Ways to Make Money.

We create our movie in two formats. At first it will be divided into 50 episodes by 1.5-3 minutes and will appear on the YouTube channel. Another format is a full-length feature film.

The first option is needed in order to earn at least some money. Everyone who works with us have to get the reward. And the ability to monetize the views using Google AdSense is a great chance to make it. We will need to have hundreds of thousands of views with each episode, and we're working hard that the film even worthy of the big screen. We have the money to finish the production. But for traditional marketing with festivals and world film market we will have to earn it. Unfortunately the Russian film market acts against the independence, as well as state power. Majority of filmmakers want money for their films from the state, the state pays only for the promotion of violence and submission. Shooting bad movies, and nobody cares about that film distribution is favorable only to distributors, not creators.

Such conditions. If the creator wants to assess his work from the audience without thieving intermediaries and prohibiting censors, then he needs to stop thinking about money and start thinking about the audience. Internet provides an opportunity to reach a huge audience. And the more people interested, the higher the actual assessment of our work. Compete with cinemas is impossible. We will not become rich. We'll give the film to nothing. But we can find our audience for free.

Have a full-length version is also needed. In case of success. Now, even the smallest popularity of independent film has become the ability to CONTINUE TO MAKE MOVIES. Vimeo On Demand is a way to pay the creators of the 90 percent paid for each viewing of their film. Audience will be able to pay directly to the creator for his work the price that he will appoint himself. I think for us it's great! I always love to watch movies at the cinema, but today to show the film in theaters is a special profession. I study it, but not to stop learning to make movies, which is more important to me. 

Equator

Here is the equator on timeline. With advanced audio, visual effects and color correction a movie is editing to the middle. As expected, it takes an hour with a quarter. Looks like I will finish the first cut just in time for the last day of shooting on location, delayed until late April - early May. Still need to arrange the sound tracks without this chaos.

So far reshooting is needing only for one shot. Extreme close up - falls asleep eye of a character at the extinguished light, which reflects the Earth. The cockpit will not need for this. I think to put the camera under the monitor and display the Earth. Set the required shutter to avoid flicker. Then the reflection will be authentic overlap lashes than simulated on the footage. The eye is a complex object not a mirror or prism.

…Now the problem is primarily with the fact that the person got the shadow of the camera.

And still need to shoot an hdri in the cockpit before it will have removed finally. I have to shoot the cockpit reflection in the mirror ball from different angles. 

But first it is necessary to get such a ball in the Russian market, which does not offer anything nonstandard without fear of punishment. I remember how it was with rotating rail for the cockpit. "Who are you? From what organization? We do not have an appropriate tool now. Call later."

Draft edit.

More than a month I am editing our "Chronicles." Now gathered quite dense 48 minutes of the 17 episodes. A total of 51 episodes. So still a lot of work to be done. At this stage, decided not to bother with the compositing and graphics - accurately and coherently assemble the story is the most important thing. Where will need 3D inserts sometimes put patches of similar shots of other films, more often very rough previs CG using Blender. I take music from youtube. It must be done from scratch after too. By analogy with the one selected. No sounds and images on the screens in the cockpit. Some shots contain non erased wires, in some actor holds a subject that has not yet rendered. Some shots will have to fix-balanced, because our crane and light tripod head, which we used in the beginning, shook the camera more than necessary.

All together it looks like one of the films that I shot in 14 years on 8mm film. And to be honest gives me the same excitement as it was then. Separate details - all these transitions, movements, framing acquire the meaning which they had been included in the storyboard. Like letters in a sentence. I do not line up the material from the script to a movie for a long time ... Since the university. Rather try to put all the pieces into a whole story and start cleaning image.

In the meantime, here's the sun made ​​for a single finish plan, just to have fun. (Most likely going redo later anyway.)

Building the set.

Renting of stage for 6 months is expensive. First we have to building the set about 45 days, then shooting for 4-5 months. And take breaks every week for 3 days minimum for regular life.

At the same time we have to eat, dress, wash, surf the Internet. To sit or even lie down, waiting for the next scene. Feel comfortable for the painstaking creative work. This had to be remembered at the stage of development of the script.

What we had no doubt for free in half of the year? Only our small room 4x4 meters, kitchen, bathroom, restroom.

It was a crazy idea, if we started to consult and doubt. But we just shove the space between the Earth and the Moon in a typical Russian apartment on the 16th floor.

The problem was solved by the principle of modularity of the working area and scenery. Spreading the sofa into a bed for the night and the cockpit as takes only half of the room.

For an overview of the cockpit from every possible angle, I set it on a specially welded ring rails and square dolly for a spin.

Month I marked, cut and join a foundation of the structure of girder and plywood. Every day, half of one of the modules. It was not difficult, if you work with blueprint and not try to do everything at once.

By early summer, the wooden box was ready and the first time we invited our DP Andrew to decide how to place the light inside the cockpit. We recently completed three documentaries together. He's got a good lens, I got a camera and storage - a crazy idea turned into an interesting experiment.

Valuation.

The first question that need to decide how to shoot everything and fit to the original amount. We have two actors, DP and sound designer. The minimum group. Each of them has become a partner in the investment of the project and will receive 10% of our total revenue. We decided not to rent, but to buy equipment. So the shooting schedule could remain tight, but flexible. People should continue to make money their way, because our work is only contribution so far.

Camera. We did not shoot on DSLR, because of moire, aliasing and 8 bit 4:2:0 output. Story of a space adventure is doomed without good dinamic range and clean green screen footage. We need images worthy inspired of classic movies: "Space Odyssey", "Star Wars" and "Alien". At the beginning of 2012 the most affordable and cinematic image had only Sony PMW-F3 with S-LOG. Alexa was to expensive, RED Scarlet delayed and delayed, Canon was silent (even today outputs of C300 worse anyway).

So we bought F3 with S-Log option, and it was the biggest waste. But the camera does not record its best 10bit 4:4:4. Needs to be used with an external box. Much of the movie is to be shot in indoors and we just put in a MacPro 1.1 BM DeckLink HD Extreme 3D card and 260GB SSD. Every 15 minutes, the material had to be transferred to a WD MyBook Studio raid1. It was like a reloading of film cassettes.

Andrew Krokhalev DP has provided its own set of Zeiss ZE (21,28,35,50,80) and Canon zoom F2.8 70-200. Iris we exposed through the body of 5D McII, we did not use it beyond that. He also brought Sachtler and Vinten two tripods and two Dedolight DLH4 Tungsten Light Heads. Later I has made the two soft boxes for green screen and bought one halogen floodlight for additional fill light.

Next week I'll write about the cockpit and set. Set without Set.

Nearly a year ago.

On the eve of the new year, I decided it was time to leave the search for interesting projects in the Russian TV and film industry and come up with something of my own. Because in the last 12 (actually 95) years, our national culture is so badly degraded that almost all what producers offer to filmmakers and writers that is "banditry as a worldview." When it becomes a national idea, not only culture, but also the very existence of people run into degeneracy.

This is about what my wife and I decided to make a movie. But make it entertaining, fun and, most importantly, easy understandable for the world. Only if our film will see and love throughout the world, we have a chance to be heard in the Homeland. Because the main lies of our authorities for many centuries, is that the rest of the world is hostile to Russian.

We do not know much English, as our main character. And the story will develop more through action, not talk. We have limited financial resources so we have to make money by our unfinished work to complete it. 

However I have accumulated enough to finish the script, build a compact dark cockpit of space shuttle interior, prepare costumes, lights ... And refuse to employers because of my personal business. 

Now, as I write this, we have already finished shooting and spent about $ 25,000. I have no savings now and we edit movie combined with any income. Money still will need for dubbing and the shooting day on location in the spring.

But the film can be viewed for free. As we decided from the beginning. We hope that the audience will donate us as gratitude for how much quality work we do with so small team. 

We will share a new episode every week for a year after complete post-production.

But so far no one has seen the movie, I will post a description of what we have already done. For a possible future.