Star Wars Revelations

Bravo, Shane.
I thought I'd chime and let you know that all the people I showed your film to were totally impressed by it. The chase through the shipyard was a particular crowdpleaser. ( I gotta start doing CG shots. All my friends looked at my roto work and said "Is that all you did?")

The only small negative I got was from my dad who (without seeing the credits) asked "Was this written by a chick?".

Great job all aound. I look forward to whatever you guys have in store next.

Rock on.

 

I have to agree with Shane in everything he said in his two previous posts.

But especially this, (since he's so much more eloquent than I am)

This is basically he same thing I say to anyone who asks me why I did this film. Why I did it when there was no money in it. Why I spent so much time and money and energy driving to Virginia, working my butt off the entire weekend, just to have to return to my "Real Job" on Monday. The above quote is why. Shane's ambition, drive,and advice (Along with my husbands encouragement and patience) has been the driving force in allowing me to "Dare to dream" and try to pursue an acting career. 4 years ago, it was just that, a dream. And if I never do another thing, I did this! And no one can ever take that away.

Thanks, Shane, Dawn, Sarah, Brian, Jack, and Karen (Just to name a few) We love you guys!!

And thank all of you out there for your great posts!

 

Glad you did. May I inject some comments to your comments:

I think every one is aware of this

This is so wierd, and I'll never get this. Karen is the "Queen Bitch of the Universe" for me. I dunno why people don't like it.

Admittedly, some of her delivery is different in the ADR'ed version (what you guys hear) vs. what was picked up on location (what I have also heared) and in some cases I preffered the hissier "spit-the-words-out" of the original takes.

No, no you didn't.

At least in the shots I did, I tried to make sure to never have the CG sharper than the camera footage. Often meant a 1.5 pixel blur on everything, minimum.

We know; the discussion was long and hard what to go for.

Incidentally, it was shot in 60i (interlaced). 24P is great coz it saves render times, and saves time rotoscoping BUT the 24p you get from downconverting 60i is VERY BAD FOR KEYING (due to the frame-blended images you tend to get). Since so much was greenscreen, it was decided to go for a 30P look.

For better or worse, after tests, this was the decision.

There was even talk of converting the 30P master to a 24P master for a "film look" which I vehemently DISAGREED to and we did NOT do, because this would drop frames, and when everything CG was already rendered in 30P you would get ugly timeskips in perhaps really important near-single-frame events like saber clashes and explosions.

Also, there are those among us getting deadly tired of the kinda crapy over-juddery "24P" holy grail look.

Bad results for keying and very difficult to track. If you want 24p, SHOOT it in 24p.

If your camera can't, stay at 30P. Or your keying and motion tracking just won't work.

Nope.

Actually, and I'm gonna be blatantly honest, I don't like the sound mix at all. It's way too ben-burrty, with the beautifully professionally mixed and exquisitly orchestrated music (YOU try to do classical arrangement on synthesizers and see if you come even in the ballpark, until you tried that - I have - you have no clue how difficult this is) tuned way too low ... and rather annoying, grating (mixed with way too much upper midrange and way too much sub) stock sound effects pasted on top.

But the worst sound offender is that the whole thing wasn't ADR'ed, and that "dialogue above all" golden rule in movie sound mixing wasn't upheld.

In my opinion, many shots that were ADR'ed didn't need it, and many that needed it BADLY weren't. This was probably a human and time availability issue, and I as well as anyone understand shane's pain in just getting thing to happen... but.... yes. The reality is, the audio is pretty bad. That's just reality.

Honestly, I don't know if it ever is a good idea to let the people that are sound effect designers do final mix on your film.

I have to reiterate this mistaken understanding. Nobody "had" anything. The "budget" is just a tally up of all the total costs the film has painfully cost shane over the years. And trust me, i

 

Got the DVD Edition downloaded soon enough after the release and watched Revelations about two or three times since then. It sure ranks up high on my list of favourite fan films. But I even more like to watch all the BTS stuff that has been stuffed onto the bonus disk. It´s really great to see how all this has been put together and how much time and efforts had been put into this project. You can feel the compassion of the whole cast & crew about this project, you see they had hard times but you also see how glad and proud they are to finally present this movie to the public. And that´s what it´s all about, that´s exactly what Shane was talking about earlier. Even if nothing but comments on forums are gained for this movie and some short-time publicity, it´s still worth the work. They set out to make this thing happen, it was a dream of Shane and he needed to wait to make it come true. Not many people would walk this path, take the risk and gather so many talents around him to make a dream come true. I sure think you can say He´s a real role-model for many people around here. He went that extra-mile to create something special, he took the time he needed, he invested the money which was neccessary and he never gave up until this whole became reality. Truly inspiring if you ask me.

And a few words about all the critizism which is floating around. One thing I have noticed a lot of times. The more advanced and spectacular a movie gets, the more nit-picking and unnecessary crizism is thrown towards the filmmakers. Sure thing nothing ever is perfect, but sometimes the critizism really is too much if you look at how much has been accomplished already, especially if it´s been done on very tight budget like Zap stated above. Hardly anyone would be willing to go through all this pain like Zap for example did to make a shot work even though the initial footage had more than one flaw and the final results are great for sure.

 

As I keep repeating...

"Art is long and critics are but the insects of a day"

 

hey shane, found this....

http://d.discobole.com/servlet/Main/FilmDisplay?film_rn=9100

you might get a laugh out of the episode VII markings... actually suprised revelations hasn't hit ebay yet.

 

Tyrel that's very interesting. Where do they get Episode 7 from.

 

Wow, Tye! That is something!!

And "Revelations" HAS been on Ebay several times . We keep thwarting they're evil plots!!

 

Shane was in Leap of Faith?

 

Hey Tye thanks for the link to whatever that was, it did give me a chuckle. What the hell is that? Looks like art of a bootleg DVD copy of "Revelations" I tell ya some people, I give them the DVD cover and disk art for FREE right there to download and use, yet some people just want to go on and make crap covers (sigh) ah well people are funny.

As for Ebay, oh I have found a few and have shut them down to the gorund as soon as I get a whiff of it. I call Ebay president office direct and they close em' down for me. We are very serious about pirate copies of "Revelations" It's FREE people.. don't buy it!
I almost has a guy arrested at DragonCon for selling copies, but I am not that big of an ass (despite what some people may think of me) I just thought jail was a bit harsh for selling DVDs, I mean come on, but if he wasn't going to cooperate then yes the officials would have stepped in. Safice to say he cooperated just fine.

And yes I was in "Leap of Faith" as well as "Waiting of Guffman", "Heaven Helps Us" an REM music video "Everybody Hurts" and other stuff like "Hallow Man" (so you can do your 7 degrees of Kevin Bacon right from me.. heh) as well as theater, commercials and so forth, but nothing big guys, I was just a working actor, just getting by.
Though I have paid my bills, from doing outdoors theatre to full features. I have seen and done a lot, and yet, I have done nothing to really write home about yet

 

Right, Shane!

Justa "little" film called "Revelations"!!! Sheesh!

 

OK Gina your right. I did jot a quick note to the folks back home about "Revelations"

Dear mom and dad, summer camp is good, the rash I had is going away nicely, and I have made some
great friends. By the way next to the painted rock project I did, I also made this small film with some friends.
Check it out here[/link. Hopefully you will like it. Please send more money ASAP.
Love Shane

The thing is with family that they love everything you do, as they swear up and down you were the best bush in the elementary play, and are so proud of you.

"Revelations" was a good start Gina, but I hope to do better. And yes I am proud of what we did! You were excellent, and Frank, er, he was good too Loves ya guys!

shane

 

Shane, what did you do in Hollow Man!?

So this means I'm only 2 degrees of Kevin Bacon; Amazing!

/Z

 

Hallow Man, ah I was just background. Again just workin getting paid as I could. I did meet and speak briefly with Elisabeth Shue however, which was pretty cool as I had a crush on her when I was a kid

 

Shane,





Meanwhile, I'm sure there are better things to come for you. You're incredibly talented, and I'm sure someone will recognize that soon enough!

Which brings me to a question for everyone out there. Other than the bootleggers (And you know who you are ) Has anyone who worked on "Revelations" gotten any work in the business after the premier? And is there anyone who decided NOT to go into the business afterwards?

As for me, I decided to pursue an acting career after this wonderful experience, but have had minimal success. Alot of people have asked Frank or I work on their projects, (for free, of course) or for a "piece of the action" IF the project sells, and we've found some good projects out there. But so far, no paying gigs. We even have an agent, but she has yet to get us an audition.

Just thought I'd throw that out there, since we had so many VERY talented people involved.

Thanks!

 

"Has anyone who worked on "Revelations" gotten any work in the business after the premier?"

Hey Gina,

I definately came down with the bug after the premiere and managed to get two more projects. A horror movie (mega-low budget). And a comedy called "Ex-Mas Eve" (www.silveredgefilms.com) . Both as script supervisor. And both I found on Craig's list. Which has a strangely large number of projects to work on... especially if you are willing to take your clothes off. The comedy, I think, is going to be really something. There is a bts clip on the site if you are interested. I also got to work on another little project... but I'll let the director mention that himself if he happens to be reading this (BUT IT'S REALLY COOL!!!). All for now.

-joe

 

Hey Gina,

Well, I think part of the reason Shane allowed me to have lines without auditioning is because he knew I was already an actor in SLC. I think it was risky of him to do so anyway... that being said.. since revelations, I've still been taking classes and doing independents. I worked on Tomb of the Jedi another fanfilm being done by the AlpineGarrison member Mike Handy. I know he is swamped and anyone who worked on Revelations that could give him a hand... I'm sure he would appreciate it. I'm also talking to another group that is doing a higher-end fanfilm, though I'll keep the specifics to myself until I go and shoot. One of the latest projects I worked on has a trailer up at www.nbfilms.com Gina and Shane have both seen it but I figured I'd plug it here in case anyone else was interested. I've now moved to LA, booked a small role on my first audition and might have a good hook up on one of the new shows. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Tye

 

Tye, that's awesome!! Good for you!! Please keep us posted!
So, are you auditioning for the new "Bad Boy" on "the OC" or "Desperate Housewives" or something? C'mon, give us the scoop!!

And, Joe. You too. All your new projects sound like fun! I love low budget Horror! They're so fun and cheesy!!!

Congrats, and break-a-leg to you both!

Very neat stuff!

 

Well, I know I am a day late and a buck short on this, but I finally got around to doing the blog thing. That thing would have come in great when I was actually in production, but then again, I doubt if I would have had time during production to blog. Anyway, if anyone is interested you can check out the Director's blog at: http://panicstruck.blogspot.com
Read about my trip to Skywalker Ranch, My phone call to Rick McCallum, and other stuff.

and why is it my avator icony thingy is going from TFN?? what gives here? (sniff)

 

Awesome stuff - thanks for the link!

 

Great stuff Shane. One can see that you had a good time. What's up next for you? Do you have any projects in mind or did you get calls from the industry?

 

Well glad you guys like the blog thing. As for what's going on ..hmm, just working my 9-5, paying bills and that's about it folks. I am not sure what we are going to do next as writing for the next project has really slowed down.
Nothing special or anything going on I am sorry to say, and no offers from the industry or anything like that.
I am just some shmuck who made a fan film is all, now I need to try and press forward to do more.. I do have the itch bad though.

I will have a music video coming out soon that I am working on and I am really pleased how it's turning out. Should be released near end of October mid November. I'll be sure to share it with you guys if you are interested.

as always thanks for the support.

(Now where is my avatar??)

 

Hey, rock on.
I may not have thought the best of the film for it's story and acting, but the what the whole thing represented for independent filmmakers was absolutely great.


Props.
Severe props.

And then there's the ones we all need to go build.
=)

-Vaportrail

 

Thanks Vapor!

Anyway, Does anyone have pictures from the Premier? We Don't have any, and I'm making a scrapbook, and I'd love to have them!

Let me know.