Atomic Productions - Summer Project Releases 2012

Hey all,

I used to write these up on FXhome- and though by-and-large I'm now unable to talk about the bulk of filmmaking work we do at Atomic Productions because it's largely commercial/promotional or longer-term-goal-oriented, I wanted to share info on three forthcoming releases from our little company, and some things we've been doing.

Atomic Productions - Summer Project Releases 2012

Check out our current work on it by visiting the Dark Knight Binges Fan Page, and donate to it by watching the video below and clicking the linked annotation:



Please, if you want or feel compelled, do donate to the project- and let us know your thoughts. It's something we'll be intermittently working on (and are super grateful we've already received an awesome $605 for!) throughout June and July, with a release following the premiere of The Dark Knight Rises

July - Hell Or High Water

A long-gestating crime drama of ours, Hell Or High Water has been a difficult project to pin down and complete partly because of the simplicity of it's situation: It's largely a dramatic short that's a conversation between two men- one young, one old- about the nature of 'right and wrong' in one room. While it's new territory for us- and about 10 minutes in length- it's also been very difficult to refine to a point of completion, and the words of it's narrative are long and strongly-convicted on the part of the older character- so much so that the second actor we had for the role walked off the production the day before the shoot after concocting a hypocritical backstory for himself around the script. (Damn actors, really.)

That being said, its found its footing, and the short crime drama is something we'll be wrapping up in post in July, for a mid-August release.

August - 8th & Rose

8th & Rose is a period-set silent (or, more-specifically, 'conveyed without words') film I started writing at the beckoning of an actress we used in our Drive parody, Katie Folger. Katie has a very 'January Jones/Mad Men' look to her, and we'd been talking about doing a 'period piece' for a few months this year. Rummaging through a few ideas, I landed on something I really liked- a sort of philosophical-journeying love story set in more of a 'timeless' atmosphere than the 1960s or anything specific- and I've finally completed writing it.

The script is complete and will run somewhere between 5-10 minutes, with little to no dialogue- all conveyed visually and through the nuances of the two actors- and will focus on the draw and distance between the two in sort of a 'love story' way. (Or at least as close as we'll probably ever come to doing one.) I've had our music aficionado Chase work off of my general pitch and read-out of the story, and we've come up with a pretty sweet concept for the score to the short already, which is cool. It dissipates into just random experimentation about half-way through, but check it out if you'd like on SoundCloud here

We've cast the leads- Katie being one of them, and the other an actor named Will Harris I was impressed with after meeting a few weeks ago, who we used in our over-the-top satire foray for TFM, 'Frat Cops', embedded below (strong language, NSFW generally):



Though that's quite different in theme, tone, and genre than what we'll be doing here, it was interesting to throw an actor into such a destructive, hate-able role and see how they react.

This project we'll be working on following the other two, likely in production in August with completion and release later within the same month, and it's something we've been excited to develop the past few weeks.

In addition to these three, which we've more-or-less considered our 'solid three' for release and completion this summer- we're also doing a few 48-hour competitions, and working on some creative developments in Los Angeles. All of this is in addition to our ongoing work one private commercial and promotional projects, which we'll release if/when we're able to- and my own personal job at TFM.

Anyway, just wanted to clue you all into what we're doing and have been doing- and if you have the inclination or opportunity, please do check out our fan page on Facebook and "like" us if you're willing at the link below! Thanks!

[center][url="http://www.facebook....omicpro"]Atomic Productions Facebook Fan Page

Always a great read, finding out what you chaps are up to.

What measures have you taken to hit your Indiegogo target? Seems like a final push should get you all the way, and I'm wondering what you have/haven't done.

As an aside, I do think your pitch video could have been a lot stronger, given your usual strengths as filmmakers and promoters. While the style isn't necessarily transferable, I still consider Tim Schafer's video to be the benchmark for crowdsourced funding pitches:

http://kck.st/A9k3jH

While not as slick, Neal Stephenson's recent CLANG pitch was also pretty innovative:

http://kck.st/NoObyE

I think you might have enticed more people if you'd done a bit more than a standard sofa-pitch. I don't think it does your work or skills justice.

Anyway, didn't mean to ramble. Looking forward to all your projects, as always!

Here's an image from our Dark Knight Rises parody shoot, of one of our regularly-appearing actors, John Redlinger (Cobb in our Inception parody) in full Bane costume.

We had tested and considered shaving his head, even though that's rather suicidal in terms of getting actors jobs (especially because he's got pretty long hair currently), but were successful in a few makeup tests with bald caps and screen tests once we shaved his sideburns and the back of his neck. The result is a pretty spot-on image to what we want.



Really cool/fun to be working on, not gonna lie. Though it's always fun to do this sorta stuff, the sheer exposure behind The Dark Knight Rises characters makes being out in public a different ballgame than we're used to. Even at 2AM shooting last night, when you wouldn't expect people around, two randim people asked for photos with John and 3-4 others murmurred about him and took pics from afar.

Wow. That is amazingly cool!

Stunning costume, it really is.

We reached our goal!

Just thought I'd let the non-existent audience of this forum thread know.

Congrats, guys. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Congrats. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

congratulations on getting your budget! the Bane costume is spot on as well as the lighting and tone of the clip- can't wait to see how this turns out! Good luck.
Sam

Interesting stuff. I'm a little torn on the Batman thing, for what are probably obvious reasons by now, but still looking forward to seeing all of this.

Another poster from the parody project we've been sporadically working on the past month. We did a costume fitting with Lila, the actress we have portraying Selina Kyle/Catwoman, and we'll be shooting her stuff next week.



Additionally we're flying in our Bane actor, John, who will be meeting up with our Batman in Austin to duke it out and shoot some of the larger setpieces/shots, as well as miniatures we're constructing in order to get shots of the Tumbler and The Bat. Fun stuff!

Looks very cool Andrew. Very well made.

I'd be very interested in seeing some of those miniatures. Super excited to see how this comes out.

Looks really exciting. Tried to watch the Binges video, but it says it's now private.

So I'm not certain anyone here has been following this short parody project we've been working on- but we've had a huge ton of fun the past few weekends using some of our spare time to produce the above-listed 'The Dark Knight Binges', and it's been a hell of a ride.

From shooting downtown Austin on 6th Street (the busiest, drunkest nightlife spot in the city) with Bane and Batman in full costume, to tackling VFX and raiding multiple Toys R Us's for last-minute props, this has been one of the most fun- and actually challenging- projects we've worked on in a while.

The 'dress up and pretend you're a hero' type of productions are, in our newest experience, the most fun thus far- and we thank everyone who has helped us, including everyone over at FXhome, for making the vision possible.

There's still a minor amount of post-production work to go, but as we have most portions completed and production totally wrapped, I thought it good to announce:

Watched it this morning. I'd say it's definitely the strongest of your parody trailers as far as visuals and technique go. If I hadn't seen any of your other parodies, I probably would have laughed my ass off, but since I have seen them, it was a bit like hearing a joke I've heard before. Funny, but not laugh out loud funny. Maybe it's just because I watched it right when I woke up.

The content still doesn't really appeal to me, but you did do an excellent job of recreating the TDKR trailer. Great feel, great costumes, great acting, and I loved the shot of Batman riding in a shopping cart. That was classic.

I had the same feeling, Aculag. Other than a couple of grainy shots of Batman walking through smoke, the production on this is great. But, as you say, it feels like someone is telling me a joke I've already heard.

Based on these production values it would be a lot of fun to see Atomic tackle a 'proper' Batman fanfilm, although I'd much prefer (as always) that they focus on fully original content.

Wish I'd had a little more time to finesse the miniature shots, but I'm pretty pleased with how they came out given the time scales involved.

Technically its very impressive. Tremendous professionalism on the costumes, the cinematography, and matching the shots from the original trailer. I look forward to seeing a side-by-side comparison, which I'm sure will make it even more impressive. Nice job on the casting as well; despite the fact that there was a lot of the cast you have worked with before, it didn't have the feeling that you just used whoever was available. The cast fit their parts nicely.

The parody aspect fell flat for me, which is partly due to personal preference, and partly due to the repetitive nature of the alcohol parodies, as was mentioned. Still really impressive technically though, and I compliment you on that.

The videos dont work!