, then F.L.O.a.T Films in Los Angeles.  He's produced a number of short films (including the aforementioned Mind Reader 8) as well as a feature film (Alan Ray's Deadland Dreaming).

As a director, he's done plays (Athol Fugard’s "Master Harold and the Boys", Bruce Bonafede’s "Advice to the Players", and August Wilson's "King Headley II") and a run of music videos and short films for his F.L.O.a.T Films entity.

And I haven't even mentioned his writing.

Let's just say that, for every project I've seen him work on (both mine and other's), he was The go-to-guy.  The man gets it done.

So when Moe told me he wanted to option Sixufus?  I knew that it would get done, and by a man who would do it with excellence and professionalism.

And to close, it turns out that Maurice's (director's) demo reel is on the web.  Check it:

I quit. But then -

We've made a few short movies here and there, and... it's a lot of work.  Though we shot "I Am Jesus" in 3-4 hours, it took weeks to align everybody with our location and our time frame.  And let's not forget the writing, preproduction, post production, the marketing, blah blah blah blah blah.

Extrapolate that out, 11 pages to 90 pages, and you're looking at a significant chunk of time.  So faced with that, with Christmas coming up and other expenses on the horizon...

I quit.

Call me a coward.  I just don't think making it half way to being done is the same as Success.  So instead of pushing forward, with a very real possibility of not making it, I postponed shooting my zero-budget feature.  It's not good form to get people involved, then pull the plug because of time or money or whatever.

So yeah, big quitter.  That's me.  But then?

Talked to Maurice Moore, a director/producer friend of mine in Los Angeles.  Said "Hey, you know anyone that would be interested in shooting a zero-budget film?"

He said "Yeah.  I would."

In the interest of making a long story short, I won't mentioned that he liked the script, that his people liked the script, etc.  We'll just report that Maurice is now gathering a team of LA-based talent to shoot Sixufus.

And ya know?  This may be a better ending than the one I had envisioned.

As we work through pre and post production, we'll be posting reports and film clips and whatnot here, so....