The Lizard King

Brit Poulton is filming a short film called "The Lizard King" in order to get some directing experience before she shoots her first feature about religious snake handlers in the Adirondacks. A lot of her advice centered on keeping your work safe from production companies and how to make sure they don't change your vision for the film.

On the 17th and 18th we had a casting session for the class project as well as our personal projects. There were plenty of good actors there, even one of my very good friends, Trey Paterson, auditioned. I'll most likely use him for one of my roles though I don't think I found anyone else for the other roles. Most namely Mara, my lead. I fear she will be the most difficult to cast.

Screenwriter Dan Levine

Dan Levine, a retired Hollywood veteran, came and spoke about getting out scripts written. He donated some scripts to the school so we would have something to look at and be able to see what a professional script looks like.

Introduction

In this post I'll introduce the premise of my student film, and some ideas as to where I want to take it.

Jackal as a project, is an idea that a friend came up with that I decided I could do better than he could, so a challenge was issued to that effect and now my film is becoming quite ambitious for a film student. It has been suggested to me by my instructor, Phil Tuckett, that I only film a small part, the opening sequence. That may be a good idea.

I knew from the start that I wanted to make Jackal a period piece, late 1020's - early 1930's, shot in black and white in a deliberate attempt at replicating the feel of the classic monster movies. The Mummy (1932), especially is an inspiration to the look and feel that I want to bring to my project.

I want to incorporate as many practical effects and sets as I can in this project, using as little CG as I can to really punch up the classic feel I want. Matte paintings for backgrounds and scenery will play an integral part in making small areas feel much larger and more dynamic. Using set models will let me create the feel of large sets while only really having a few pieces of full size architecture for the characters to interact with. Even the monster (yes, monster!) will be all practical. I realize this is a lot of work to put into a student film, but I also feel that I have to stand out and really shine if I'm going to get anywhere in this business. I really hope I can do that by bringing back classic film making techniques.