Astral Pictures

Bryan, a college student interested in the occult, and his friends accidentally unleash a vampire-like spirit that slowly drains their life energy. Bryan must find and destroy the monster before it kills them all.

This logline serves as the basic premise for our script, The Invitation. The idea for this script started in 2001, almost 9 years ago, when Danny and I sat around one night, shooting ideas back and forth for a psychological horror movie with a twist ending. Over the years, the script took on numerous forms, and the story and structure kept changing. We had planned to shoot the movie first in 2002, then in 2003 when that didn’t happen. We were going to shoot in on super8 film, then 16mm, then mini-dv. Every time I planned on shooting the film, I realized that it couldn’t be accomplished with such a small budget. Sometimes the movie got complicated, as shown by this diagram:

Yeah, it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

So now, 9 years after the original idea, I just want to film this thing and move on! A wiser person would have abandoned the project long ago, but there is a burning desire inside of me to finally see this thing in print. I rewrote the script for an Advanced Screenwriting class I took at Oneonta, and purposely toned it down for mood as well as budgeting reasons. The story is very ambiguous, with a lot of the haunting imagery possibly taking place only in the protagonist’s, Bryan’s, head. Ideas have been taken from numerous sources, like the “Old Hag,” psychic vampires, real-life haunting stories, old myths, and sleep disorders. The story is essentially an allegory for draining relationships and how an overly melodramatic person can bring down everyone around them.

For budgeting reasons, I wanted to make sure that production costs would be no more than the small short films we were making. If we stuck to super8 or 16mm film, this would be impossible. Film costs would run us into the thousands of dollars range for stock, processing, and transfer fees alone. I believe I estimated super8 film costs to be around $3500 and 16mm film costs to be round $8000 at one point, and that was shooting with less than a 1:2 ratio (meaning we had only two chances to get a good take, and sometimes less… so no pressure!).

I have, in the past, been outspoken about DV, while shouting about the joys of filmmaking with actual film. However, I can no longer ignore the enormous benefits of shooting digital. For less than a thousand dollars, we can make a film in full 1080p HD, with a 24p frame rate, full manual controls, and interchangeable lenses. This was only a dream a few years ago. I remember when the DVX100 came out for $4000 and offered 24p, and most filmmakers soiled themselves. We’ve come a long way in the few years since the DVX100.

The current trend is to shoot low budget movies with HDSLR still cameras. Like I said above, these cameras offer full HD, manual control, and interchangeable lenses. These options have spurred the camcorder industry to try and compete, and within the next few years cheap camcorders will probably offer these same options. The Panasonic AG-AF100 is a good example of a company trying to compete (even if the price range is higher than the HDSLRs). It’s an exciting time for low budget filmmakers, who can no longer complain about lacking high quality equipment to make their movies.

With this in mind, I plan on making The Invitation with a Canon Rebel T2i. It is an 18mp still camera that offers 1920×1080 full HD resolution, 24p and 30p frame rates, manual control over exposure, and an 18-55mm kit lens for under $1000. I’ll also buy a Canon EF 50mm 1.8f prime lens and a Canon EF 75-300mm zoom lens, which I believe will cover my bases for filmmaking. Shooting video with HDSLRs isn’t as simple and intuitive as shooting with a camcorder, but with patience, practice, lighting, and stabilization, the results can be incredible.

Of course, good video without good sound is pointless. After lots of searching, I’ve decided that recording audio separately (double system) is essential with this camera. I’ll be purchasing a Zoom H4n sound recorder, along with a Rode NTG-2 shotgun mic for quality sound. So far, this is the production budget that I’ve come up with:

 This is a preliminary budget for equipment expenses alone. Costumes, light effects, transportation, food, etc… will need to be figured in eventually. However, it looks much more in my grasp compared to what the costs would have been if we decided to shoot on film. And to sweeten the deal, we can make more movies than one without much more additional production costs! I’m actually considering shooting The Invitation back-to-back with Death By Water, another script I’ve been working on for years and am currently writing. I’m aiming for a summer and fall of 2011 production.

The major thing I will need to do is find willing people to help make these movies. I need a few crew members to help with filming, sound, and effects, as well as actors to fill the roles. A live action movie cannot be made without people! It’s tough to convince people to work on a movie for no pay. The benefits are experience, something to add to your resume, a copy to show people you worked on it, a fun time making it, and exposure to the world. Hopefully, in the coming year, I can convince enough people that this will be worth the effort, and that I want us to be a team of hobbiests making a decent, low budget film. I know I didn’t talk much about the script itself, but I’ll post more later.