The following was originally written in July 2008. I swear, this time it'll stick.
It's tough to remember exactly how it began. Sometime in the spring of 2003, Mike and I started talking about doing another film project. The general idea stayed constant from the beginning: the story would follow a military squad in a dystopian future, where countries would war over scarce resources. Everyone would pilot a giant robot.
It's tough to remember exactly how it began. Sometime in the spring of 2003, Mike and I started talking about doing another film project. The general idea stayed constant from the beginning: the story would follow a military squad in a dystopian future, where countries would war over scarce resources. Everyone would pilot a giant robot.
The challenges became clear as the script developed. There would be dozens of characters, with many scenes dependent on special effects. And Honor Rode Shotgun would be our most ambitious project yet, even more so than the sprawling Deadening II.
Months were spent revising the script, shooting test footage and building props (including two 'mech suits that may be the greatest things I ever create, barring future children). Mike and a friend wrote and recorded a musical score. Principle photography took place over the summer of 2004. By August, we had most of the dialogue in the can, but much of the challenging action footage was still an open question mark.
After August, the project slowed to a crawl, for a number of reasons. One of them was Final Fantasy XI, which took up a number of hours in the fall (a Galka doesn't get that Ninja class qualifier on his own, let me tell you). Another reason was the insidious climb of production standards: after putting in some time with a blue screen and compositing software, we got some really great results. We found out that our crappy special effects didn't have to look "so-bad-it's-good", and could instead just look "good". This was an entirely new and intimidating prospect, and brought a new level of pressure to the editing process.
Of course, distance was the biggest challenge to overcome. I moved to Seattle for grad school, Mike was getting ready to join the Peace Corps. I love pouring time and energy into creative projects, but my motivation for actually finishing a film comes entirely from collaboration. A film needs feedback, it needs compromise and sacrifice, it needs a deadline (aghh! that word, it burns ussss).
Since I've been unable to get this project out of my head for the past four (ed: six) years, it's about time to get some closure. As we piece together a final product, I thought this would be a nice place to post the progress and keep the momentum going. Even if it takes a few hundred hours over the coming months, at least we can provide a continuous preview. My goal is to release And Honor Rode Shotgun as a set of short internet-appropriate chapters, with the first completed around the end of the summer.
