Project: November

What is Project: November?

Technically, P:N is a short film I’m doing for exhibition next year.

What it really is, is an accident of timing and relationships I have formed over the years coalescing into having access to things usually costing in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for free.

I have been given access to a full motion capture volume and the staff to run it, for a full day. This isn’t some rinky dink six camera setup in someone’s conference room, either. This is the main stage at Giant Studios. My shoot actually got bumped up because Steven Spielberg is shooting on it right after me.

My fight scene is being co choreographed with Garrett Warren, the stunt co-ordinator on Crank, Transformers and Avatar, among others. He is a protege of Jackie Chan, and is both the toughest S.O.B. I’ve ever met ( he has a fake eye because someone shot him in the face ) and the most gentle, caring guy as well.

I have stunt people and actors from well known movies like Pirates of the Caribbean and The Island volunteering their services.

All this came together kind of suddenly as I was playing around with the idea of doing a big action piece for my directing reel. Right now, due to my nature as a small budget independent filmmaker, my reel is mainly mopey people sitting around discussing life and sandwiches. Because of my visual effects background, I was told my best chance to get a major film is to go after the $130 million dollar movie, not the $30 million one. I was going to shoot an all live action piece, but well - I subscribe to the Church of Stu as much as anyone and I think he would agree, if you are offered the big toys, go play with em.

So I started moving forward on my plans to make this film. I wrote the story, came up with the visual ideas for it and then something strange happened. The more I talked to people about it, the more they wanted to work on it. So I am OFFICIALLY opening this up as a community project. Anyone who wants to contribute, can, if there is a role you can and want to fill.

There is no pay involved. The money that IS going into this is going towards things like food for the shoot, insurance, renderfarm rental, foley and orchestration and recording - that kind of thing.

What people will get out of it is a ( hopefully ) kick ass piece that will be on the cutting edge of CG technology. Something people can proudly point to and say “I helped make that.” One that will be shown at Siggraph all over the place. In 2K, in stereo ( the eyball kind. Sound will be 5.1 ).

Oh, did I not mention that Autodesk will be using the film as a showcase piece at Siggraph? I really should have, because they are.

So there it is. That’s Project: November. Soon I’ll be putting up a dedicated blog that’ll be posting pictures, videos, what have you as I can.

If you are interested in collaborating with me on this, let me know here.