Forever’s End – Official Trailer…
The first official trailer for FOREVER’S END has been released! Check it out below…
Entries Tagged as 'Forever’s End'
“Forever’s End” – Production Design…
Our goal in designing the look for “Forever’s End” (FE) revolves primarily around creating a realistic and convincing “world” that the characters inhabit. FE takes place roughly six years after an unexplained post-apocalyptic event has devastated the world.
That said, my vision for FE is that I didn’t want a “traditional” feel that most of us attribute to apocalyptic movies, where everything is depressingly de-saturated, dark-greys, and dead. Instead what I was going for was a much more simplistic, but beautiful emptiness. My goal with the film was to keep it realistic, the world has ended, the people are all dead and gone, but the world itself is not. Buildings are now all old and run-down, but nature is blooming, the grass is green and overgrown, there’s a very lush feel to the movie which is in stark contrast to our main character’s years of solitude. I wanted the “emptiness” feeling instead to come from the idea of a single girl alone in a big empty house, which is itself lost in a sea of overgrowth… with nothing but overgrown fields and forest for miles in every direction.
The film takes place, in large part, in and around a remote farm and farmhouse where the lead character, Sarah, has been held up, alone for as long as she can remember. We looked long and hard to find a house location that fit the bill, an old, empty hulk, surrounded by overgrown grass and weeds. What we found was just that, built in the early 1800’s with very little work done to it, original wood siding, metal roof, wood floors in every room, it was a fantastic find… what’s more, it was completely stark empty… which means we brought in every single item of furniture, every picture frame, every fork and yes, even every curtain into the place… specifically designed for the film.
The first thing to remember is that this is Sarah’s old family home, so it has to look as if it’s been there long before the world ended and has only in recent years become run-down (primarily on the outside, Sarah is somewhat of a neat-freak and taken good care of the interior… after all, what else does she have to do with her time?). That said, the concept was that the house would likely have been decorated by her mother and father decades prior and apart from a few updates, everything has since been frozen in time.
We went out and purchased, rented, or borrowed literally truck loads of old furniture, trinkets, curtains, bed sheets, dishes, lamps and even a piano… a whole house-full of stuff. Because we didn’t want anything to be “new” or look too nice, at one point we had about a half dozen people going out to garage-sales, thrift stores, estate sales and antique shops in 6 neighboring cities in 3 states, anywhere that we could find items of the correct look, feel, and age to fit the bill. Funny thing is, you don’t realize how much stuff you really need to fill an entire house until you start to unpack it all in the space. We brought in the first truckload of stuff the week before principle photography, then realized we had dramatically underestimated how much we would need to fully fill the place… we were still bringing in and adding new items throughout production as we began shooting more and more of the house. By the end of the shoot we accumulated so much art department stuff that we filled a 26-foot truck, several vans, and a pickup.
I’ve added a few photos to this post which give you the general idea of the “before and after” look of a couple of the rooms. The change is honestly quite remarkable, there’s just so much detail there most people will never even see on film (or in these pictures). I’m very proud of the results and while these pictures really don’t do it justice, once you see it in the film, if we did our job right, you won’t even be paying attention to the details, the little notes posted on Sarah’s corkboard, or the 50+ photographs in a montage on the wall in the corner of her room (which, by the way, are actually real pictures of Charity –the actress who play’s Sarah- growing up with her friends).
(All photos courtesy of the FE cast and crew)
“Forever’s End” – Locations & Scouting…
(above) – location scouting image from Forever’s End
One of the hardest parts about shooting a film that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world is the issue of finding locations that have the right look and feel and are also convincing in order to immerse the audience in not only the story, but the world we’re creating for “Forever’s End” (FE). Also, since we’re shooting the film entirely on location, the locations become a character in the film, so for us, there’s no room for error, the locations have to be perfect.
While there are city elements to the film, FE, in large part, takes place in and around a remote, long forgotten farm. Due to a somewhat rigorous shooting schedule, we needed to have this location available to us 24/7 for a full month. Not only that, we couldn’t just use any old farmhouse. It needed to be a specific age and feel, it had to be an 1800’s built house, un-updated and in poor condition, but not so bad that is was not habitable. The key here is that someone still lives there, but the house itself and especially the outlying area, barns, surrounding fields and grass need to look as if they had been untouched in years, no cut grass, new siding, or growing crops. This was also one of the hardest locations to find. In the week or leading up to me flying out to Ohio to start on-location pre-pro, our Line Producer, Lindsay (working with several local location managers/scouts) put out word to find some potential sites. By the time I flew in, she had me booked to see a half-dozen potential farms/houses for the first two days I came into town. Since the rest of the schedule and logistics revolved primarily around me selecting our main location, this had to be done immediately.
Keep in mind that given our time-table going into production on this film (which was based mainly on the availability of cast and crew as well as budget constraints) we only had about 3 and half weeks of actual full-on pre-production for the whole film. That includes location-scouting, permits, crew hiring, production design, costuming, rehearsals… everything from finalizing production insurance to booking hotels and flights on top of all the creative elements. From the time the film was financed to the first day of filming was less than six weeks… keep in mind that I also wrote the entire script in that first week, cover to cover. While that doesn’t’ seem like much time, we have an incredible team on board that pulled it off right on schedule without a hitch… it’s always wonderful working with experienced professionals that are efficient and effective, putting out amazing work on a deadline.
That being said, after looking at a number of potential farms, and a lot of deliberation, I finally picked a farm located just outside of the small farming town of Eaton, Ohio, which is located southwest of Dayton, Ohio, near the Indiana state line. I picked this specific house for a couple main reasons… first and foremost: the look and feel of the house. It felt old and somewhat run-down, but lived in.
Secondly, the house wasn’t huge, but featured large rooms with lots of floor space, making it easy to move around with a film crew and camera in the space, and lots of windows (there were at least two large windows on different sides of each room) which helped incredibly in making the lighting of many scenes that much simpler (see my blog post on shooting with “Natural Light” HERE.) Another reason is that the house was completely empty, which meant that we could do whatever we wanted Production Design wise with the interior of the place (more on the Production Design for FE in my next post). Lastly, of the several farms/houses we considered, this one was the most logistically sound location. It was within just a few minutes of major stores, restaurants, and only 15 minutes from Richmond, IN, where our hotels were located. Now, it’s also important to note that because of its location we were not able to shoot any exterior wide-shots at the house itself, instead, we found a similar house (that the interior was not ideal for) located near the tiny town of Corinth, KY –literally the middle of nowhere- which we used for most of the exterior wide shots/scenes, just shooting a few days there instead of a month or more.
(above) – Eaton, Oh farm used in FE
Using completely different interiors and exteriors as the same location is commonplace in film, when cut (edited) together correctly, the audience would never guess that it’s not the same place (or in our case, a location more than 100-miles away). Funny thing is, just as I’m writing this, Joss Whedon’s “Avengers” is shooting in three different cities, including Cleveland, playing it off as New York city (none of the cities they’re shooting in are actually New York), they will cut in wide-shots and you’ll never know the difference once it makes it to the big-screen. Just like most TV shows and movies will film inside (on a sound stage/set in a studio) one minute, then walk through a door and magically cut to a city street or rural neighborhood. We’re using the same principle on “Forever’s End”. If we do our job right, you won’t even think about it (unless, of course, you just read this blog) .
Now that we choose that primary location (we’ll, two locations as it may be) we moved on to finalize our fantastic city locations. The city in the film itself is never really defined as one particular city, so we decided to use downtown Cincinnati as the backdrop to those scenes. I can’t say much more about that specifically at this point (I don’t want to give away too much about the story) but let’s just say we get to shut down streets and shoot some fabulous scenes!
Now that we had selected all our locations (in addition to Eaton, Corinth and Cincinnati, we also selected locations in Newport, KY and West Chester, OH) we finalized permits and worked through the hell that is the logistics needed to bring a film crew to town. A huge thanks to our Line Producer, Lindsay Rice, for being a godsend and managing most of these details so that I could move on to the fun stuff… Production Design, Camera Tests, Costumes/Makeup Tests, Rehearsals, and all the great creative goodness that is Pre-Production… more on all that in my next posts.
“Forever’s End” – New Production Updates…
Hey all! Just wanted to drop a quick note here and let you all know that I’ll be starting to add a plethora of blog updates that I’ve been accumulating over the course of production for “Forever’s End”. Given that I was on location in Ohio for more than two months for the film (primarily living out of hotels) and working crazy hours on set directing, producing, and shooting the film, I simply didn’t have time to get all these posts written and posted.
That said though, I’ll be adding a large number of these back-logged production posts over the next few weeks… so keep checking back in every few days, I’ll try to post them all in chronological order for more easy readership. I may also drop in a few exclusive production photos and other media, so stay tuned!
-JC
“Forever’s End” Gets the Green Light…
I’m very excited to announce that my indie feature “Forever’s End” officially got the Green Light this week after a private investor stepped forward to fully finance the project! That said, we’ve already begun pre-production prep and will be shooting the film in and around south-western Ohio this July, aiming for a late 2011/early 2012 release.
We’ve got a LOT of work to do between now and July, but my entire production team is already on board and ready to get this party started! Stay tuned to this blog over the next couple months as I’ll continue to post updates about the making of the film as we go through the various stages in the production process. For now, though, If you haven’t yet, you can check out some exclusive artwork and stills at the film’s official website: www.foreversendmovie.com
“Forever’s End” Writing Silence…
As many of you are likely already aware, I’ve been writing a psychological thriller titled “Forever’s End” which we just announced a couple weeks ago, and a few weeks back I found myself wracking my brain to find the right “sound” that matches this particular story. The film (for the most part) takes place in a desolate post-apocalyptic world, following a lead character who’s been on her own for almost a decade. So, how do you write a highly-entertaining, edge-of-your-seat thriller about someone who’s stuck in the middle of nowhere? Then I realized, those are often the most intense, creepiest stories I like best… the trick is building, then keeping the tension high from start to finish. Now, if you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that I always listen to music when I write, it helps me build a mental/emotional soundtrack to each scene, but this time around it’s been rough. Finally, after two weeks of banging my head against the wall, it hit me.
Now, for the last seven or so projects I’ve written, music has played a huge part in getting me in the right mood to create a specific scene with a specific emotion, and that’s worked to strikingly good effect. I have often spent long hours trying to find just the right song with just the right emotional impact that fits the scene I want to portray. In this specific case, however, no matter how many songs I played, none seemed to fit… when I’m in “the zone” so to speak, writing wise, I’m not easily distracted, but no matter what I played this time around, it would actually keep me from being able to write anything at all. Needless to say, this was terribly frustrating.
So, irritated, I shut my computer off and just sat there, staring at the wall, thinking. It was about 1am, I was sitting at my desk, half in the dark in my LA apartment. It was another beautiful night, so I had the window open. Now, I’m on the 3rd floor and given that this is LA, there’s almost always noise, cars driving by, helicopters, people, dogs, whatever– regardless of the time of day (or night), but last night was strange, at 1am there wasn’t a single car, not a single sound but the breeze ever so lightly blowing through the window. As I sat there, staring at the wall, the complete lack of noise is what finally struck me… “silence” is not a word I would ever relate to LA, so this was very strange, so much so that I realized exactly what I was doing wrong. It wasn’t that I hadn’t found the right music, it’s that what the scene needed was no music, nothing at all.
For the first time in a week, I sat down, grabbed a notepad and pen, listening to nothing but the breeze and started frantically scribbling down notes. In a frenzy, ideas and scenes started to come into my mind so quickly that I was rushing to put them down on paper before the next one made me forget the previous. Honestly, the whole situation kind of freaked me out, this is what usually happens when I find that right “song”, with my computer up, typing away… not when I open a window and stare at the wall. I wrote until I was too tired to keep my eyes open, but when I finally read all my notes the following morning (which was a bit of a task, when I’m writing fast my handwriting is almost impossible to read… even for me) I was astounded at how well all the pieces fit.
Now, for obvious reasons, I can’t tell you the entire story here (as much as I’d love to), and of course, I’m a little biased, but honestly I think this, my friends, is gonna be one hell of a story, and an even better film. Now, for all those of you freaking out about the music, there will still be a good deal of it in the film, it is a thriller, not a silent film, but the trick with music (especially in this film) is knowing exactly when to use it and when NOT to use it, since, if done right, silence can be just as powerful a tool to keep an audience on the edge of their seats.
Announcing “Forever’s End”…
Hey all! So, while we’re working on a number of projects (that are taking much longer than I’d like to solidify), we’ve decided to give the ultra-indie route another try! I’m really, really, excited to announce my next film, “Forever’s End”! This is an “audience funded” project which I’m writing and will be directing (if our funding is successful). I’ll be posting updates about the project every week or so here on my blog, so check back often!
Also check out the film’s official site here: www.foreversendmovie.com!
This is one movie we literally cannot make without your help, so spread the word!