Shadow of the Seraph: Now Available To Watch
Dosh Johnson: Private Investigator
In case you are curious, I will divulge a little information about the movie...
Shadow of the Seraph came about as a need to attempt a full blown dress rehearsal of some of the cutting edge independent filmmaking techniques I had been researching for almost a year in the hope of eventually making my long form project City of Lights. However, although I had acquired all the equipment required, I still needed a script, some actors and some "safe" locations to film in so I could begin to learn the process required to make this sort of movie before taking to the streets.
To get actors, I enrolled in a PAC Screen Workshop. I was allocated three bright young actors to work with. Unfortunately, the theme for that month's workshop was Film Noir, which is always fun to explore but it didn't really suit most of the material In City of Lights and I had already messed around with the genre in The Dark Chill. So I eventually went away, took a look at some of the rejected ideas for the City of Lights universe and "Noired" them using as many of the Film Noir stereotypes as possible. The result was the script for Shadow of the Seraph. Although we were only meant to film one scene for the class, the actors read the script and agreed to making an entire short film with a much larger scope.
The City of Lights equipment is really only suitable for shooting in broad daylight and well lit scenes and isn't suitable for filming in the dark and dingy locations and on the low lighting budget we had available to us at the time. However, in tests I noticed that the noisy pictures that came back from the camera gave the film an old dodgy look that seems quite suitable for the subject material.
We spent about a week in our own free time collecting costumes and props then filmed the movie over about eight nights, usually filming from about 9pm to 1am. I usually had one assistant to hold the boom, the rest I did myself and the actors did the clapper. Most of the locations were put together at my parents house while they were away on holiday. With the help of some friends who donated their houses and talents, and since I used my own filmmaking equipment, the film only cost a few hundred dollars for set dressings, costumes, backup hard drives and pizza. As it was part of their course too, the actors chipped in to help meet those costs. The result is a ridiculous, messy, tribute/spoof to film noir. It ultimately does not work as a film, but, I learned a lot.
I actually completed the basic edit of the film in less than two days and it was screened at my show. However, when It came time to neaten up the film, I had a number of problems arise largely due to bad luck rather than pure poor planning. The movie is still not as neat sound wise as I would have hoped. Thankfully, as I said earlier, I learnt a truckload from the experience and finally the film is here for you to watch below.
This 'rehearsal' has entirely changed my thinking towards City of Lights. I think it is defiantly still very possible for one man to make an epic film on a very minimal budget with today's technology, however, whether or not you could make something "good" or if one would enjoy such an endeavour is an entirely different matter. We'll see what happens, 2008 doesn't look so bad.
I'll try and provide more updates on the City of Lights project here at Jimmerish.com throughout the year. Also, I will soon begin uploading the other segments from The James Show so you can see my past work and more episodes of The Talk Show are on their way. However while you wait for these things to come, enjoy Shadow of the Seraph.