Most of us have grand dreams when we’re kids about what we want to be when we grow up, but as we get older and learn the ways of the real world, a lot of us lose that childlike belief that we can do anything so we settle for something more practical. There are many things that I like about filmmakers, but the one quality that I absolutely love the most is our ability to hold onto that childlike love for filmmaking and our drive to never stop until our dreams come true. Jump Ship Productions recently participated in both the IFP Breakout Challenge and the Almost Famous Film Festival’s (A3F) 48 hour film challenge, and during both there was one group that caught our eye. LJR Productions put out two delightfully whimsical films that were very obviously made with a lot of love. We had the pleasure of interviewing Jon Ray, the writer/director and owner of LJR Productions about his experiences.
Jon Ray is a perfect example of a filmmaker who will never give up on his dream; he wanted to be an actor as a kid, and even skipped school to go to an audition for a feature film, but unfortunately there weren’t too many productions in his hometown of Tyler, Texas. He got his start as a filmmaker in 2001, “when (he) shot 3 episodes of a Claymation series called ‘Toby Bear.’” From there, Jon received his first paying gig as “a PA on a Wonder Woman music video,” and he became a working filmmaker (which is a major accomplishment in itself). Jon gained experience as an “actor, A.D., cameraman, boom pole, script supervisor, special FX, prop maker and of course PA.” From 2007 to 2012, Jon’s film career slowed down. He worked on finishing a degree in Digital Video at UAT and got “caught up in the game of making a living,” putting his family’s needs first.
In Dec. 2012, Jon decided it was time “to walk away from a 12 year career in Information Technology and change career fields to TV/Film,” and now he is able to do what he loves full-time as a freelance Videographer and filmmaker. So far, Jon has “directed at least 11 shorts films,” not counting ones that were made for film school. He says, “I’m working my way towards Hollywood. One of my ultimate goals is to write and direct a studio film. Afterwards, I’d be happy going back to being an Indie or taking on more studio projects, but at least I want that one shoot in LA.” He is currently under a six month contract doing video work, but after that’s up he plans to “go back to working for my wife’s production company Sysnia Creative, where she is developing a TV show and has years of experience working on other TV shows.”
Jon has participated in six 48 hour film challenges with the IFP, the National, and most recently the A3F. His film Ring of Time was my favorite of all of the honorable mention films (and would have made it to the top 20 if I had been judging). One of the things that I personally found to be impressive about his film was the sheer size of the production that LJR pulled off in just 48 hours. They had a huge cast and what appeared to be several different locations. Jon says, “I signed up for the challenge a week before it began so I didn’t have a lot of prep work. Also, I only had 2 actors who were committed to the project, no location, no story idea and not much in the way of funds… Within the week leading up to that Saturday… we grew to 26 cast/crew members. We obtained access to a very nice mansion in north Scottsdale, thanks entirely to my producer and wife Samantha Ray… My secret was the mansion though in regards to locations. The place was so huge and the property varied so much I was able to stage all my scenes from photos of the place I got the night of the kickoff.”
Jon only knew five of the people involved in his production when the challenge kicked off Friday night, and one of the things he is most proud of was his ability to “take a group of people who have never worked together and forge them into an awesome cast and crew to make great art.”Jon says “It was amazing to see everyone come together to help bring my written word to life within such a short period of time.” What most people don’t understand about filmmaking is that getting your film shot is only half the battle. Postproduction is where a film really comes together, and Jon worked very closely with his wife, who edited the film while he worked on pulling together other information for the entry. He hoped to save time in post by using royalty free music, but he wasn’t satisfied with anything he found “So, being a keyboardist and composer, (he) wrote every bit of music you hear in the film in the final 2 hours before (they) left to turn the film in.”
It was difficult for Jon to cut down such a grand idea into just 5 minutes. He learned during this challenge that the widely known rule that one page of script equals one minute of screen time does not always work out, and he ended up with about a six and a half minute film. Although he had to cut out one and a half minutes, Jon was able to keep everyone’s scenes, which is something he is very proud of. Jon says, “I feel like we are the underdogs, team wise. No one really knew LJR Productions or me and it was a group of mostly strangers who came together to make a great little film. As this was my most ambitious 48 Hour film project to date, I was hoping it’d at least screen with the top 20, but regardless, the feedback has been great and I’m proud of this film and the work everyone on my team put into it. We had some real professionals on hand that if not for them being there, might have made this a much more difficult interview to answer.”
Jon is currently working on three documentaries, one of which is about his own struggles to make it to Hollywood. Jon says, “Regardless, what ends up happening to me, I plan to eventually release a documentary showing my ups and downs to hopefully inspire others to reach for their dreams and believe in themselves. It starts with letting go to all the things holding you back and then believing that with skill and effort the journey will take care of you… Never give up and never stop believing.” He is also writing two feature films and plans to start production of one of them later this year. One is “a paranormal thriller… the other bigger budget film is a high fantasy about knights and the Fae realm.”Jon has “started acting as an extra for other productions in order to be a better director, by understanding the process in front of the camera,” and offers his skills as an extra and production designer to interested filmmakers. He can be contacted HERE or through the LJR Productions Facebook Page, and you can see his work and look for cast and crew calls on his website.
“Red Sand” is a visually stunning fan film based on the Mass Effect franchise by EA Games. This 14 minute short tells the story of what happened 35 years before the time of Commander Shepard. It was released to Youtube less than a month ago, and already has 131,500 views! Most people, who claim to be gamers or even just fans of video games, are familiar with the Mass Effect franchise. It is well known for its stunning graphics, intricate storylines, and captivating characters, making it a perfect candidate for a fan film. This, however, is not a task that can be easily taken on by just any team. The University of Advancing Technology in Tempe, AZ is well known for its programs in digital media, such as Game Design and Digital Video, making UAT DV the perfect team to take on the challenge of creating such an amazing film. We had the pleasure of interviewing Paul DeNigris, a professor at UAT and one of the producers of “Red Sand.”
Preproduction:
In the behind the scenes, you mentioned that you decided to create “Red Sand” because you wanted to do a fan film. Were there ideas on the table other than Mass Effect? What made the team choose Mass Effect over other popular franchises?
My students and I were inspired by “Portal: No Escape” to make a fan film, and we kicked around a lot of different ideas before landing on Mass Effect. Red Dead Redemption was mentioned but we discounted that because it would basically just be a Western and we wanted to do something sci-fi. BioShock was considered for a while but I kind of steered them away from that because I felt the water effects and the environments would be too difficult. It was really student Caleb Evans who stepped up to write a prequel to Mass Effect because he loved the source material and also felt we could leverage our desert locale to do a prequel set mostly on Mars.
Aside from playing the game, what kind of research did UAT DV do prior to writing the script? What tools did you use?
Caleb spent a lot of time on the various Mass Effect wiki’s just to double-check dates and such, and I frankly knew nothing about the Mass Effect franchise at all so I had to learn everything. So a big part of the research phase was just me asking the crew a ton of questions and them having to find answers that were both dramatically satisfying and consistent with established Mass Effect canon. And we played a lot of Mass Effect in class!
When did UAT DV officially start preproduction on “Red Sand?”
Preproduction on “Red Sand” began in September 2011. Caleb and most of the project leaders were in my Production Studio II class and were developing this project while also producing some other, smaller-scale films, including a neat little time travel flick called “Reset” that we did for an IFP/Phoenix challenge and which won “Best VFX.”
I noticed that Nola Yergen mentioned shopping at the dollar store for components of the costumes. What was the budget for this project?
Nola is great at stretching whatever budget she’s given, so the dollar store is one of her favorite places to find odd stuff that no one else would consider. That’s her greatest skill – the ability to see a bunch of random components and tie them all together into an awesome costume. The budget for this one is hard to pin down exactly, because UAT sponsored us with catering, craft services, equipment, and facilities that I can’t put a price tag on. The items I had an actual budget for totaled up to under $10,000.
Who did the casting for the project? Did they have Mark Meer in mind for Colonel Grissom’s character, or did they place him in the role once they knew he was interested in participating in the project?
We did the casting for this one in-house, though we owe a debt to Faith Hibbs-Clark of Good Faith Casting for finding Ayman Samman (“Dr. Averroes”) for a previous project, my thesis film “Parallax.” Caleb wrote the role in “Red Sand” with him in mind. As for Mark Meer, we came up with the idea of asking him to be in the film after the script was written, but once we had that idea in our heads it was hard to picture him as anyone but Grissom, and hard to picture Grissom played by anyone but Mark. The fact that he said yes to the role brought so much momentum and legitimacy to the project that I can’t even fathom what the project would have been like without him.
Production:
Was this a project that students received a grade for in class, or was it considered more of an extracurricular activity? How did you decide who to assign to each role on the crew?
Production on the film was a mandatory class activity in my Production Studio classes. I run it like an actual studio, where I’m the producer and everyone works for me, like it’s their first professional job. I find it provides an invaluable educational experience, produces great work, and turns the students into a seasoned, pro-level crew in just a few semesters. As for crew assignments, in a lot of ways the team self-decides that. Most people come into the Production Studio class already thinking of themselves as cinematographers, editors, compositors, what have you. And since many of them have already worked together on smaller projects before, they come into the class with some pre-established team configurations in mind. They know who they want to work with and what role they want to fill. So I generally just have to focus on the few kids who come to the class without a crew position or a career path in mind, and I help them find it. A great example of this is Samantha Hammond, who produced “Red Sand” with me. A semester before, she had no idea where she fit in the hierarchy of her peers, or what she wanted to specialize in. But I watched her organize and produce several smaller projects almost by default because no one else stepped up to the producer tasks. At that point I said to her, “I want you to produce ‘Red Sand‘ with me” and she took to the job as if she had been doing it for years.
In this photo: Dr. Zachary Robinson, Paul DeNigris, Mark Meer, Jamil M. Abubakar, Ariel Navarrete Spahn, Paul Rosario, Sarah Levinson, Jared Oppie and Caleb Evans.
It is mentioned in the behind the scenes that the shoot took five days, and Jamil Abubakar said that he was constantly trying to beat the sun. Was this shot solely during class hours? If not, what was the schedule like for the project?
We shot for 5 days, around 12 hours a day, during the first week of our January 2012 semester. My students were excused from the first week of their other classes by my fellow professors, who are super supportive of what I’m doing with my crew. We were “constantly trying to beat the sun” because we were shooting almost the entire film “day for night” and using the sun as our backlight. So as each day went on, we continually rotated the greenscreens to keep the sun at the actors’ backs.
When did UAT DV start filming this project? Did it happen to fall close to the premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises?” We noticed in the behind the scenes that quite a few crew members were wearing Batman T-shirts on set.
Since most of the film takes place on Mars, Red Sand has several interesting locations. Where was the film shot?
UAT conveniently owns a pretty big empty lot immediately east of our campus. On my thesis film “Parallax,” we used “the dirt lot” as we call it to double for Iraq (with the help of visual effects, of course). So it was a no-brainer to employ the same techniques to create our Martian environments. Shooting so close to home base made everything easier – catering, costuming, battery recharging – all could be housed in the academic building. To have shot this film on location somewhere else would have taken longer and cost way more than we had in our budget.
In one of the behind the scenes videos, Mark Meer appears to be is suiting up in the motion capture room at UAT. Was there any motion capture used in the film, or was the room used for its massive green screen?
At UAT our indoor greenscreen stage just happens to also be housed in the same room as our optical motion capture system. We filmed our interior scenes – such as the interior of the Prothean ruins and onboard the SSV Phoenix spacecraft – in there. So in the behind the scenes video, you’re seeing us applauding for Mark after he wrapped – and the last thing he filmed was our original teaser trailer which shows him on the observation deck of the Phoenix looking down on Mars.
This film uses quite a few visual effects. Were there any special effects used during production?
Well, whenever it makes sense for us to do so, we try to shoot effects material in-camera. So for example when the Red Sand marauders erupt from the ground, all of the dirt and dust they kick up was filmed at 60fps using an air cannon I bought when we were doing “Parallax,” dubbed the “ThunderPipe.” Basically, it allows you to fill the hopper with dirt and then pump up the chamber with compressed air at several hundred PSI. Makes for some really cool dirt explosions that look infinitely better than what we could do with a particle simulation. Another practical element we filmed was the Martian dust storm. My pal David Stipes, who did VFX work on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” among many other shows, suggested we use “spinning cotton” to create the dust cloud elements. So I picked up some polyester fiber stuffing from a fabric store and we made dust cloud shapes and skewered them on long wooden dowels. We then put one dowel at a time onto a power drill and filmed 60fps elements of the polyester clouds spinning, which when color-corrected, overlayed on top of each other, and combined with other elements like dust and lightning, look remarkably like a dust storm!
SSV Phoenix in orbit of Mars. 3D Model: Elissa Clare Lighting and Rendering: Dr. Zachary Robinson Texturing and Comp: Paul DeNigris
How long was postproduction?
Postproduction began as soon as filming wrapped in January, and lasted until we debuted the film on YouTube in October.
Did the team know what it wanted all of the backgrounds and locations to look like before shooting, or was a lot of that figured out during postproduction?
I’d say a little of both. We had concept art for the Prothean ruins and we had lots of reference images of Mars. And of course we knew what the interior of an Alliance ship should look like because we had three games’ worth of imagery to look at. But the look of the ruins definitely evolved throughout post, and our Mars image library grew and grew once Curiosity landed. Plus we took a class trip up to Salt Lake City during postproduction and stopped off to shoot a ton of pics on the Arizona / Utah border that looked rather otherworldly. A lot of that material got incorporated into our Mars matte paintings by our 2D art team.
Did the team face any challenges with visual effects?
Visual effects work is always a challenge! Especially on a film where EVERY shot is a VFX shot. Every single shot in the film had something in it that proved to be a challenge. But the biggest issues we faced were related to the greenscreens, the helmets, and the biotics. Our greenscreens were pretty large, but at times not large enough to encompass all our action. So whenever actors would leave the greenscreen it would require rotoscoping, a frame-by-frame tracing process where the actor is separated from the background. There are some great software tools for that, but it’s still drudgery. The helmets posed an issue because of the way they were constructed. The entire bottom of the helmet was open, so on occasion you’d see the background right through it. That required some additional roto to build out digital bottoms for the helmets and close those holes. And as far as the biotics go, we worked really hard to make them consistent with the games but at the same time put our own spin on them.
While in post did any last minute changes have to be made to either the story or the visuals?
During editing you always find stuff that you wish you’d shot differently, or just stuff you missed and really need to make the story complete. On a film like this where so much of the image is being manufactured anyway, it’s often easy to bring the actors back to reshoot elements. Obviously we weren’t going to bring Mark Meer back down from Edmonton but luckily our director of photography Jared Oppie has the same build as Mark so we were able to use him as a stand-in for Mark in a couple of shots. There’s even one shot where Jared is standing in for Mark and we are shooting over his shoulder to look at the oncoming Red Sand marauders – and Jared is also doubling for the Red Sand leader because that element was shot at a separate time. So he is effectively staring himself down in that shot!
Dr. Averroes (Ayman Samman) announces his historic discovery on the surface of Mars.
On a film like this, the edit is left pretty loose until the VFX start getting put into the cut. Shots run a little long here and there and they get trimmed and tightened as the VFX get added. So yes, our editor Paul Rosario then went in and tightened the whole cut over and over and over again as the VFX team gave him more and more material. On the one hand that makes things very flexible for the editorial team to continue refining the story and the pacing, but on the other hand the audio team hates it because the overall picture keeps changing and they aren’t really able to lock down their effects and dialogue tracks until VFX are completely done. So we literally were still tweaking the sound mix until about an hour before I had to upload the film to YouTube for our advertised premiere.
What editing software and VFX software did the team use?
For editing we use Avid Media Composer. For audio, we’re using Avid Pro Tools as our primary mixing tool, with Adobe Audition used here and there for editing of individual sound effects elements. For the visual effects, Adobe After Effects is our primary compositing tool – the software we use to put the shots together. Backgrounds and other still images were edited using Adobe Photoshop. We used Mocha for what’s called “planar tracking” – a process we used for a variety of things such as the HUDs inside the helmets. Our CGI environments were modeled in a number of different tools – a little Maya, a little 3DS Max, and a little ZBrush – but everything was lit and rendered in Maya. For serious motion tracking – pretty much any time the camera is moving and the background is CGI – we used PFTrack to develop 3D camera tracking solutions.
While the intent with “Red Sand” was always to release it via the Internet, we have already been invited to four cons next year. And I have submitted to both Phoenix and San Diego Comicons. Not sure if I will submit to any traditional film festivals though, because they tend to frown upon films being available on the Web during their festival run. Cons are a little more relaxed about that, and frankly that’s where our audience is!
After the success of “Red Sand” does UAT DV plan to write a sequel, or have any other fan films in the works?
We are definitely discussing a sequel or potentially a web series. More on that as things develop!
Are there any other projects that UAT DV is currently working on?
Every semester we’re cranking out new films. We just took first place at the IFP/Phoenix 48 Hour Film Challenge over the summer, placed in the top 20 of the A3f (Almost Famous Film Festival) 24 Hour Film Challenge this fall, and just days ago swept the Inter-College 48 Hour Film Challenge, taking home 3 awards. Many of those films will be hitting our YouTube channel over the coming weeks. We also just posted a short sci-fi comedy called “Flight of the Melvin” which has been on the festival circuit since January and scored a bunch of awards in the process. If your readers want to keep up with us, they can subscribe to our YouTube Channel, ”Like” our page on Facebook, Or they can follow us on Twitter.
Last week I noticed a Kickstarter campaign, run by Keegan Ead, bouncing around my Facebook news feed for a documentary on Ancient Painters of the Colorado Plateau. They were still 10% away from their goal of $15,000 with just a few hours left. I watched the campaign intently as the clock ticked down and the donations trickled in. In just six hours, Keegan obtained even more than his goal, reaching a total of $15,624. I was very impressed with his success, so I began to research his involvement with the Ancient Painters documentary as well as his newest venture, Push Crowd, which will be producing the project. We chose Keegan as our Jump Ship Productions Filmmaker of the week because of his Kickstarter success, and his innovative ideas within his company Push Crowd.
Keegan moved to Phoenix in 2003 to pursue a software engineering degree at The University of Advancing Technology (UAT.) He very quickly discovered that it was not a good fit for him and switched to the Digital Video program. This is where he began to appreciate every part of the process of filmmaking. Keegan especially loves “how cinema is about framing moments… some more important than others. The audience might not have any idea what that moment had to go through to get here… Just like in our day to day lives. We rarely stop to consider what elements came together to make a moment possible.” After graduating in 2007, Keegan began picking up film jobs here and there, starting slowly but increasing over time. He mostly focuses his talents on cinematography and editing, but also has the privilege of coordinating events with the IFP Phoenix and Phoenix Film Festival. This allows him to build “a framework in which lots of people can create things.”
The image on the left is of the Two Tailed Siren which was the inspiration for the more familiar Starbucks’ logo on the right.
Keegan loves working with other people on their projects to help them succeed in any way he can. This is the driving force behind his company Push Crowd. He created the company in April, 2012 with the ultimate goal of being “a resource for creators… building off the educational model that I think works really well at UAT. I want to work with filmmakers to figure out how to make their projects financially sustainable, and provide the resources that take away the obstacles that might be preventing them from making it the best that they can.” He stresses, “I certainly don’t want Push Crowd to be considered a production company like any of the others we see locally. It creates an US vs THEM mentality… I want to have an open door policy to anyone, and not be beholden to any group or idea or method of operation.”Push Crowd is still in its infancy, but it is growing quickly.
One of the first major projects for Push Crowd will be a documentary about the Ancient Painters of the Colorado Plateau. “My father is an archaeologist that has been studying these Barrier Canyon Style images for about 11 years.” Just as Keegan is inspired by how filmmakers spend incredible amounts of energy to create films, he is fascinated by what inspired these ancient people to devote time and energy into creating these images. He decided to raise the funds for the project through a crowdfunding site, and chose Kickstarter specifically because “it was the most established.” Since Kickstarter can take up to 9% of the money you earn, Keegan suggests that interested parties “Really gauge how much money you can raise among friends and family versus strangers… If you think most of your money will be raised by strangers. It might be worth it. If you really just want the ability to accept multiple forms of payment, like credit cards, Paypal will do that for less than 3% of what you raise.”
Keegan is continuing to develop Push Crowd, and hopes to soon begin working on his biggest project to date. He has recently started a Push Crowd podcast, and plans to bring in tons of guests to “nerd-out about the things they love.” You can subscribe to the podcast here. Ancient Painters of the Colorado Plateau is already in preproduction and is scheduled to begin filming in the fall. If you are interested in reaching out to Keegan, you can email him here or go to the Push Crowd facebook page.
Most of us have grand dreams when we’re kids about what we want to be when we grow up, but as we get older and learn the ways of the real world, a lot of us lose that childlike belief that we can do anything so we settle for something more practical. There are many things that I like about filmmakers, but the one quality that I absolutely love the most is our ability to hold onto that childlike love for filmmaking and our drive to never stop until our dreams come true. Jump Ship Productions recently participated in both the IFP Breakout Challenge and the Almost Famous Film Festival’s (A3F) 48 hour film challenge, and during both there was one group that caught our eye. LJR Productions put out two delightfully whimsical films that were very obviously made with a lot of love. We had the pleasure of interviewing Jon Ray, the writer/director and owner of LJR Productions about his experiences.
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