How to build a meteor for 2$

>> Step 0

Be smarter than us and make sure the meteor you wanna build will fit through the door before building it in your kitchen.

>> Step 1

Buy some balloons. The price of the balloons will be your entire budget.

>> Step 2

Take the balloons and tape them together so they form the shape you're looking for.



>> Step 3

Prep the paste for the "Papier Mâché" and get some FREE news papers ready.



>> Step 4

Take the layers of news papers and dig them into the gisgusting paste you just made. Put them around the balloons until they are entirely covered. Now your meteor looks like balloons wrapped with news papers.



>> Step 5

Square the angles, add some shapes here and there with more news papers. Now your meteor looks like a meteor made of news paper.



>> Step 6

Take a break and let it dry. Go watch a long movie but don't take a shower yet cause you're not done yet.

>> Step 7

You need to give it some texture. Make it look like rock. That's where you look for a Special Effects guy. They always have tons of advice and sometimes they have leftovers from the last show they just wrapped. They will be happy to get rid of these left over and it will make more room in their studio. (Check out the films that are being shot on line and try to get a hold of the special effect department)

>> Step 8

Once you get something for the texture, spread it on your meteor. ( Here we got some snow, leftovers from a commercial)



>> Step 9

Once the texture is dry, your meteor looks like a colorless rock. But, you got some paints and colors from your new friend of the Special Effect to make it look better.



>> Step 10

The meteor is done... ( you can add some other stuff of course, there is always something somewhere that will make it look better)

>> Step 11

Because there is no meteor without a big crater... And because you're not allowed to dig a hole in this backyard that is not yours.... Go check out in your neighborhood, there are always some houses in construction with tons of dirt. Aks politely if you can get some to build a crater in your backyard... For a movie.


Here is your meteor!

That's a wrap

We started at 8am and wrapped at 6pm... 2 hours early. YAY

The day went so well. I was kinda scared about the number or actors and one shot scenes we had but it went soooooooooo smoothly, mainly thanks to our amazing team. There is a 1page and a half scene where we have 7 actors and probably 7 backgrounds and everybody is moving around and the camera follows them one after the other... And it was just perfect. Everybody was great and we ended up with a very good looking shot. I have to say we were once again spoiled with our actors, seriously spoiled. They were all fantastic.

The "meteor" looked AWESOME, the smoke, the lime, it made it look so real. Bless the guy who invented paper mâché...

We have one more scene to shoot on the 4th of November, the Alien scene at Wendy's studio and then we'll have everything. Can't wait to direct Sarah-Jane.

Anyway, got tons of cleaning to do. We'll do that tomorrow. Can't wait to see the pics and the dailies...

- We should have a first rough cut of SMS this week end...
- We'll rewrite the 3rd act of "Jesus Nut's" this week cause Bill is reading it on Monday.
- We'll rewrite Smile Of April to have a descent first draft and present it to a couple of persons that might end up producing it... or at least helping us producing it.
- I soooooo wanna shoot "In his head", but because the concept is similar to SMS, we have to rewrite it and shoot it a different way. We wanna try the One shot concept. 6 or 7 pages in one shot ( we might cheat a bit lol). It's gonna be so hard for the light and directing and set ups (there are time cuts so it means we'll have to change set dec, switch actors and wardrobe, while on a close up on the main character...) So exciting.
- We have to rest a bit but we say that every time we shoot and two days after we get bored. So I guess I'll post again it two days to see what we're up to.

Off to take a shower.

The giant dry biscuit

Today we built a meteor with its crater.

"Planet 6" is coming along pretty well. We're shooting in two days and just need to do a couple more things tomorrow. The meteor is drying in the backyard, hopefully squarels and other creatures of the night will stay away from it ( we protected it but we never know... these little guys could be really hungry and think it's some kind of giant dry biscuit!)

Anyway... We're ready to shoot another one.

The Magic Big Mac

Tomorrow we're meeting with a SFX guy to give us some tips for the "thing from space", then we have to build it, sounds like a lot of fun he he.

We were having a fake dinner at McDonald when we started talking about Smile of April, there is a part of the story that doesn't satisfy us... and there is this actress and friend of us we really want to have for the feature... but there was no good character for her... and then, as if the big mac had super powers (it happened several times already) we had THE idea.... you know, the idea that makes you wanna re write the all story and you don't care it means HOURS in front of your computer cause you're so excited about it. That's the part I love about rewriting... when you got the magic ideas that make your first draft ( that you thought was not too bad) looks like crap... Means you're moving forward to something better... well at least something you like better.

Should get more big mac...

Planet 6

We're shooting "Planet 6" on October the 22nd, and November the 3rd for the alien scene. We just had a meeting with our DOP and storyboard artist... pretty exciting!

We're so screwed is finished. We're waiting for the DVDs to send them to festivals.

Can't wait to cast "Smile of April"

bla bla bla

"Smile of April" is 90 pages. It's now entering the endless phase of rewriting.

"One day or another" is 50 pages for now... Still working on it, the second part is harder to write but way more challenging too. We met a guy from France who just created his own production company. They're shooting a feature next year with a damn big french cast! really impressive. His goal is to find north american movies that would be shot in France... and guess what... This one takes place in France and will be shot in English...

"Green" is 95 pages... we might have to change the title of this one if we get rid of the "green" stuff... still rewriting to make it easier to shoot cause we're actually thinking of directing this one soonish ( meaning not waiting for money to fall from the sky)

"Jesus Nut's" is 101 pages, just got corrected by Ryan's friend and will soon be into some producers' hands.

So that was for the features.

We're entering in production for " PLANET 6", we called the actors, we going for October the 22nd. Have to call the crew now.

Tonight we should get to see the dailies from "Save My Soul". I just can wait. It looked so great on the monitor. Wouldn't it be great if the movie could edit itself as you're shooting it? We could all have a copy of it at the end of the day. Dream, dream.... Wish I knew how to edit.

" Save My Soul", ect.

And magic it was.... No giant frogs, no earthquake. Everything went well and smoothly. The actress just rocked and gave an entire new dimension to the script, the crew was awesome, the food was here! We entered the house at 8am and left at 8pm... perfect timing. 12 hour day to shoot 7 pages. We are so happy. Can't wait to see the dailies and a rough cut... can't... wait...
We've been watching the behind the scene, it's hilarious... can't... wait...to...see... dailies...

We're taking a few days off before starting the prep for the next one, "Planet 6", it will be easier and shorter though. It's a 4 pages script, but with a lot of small parts here and there.

We have to re write in his head. We wrote it before save my soul and it's also the story of an angel. It could actually be the continuity of Save My Soul, we could follow the evolution of Terra, the angel, but "Terra" won't be available so.... need to rewrite it cause the stories are two similar in some points.

Had such a blast this week end... I wanna shoot Smile Of April.... We had to take a break on the writing because of prepping the short. But you know how it is, good actors make you wanna write more!