48 Hours In Purgatory - A Reflection

It is 2:07am on Christmas Eve, 2009 and I haven't seen a bed since Friday the 18th. I have been locked away in 2 rooms with no windows putting the final touches on the epic adventure that has been the film 48 Hours In Purgatory. As I sit here watching the progress bar slowly move closer and closer to 100%, "this is war" by 30 seconds to mars plays in the background, it's hard to picture a better way of ending this chapter.

I don't think up to this point I know a movie better then I know 48. I know most of the lines by heart, I know every single mistake, problem area and things that we wanted but couldn't. What is lost now is the objectivity that the film is actually good. I feel that it's good - even watching the first 20 minutes of the final film it felt, looked and sounded like a real film.

It has been an insane project right from doing pre-production during the final weeks of 2nd year (april 2009) to the epic battle with final cut over the last 24 hours. Film making is not easy, in fact it's actually near impossible. No normal human being would ever put his or herself through this process. I tried to explain to someone earlier tonight what and why I was doing what I was doing and I came across as sounding like a mentally deranged human being. It was funny but also kind of mind blowing - to me it's just what has to be done at this point in time - spend 5 days with 4 dudes in a room with no windows watching the same footage over and over again because the buzz of the warehouse ambience track seemed a little loud and needed to be turned down or a little logo in a shot that is seen over credits for about 5 seconds needs to be moved a little farther to left.

The sad but awesome thing is that gimme a week to recover - and I would just do it again.

What is even more insane is that me and Jay had a conversation about the next film already. Maybe gimme 2 weeks to recover.

During the course of finishing a film on this scale at this point in my life - you really get to know people, really, really, well. Who you can trust, who you can't. Watching Jeremy put the final touches on the mix down in the Hb04 studio was epic to see. A screen shot of the pro tools session should go up in the studio as a reminder to all film students that it can be done, here and now. Then there was Nick - all alone color correcting. He invented a way of modifying 3 computer chairs to a pretty comfy bed. But seriously the look of the film is amazing and his vast knowledge of all things technical was a serious must, not only in this final stage of post-production but also even during production. One of my favorite things was turning to Jay and saying -" you don't know this person, but they watched your movie frame by frame to edit clothing movement". This film is filled with people like that - dedicated to their craft and uber talented.

If all things go well, we will be "shooting lights and being able too" summer 2010 and the process will start all over. Hopefully with a little more money, more experience under our belt and the knowledge that seriously, anything is possible if you realize that giving up is just not an option. A great 20th century philosopher once said " Do or do not, there is no try".

MK

Texas Blog Part 4 - Home.

To those waiting breath bated, for this final blog about Texas - well the wait is over. Did that come across sarcastic? Good. Anyways - I left off Day 7 when we were in the desert. That day we left to Midland and shot some exteriors there and then drove back towards our camp which we stopped to get some epic shots of an oil derek and a moving train - which turned out to be the Ian's favorite shots. We came back to camp exhausted and Sarah and Carlton took a nap. Myself and Brennen after dumping the footage went atop a large sand dune and did some dune jumping which was awesome.

Carlton joined us and we picked the spot where we were going to shoot the sunset. We walked back to our camp site which didn't really seem that far - then we gathered the jib arm, 2 tripods, 2 cameras, a sand bag and 40 pounds of weights. The three of us treked across desert and the hot sand to capture the trips most epic footage - jib shots in the desert at sunrise. The walk then seemed A LOT further.

That night Carlton got the truck stuck - the park ranger the next morning wasn't happy but he pulled us out. Carlton claims that he only got the truck stuck a little bit and me and Brennen did the rest while trying to get it out. After getting our truck out - we packed up everything and left the camp site which had been our home for two days. On Wednesday at 2:45pm, after shooting some more exteriors in Midland, we decided to head home.

Between myself and the two Ian's we each did shifts of 5-6 hours of driving. We drove through the night and after lots of energy drinks, sunflower seeds and coffee we finally arrived back in Canada late Thursday night/Early Friday morning.

The trip as a whole was a fantastic experience and after looking at some of the footage I can't wait to see things come together in the coming months. I shall leave with these words from a song that we listened to over and over on the trip:

"Alabama, Arkansas, I do love my Ma and Pa
Not in the way I love you.
Holy moley me oh my you're the apple of my eye
Girl I never loved one like you.
Home, Let me go home. Home is wherever I'm with you."

MK

Texas Blog Part 3

Alright so I believe I left off at day 4 - so day 5 we woke up after a gnarly night of thunderstorms and noisey crickets to a rainy, over cast day. We packed up all of our wet crap, the Ian's shot some ocean shots and we took off to the Golden Corral for breakfest which is awesome cuz it's buffet style! Then Sarah decided that it was best to trek forward and go to huntsville which is where the Texas Prison Museum is - so we hit that and saw "Ol' Sparky" which is this super old electric chair they used to use for executions. After Huntsville, we cooked it over to Livingston which is where our subject is currently being held - in a maximum security prison - we banged off some awesome exteriors of the place - the prison is MASSIVE and really intimidating.

The same day we drove to Marlin, Texas and grabbed an exterior of a place which we shouldn't have and it was super scary, police and security was involved but we escaped!

We stopped for night around 2am just outside of Dallas - we thought at the time we would head straight to Midland the next day but Sarah added two stops when we got up. We had stopped in West Dallas as to give us a head start to Midland but actually had to head backwards to Longview which we shot some coverage of the town and then booked it over to Eastland where we got some great footage of some important buildings and such.

After which point we were headed to Midland and decided to got to Big Springs, State park to camp but when we got there it was only a day camp, not actually a camp site. SO, with me at the wheel we took off to Monahan's which was about 2 hours away - this was the serious desert.

We camped there last night (day 6) and this morning it felt like we were in a Clint Eastwood Western movie - we saw this CRAZY bug which I filmed on my isight lol. Anyways - we are headed back to Midland today to film and then to Odesa and will end up back at our camp site, Monahan's for tonight. I think the Ian's are getting some great footage but today and tomorrow are very important to the story and to the documentary as a whole so I hope that we can figure things out here! It's HOT!
I will update again in a few days when we are on our way home - hopefully by then we will have everything we needed to get for the doc - so far it's been a fantastic trip - so much to see!

Texas Blog - Part 2

With the Ian's tag teaming the driving during the day on day 2, we arrived in Little Rock, Arkansas in the evening where we stayed at a motel 6 for some much deserved z's. We arrived officially the next morning on day 3. We went to 4 different county's where the subject of the documentary lived and went to school, DANGERfield, Avinger, Jefferson City and Mount Pleasant. The Ian's came up with a cool idea to film this which was to mount the camera on top of the truck and drive up, through and around each of the places. The footage looks amazing!

We headed to Lake Bob Sandlin State Park which is about 15 minutes away from Mount Pleasant to camp for the night. Me and Sarah forged some food (went to a HUGE walmart) and the Ian's set up shelter. We had awesome steaks for dinner. We all got up when it was still dark to set up an epic sunrise dolly shot which turned out amazing, the sun over the lake was incredible and after a hearty breakfest we were off to one more county, Ore, and then to Jamica Beach (near Glaveston).

The idea was to get some footage of the gulph of mexico but it was raining when we got there and things weren't looking good. Also, it was HOT and muggy. The bugs were insane since we were camping right on the beach. After forging for wood and setting up the tents, we all decided to go swimming and it was fantastic! The water was warm and the waves were huge! It was very refreshing, we then made some chili after we made a fire (not east with wet driftwood) and headed to bed.

I am writing this inside the truck with the window open and can hear the ocean, crashing away. Though we haven't filmed anything yet here, we hope too later on this morning, this place was still awesome and great stop on our trip! Also, SUPER windy last night, seriously, SUPER windy.

MK

Texas Blog - Part 1

It is Day 2 on our journey to Texas which started yesterday, the 30th, as Ian Brennen, Sarah and myself departed from Mississauga and headed to PS to meet Mike Krasney who hooked us up with awesome gear. After which we headed to Kingston with Ian Brennen at the wheel, to pick up the fourth member of our crew, Ian Carlton and also to drop off a weiner dog, Euie at Sarah's grandparents place.

Then a re-arrange of the truck and a changing of the drivers to Ian Carlton, we headed to the border where we registered all of our equipment and I took over as Captain of our V8 awesome truck to get us through to the U.S. We crossed over at around 10pm and Ian Carlton drove until 12:15am where we stopped at Tim's. I took over with a large coffee, energy drink in hand and Journey blasting, I drove until 7am the next morning where we were about 40 km's outside of Columbus, Ohio.

My playlist for the night included, Monolith, Toto, Journey, Avantasia and Pat Benatar. Nothing super exciting has happened as of yet, just tons of driving and talk of the desert. Oh and Sarah bought a sheriff's badge when we stopped in Kentucky. "I Shot the Sheriff" was playing on the radio at the time. True Story.

MK

The Final Battle - Part 3

Alright, so I thought before the insanity of 3rd year took over I would conclude my 3 part blog series on "crap I have done" and such. I have enjoyed looking through some of the stuff I have done to get me where I am now. Though maybe 3 people have read this stuff, it's more for me then for you, so there.

I think I have touched on most of the films/events that have gotten me here, Bloodshed, Asher, Behind Closed Doors, etc. I did however touch briefly on the film 48 Hours In Purgatory so I will go into more detail here since it has been on my mind as of late. Jason Armstrong was like that one long lost girlfriend you are like "man she was awesome, whatever happened to her?". I guess that analogy works right Jay? Anyways, we met in the local metal scene, had brief but awesome encounters and then didn't talk to each other for like 4 years. Then he pops up on my MSN one day when I am in post on Behind Closed Doors and says "you make movies too? So do I...." and thus began the start of the long and painful journey of the film "48 Hours In Purgatory". See Jay was just finishing shooting on his first feature film of that name in July 2008. He did some effects work on BCD and I helped him out on what was thought to be the "last shooting days on 48 HIP". Boy, we were wrong since a year and 2 months later (last weekend) we ACTUALLY wrapped shooting on 48.

When I go into 2nd year film school, fall 2008, Jay locks himself away for the fall and comes back early 2009 and says to me "it's not good enough, I have to re-shoot, can you help?". I of course say yes. 4 months later, May 15th 2009, was the first day of shooting on 48, the second time around. This time I had gathered some of my best people to be on the small crew to help shoot this thing in the impossible 10 days. Well, we made it possible, some days we shot up to 14 pages. It was insane but the "feature film" bug bit me, hard. And I think the rest of the crew was bitten as well. The indie feature gig was pretty awesome. It was like summer camp for 10 days - not great food, no sleep, great people although in 48's case, we all achieved something didn't seem possible - shooting a feature in 10 days. We wrapped end of May and started editing right away. This Wednesday we will have a locked edit and have about 8 weeks for Post Audio and Colors. I am viewing the final cut tonight so I am pretty stoked about that.

To conclude this chapter on 48 - Jay has been on this project for the better part of 2 years and it has been a great pleasure (torture at times tho) to help him through this process. The experience I have gained producing my first feature has been invaluable and something I will never forget. Things also look promising for next summer - another feature? That is the goal.

Um, OK. I'd like to give a little preview of some things coming up in the next little while. 48 Hours moves to the final stages of Post Production this week - that is exciting. I am also involved in three 3rd Year portfolio projects - co-producing Chris Lawson's "Expired Poetry" with the lovely, Chantelle Kadyschuk as well directing my own "Until Death" produced by Nick Matthews and penned by the experienced hand of Caitlin Green. Lastly Texas - I am going there for 9 days to shoot Sarah Malden's documentary on this guy on death row. We leave on Wednesday! Pretty stoked about all 3 projects. A 48 premiere will be happening in December BTW which should be awesome. Anyways - that is a little taste of what's going on this fall - there is also a bunch of things that are super TOP SECRET - or something, which I hope to be able to reveal later this fall!

Alright, I think that concludes this series on "crap I have done" and such. Hope this was beneficial to maybe one other person then me but if not that's cool, I enjoyed it. OH also - when I come back from Texas I will be doing a 3 part lecture at Mafia entitled " I Made a Movie..Now WHAT?" which will be filmed and posted up on the youtube. Look out for that!

MK

Part 2 - Asher, Meat and Bruce Campbell. Oh My.

So I apologize for anyone DIEING to here my ranting here as it has been awhile. Oh yeah, it's probably just you Josh, so hey now I am writing another blog so you can't bug me about it anymore.

I was going to write a whole thing about Asher and the band, where we are now and how it lead to me becoming a film maker but since too many things got in the way of me writing, I will dedicate a paragraph to each topic I want to hit on.

In light of Monolith going into the studio a few weeks back, it got me thinking of the band I used to play in called Asher. BTW, check out Monolith, they are super sweet. Colin showed me a few initial mixes and it's stupidly awesome; cannot wait for the full album. Possible music video in the fall? Let's hope so. The album Asher did called "Harmonious Thought" wasn't just a stepping stone musically, but also personally. It was the first time I had taken on a large time and financial project. Barely 20, myself and Colin took a walk in the woods up north and decided to dedicate our lives for 1 year to this album. Weird how it keeps giving back to me in ways I never thought possible. People still come up to me and tell me their thoughts on it, even after 3 years as we finished the album fall of 2006. The songs also lead a label from Washington to our door and through that connection, Colin was able to sign his new band, Monolith, to the label called Bomb Works Records. If it wasn't for this album I wouldn't be where I am today. Oh and the music isn't half bad either.

Jump ahead to summer 2008. Sarah Malden comes on MSN and tells me she's going to make a tree of meat, set it up in Toronto and then film it. I of course was down. A year later the film is accepted to the Montreal World Film Festival where myself, Sarah and the DP Ian Brennen, attended the screening last week. Weird but awesome experience. Our names were in the program and we were excited and then a guy behind us after the film was done, said "that was good" and that also was cool. It made the 12 hours of driving worth it.

The weekend before going to Montreal me and my brother Josh had the fortune of meeting Bruce Campbell. After paying 8 bucks for parking, 35 bucks for the entry fee and then another 45 bucks to meet the guy, we shook his hand and had our picture taken. It was 8.3 seconds. So worth it though. It has yet to arrive at our house but still, to shake the hand of the man that said "Hello Mr. Fancy Pants" was a pretty sweet birthday present.

OK, so to wrap up the summer. 48 Hours shot in May. Laz Shot In July. ScreamFest in August and Montreal Film Festival in September. It was a busy but eventful summer to say the least. September and October look to bring amazing things and I am waiting on a list of opportunities that I hope I will be able to blog about in the coming month(s). For now, its pitch prep time as 3rd Year pitches happen this Friday. Commence the insanity!

MK

Imogen Heap - Ellipse

I am listening as I type this. Don't know what I can say about it as of right now but it is something I have never heard before and everything I had hoped it could be.

MK

Homeless Entertainment Part 1 - Within the Woods

OK so the whole "blog" thing is something I never really got into as I don't think there is enough people who actually care about what I have to say to make this worthwhile - but as Homeless Entertainment comes out of the woodwork and becomes more legit I figure I better suck it up and play the game.

Where to start? In the woods. That's a good place. I won't go back too far as to where and why I started making movies but early spring of 2007 myself and Homeless original creator Colin Campbell thought it best to gather 30 people, toss them in mud and blood and shoot it. This project was called Bloodshed. It allowed us to somehow be on a panel at Anime North 2007 where the film was screened and myself, Colin and writer/actor Bob Barrow (now of Steal My Name Productions) talked about making an indie zombie film. I thought to myself - not bad for a first time out. Maybe this actually could work.

Colin was accepted into the Advanced Film & Television program at Fanshawe College and I was accepted into the Media Arts program at Sheridan College. I pitched a film I wrote called Behind Closed doors fall of 2007 to two generous men who gave us some money to go and shoot this thing. Which we did early spring of 2008. After a screening for cast and crew at The Fox Theatre in the summer, I then submitted the film to 11 festivals in the states and 1 here in Canada. Today I found out that, after being rejected by 4 festivals, finally Shockerfest let BCD in.

I shall back up a bit. Right after Behind Closed Doors was screened at The Fox I took a script I had written in May for a school project and started work on that with new found film maker Nick Matthews. We had shot a film called Stranger together, and he was on Behind Closed Doors for a few days on the camera team. This film would be the first DP - Director combo (Nick as the DP, myself Directing) and we were jazzed about making a film that would make Rodriguez smile.

This film was called "Stripped" and after a big hairy mess with the school, our "cut version" of the film was screened in December. We then recut the film with audio and colors re done as well for a screening this past week at the first ever Toronto ScreamFest. This version was longer and better all around. The affects the film had on the program at Sheridan and what the crew went through and accomplished inside the 1 year epic journey that was "Stripped" is something I may cover in another blog but for the interest of time, sanity and you already being bored, I shall move on.

In the time between Stripped being recut myself and Nick were involved in a few other films one of which we produced together called "Shame". This short dramatic piece went on to be nominated for a few Media Arts awards and cleaned up at the Parry Sound Film Festival. This is also the time where we hooked up with a long lost rocker friend of mine, Jason Armstrong who had this little thing brewing called "48 Hours in Purgatory".

Again, topic for maybe part 2 or 3 of this, "Mike blabs about stuff he's done" blog but in short 48 changed the way I think about and do film. As my first ever main role on a feature, it impacted me heavily as a film maker even though I didn't direct. Nick DP'd and there was a 5 other Sheridan peeps that came along for the insane 10 days of shooting. This all went down this past May. We are now smack dab in the middle of editing and hope to complete the film early December.

OK to wrap up - this is just an overview of SOME things I have done and been involved with up to this point to give any one who cares some context. Oh, I forgot, what happened to Colin? Well he is still in London, making films with a company called Wreckless Crew Productions. He shot his first feature length documentary this past Spring (I was supervising sound editor on it). We still work together but because of distance and such we have sort of decided to do our own things as of right now...who knows what will happen in the future though.

Mike Klassen
Homeless Entertainment