Just a quick update on the status of the film. Necrophobia is edited and has existed in a rough-cut form for several months now. We have had two small screenings. The first being a small one for main crew only (Leo, Toni, Mike, Morgan, Spencer, myself and Laura, and a few others), and that cut was just over three hours long.
A couple of months later, we held a larger screening inside City Hall’s 40-seat theater for several major investors, the crew, a few friends and cast members who managed to slip in, and Alfred Cervantes of the Houston Film Commission (who has been on the inside loop on Necro for quite a while and had been anxious to check it out). This time, the cut had been refined down to about 2:45, about 20 minutes shorter, but still obviously a very loose cut. A good deal of the ADR (additional dialogue replacement) had not yet been cut in. Many insert shots were missing, leaving odd pauses where temp slates were used for the reading of books, etc. Most of the visual effects shots were temp or missing. Only certain key shots had been color graded. These key shots act as a guide for the rest of the scene once the right look is nailed down, but this has to be done at the tail end of the editing stage. This made for some very strange looking scenes with inconsistent color balance, sometimes dramatically so. Very little sound design had been done, which gave the entire film an overwhelming feeling of silence, and there were many scenes that simply had no music at all. Not even a temp track.
However, despite all it’s rough edges, we were all pretty excited to see that the film was already working very well, and I got a lot of positive feedback (including one attendee who actually said he’d rather pay to see the rough-cut of Necro again that to re-view many finished horror films he had seen lately!) Alfred, who has a very good sense of how film works and what sort of beats you need to hit, gave me an invaluable fresh view of the movie and steered me into some incredibly effective changes and additions, which any filmmaker will tell you, is a vital part of the editing stage. It was clear that I definitely had a film on my hands, and it was mainly a job of sanding down the rough edges, yanking out a few jagged nails and getting the finishing touches done. Alfred said he felt he had been given a peek at a real diamond in the rough, and could not wait to see how it develops!
The overwhelming response was a lot of shock and surprise that we had actually been able to squeeze a “real movie” from such a modest budget. That was always my goal, to make the “El Mariachi” of horror films, and I have to admit, sometimes when I see some of the stuff Mike and Steffen have accomplished, I think to myself “Jesus, is this almost the Star Wars of low-budget horror!”
If you are reading this, and you actually caught that screening, listen up because some major developments have come about since that time.
The current cut of the film is about 1:50, and is expected to be slimmed down to about 1:45 when all is said and done. In comparison to what you saw, this version is quick and slick. Some sub-plots have been combined with other parts of the movie to keep things moving, others have been tossed completely. The spine of the movie has been much more clearly defined, and I think the film does exactly what I always intended now: it creeps you out down to the core, kills a few people off, thickens the plot for a few minutes, and then throws you on a freight train of action and terror that rarely slows, loaded with twists and turns that get more and more intense until it sort of smashes through the haunted house it’s self and leaves you kind of lying in the dirt, wondering what the hell just happened. That was always supposed to be the effect of this film, and I think it’s finally getting there.
Digital color grading has been completed for the most part, the ADR is 99% completed and cut in place, and apart from 6 or 8 minor insert shots (a pair of hands here, a flashlight on a wall there), pick-up photography is basically out of the way.
On the CG side of things: Mike and Steffen have completed 90% of the environmental work (and it’s FAR better than I had ever hoped for!), and Squidboy is done. The star CG creature of the film (observant folk will spot him on the poster!!) has been created and all his shots have been animated, but we have re-thought the look of the creature and have decided to re-do him, not so much the construction of the creature as the lighting and the way he appears onscreen, and I think the new version is ultimately a hell of a lot more frightening. And since we’re re-rendering all his shots anyway, I’m having Mike re-animated most of them to punch him up and add more realism and dynamic movement. We are currently about 60% through that process, and it’s actually going quite fast.
Right now I am finishing up sound design, and I’m about 75% through the film now. This is basically everything from guns firing and buildings blowing up, to slime dripping off tentacles and sneakers trotting down stairs.
Once finished, I will be getting several musicians involved in creating the film’s score. We already have some awesome analogue sound FX (ala old school horror films such as Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street) thanks to Trevor Shultis and DJ Hawz (of Club HaVoK). This stuff is really helping me to add that touch that lets people know this film is taking place in the land of the old-school horror film. This is not “I know what you did last whatever”, this film is in the tradition of Nightmare, Hellraiser, Night of the Creeps, TCM, the good stuff. Like, anything could happen at any time, any kind of creature could pop up and bite someone’s arm off. I wanted an aural queue to clue people in to that, and these bad ass analogue stingers really help to underscore that theme.
We also have a breathtaking main-character theme composed by Bunny (A.K.A. Randy Rage in the film) and San Antonio musician Robert Ybarra, who will be composing several more themes to round out the more thematic score.
On the action music side of things, I’m looking at a more electronic sound, with heavy percussion pinning it down and synth and distortion guitar melodies carrying the themes. The temp score is already mind-blowing, so if we can get the final score to that level, we’ll have a hell of fireball under that third act.
I’m also looking at getting some hard core blackmetal in the soundtrack. If it happens, it’s going to KILL.
In the next few weeks, I expect to have the last few CG shots and illustrations come in for the film, the sound design will be done, and we will just be rounding it out with music. It’s getting pretty exciting now. Can’t wait to share it with the world! (along with a bucket of beer at the Alamo!)
-s