Mortus Illumina 3rd Incarnation (AKA How not to make a feature film)

The 1st Incarnation
The 2nd Incarnation

Here below is the presentation I gave at Bettakultcha on Mortus Illumina. I honestly did not mean to swear that much. (those of you reading this on facebook, can see it here)



Watching the video back, there are a couple of points I did mean to mention, but had to drop them because of time (BettaKultcha format 20 slides at 15 seconds a slide - it goes quicker than you think). The first of these, is that if we have even put one tenth of the planning that went into the shoots into post production. Then that would of been a year wiped off the time it has taken.

The second thing is, a project like this does take over and consume your life. I think for sanity reasons, over the last few years I have put some distance between myself and it, but this point leads nicely onto the third carnation of the script.

I mentioned that the second incarnation of the script took us through several shoots,in fact it was the  the bulk of filming. Come June 2002 after the chapel shoot, all we had left to shoot was a studio shoot to get some interiors. These would of included scenes inside the convent and scenes at Mary and Rico's flats. Below is the storyboards for one such sequence.

We had planned it would be a two week shoot and even had scale models made of the sets, ready to go.

The London shoot and Chapel Shoot happened extremely close to each other and part of the London Shoot involved shooting a 1940's Bar scene. In this scene, there is also the longest continual shot in the film ( 4 minute track) and the most expensive shot. I worked it out , taking into condsideration equimpent costs, location costs etc to be £2500 for that shot. But  definitely worth it.


Do  not think it was a luxury shoot as we had the bare minimum of lights and equipment to make this scene work. The photo below, you can just make out the track and literally we had everything in pool of lights around the track. Everything else was in pitch black and the following photo sequence should give you you an idea of the end result.

This shoot wasn't without its fair share of glitches in the run up, the band that were meant to be in there, pulled out at the last moment for starters. But the shoot itself, I think was one of the most succesful bits of shooting in the entire film.

The chapel shoot as well, was a very succesful shoot and it was nice having the two shoots close together. This was acheived by the fact that I was effectively working full time for one client (40 hours) and then working 40 hours for another client at the same time - which you can only do for so long before cracks appear (add on this 30 hours a week prep for the shoots) both personally and in what you are doing. 

I've mentioned more about this in a journal I put together in 2003 which you can read over here. To cut a long story short, financially doing the shoots so close together was a huge financial gamble which did not pay off.  Secondly on a personal level, my father also passed away a few weeks after the chapel shoot.

The next year was extremely tough both mentally and also around that time, the bottom fell out the market and I was no longer able to earn the money I was earning. Where I said about how something like this engulfs your life, from experience it is gut wrenching when other things in your life began to fall apart and then you watch what you have created begin to full apart too. It goes hand in hand as you are so involved. 

This resulted in a year hiatus from Mortus illumina and then an attempt to try and pick up the pieces after that gap.  I think I was only left with one option which was to sink the old MI ship and build a new one. Which is what I did and this is the third incarnation.

Before getting to the third carnation I want to stress this point. I have, and always be entirely greatful for all those who have put their time and effort into Mortus illumina. I was always aware that doing this would always be a one off in the fact of getting so many people to give their time to this project, which has taken far longer than anticipated. I am aware the onus is very much on me to deliver and believe me I will. We are extremely close to that point. The casualty list of unfinished low budget films, I would say out numbers the completed and I am determined that MI won't end up on that scrap heap.

I threw a party roughly 14 months on from the last shoot at the time (which was the chapel shoot) armed with a  polished promo of the film cut so far, with the aim of judging what the enthusiasm was. It was not a success and whilst there was a slim chance of having all and sundry back, I think if we had gone that route. It would have shown on the screen. I have included below "The wrap email" I sent out to everyone at the time.  It's interesting from my point of view,  reading that  back now.  I think at the time, I was quite disheartened and a bit bitter to be honest.  Whilst horribly over schedule, I am quite proud of how the final film has turned out -It is far better than originally intended.

The third incarnation  was to fill in all the gaps in shooting with stop motion and puppetary. I must also stress here, that stop motion sequences were always going to be apart of the film, right from the early days of the hammer head incarnation. This was taking it a step further and introducing the puppetary element. To give you an idea of how this works, the storyboard of the scene Imentioned  earlier was meant to take place before this scene below which we had filmed.

So hey presto, missing scene with puppets

I was reading Faust at the time when coming up for the script for the third carnation and what struck me most, was the opening bit where the director is talking about the play "faust" they are about to put on. I got caught up with this idea of having a world within a world and that expanded out to create this entire new "outside" story.

Two new characters were added, The Puppeteer and a character called "Tony" who went from early draft in the scripts from being everything from a Medieval knight to a soldier in the second world war; before finally becoming a guy with a bag full of cash, a gun and a motorcycle tire  - naturally.

Which from then, built up the idea that the original Mortus illumina tale was being told by the Puppeteer to Tony. There were several major chops made to the second incarnation story. The main being that where the book in the second carnation was made central to the storyline, in the third carnation the books message of knowledge is the more central theme.

The puppeteers dialogue is the favourite thing I have every written and there are 100s of hidden references, not only in the dilalogue but also in the visuals.

We filmed these new sequences in 2004 in two shoots, the first here which was at a disused print works in St.Albans(where they also shot Inspector Frost) and then a second shoot in Frome, concentrating on the puppets a few months later.

The third carnation is  the final film that you will see. I know this, as a cut of 86 minutes without credits sits on my harddrive. Here is proof

Those of you who have been following this blog and MI, will also be pleased to hear, That all the VFX has been completed. Which leaves only the sound design and music  to do which is getting underway. I will stress that is the only thing left to complete the film and the people are their to do it, it will be finished.








7th Septmber 2003

Hi all,

I'm calling a wrap on Mortus Illumina, Basically I feel that the project has gone on past its natural life. If things have worked out differently over the last year we would be sitting around with a finish feature. But unfortunately things didn’t work out that way. Whilst there is still life in the old ship , I think now is the time to bow out gracefully.

I think over the three years the project has been running everyone involved myself included has learnt a lot, and to say it’s been one hell of a experience is a understatement. From the Dusty freezing Rainthorpe Hall and the “We don’t like Strangers” locals, to the wind swept beaches of Kings Lynn and the Erie Church at St. Agnes. I hope that everyone is at least walking away with some memories and not a sick bag from the roller coaster that has been MI.

To explain my decision to wrap MI more. I feel that the enthusiasm and support that kicked of MI in the early days over the three years has now gone. With any project whether it be film or not has a natural span, it is only natural that people move on to better and greener pastures and the focus that was once there shifts to these pastures, hell I somehow clocked up two Hollywood credits in the last 6 months and I know a lot of you have been successful in your own fields and continuing to be. Whilst there is still some life in MI , the energy that would be needed in completing the film I feel can be spent starting new projects and moving forward which is what I intend to do.

But its not all doom and gloom, ,as some of you are aware the Promo version has been cut in with the animation. My intention now is to use more Animation along with some puppetry (VERY EVIL PUPPETS)to fill in the gaps.  Basically those of you who are familiar with Faust, Faust starts of with the director and clown talking about the play they are about to put on (faust)  and I'm going to take a new twist on that along with the film becoming more of a character piece.  The story is going to change somewhat (when hasn’t it!) but I am confident that I get a good hour long film out of the footage. In a Blaze of publicity the film will be hosted on a Website on a pay to download basis. With broadband becoming more popular and films already to begin to appear such as This Is Not A Love Song
I believe that this is going to be the best distribution medium for the project, I have a really shit computer game posted on the web somewhere which has had over 7000 downloads, plus the old MI site has had over 13’000 unique hits. So with a bit of publicity especially the story behind the film itself I'm confident of MI reaching a wide audience. Also I'm hoping to take the film to Cannes next year and it will begin to do the festival route next year. So this is not a case of MI disappearing and all your hard work being for nothing. Just more of a different film than when we started out which looking back on the original script is a hell of a lot different anyway.

For me the highlight of the shooting of Mortus Illumina has to be the Bar shoot followed very closely by the chapel shoot, the main thing has been working and meeting everyone of you. I can’t express my thanks enough, In total there have been over 20 days shooting on this film and I feel honoured that so many of you have dedicated so much time to the film. I would like to stress this again  I hope that everyone has got something out of Mortus Illumina, even if it’s just Jason walking into the Matt box or chasing a bit of Polly board on the beach you cant but that sort of entertainment. Also Zoe’s Singing Nun will always have a special place in my heart.

I would like to take this opportunity again to thank everyone for their efforts over the years and to wish everyone the best of luck in the future. This is not the end of 5YLAC films either, a couple of projects which I'm kicking in to pre-production are “The Stranger” a short which I will be filming later this year, and I'm on the look out for a short to direct as well. Pre-production on the feature length Version of Deadlights is going to kick off mainly because I can get my hands on lots of guns and explosions oh and a helicopter too.

I’ve attached the script’s For anyone interested in getting involved to run a bit more about them,

The Stranger (set in two locations a record by my standards) is about a worried bunch of Ye Yokels whose children and livestock are going missing,. So they hire guns from a Stranger to deal with the person who they think is responsible and theirs a wee bit of a twist at the end.  Basically I'm doing this as more of a atmos piece , whilst there is a script I'm looking more to create an environment and improvisation piece.  The feature length version of Deadlights Is in its second draft at the moment and I'm looking for a script writer to collaborate with to complete the next draft.  In case your wondering no it probably doesn’t make the short make any more sense ;-) a couple of other projects in the pipeline involve a pretty much blue screen film and I am going to be collaborating on other peoples projects in the immediate future.

If you are interested in getting involved with Stranger’s then please let us know asap,  I am going to be shutting down the smartgroups (never liked it  ) in the next two weeks,  before I do please make sure your contact details are correct , nearer to completion on MI I will have some paperwork which will need to be signed off. basically a “release” and more importantly if the film is successful on the web then you are all entitled to a share of the profits and there will be some paperwork for that too. I will send another e-mail about any outstanding expenses shortly so watch this space.

Once again a big thankyou to everyone who has been involved, when the film is ready  next year  You will each receive your copy so another reason to make sure those details are correct!

Salutations et All

Rob


PS, Wimples going spare

Mortus illumina 2nd Incarnation

Read about the first incarnation here

I've mentioned in the first incarnation, that not much changed in the script, from its initial conception to the first shoot, and at last nights Bettakulcha (video going online in the coming week) - which was a fantastic night, get yourself down to the next one. I mentioned that the first and second shoots were mainly driven by enthusiasm. Which is great, but no substitute for planning.  In hindsight, if we had spent, even just an extra three months before shooting, on rewriting and rewriting the script. That would of probably saved about a year in post production. As it was, there were several rewrites as we went along.

The 2nd Major incarnation of the script came immediately after the first shoot. We had spent nine days at a Country house in Norfolk, filming the hammer horror incarnation. So we had plenty of footage of nuns - doing erm nunning things, and some really weak scenes, down to a poor script.

There were, however some good scenes in there, and one of the major reasons for a shift in direction was down to the fifth night of filming on that shoot.

The fifth night, was the filming of the car scene. Which you can see a quick snippet of, in the original trailer.  To bring you up to speed, we had lost our original planned location for this shoot, very near the shoot date itself. We had less than a week to find another location, which we did, but it threw our original shooting schedule out the window.

We lost a day on location, due to having to familiarise ourselves with the surroundings, which put a huge damper on morale. Also, facilities weren't great - we ended up smuggling  several crew and cast into nearby Norwich university to use the showers. Catering wasn't great and the first few days of shooting were something of a slog.

Due to the low budget nature of the film, as most of our shoots were inside, we only hired internal lights (far cheaper) but we had a few external shoots to do, one of which was the car scene.

Now the differences between external and internal film lights, is effectively down to the grounding and insulation, also to note, we are not running on domestic voltage here.  We are running from a 120 amp feed.

You can use the lights outside, not a problem - as long as it doesn't rain...

It rained.

Now, we had set up the lights, late afternoon and the car (a 1920's Jaguar) arrived on set around 6pm and was due to be on set for four hours. We were waiting for it to get dark and everything was in place, so we could move quick.

Before it turned dark, the first spout of rain came down. It was only drizzle and the crew went around putting black bags over the lights. Then it began to pour and all the lights were bought inside.

Then it stopped

and the lights went back out

Then it rained

and the lights went back in

It was now dark and fast approaching the time, when the car should of been returning. The guys who lent us the car were happy to wait a bit longer and we kept them entertain with tales and food around the fireplace, in fact all the cast and crew were around the fireplace as there was nothing else we could do.

By about ten o'clock, there was a break in the clouds and we got all the equimpent back outside; camera in place , cast in make up and costume  and we were about to turn over. ... When the heavens opened. Once again it was the mad dash to take the lights in and every availiable hairddryer was aquired and put into use.

Come midnight, and amazingly the car hire guys were still happy to wait and myself, the DOP and lighting director and the production manager had a emergency meeting. It would be possible to turn the lights on in the rain, but once they were on, they would have to stay on. We would effectively be creating a live circuit. It was a huge risk (if a bulb went, there would be no way to replace it there and then ) but manageable. The call was made. The crew then jumped into action and starting putting up the lights and insulating cables as best they could. The
production crew, went into health and safety overlords as safe paths were marked off , risk assesments done and lines of death drawn.

The moment we started shooting, we would have to shoot continuously, which involved the crew and cast being out in the rain for several hours. Everyone, and I mean everyone went above and beyond the call of duty that night to look after each other and make the shoot happen. A continued supply of hot drinks were rushed to the front line, Chocolates and sweets distributed and warm jackets at the ready, for those few breaks that were taken.The cast did a great job both in front and behind the camera.  For those hours we shot, until the sun came up, battling against the elements, there was a fantastic feeling of camaraderie - one of my favourite times on a film shoot.

After this shoot, I felt that the script was not doing justice to the effort that had been put into it.  I went straight into changing the script. There were about four or five drafts to the second incarnation and below are some of the major changes.

• The introduction of the character doga (pictured right). Originally , Veil and the beach scenes would just be himself and the character Rico.
• Mary's and Rico's back story was expanded.
• The whole universe and the book Mortus illumina was made central to the storyline. Mainly through Doga.
• A shift away from the Hammer head horror, to a more supernatural tale of horror.  

This incarnation of the script, lasted between 2001 and 2002 and was used as the basis of the:

2nd shoot (Beach/Deadlight scenes)

3rd shooot (London shoots)

4th Shoot (Chapel Shoots)

This trailer was cut, shortly after the 4th shoot and should give you a feel for how the second incarnation would of looked.



In part 3, I'll explain the reason for the shift to the third and final incarnation, but below is a  storyboard sequence, from the second incarnation that was never filmed. It was going to be the opening of the film.

Finally, to end, if you click on the read more, there are some emails from cast and crew at various stages, talking about the shoots.

Mortus Illumina 1st Incarnation

Next Tuesday evening, at Temple Works is something called BettaKultcha and I have my name down to be one of the presenters.  As my film Mortus Illumina is now showing signs of finally finishing,(click here to see some of the VFX progress) I am getting a bit more confident about talking about it and drumming up some interest in my film. As such, my five minutes will be about the making of Mortus illumina, or how not to make a feature film.

Mortus illumina, is the bastard child that has been growing up with me for the last nine years, its fair to say, it's been a love hate relationship, with many a frayed nerve.

Preparing for next Tuesday, I have started to go through my archives and I came across a making of diary, kept in the first six months of production (so nine years ago), which has made an interesting read over my morning coffee and kicked off this post.

Mortus illumina as in the film itself, has had three reincarnations, The first incarnation was the hammer horror.

I had finished shooting my first short film Deadlights and was filled with over enthusiasm and cockiness. Reading through the original diary, I proudly boast of getting drunk at the Lemon tree pub in Convent Garden whilst realming through my head the story elements that would make up "Nunning Things" - The working title for Mortus illumina. I then proudly boast of the 48 page script I wrote in one night and how I had visions of lesbians vampire nuns, ridiculously low budget and lots of blood.

Mortus illumina, in its Hammer Horror stage was going to be a salute to the old hammer film, and feature lots of Nuns, or all shapes and sizes. Below is a very early piece of concept art I came up with, so I could get the mood when pitching the script across. 

Over the next six months, it was a wonderfully enthusiastic, but utterly sham attempt at pre-production. We had decided that the first shoot would be  in April 2001 no matter what. From a very hung over wrap (fire escapes and smoke grenades anyone?) party from deadlights and ad-astra(short film by britmic)  I pulled together the initial crew and cast and began to add to that. In fact, by the time April came, the number was about 40, with 27 people going onto the first shoot. Phrases such as "Kick arse Nun" and "Nun-Steaming" were becoming apart of everyday vocabulary.

One thing that was woefully neglected during this incarnation was the script, which went up from 48 pages to 76 - and that is about it.  Oh it did get its name changed from Nunning things to Mortus illumina (for the record; Mortus:Translates as dead, taken from the past participle of Old French Latin Mortuus - to die, illumina - Lights, from vulgar latin) . I was actually searching my hard drive for the original script, to post up an example, and I came across instead, the first email I sent out for the project. I think this captures not only the  tone  of the first incarnartion, but also my attitude at the time as well.

This trailer consists mostly of the footage from the first shoot, which did indeed take place in April as planned. Whilst the beach footage is more second carnation. The above should give you an idea of what I was originally intending Mortus illumina to be.

For those of you, who are going to be at the event at BettaKultcha event next Tuesday, I will be mentioning what changed (and what went wrong!). Those of you not attending, you can wait till I write up the Mortus illumina the 2nd incarnation this blog

Click the Read more below, to see the original email