The Scoop: August - Team Assembled

Yep, we're back.

We're just weeks away from releasing our first video in almost 2 years!  That's right - not months anymore, but weeks.

The team's been reassembled.  The S.T.S. Facebook page has been active since June.  Summer filming has been going strong for a month and a half now.  By the end of August Stranger Things Studios will have new material appearing on its YouTube channel.

So, let's get right down to it.

PRODUCTION UPDATE

At present, there are 9 S.T.S. movies in various stages of production.  I can give you ballpark release dates and production statuses, but I don't have exacts at the moment. 

Let's go through them in order of intended release date:

Giving stage directions while filming our comeback video

1) Late August - The Comeback Video

Our last movie, Banak the Brave, was released on September 5th, 2014.  Our comeback video will make its appearance no later than that two year anniversary date.  We filmed it in late June.  It's fully completed.

2) Early September

We're going to release another video pretty quickly after that - within roughly two weeks.  I have all the footage, but I haven't started the editing process.  Currently, the music is being written.  As soon as it's completed I will get to work.

3) Late October / Halloween

After those first two videos, Stranger Things Studios is going to move to an every-other-month release schedule.  I wish we could go faster, but if we do it this way, we can keep a regular and reliable pace going. 

We haven't even started pre-production on our Halloween-themed video, but I've been sitting on the concept for a long time.  It's going to be filmed entirely on a Go-Pro camera.  We're scheduled to shoot it in September. 

4) December

We've never shot a mafia scene before.  Turns out all you need is a basement.

We're filming this one right now!  Most of the production photos that have been showing up on the Facebook page are from this movie.  We just wrapped on Day 2 of filming yesterday.  Wednesday will be our final day.  Half of it's being shot on a cell phone, but you honestly can't tell the difference.

5) February

This one's all written down in a notebook.  It's not casted yet, but I know most of the people I'm going to use.  All lot of the elements will be done on a green screen.  Some will be shot with a drone camera.  I've never done something like this before, so it'll be a good exercise.

6) April

Video game concept.  All shot with a drone camera.  Filming is planned for October.  The biggest challenges will be finding a spot to shoot it, and rallying enough people to pull it off.  It will be the largest single day casting I've ever attempted.  Honestly, lining up people's schedules is the hardest part of filming.  Everything else is just a matter of putting the time in.

DOWN THE LINE

Movie still from our December video, which is currently being filmed.

The rest of the movies on our radar are a bit vague.  In fact, I can't guarantee if they'll even be made at this point.  But, I'll still list them off (in no specific order).

7) 48-Hour Film Project -  If we're still going strong come late spring, I'd like to enter this festival again.  They give us a list of requirements, and only 48 hours to pull off making a movie.  That's usually early June.  According to regulations, I wouldn't be able to release it on YouTube for at least another month.

8) "The Movie That Shall Not Be Named" - there's a movie I shot years ago that has become my white whale.  It's all filmed, but the effects that go into it are extensive; on average, it takes about an hour to get through a second of footage.... and it's 10-12 minutes long.  Part of the reason we're only making movies every other month is because I'm going to try to tackle this one again.

9) The New Big Thing... Maybe... - I came up with an idea that I've fallen in love with.  But it's a big undertaking, and to do it right, it would take most of next spring to film.  However, I've found someone crazy enough (and possibly even more excited than I am) to do it should I green-light the project.  I'm in the process currently of figuring out if it's even feasible.

BACK AT IT

Oh yeah, we have a drone camera now.

It's crazy to be back to filming after all this time.  Part of me knew I'd always come back to it, but a part of me thought I was done.  It's taxing, it's stressful.  It's forcing me to do research, to train at the gym, study film, hone my technique.  I'm balancing so many projects at once, staying up long hours many nights a week to plug away at one thing or another.  I'm usually outside of my comfort zone, and taking on challenges that I rightly don't know if I can pull off.  But at the same time I'm seeing friends again that I haven't seen since I stopped.  I'm so pumped for the stuff we're working on that I want to be up past midnight working on it.  It feels good to feel like I'm really doing something with myself again.

It's good to be back.