Costa and McLaughlin make the comeback of the year with the success of 'The Antidote Kill'

Nearly a year since the team of Revolutionary Studios has come up with the next action epic, Matthew Costa started development on an idea for a film that in the words of his friends "resembled the film Crank", for his senior project. After nearly six months of pre-production, the film had finally been finalised and was ready to be shot. With the help of Mitch DiMaggio, and the USA Kung Fu team, Matthew directed the most important scene in the film, the fight scene at Seamist. After countless hours of shooting, choreographing, and sweating, the scene was finally done. And the rest of the film was done in no time flat. Just in time for its premiere presentation for Mr. Looney's period 6 senior seminar class. What was first assumed to be a mediocre, last-minute, home movie, turned out to be a jaw-dropping success that suprized even the teacher and evaluators. Immediately taken in as a hit, despite the many mistakes that the director/writer/star Matthew Costa had noticed after the final cut was finished. The film was commented as "well edited" and "kept you on the edge of your seat." Thankfully, this taught the director that he can finish a well made action film, under pressure, with a limited budget and location contract, and still meet a close deadline for the release. Costa has already started talking about his next action film to come. "Okay, I've made a kung-fu action movie at the least amount of quality that is possible, I can do better later, I want to move on to something different. I've always wanted to work on a samurai movie." With the next film idea currently being tossed around, there may not be another film until the studio has relocated to Boston for the next 3 years. Only time will let us know of what is to come.

Production may have been killed before it started...

My new zombie movie, "E.R." has been put on a location hault. Apparently I made up more hype around town about this film than I should have. Myself and Jake Belouin raced against time to finish what we had for the script, but we didn't realize that the hospital we set it in would be hard to come by.
The deadline for the ChillerTV contest is too close and if we started yesterday we still would of needed time to edit and make sure we didn't screw up. Deep down I had some feeling that we would be cutting it close, so I have decided without telling Jake that we should put this movie on hold and work on something that won't take as much time and patience to finish. Because right now I have no time to finish this even if we started right now. We have little money to spend on this film, and little resources. Usually thats no issue for me but this is just too much. I need to find out some idea that I can do on the cheap and kick-start my film craze again.

I need some more films for my demo reel anyway.

A Promise of another Movie?

After almost a year of no really important short films. Revolutionary Studios has broken off from DreamCatcher Entertainment. Which means my colleague Michael McLaughlin may not be apart of any of the upcoming productions that myself and new colleague Jacob Bellouin will be producing.

Much talk and controversy has prevented a horror/zombie flick from being made because of creative opinions between myself and Michael. Since we have parted ways, Jacob and I have decided on an idea to work on for the ChillerTV contest coming up. And we've decided on a zombie flick for the $5,000 prize.

So far, thats the only project we will be focusing on. Other films may come about in script process but for now its this zombie film.

Indiana Jones short film?

In recent events of having nothing to do over the course of a few days. I have decided I want to make a Indiana Jones fan short film. I've always wanted to do one, and I've never really tried to. So the planning is in order at the moment, but I hope to do a few test films before I make this film.

Tests

- Whiplash effect (I want to try and show a shot where Indy lashes his whip around a guys neck)
- Nazis or not ( I would have more people come and be in the film as Nazis, but this is being made at the last minute with guerilla planning. I want to figure out how many adversaries Indy will face.
- Revolver?( I have a small toy revolver made of metal but the barrel is gone, I want to figure out how I can fix that)
- Studying Speilbergs style( I want this to be a tribute to all four films, so I want to make this as close to Speilbergs style of shooting as I possibly can)

Interestingly enough, tomorrow is a good day to do something like this. So, I'll have to write a little later.

Tips on Filmmaking

My favorite movie of all time is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. And ever since I watched Steven Speilbergs epic masterpiece trilogy on DVD....

I realized that there is a style to shooting in the classic "Saturday morning Serial" type of films. Since I am a huge fan of the films its always been a way of shooting my action movies ever since.

(Please Note: This is mostly towards the new mogulers out there who want to go outside and shoot a quick movie that they can throw together in the simplest of editing programs.)

So, I'm going to teach you about what I mean.

Steps

1) Rent or Buy the Indiana Jones trilogy (It just might do the teaching for me)

2) Buy or borrow a very small camera - I have found it very useful to have a small sized camera. I use the Canon ZR500 for now. But its small size allows me to get up close with running shots and fast fight scenes. This may not have been apart of Speilbergs style of shooting, but it gave me my own uniqueness.

3) Don't come up with a complicated story - Serials and the Indiana Jones movies have one thing in common. Almost every scene depicts our fedora clad hero going from point A to B. Which means, in your story give your hero ONE goal to accomplish, like beat the bad guy, or find the treasure. But of course before the end, give it a small twist and indicate that the story is to be continued "next week".

4) Plan a little, shoot a lot, AND FAST - Figure out what you want to shoot first. If you have your villain over your house and your hero isn't there for his close up, shoot all of the villains stuff when he is over your house. Then shoot all of the hero's stuff later. If you have a script, go through all of the things you can do in one day, if you don't finish, plan to shoot ahead the next day. Shoot fast, get all of the angles you think you may need, improvise if you have to.

5) After your done, edit it slowly - I remember I made a quick action movie and I finished shooting and editing it in one day. I left it a lone for a while, then when I came back to it I had made different cuts and effects that improved my movie a lot. Take your time when it comes to editing.

6) Go out and make another one - After your all done, go out and make more of these quick action movies. You'll notice that they get longer and more sophisticated for every one you make. You learn how to add more events in your story, shoot more with little time, and edit with perfection.

To all the younger filmmakers out there

If you really want to make movies, you will eventually do this and get into the habit of making a ton of short movies. Every one of them you learn from, and soon you will be able to figure out how to shoot that epic adventure movie you had planned to do so ambitiously when you first saw Erik put on that Zombie makeup.
Try doing something simpler, and you'll realize that the epic is going to be much harder than you think.

So get into practice of going out there and shooting quick movies when you're bored. You'll realize its fun and you'll get better at it.

And for all those mogulers who complain about how much they don't have. Thats great, the less you have to make your movies, the more creative you become. If you really want to make a movie, you'll figure out a way to make a movie all by yourself if you have to.

Now, stop sitting on your butts, grab your fedoras and GL2s and go and make some movies.

Answer your own questions on how to make a movie!

Screenplay is Done! Casting Coming Soon

Updates

-The screenplay is finished! : Okay well not really, I am now in the process of editing and revising, which is easy. But I managed to finish the script in less than a week. So the hardest part of making a movie is over. Now for the easy stuff. Oh and by the way, it came out to 96 pages (97 if you count the cover).

- An investors meeting was supposed to take place yesterday in my school library, so I edited a short film over the weekend to show that I can make a film. The problem is, nobody showed up. Trying to raise the extra $500 after spending my $900 on the Canon HV30 is a pain in the neck. I wasn't happy about it seeing is that I edited the crap out of the video the night before until midnight. Quick Tip: Get help from an adult when you plan to have other adults come to invest in your film.

- Actors Marlee Greer, Ross Lippman, and Emily Fisher finally got a copy of the first draft as well. Marlee plays the lead lady, Ross plays the villain, and Emily plays as the villaness. So far Marlee is happy with her character, *phew* what a relief, I was beginning to think she wouldn't like the whole "stripper girl" thing. Oops, did I say that...

- Casting next week. I'm ready for whatever happens next. I just hope I can fill in on all the extra parts.

Anyway, the delay for the next video diary is because of the writing and the meetings I was trying to put together so quickly. Hopefully I will get the next one on before casting, which was a fun little trip I took location scouting with co-star Robert Perry.

More to come on Sunday!!

Feature Screenplay At The Home Stretch

Finally after months and months of planning and revising I can finally just sit down and work on my script. The deadline is March 31st, which I can make, by typing 9 pages a day of my screenplay. This is cake. For those of you filmmakers out there who want to make a feature, but worry about finishing the script. DONT worry about it. This is easy as pie, really.
On the subject of the feature, my producers tell me I need an AD (assistant director), I told them I don't need one. Okay, well one of my producers said that and my only choice was unavailable so my wish came true. I really know I can pull this all off by myself and get this film done anyway. The producer that I mentioned asked me all about who was going to be in charge of what and I said "Me, myself, and I".
I figured out my budget of the film is going to be $500 based on what we need. Casting starts on April 7th, I finally figured out what I am supposed to do to rent my school's auditorium. So now I got it!

I will put together a separate blog for the movie starting in June. That way I can focus on the more important things there

Location Update coming on - April 6

Casting Update coming soon.