Kashai Films

To come up with the new idea I asked the director of the film, Tyler, if there was any genre of film that he wanted to give a go directing and we’ll write something for that genre. He then suggested a psychological horror. From there was the painstaking process of scripting came about. Originally I was planning to write this one solo but when I had finished a first draft and showed it to the rest of the team they all told me that it was generic, b-movie level, horseshit. So like any rational person I sulked about it for about a week before then starting over. It was while writing this second version of the script that I figured I could ask James for some assistance for coming up with ideas to shock the viewer and build tension in the scenes. We spent a couple late nights (or i guess it would probably be better categorised as early mornings) coming up with the groundwork for the film. It was then that we took this new idea to the team and they approved so we then began redrafting until we were left with a version that we were happy with. 

Now, something different from when we were making “sex, drugs, and ice cream” occurred. The university provided the actors we were to work with. Personally I prefer to cast actors myself as I can get to know them better, have them audition to see if they were right for the role and then after that hire them to a role. Instead they had one of the drama lecturers chose the actors for us and the roles they were meant to play. After meeting the actors we decided to switch the roles around because we felt that the lecture’s casting wasn’t quite right. We then had the actors read through a copy of the script and gave them some links to some material we wanted them to use as reference for the role (such as Guy, who played Elliot, look at Christian Bale’s character in American Psycho). We also told them that if they had any ideas about the script, such as changing a few lines or conveying a line in a different way to the script, they were free to call or text us any time and we could discuss it with them and amend the script.

Then after all of this there was only one week in which the actors were free to actually shoot the film, which just happened to be two weeks before the submission date. Then one of the actors had an emergency production that they needed to do to pass the year come up, so they were only available for 4 days. Luckily the team I had was very proficient in their roles and we all work together like a well oiled machine. on day one we shot the opening scene and the scene that takes place outdoors, on day two we shot all of the last scene in Elliot’s house, and on day three we shot the scene that took place in Ash’s house. We managed to film the whole project in 3 days. This required long hours from the cast and crew, as well as a lot of stress on set to make sure everything went well. Everything went according to plan and luckily we didn’t need to use the fourth day for re-shoots or pick-ups. 

After the actual filming was done it was pretty much left to me to make it look good with the two and a half weeks I had before the deadline. I used every trick I knew, from colour grading to simple re-scaling a shot to better position it, to even learning how to use the tracking tool in aftereffects in order to stabilize some of the shots that were especially shaky, I’m looking at you birds eye view shots (we didn’t have jib training so those were done handheld). I am particularly proud of the colour grade on this project as I believe it came out especially well for my first time colour grading a film.

My roles during this production were as a Co-writer, the Director, an Assistant Editor. My role as a Co-writer consisted of me and James spending hours coming up with sass and quick wit for Lucifer to have as well as deciding what jokes and religious references we’d put into the project. We were heavily inspired by the (then) FOX show ‘Lucifer’, the version of Lucifer from the Neil Gaiman Sandman series, and the version of Lucifer from the book ‘I, Lucifer’ by Glen Duncan. We wanted our Lucifer to be an amalgamation of the 3, having the anger at god that Glen Duncan’s version had, the childish yet very sinful version of from the FOX series, and finally the main inspiration for his appearance being the Neil Gaiman version. We also, much to our own disbelief, managed to actually write a copy of the book that Lucifer talks about during the interview in time for the submission date, which we are currently getting printed for the crew and cast as memento’s of the project. 

Now after writing the script for everything and got the teams approval that this was definitely what we were doing the next step was casting for the role. To do this I set up a starnow account to try and find some actors who needed to add to their portfolio or who were willing to work unpaid. However after setting this up and posting the ad for the search I was shocked at how many people applied ofr Lucifer alone . After only a week we had 86 applicants and after 2 weeks there were 114. We closed the ad after the third week because we believed we had enough applicants and we also were shortlisting as we went. and thought we had quite a good number of people for the project. After looking through all the applications and shortlisting we sent out a task for everyone to do, which was to read a section of the script and then record and send in a video audition based on how we described the characters. The deadline was set for two weeks after we sent the message. All people who didn’t apply were automatically sent a message saying that they didn’t get the role. The boy who got the role, Isaac, sent his application in on the day of the deadline. It had us worried as he was our personal top pick for the role, as he looked the part and his portfolio and theatrical background would add to the role. He sent in his application wearing the signiture purple suit that he wears in the interview and as soon as he began James and I looked at each other and we knew that he was the one. After casting Isaac as Lucifer we then put out and add for the role of the interviewer, not as many people applied but it was still quite a lot, with 46 applications in the first week. after doing the same process for shortlisting, instead of having them send in a video audition we wanted to actually sit down with them, with Isaac, to see if they had the right dynamic. And once we met Dani we knew she’d be perfect for the role. Then we put out an add for Interviewer 1 and done a similar process, with a phone interview instead of a video audition. after this we got Ben, who played his part exceptionally well.

After this all we asked the cast how long it would take them to learn the script, which they responded with 4 days, and so all needed to do was secure dates for the studio and book out equipment which didn’t take long at all. 

As a Director my role was to be in charge of pretty much everything while on set. The role as a whole was a very fulfilling one and luckily for me the cast and crew we had for the project were very very good at what they did. The whole experience was amazing. seeing the talent work had me mesmerised to the point that I forgot to call ‘cut’ a couple of times. The cast themselves needed little direction after the set was ready and all the camera and lights were in position. All I had to do was say ‘action’ and then let them do what they were doing.

During the actual set up process I have to thank my DOP Alex and my cameraman Matt for their amazing efficiency in setting up the camera’s and tripods while I dealt with the set and Lighting. I literally didn’t have to tell them anything apart from the type of shots I wanted and then just left them to it, It helped a lot and allowed us to get straight into filming when the actors arrived. 

We had 4 days to film so I decided to have the first be rehearsal and then get straight into it for the rest. On the second day we managed to film the entire first half but then when we went back into the studios for the third day, someone had moved our lights, meaning we had to preposition them even when we did the scene didn’t look the same, so we re-done the entire first days worth of shooting, leaving the last day for the rest. When the last day came round everything was left alone after I left some notes and had some words with the technician/studio supervisor. This meant that everything could carry on as planned.After shooting concluded it was an amazing feeling that we were almost done. 

We had about 3 1/2 weeks left to edit the project, which was more than enough time, but gave us more time to polish the film into a shining beauty it is. James was the head editor for this project, and I had the role of assistant editor. Even though I was the assistant editor, my role consisted mainly of me walking James through things that he couldn’t do or doing more complex things myself due to me being the more experienced and knowledgeable editor. The things that I walked him through were the ending credits and a few effects used for colour correction and the like. Things I did myself were the Opening title sequence thing and the effect on Lucifer’s eyes when he wakes up in the bath. 

As a PA my role involved assisting with every part of production, and for me that mainly meant that I assisted the Producer and Production Manager with their paper work and conveyed messages that they had to the whole team. I also had the role of keeping track of time for each segment of the show while recording and relaying that info the the Director who would tell me whether I should cut down another segment or he would tell the presenter to wrap things up.

As a Director of a VT my role was to mainly focus on the visuals of the VT and make sure that the VT fit into the allotted time. The VT that I directed was the Music performance at the end of the show. The way I decided to record that was live, rather than lip synced, in order to make the performance appear more natural on screen. To do this I had asked for help from the studio technicians that were available on the day to assist with mic-ing up each instrument and setting it up so that the sound from the mic’s would come through the studio gallery. I also had them help out with our sound guy in sorting out levels and while recording. It was shot live and I had a member of the team as the vision mixer, who cut together the live recording as I asked. I also asked for assistance from people who were finished with their VT’s in order to have additional camera people. we took a total of 6 takes to get it right and then after i put them all into adobe premier and cut them together using the best shots of each take.