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September 7, 2007 was a milestone moment in the history of MOTW.On that day, shortly after 7pm local time, the long overdue teaser trailer for the movie made its world premiere online.
In the three plus weeks since its debut, it's been viewed over 1,700 times on YouTube, which is very impressive. Plus it has been viewed countless times through this blog site and also through my website. That blows me away, especially with the countless amount of videos posted online lately.
Amazing to believe that all of this began way back last December when the idea of the film's teaser first came about. Almost ten months later, it is now a reality, thanks to three people who helped make all of this possible.
So, with that in mind, let me tell you the story of how this teaser all came together.
It all started last December, shortly after the second production meeting where me and Josh (who'll be playing the lead role) talked about the film and what I had in mind.
During the meeting, I brought up the idea of filming a teaser. My initial goal was to shoot some footage of Josh after the meeting and use it to set the stage. But due to a lack of time and people available to help out, we couldn't get together. A few days after looking over the original teaser script, Josh came up with an idea on his own, which I liked. It was that idea that would be the groundwork for the teaser that is playing now.
After coming up with an outline based on that idea, I crafted a script that would be used for the teaser. But, since Josh was out of town and busy with school, he wouldn't be able to film his part. And I wanted to have something concrete to show, to get people's attention about the movie and what I have in mind.
Which brings me to the first person I want to thank for helping make this teaser possible, seen in the photo to the left. He is the one who is pretty much the "face" of the MOTW teaser: Eric Smigiel.I've known Eric for almost two years now, ever since his work in the two Batman fan films, "Batman Brutality" and Batman Duality", through his film company Smigiel Pictures. Through our chats online and messages in emails and the Batman Fan Films website that we both visit regulary, we became good friends.
When it looked obvious that Josh wasn't going to be able to film anything for the teaser, I ran the idea by Eric to see if he was up for acting in the teaser. After looking the script over, he was interested in helping out and things were underway.
While this was happening, I knew that if I needed to pull this off, I needed someone to help put the transformation shots together. I wasn't looking for a full on transformation (sorry for those who were expecting one), but just enough to show what was happening. For that, I asked another friend of mine -and the second person who helped make this possible- Rob Roy from Wits End Entertainment. I had seen his work in his own werewolf movie, Lycan Colony, and I knew he'd be just the guy to help with the CGI effects I was looking for. Through several emails, Rob was able to help out with that.Flash forward to March, and Eric, who was busy filming several other projects, was able to film the majority of the footage that you see in the teaser. He filmed it in his hometown, just outside Albuquerque. Once I received the ten plus minutes of footage, I then emailed the video over to where Rob lived, in New Hampshire so that he could work on the effects, giving him tips on what I wanted done. In the meantime, I was hard at work on completing the script for the film.
It wasn't till April that Rob started to send meshort clips of what he did with the footage. Slowly and surely I was starting to see how good the CGI was turning out, especially with showing enough, but not too much of the transformation process, which is what I wanted for the teaser.
The short clips were just that, short. So it was pure torture waiting to hear from Rob on how the footage was coming along and if he had done any new updates. It was getting to a point where I would email him just about every week for an update. "Good work takes time" he told me in one email. I went along with it, but believe me it was brutal, waiting for something new to come in.
Again fast forward a few more months. Rob woud send out several more updates in that time frame. In fact, it took until early August before Rob was able to send out the last bit of footage. During that same time frame, I would get behind the camera myself, filming in some footage of the full moon. Once I got the last of the CGI shots from Rob, I asked Eric if he could do a few pickups to flesh out the teaser. I was very lucky that he could squeeze it in, as he was in the middle of filming yet another movie. But again, he was able to come through.So by late August, I had all the footage and I began the process of editing the teaser. But I still needed one last piece to make it complete. I needed music. And this is where the third and final person I wanted to thank for making this possible comes into play. His name is Jason Feder and I came across him through the Low Budget Horror Film Society boards -the same place where me and Josh first met up. He had done several bits of horror based music for movie soundtracks and after hearing some of his work, I asked him (way back last year when I originally was planning the miniseries idea) if he could do music for my project. I recently renewed my contact with Jason about using one or two of his cuts instead for the teaser. He agreed and after looking things over, I found two cuts that I can use.
By the way, the music you hear come from not one selection but two. The drumbeats you hear from the start and the end come from his Library collectioin and the music in between is from a selection he calls "Increasing Tension". Nice title, I think.
So once I got the music and everything else, I was able to move to the final step, editing. That was a long, grueling process that took about two and a half weeks to put together. And then, that was it.
Which brings me to September 7 and the official launch. Ever since then, I've gotten a lot of cool comments. Not just from my friends but from other independent filmmakers and fans of the genre. They like what the tone of the movie will be about and they really liked Eric's performance. And just so you know, Eric won't be appearing in the film. Any future trailers will include actual members of the cast. However, I did offer Eric a cameo role, if he can be able to do it.
Of course, not every review has been positive. Some say it's too long for a teaser. Some didn't like parts of the footage or the CGI. They were even some that didn't like the lower case letters or the exclamation points in the graphics. But overall, the response has been overwhelming positive, which is exactly what I was shooting for when this came about last December.
So once again I want to thank the three people responsible for helping me make this a reality. I want to thank Eric for acting and especially being able to squeeze it in with his crowded plate of a schedule. You could've turned me down a million times over, especially with what I was looking for, but you didn't and I can't thank you enough for that. I know you and I will get together for a future project someday. I want to thank Rob for doing the CGI and I hope we can work on the film and any future projects. Best of luck to you on your upcoming works as well. And to Jason, for providing the music clips which was a perfect fit.
I also want to thank all those who've seen the teaser and commented on it. I hope this will give you guys just a taste of what I have planned for the full length feature. And if everything works out the way I hope, you guys haven't seen anything yet.
