Our New Production - Adopted
10 March 2006 in Blog | Comments enabled

Josh and I just wrapped production on our biggest production yet. No, its not Class Three. Josh and I were contracted to write and direct a 20 minute short film for a local organization in Atlanta. Not only did we get paid, but the entire budget of the short was paid for by the organization. Whoo hoo. That’s almost never done.

The project is called “Adopted.” It’s the story of a little boy who steals candy from a candy shop in a small town. The owner catches him and ends up adopting him. The little boy learns the rules, breaks them, and ultimately finds out that his new father loves him no matter what he does. It’s probably our strongest story yet in a short film.

We shot the film on a JVC HDV camera in 24p mode. NEVER DO THIS. Final Cut is not set up to capture 24p HDV. I spent 48 hours trying to capture. In the end, I had to purchase a third party program to capture but even then, the audio was out of sync. Thank God we used a slate. Reminds me of the good old days back in film school having to sync film to audio.

We filmed the entire film in Covington, Georgia. This has always been a dream of ours. My parents grew up there and when we were kids, we’d go visit my grandparents there and watch “In the Heat of the Night” being filmed. I think that’s when we first got the bug for filmmaking. We shot on Covington Square, on the famous Floyd Street, and on the railroad tracks. It was a dream come true.

The actors were incredible to work with. Trey Massey and Michael Moore (no, not that one) were the leads. I’ve included a picture of the poster. (You’ll recognize Trey from our film “Suburban Wormhole.” He was the neighbor who enjoyed the cookies.)

We assembled an all star crew. Tom Pritchard was DP and Heather Duffie was producer. Both worked on “Replacing George” about this time last year. They are a delight to work with. Aaron Blevins joined us as well as 2nd A.D.

The shoot lasted four days. Four 16 hour days. Wow. I’ve never had such an intense few days. Josh got sick on the last day and I had to direct by myself. He missed out on the wrap party. It sucked.

The film called for a dog to bark and growl at the kid. We ended up hiring a trained animal actor. It cost a lot but was worth it. It’s totally going to up the quality of the project.

I suppose that’s all for now. I’m working on getting some production photos for you all to see. Will let you know when it is up.

Jeremiah