This weekend we held our rehearsal for Ameviathan: The Green Machine in Chestertown, MD. The rehearsals went extremely well. Our cast is excellent and I can’t wait to shoot.

We also built the Green Machine according to the blueprints Dragon posted, here, on Protozoic. However, you’ll have to wait until to the movie to see it.

Finally, we scouted Camp Fairlee Manor’s facilities for the buildings we’ll be using for the shoot. Camp Fairlee is more than going to provide ample space, room and structures for the shoot.

Over the next two weeks, we’ll continue script breakdown, blocking off dialogue and deciding when and where to shoot what. The biggest hurdles to overcome in this next stage will be day and night scenes and mother nature.

In the meantime, here’s a goodie to tide you over. The music is courtesy of our producer, DJ Webb.

Click here to watch a treat

How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull's wings shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty--

Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
As apparitional as sails that cross
Some page of figures to be filed away;
--Till elevators drop us from our day . . .

I think of cinemas, panoramic sleights
With multitudes bent toward some flashing scene
Never disclosed, but hastened to again,
Foretold to other eyes on the same screen;

And Thee, across the harbor, silver-paced
As though the sun took step of thee, yet left
Some motion ever unspent in thy stride,--
Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!

Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft
A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets,
Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,
A jest falls from the speechless caravan.

Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks,
A rip-tooth of the sky's acetylene;
All afternoon the cloud-flown derricks turn . . .
Thy cables breathe the North Atlantic still.

And obscure as that heaven of the Jews,
Thy guerdon . . . Accolade thou dost bestow
Of anonymity time cannot raise:
Vibrant reprieve and pardon thou dost show.

O harp and altar, of the fury fused,
(How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!)
Terrific threshold of the prophet's pledge,
Prayer of pariah, and the lover's cry,--

Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift
Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars,
Beading thy path--condense eternity:
And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.

Under thy shadow by the piers I waited;
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.
The City's fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year . . .

O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies' dreaming sod,
Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God.

1927, 1930

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening
    to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the
    mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots
    to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence;
    and home to the mother.

You making haste, haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it
    stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:
    shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the
    thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there
    are left the mountains.

And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant,
    insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught -- they say --
    God, when he walked on earth.

1925

Introducing: Michael Spielgray

On location at the Prince Theatre, Saturday – February 11, 2006

Keep your web browser locked-in to protozoic.com for further updates.

I’m happy to announce that we have cast Ameviathan: The Green Machine. Matt Folker will be playing Jonathan, Jen Friedman will be playing Cecily and Stephen Young will be playing Roy. Not only are the actors perfect for the parts, but judging from the auditions, we’ve been afforded an incredible opportunity to work with some real talent. I can’t wait to film.

I would also like to extend special thanks to John Schratwieser, Executive Director of the the Prince Threatre in Chestertown, Maryland, who allowed us to hold our auditions in the historic Prince Threatre. Originally a vaudeville theatre and movie house, the theatre was a beautiful place in which to hold our auditions. I would also like to thank the staff of the Prince Threatre for toughing out the blizzard, and Matt Folker for recommending we hold our auditions there. Next time I’m in Chestertown, I’m catching a show and scrutinizing that Zebra-man at the door.

And of course, where would the auditions have been without Dick and DJWebb, ‘crew’? Nowhere. Thanks for driving, eating subs and talking about lighting and the ‘Bury.

For Adrienne

Two ends hooked now

Each to the other,

Only gradually becomming aware that

The strand behind

Had always joined them

Somehow

Around eternity’s railings.

Continue reading E-Greeting →

From the Director-

We are shooting a short independent film entitled “The Green Machine.” The film is narrative-driven and will be in the style of a children’s live-action television show. Similar shows include any of the Sid and Marty Krofft television shows (“Land of the Lost,” “Electra Woman and Dyna Girl,” “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters,” “Bugaloos,” “Far Out Space Nuts,” etc.) and “Dr. Who.”

The film will be shot on location at Camp Fairlee Manor in Chestertown, MD from March 17th-19th, 2006. While we cannot pay actors or crew, we can provide them with comfortable sleeping accommodations and meals.

Currently we are looking to cast 3 parts:

1. a male lead,
2. a female lead, and
3. a male or female supporting character.

Because of our tight pre-production schedule, we would like to hold auditions for the roles as soon as possible, either this weekend (February 4th and 5th) or next (February 11th and 12th).

Any interested parties should feel free to leave a comment if interested.

Its a done deal – the check and the contract are in the mail. Protozoic Film’s has the camp for March 17@10am until March 19 @ 7pm. We are staying in a cabin that holds 12 people. Get out your sleeping bags bitches.

Thanks to the efforts of DJWebb we have a location to shoot “Ameviathan: The Green Machine”. Not only is it a location, but it is a location that reaches far beyond my wildest dreams.

Tentatively, on March 17th, 18th and 19th we will be shooting at Camp Fairlee Manor. I’ll be posting a schedule Sunday or Monday of what will be happening leading up to the shoot. Stay tuned.

Thanks again Thom.

The past weekend was a good weekend and a simultaneously frustrating one. Rather than ending on a sour note however, I’m going to get the bad out of the way first.

The bad is that the Thompson-Neely Gristmill is a no go for a location. After weeks of phoning the people at Washington’s Crossing, they’ve finally gotten back to me and told me that filming there will be impossible due to recent flooding. So it is back to the drawing board with locations.

Without harping on about it, this means my initial plans to start on the construction of the Green Machine this weekend will be postponed at least until next so that I can scout for locations this weekend.

This, however, brings me to the good news, the Green Machine itself. Previously I lacked any real plans by which to build the machine. Thanks to meticulous efforts of Peter Kisner (Dragon) and his recent post, I now have an excellent set of plans to work from. I can’t begin to express just how excited I am to build the Green Machine. I hope I don’t hammer any nails into my feet.

The other good news is that the boxes are done. Currently there are about 45 green boxes in total. While I’d like to paint more, at this point I doubt I will because of transportation and manageability considerations. About the only thing I’ll probably do to them is give them a second coat of paint at some point in the future.

The movie, however, calls for more than 45 boxes. Tim’s suggestion to address this issue was to try digitally compositing some extra boxes into a shot. So over the past weekend, we filmed some boxes and did some tests. You can view our tests here.

In the first part of the clip there are some boxes that aren’t really there (on the left side), while the second half of the clip shows the original shot without the composited boxes.

Continue reading Faking Boxes →