DreamStalker Films

Another weekend of filming completed, but this time, not on Slayer Wars.  This weekend we competed it A3F’s 48 hour One-Shot Film Challenge with 29 other teams.

The fun began with a mixer in Phoenix on Friday night.  At the end of the gathering they revealed the details for the 48 hour films.  They needed to be one continu0us shot of 1-3 minutes (that part we already knew), needed to have a specific line of dialogue, theme, and prop.

To make a long and sleepless story short, we did it!  We completed the film fulfilling all the requirements and actually with a few hours to spare.  I don’t think it is the best film we have ever done and I am somewhat concerned with whether or not it will be seen as a comedy when we were going more drama (you’ll understand when you see it), but I am extremely proud of all of the cast and crew for all of their hard work and support.

We should be hearing back on whether we got into the top 10 or not by the end of the week.  The top 10 will be screened on October 22nd at the A3F Festival.  If we make it, I hope everyone can try to make it, I know it’s a Thursday night…  But if not, the film will be available here on dreamstalkerfilms.com after the festival!  In the meantime you can check out some further details on the film, “Down and Out”  on it’s new page here.  Also, there are more pictures from the set on the DreamStalker Films page on Facebook.

Welcome back Slayer Wars fans!  Just recovering from a long, and very busy weekend of shooting Slayer Wars 3.  The weekend started with the final part of changing my hair for playing Jedu in the final film.   As has been always planned, Shannon (Buffy) shaved my head on Friday… and, well… it is WEIRD.  I’m getting used to it, but the look I was going for is great and thankfully I do not have some goofy shaped head, as it turns out.

Early Saturday morning began day three of production.  We began shooting a very early scene in the film that takes place in a cemetary.  We shot in a park with styrofoam gravestone stand-ins.  Thanks to Laura, Alanta, Shannon, and Scotty for getting up and out there so early so the lighting would be right as we are shooting this day for night.  This picture has been tweaked to look more like it was night time as will the footage we shot.

Moving on we completed the Jedu’s Nightmare sequence we began awhile back when I had all that hair.  Thanks Matt for showing up to stand in for Dark Jedu’s arm.  It seemed like you enjoyed strangling me a little too much, though.

After a nice nap, Scotty, Shannon, and myself went to Phoenix to shoot all of Jedu’s Place shots up at Scotty’s place.  After some shots and some reshots because I forgot I was supposed to not have a left hand in the third film, everything went off really well and we even got a few quick extra shots of Buffy and a vampire for a transition in Slayer Wars 2!  Thanks, Scott for letting us shoot there, the place was perfect.

Sunday, Shannon, Matt, and myself got up even earlier to get back to the park and film another scene in the cemetary that takes place after the one we started the day before.  This was my favorite scene to write and one of Jedu and Buffy’s only scenes together in Slayer Wars 3.  We completed the shoot in record time thanks to rehersal (Practice DOES make perfect!  Who knew?  Thanks Shannon for doing so well with the material.)  I am very pleased with how the footage has turned out for this so a big thanks to Shannon and Matt for getting up so early and doing that.

Now, I am working to get all of the recent footage backed up this week and catch up on some needed sleep as I am likely to not sleep very much next weekend.  Friday night is the kickoff for the 48 hour film competition DreamStalker Films is competing in.  I really hope everyone has remembered to keep themselves available for at least this coming Saturday (Oct 10) as that will be the day we will be shooting.  I’ll need as much help as possible both in front of and behind the camera.  Look forward to working with you all on it!

OK, so it’s been a busy few weeks and it’s only going to get busier, so I will try to put up another post after the next couple of days of shooting, but it’s possible nothing will be up until after the 48 hour film competition that DreamStalker Films will be participating in October 9-11th.

That being said, here’s the rundown of what has happened the least couple of weeks.  We wrapped principle photography on Slayer Wars 2, as I posted last time.  Unfortunately, due to some technical problems with a few shots, we had two more nights of pickups on that final scene.  Good news is, the rough cut is now looking really good and feels like the whole thing is really coming together now.  Officially Slayer Wars 2 is in Post Production and I am continuing the visual effects on the Caldrin and Jedu scene currently as we move aggressively into Production of Slayer Wars 3.

On Saturday 9/19, major preparation for Slayer Wars 3 finally happened after seven years… I cut my hair.  As many people know I was originally growing out my hair for Slayer Wars 2, of course this is when we were going to start filming in 2004!  So now there are flashback scenes that need to be placed in the second film, and very pivitol ones in the third one that connect all three films together.  So, I needed my hair cut back to the way it was 10 years ago.  Do I look 10 years younger though… judge for yourself.  Here’s a rough edit of the first part of the haircut special feature I’ll be putting together:

Filming on Sunday, 9/20, we shot the final two sequences for Slayer Wars 2, flashbacks that had to be added to the Slayer Wars 3 schedule.

Continuing later that evening, we shot the first night of flashbacks that take place during the first film.  Some of these shots were direct replacements of ones I wanted to cut back to from the first film, but as there was a major casting change from the first film to the second and third, we reshot.  I also took the opportunity to expand on some moments that bugged me from the first one, and hopefully anyone who’s seen the first will laugh at these expansions.

Here are some comparison shots:

Buffy did you change your hair?

Jedu-Khr, your hair looks great, but what about that second chin?

September 26th, we shot the final night of the flashbacks.  More expansion of events from Slayer Wars 1, and some new experimentation on shooting that I hope works out the way I intend.

Another haircut is in store next for me.  This will happen this Friday (and yes more footage will be added), as I have intended for Jedu to be bald (a little Lex Luthor, I know) in the final film.  Now that the flashbacks are done, onto that we go.  Day 3 and 4 will include a Graveyard, Jedu’s Hideout, and the final shots for Jedu’s Nightmare.  Contact us if you want to help or get a part in Slayer Wars 3 or the upcoming 48 hour film project (shooting October 10th).

Principle photography on Slayer Wars 2 is complete!  After nearly a year of shooting the first of two Slayer Wars sequels, the last scene, which is actually one of the first scenes in the movie, has finally been filmed.

It was one of the most complicated scenes to set up and shoot for several reasons and kept getting delayed over and over during production.  Namely, we needed a specific costume that the entire scene was based around, a dress.  The dress, along with some other costumes, were set to be specially made by a friend a couple of months before production began, but in the end did not come due to some health issues over the past year.

Plan B was to have Chrissy Palmer, our new Darth Empiric, put together the custom dress.  Unfortunately due to several circumstances she had less than a week.  We got her the pattern and materials but found out too late that the pattern was not going to work.

Plan C: Chrissy ran to Savers and bought several options and came by my place for me to choose.  So finally, with 48 hours to spare, we had a dress.  I sent Chrissy back to make a black sash for said dress and went back to scrambling everything else together.

Though, as usual, we did not have as many extras as I would have hoped and many of them were the same people we have used several times, thanks to Shannon Griffith (Buffy) and Laura Rappleye (Laura Luv) we were able to have a couple of new faces to this opening scene.  Thanks to Aaron “Fenyx” Clatone, Dori Perry, and Morgan Williams for showing up for the first night in front of the camera, and to all our regulars thank you for your continued support in these projects and putting up with all the drama (much of which comes from me directly).

Filming went really well for the most part and I appreciate everyone’s patience as there was quite a lot to get done and this was our first use of the new Dolly (thank you Derek!).

After capturing and reviewing briefly the footage on Sunday, I discovered that one shot we missed and two more were not usable.  So, on very little notice, Shannon, Matt Torrez, and myself ran back up to the set and did those pick ups.

I have edited about a third of the scene now and it looks really good.  Thank you all!

Moving forward, Slayer Wars 3 is ramping up for production.  Derek, Shannon, and myself met with Scott Kos (our music guy for all three films and Symon in Slayer Wars 2 and 3) and Eric Kask of Fume Entertainment (another local fledgling film company that will be joint producing Slayer Wars 3) on Sunday to begin breaking down the script for Slayer Wars 3.  We have nearly all of our locations figured out, a rough idea on casting new roles, and a list of costumes we’ll need.

The first official day of filming for Slayer Wars 3 (we have already shot the opener and half of another scene) will be on September 20^th, beginning with flashback sequences that take place between Slayer Wars 1 and 2, and some more elaborate looks at the end sequence for the first film (things that happened that we had not originally seen).  This is first on the docket as I’ll be cutting my hair down to the length it was in that first film to do these scenes, then, I will be shaving it all off, Lex Luthor style for the bulk of Slayer Wars 3.

Stay tuned for more news, photos, a new trailer for Slayer Wars 3, and site changes!

Saturday night was another successful night of shooting.  The sunset flashback sequence originally intended to be shot next week before the Dress scene was moved up with only about 24 hours notice.  This was decided to give us more time in preparation of the final scene to be filmed next time as we’ll need all the time we can get.

Thanks to Matt for being able to come and run the camera for this sequence… and Pete for coming with to take some wonderful pics like the one here.

Later on a small sequence was also shot at the laundry room in my apartment complex.  This is the final sequence to Jedu’s Demon Killing Spree.  The camera was unmanned and the sequence took very little time, but required a great deal of time and makeup to set up.  This is why this scene had to be shot after we finished with Darth Perfidious… had to be sure to have enough green (makeup that is)!

Next Saturday, the final shooting night for Slayer Wars 2!

Welcome everyone!  This is our first full post!  As you can see dreamstalkerfilms.com has just had it’s skeleton structure put together thanks to the talents of Zach Reddy.  Now it’s up to DreamStalker Films co-owner, Joe Benzer (Herr Direktor), to provide with some muscle and skin to the site.

We’ve had many people asking us if our films are online.  Well, they soon will be.  Currently “Dreamscape Excursion,” “Game of Stamina,” and some unfinished films and clips can be found on our MySpace and Facebook pages.  We’re working on making them all available on YouTube as well and of course making this site a one stop shop for all things DSF.

Just a quick update on the current film, “Slayer Wars 2: Revenge of the Vampyre-Slaying-Jedi”  before getting back to work on the multiple projects we have right now.  Yesterday we completed the 22nd shooting day and it went wonderful. We have 63 very good looking shots and have completed the entire scene which has already been captured and is being backed up.

More pictures can be seen of this day on the DSF Facebook page.

We would like to thank Chrissy and Jeremy Palmer for feeding the cast and crew before we got outside to get baked in the AZ heat for several hours.

Also a big thanks to Matt for toughing it out in full makeup and falling down the hill.

Thanks to Scotty Kos for toughing it out and doing camerawork.  Without you we would not have been able to get the beautiful footage we got yesterday.

Last, but not least, thanks to Shannon Griffith for taking the wonderful pictures, driving everyone to set, and doing all the other stuff a P.A. does (which is everything!)

Our next shooting date is on September 5th and will be the last major shoot for Slayer Wars 2.  We need plenty of extras, so if you’re interested contact us here or on Facebook and bookmark this site, their will be plenty of new stuff to come!

-Herr Direktor