Broken Arrows - the Movie

The Update and Next Project...

2007-05-20T11:54:00.000-07:00

We are now in the process of sending out the final version of "Broken Arrows" to film festivals for our world premiere.

In the upcoming weeks we will begin casting for our next movie "The Grace".

Dreamworks screening and Final Master..

2007-02-07T15:25:00.000-08:00

On Monday, February 26th we will be having a screening down at Dreamworks Animation in Glendale, CA.

This weekend I will be looking over the final version of the film with all of the credits, sound mix, special fx, and more all done. If everything goes well then we will make the final HD master next week.

Following the making of the master, we will schedule our cast and crew screening over the next few months.

Screening Feedback.

2006-09-25T13:38:00.000-07:00

Now we are pretty much done with all of the test screenings and I can not be happier with the results and feedback from people. We collected feedback from approximately 150 people and here were the major things that the majority of people said in all of the test screenings.

One of the most unique movies that they have ever seen. There are only a handful of movies that are out there that are like "Broken Arrows". One of the most interesting and complex stories told, which requires the viewer to really pay attention and think.
Cinematography was amazing. The film looks fantastic. Loved the camera angles, camera moves, and editing.
The acting is great. People are really drawn into the characters and really feel connected and want to see what happens to the characters.
The ending of the movie is great, surpising, and really uplifting. The movie really builds up to the climaxes in the middle and ending of the film. (1 in 3 people cry or get teary-eyed at the ending.)
The music is great. Love the music.

Scoring and screeners..

2006-08-11T15:05:00.000-07:00

The last two weeks has been mainly focused on adding the musical score from the amazing John Williams. This weekend we are burning the DVDs to go off to the printers for the DVD screeners that we will be sending out. Then we will be going through the process of determining where and when we will have the premiere (which will be early 2007).After this big push to get the screeners out we will have more private screenings at some studios.

"Broken Arrows" in Google humor..

2006-07-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to a funny article in the San Jose Mercury News about the Google Jet and the on plane movie..... "Broken Arrows". :)

The Article.

Upcoming screening at Dreamworks Animation.

2006-06-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

We are going to have a screening for the fine people at Dreamworks Animation in Redwood City on July 18th. This will be the first screening of the film with 100+ people. I will give a little intro on the film, show the film, and then we will have an hour Q&A session about the film with a handful of cast and crew members.

Big screenings coming up..

2006-06-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

The test screening last week went really and we are putting the finishing structural touches on the film over the next two weeks.

Right now, we are in the process of putting together two to three larger screenings (each of about 150-300 people) of the rough cut with panel discussions in July. Then we are on to audio post and getting all of the material ready for film festival submissions (unless we accept an offer from a major film festival to premiere at their festival before the submission deadlines which is also possible).

The good news is that there has been tremendously positive feedback from the test screenings. People seem to really like the film everything from the unique storyline to the visuals to the acting. Everyone involved has been very excited because of this feedback at such an early stage.

Bigger test screening went very well.

2006-05-10T14:29:00.001-07:00

On Saturday night (May 6th) we had another test screening for about 40 people and projected it in HD. It looked fantastic and everyone said that the film looked fantastic and the acting was great. I'm very happy and all of the feedback was completely in line with what we are going to work on over the upcoming weeks. Right now, I think that the first 20 minutes are still a little dark and slow. This is the first major thing we are reworking. After the first 20 minutes, it really kicks in and the pacing and interest level I'm very happy with.

Within a month, we'll have a number of the changes done that I want to make and we're going to have some more test screenings. If everything is working, then we are going to start locking things down and start on doing the audio polishing and design.

Great screening.. Next test screening coming up..

2006-04-05T15:35:00.000-07:00

Saturday night's screening was fantastic and it was great to see the movie with lots of music in a larger space with great audio and a crowd.

The comments of what we should change were pretty much in line with the next few things that we were going to work on but didn't have time to do for this screening. We should have enough time to make the changes that I want to make by the time of our next screening which will probably be the first or second weekend of May.

It was great to hear that people thought that the film was much closer to being finished and polished than they expected for a first test screening. Steve (editor) and I were able to drop a lot more music and clean up the audio the week before the screening and this really helped.

Test screening tonight..

2006-04-01T11:36:00.000-08:00

Tonight we are having a test screening with about 15-20 people. This week we have been adding a lot of music and polishing the audio before the screening. More info on how the test screening went soon.

Test screening date set.

2006-03-10T10:24:00.000-08:00

The first mid-size test screening (test screenings up until now have been done with small focus groups) date and location have been set, essentially it is going to happen three weeks from now. Right now, we are tuning the audio on a couple of short outdoor scenes, adding a lot more music, and going through and polishing the scenes front to back.

Luckily, the press has been fantastic and we have been contacted by some fantastic top-tier film festivals. Once we are ready, I will probably be giving the festivals who have contacted us the first screenings and then we will make a decision which festival we are going to premiere "Broken Arrows".

Sundance

2006-01-11T10:51:00.000-08:00

A number of us are going to be at Sundance Thursday, January 18 through Sunday, January 22nd. Love to meet up with people, so drop us a line with your info.

Great Progress. Test Screenings Coming Up.

2005-12-29T07:34:00.000-08:00

The film is coming together beautifully and right now we are shooting to be ready for test screenings of the rough cut within a month. Things are solid enough to start working on polishing up the audio, putting in some music, and begin on sound effects. I'm really excited about the audio portion of the film. This week I will be writing lines for new audio for off-screen dialogue, and we should be recording this in the studio over the next week. :)

Extremely Nice Article on Broken Arrows.

2005-12-29T07:07:00.000-08:00

Today in the San Francisco Chronicle:

The Article.

Small Cast and Crew Initial Screenings.

2005-12-25T02:10:00.000-08:00

Good news and good progress is happening. This week we had a few screenings of the rough/assembly cut of the film to a handful of cast and crew members, and the response has been fantastic. Lots of excitement about the film at this stage even in its rough form (ie: one scene still needs footage incorporated, no music, not all of the vocal tracks have been synced up, lots of shuffling around of the scenes, etc). :)

More updates and screenings over the next few months. :)

Behind the scenes...

2005-10-11T12:19:00.000-07:00

During the production of "Broken Arrows" there was a lot of behind the scenes footage shot. Over the next month, a few more interviews are going to be done for the behind the scenes video and we'll be working on putting the video together over the next few months.

Next Big Editing Push Coming Soon.

2005-09-20T14:50:00.000-07:00

The next big block of editing is coming up in mid-October and will last until early-December. This is when we take the assembly cut, refine the scenes, and then work on the cool ideas that we have for how to juxtapose scenes, plot points, etc to get the best flow and pacing for the film.

So, things will be quiet until we begin, but we'll be showing some cuts of the film to "test" audiences at the end of the next push. :)

More editing ahead, thinking of test screenings and festivals.

2005-08-31T22:44:00.000-07:00

It looks like we'll be able to really get into the swing of things on the editing front over the next few months. I'm really looking forward to cutting and refining the film over the next few months, and it is a beautiful thing to see come together.

We're starting to think about having test screening of different cuts of the films for small test groups by the end of the year. Then, we'll start submitting to film festivals in the beginning of 2006.

A good feeling to start the fall season with. :)

First pass at refining..

2005-08-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went over to Robbie's editing studio with Mattison (Producer). Cliff (DP) drove us over and he was able to see some cut together footage for the first time. It was great to hear that Cliff thought that the footage looked great and he was really happy how it turned out visually. Cliff was only there for a little while, so we showed him some scenes and then quickly flipped through the whole movie. It looks great! Everyone said that it looked fantastic and there is a lot of location variety which adds even more to the visual richness of the entire film.

Cliff left and then Robbie, Mattison, Erin (Assistant Editor), Steve (Assistant Editor), and I watched the first 15 minutes or so of the movie that Robbie had started refining. The difference between the assembly cut, and the refined version was amazing and Robbie is totally working his magic.

We then discussed a few ways of changing the structure, having some of the more visually stunning scenes in the beginning of the movie to start with a bang, etc. Very exciting stuff! :)

Assembly cut finished, refining started..

2005-08-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

Robbie (Editor) finished the assembly cut of the entire movie about a week ago. I was in Los Angeles for the last week, and I'll be going over to check out the latest cut on Friday. Robbie is rolling along doing a first pass at refining performance choices throughout the movie. Very exciting stuff! :)

Cliff (DP) and I are going to go out and grab more scenes of the city of San Francisco and the amazing fog and cloud formations that come over the city during this time of year. This will add the great touch of depicting the "magical" city.

Assembly cut coming along quickly..

2005-07-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

Robbie (editor) has already put together an assembly cut of the first 80 scenes (out of about 120) which takes us to about page 55 in the script (out of 91). He is super fast and a total bulldog. It will be exciting to see what everything looks like when I go over and see it all this week. He should have assembly cuts of the first two acts (of three) done by the time I check it out.

Act I Assembly Cut -> Amazing! :)

2005-07-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went over to see the first assembly cut of the first act that Robbie put together and it was totally amazing. Normally, the expectation is that the assembly cut is a depressing thing, but Robbie is a total genius and I was blown away at how great it was for a first cut. The pacing was great, the acting was great and I loved the characters, and the visuals cut together really well.

If the assembly cut of the first act was this good and the rest of the movies holds up, then this is going to be a great movie! (not that I ever has doubts) :)

Here are a few more thoughts that I had while watching it:

1) Peter is amazing as Reese! You really like the character, he has the perfect performance and consistency, and you really want to follow him through his journey.

2) David is perfect for Josiah. The look, the suble way that he plays pious with an undertone of sinister. Awesome!

3) Lori is Erin. :) Lori gives an amazing performance of compassionate and caring guide with an otherwordly edge. Brilliant!

4) Mackenzie as the vulnerable Abby. Mackenzie's interactions with Reese and there building relationship really moves the first act along, I couldn't be happier with her character's interaction with Reese!

5) Kristie's really great scenes as Laura are in the second act, but even the interactions with Reese in the first act are fantastic, you really love her character, and it really is the foundation for Reese's journey.

Steps towards an assembly cut..

2005-07-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

After a few weeks of work, it looks like we will have very rough cuts of 30-40 scenes edited together this weekend. I'll be going over to Robbie's (editor) editing studio on Sunday to check it all out.

Editing Begins

2005-06-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

All of the footage from principal photography is logged and now in the editing suite. So, the long hours, days, weeks, and months of editing now begins. This weekend I'll be going over to our master editor's (Robbie Proctor) editing studio.

I've already seen the all of the footage at least one time through during the dubbing process. I'm really excited by the performances and the visuals are amazing, even without any of the standard processing. People who have already gotten glimpses of small pieces of the footage are already saying it looks like a magical production. :)

I'm really happy with the coverage (ie: performances and variety of camera angles) that we were able to get during principal photography. I wanted the film to be shot with a fairly standard structure of camera angles. Cliff Traiman (DP) is a total genius and the composition and lighting of every shot is beautiful.

Cliff and his crew were really fast too which helped with our tight schedule. It was kind of crazy, shooting 25 different locations over 19 days. But, the whole cast and crew were fantastic worked through everything like the pros that they are. :)