Developing Alex Chandler: The Greatest Film Day Yet!

The Spies (2010)

To Watch The Behind The Scenes Click Here

Yesterday was the filming of The Spies, it was predicted to be the largest film we have attempted yet, and it definitely was! You can always expect people not to be able to show up; and so three people were unable to make it. But we had my brother, Zachary Chandler, fill in those roles.
In essence we had eight people show up for this, of a planned eleven. And we got a lot done, with the help of some strategic setups.

What is coming from yesterdays effort? Well this coming Friday we should have a blooper / behind the scenes video coming out. Then there will be a trailer for this movie released in about a month, and sometime in December the actual video will release.

Some Important Learning Curves;

Today was like any other day, I learned a lot. While reviewing the film I discovered that a lot of us seemed to blink a ton (maybe due to the cold) and there was way too much looking at the camera. To top that off there was the wind factor, meaning we will likely have to perform some ADR on the outside scenes.

What to take away from this. The camera man, in this movie it was Ethan Carlson, should be watching for what peoples eyes are doing, whether that be blinking or looking at the camera (I was the worst, doing both of those a lot). Though if you are lucky enough to have a director watching from a ways away on a monitor, reviewing the footage, then you are lucky.

With the wind, it's not like it's something I didn't know. It's more or less something that should be prevented, and prepared for. You can't hear someones voice if they are too far away, or if the camera is being hit by wind. Luckily for the first scene, a silent scene, I was able to remove all the clips audio and substitute my own (though I still have to go out and get foot steps).

Another problem we faced was not knowing the script well enough. At the filming we tried out this new concept of having one person cook food for the actors, while another is doing up the make up, and then the rest of us are filming the scene. What does this have to do with not knowing the script? Well I think having someone who knew the script to the point where they could direct the camera man on what to do. Basically the director, but I think maybe having another scene director would work good too. But perhaps I should take it upon myself to do such. Because our script has planned out near every shot. But when things get tense and we are running low on time we can't look back at the script fast enough. And it would give us more free time if we were able to just sump into scene. Another step I had in mind for rolling through this faster is having the directors (in this case Ethan and I) go through the script before the filming actually starts and get a run down on everything.

Based Off Earth Wars;

This film was really taking a lot of the things we learned from making the Earth Wars Series. A lot being based around just having a script for the film, and the amount of shots planned into the script. In Earth Wars much of our film was choreographed and, things were planned out around the camera. And then whenever we would be talking about the script we'd refer back to techniques we used in Earth Wars. If I had to credit one movie we did for teaching us tricks for this, you guessed it, it'd have to be Earth Wars.

Alex David Chandler is not Yet an actor...with much skill

I found out the hard way that I'm not an actor... At least not yet! haha, while reviewing the film I could easily tell I was overly directing, though it was supposed to be Ethan's job, I was taking too much of it. In the footage I find myself looking at the camera excessively, talking about the next cut during a cut, and just a lot of really bad things for an actor to be doing...

I figure with time I might be able to train myself to act better, but for now I'll continue playing minimal roles and just directing. Because this film was supposed to be serious and like Zachrey Manning said, "you can tell Alex isn't used to serious films." haha, it's true. There were many instances where there was 7-12 takes of me because I just couldn't keep a straight face.

Alex Chandler

Ethan Carlson; For the win!

Luckily for this film we had Ethan Carlson directing. Before we started filming I told him that if something doesn't play across the camera right, or doesn't look good, make us retake it. And it is because of that, that I have looked over all of the footage so far, and it is fairly nice; even with all the minor mistakes.

Ethan was also playing a character in this movie. Originally he was supposed to play the goth, but that didn't happen, but he got the role as the waiter, who was a pretty awesome character! Overall we were lucky to have him as a director on this film!

Ethan The Director and Camera Man of The Spies

Haley Rondeau was a great asset, playing as a chef in the background as we filmed. She cooked so many pancakes! But it was all good fun and game, I'm glad we had her over.

Mariah Puccia-McAllister came over and played the Lead Spy. That was interesting, I think she will be surprised to see how well she did acting when the film releases.

Kalyn Erickson worked the make up side of things, creating a demon snake, the devil, and a goth. She also did some hair work for a couple characters. To top things off she played a spy character! It would have been impossible without the help put forth by Kalyn.

Mariah Morey played the main character Jane. This was a difficult role that she did an amazing job at, to be honest she did more than two times a greater acting job than I did [as the other main spy character]. Well it was an honor to work with her talent, she was able to convey many emotions very well. You'll just have to see the video to understand how vital her skills were. (That and that of Ethan's skill, pulled this movie out of anything else it may have been).

Kalyn ~ Mariah Morey ~ Haley ~ Mariah McAllister

Zachrey Manning played interesting characters to say the least. A Fluffy T-Rex (aka F-Rex) and a Demon Snake. The make up he had to put on was pretty hilarious! I was glad to have his help on this film. He is a self proclaimed "Blooper Creator." And I think he did a good job at that.

And then Zachary Chandler forced into using his skill, I wasn't dissatisfied at all. I knew he had acting skill, he just used to have a very high pitched voice, but now it is all about gone, and I look forward to using his skill in future productions.In this film he plays the Goth and the Devil.

Zach Manning and Zach Chandler ~ "Zach Squared"

Having reviewed the footage I feel it is safe to say this will turn out to be a fairly great movie. Everyone put a lot of awesome effort into it. And through our teamwork we will have created, more than likely, our greatest film yet.