The Devil's Company Blog

Opening & Carmen

2010-04-27T00:24:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time coming. Thanks to Ricky Elliott, over the next few weeks you'll be seeing a lot of scenes posted up here. The film as a whole will be uncompleted but I will post up most of the scenes that I can get behind. It will make me feel complete and I can move on.

OPENING

CARMEN

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

TDC Visual FX Work Begins!

2009-10-19T23:29:00.002-07:00

Hey howdy hey all!

What? You thought "The Devil's Company" was dead? Shame on you...

VFX and color correction for TDC has begun and rages on! Below are just a very small example of what's being done, some of the more ambitious shots in the film will leave you wondering if any of the actors made it out of the film alive. Or the crew for that matter. There's only one reason the film had an "end" really...

Hover to see the original

- Ricky Elliott (VFX Guru)

Behind the Scenes - Lancaster

2009-10-11T20:47:00.000-07:00

"The Devil's Company" Lancaster (BTS) from Antoine Bandele on Vimeo.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

The Last Blog Post

2009-10-09T20:18:00.001-07:00

Was bullshit ... the film is still on :-D

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

The Truth Concerning "The Devil's Company"

2009-09-21T16:31:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be honest on this blog, because at this point in my filmmaking "career" I can afford to be honest.

I don't like "The Devil's Company" and where it's going as a film. Though I don't think it was a waste of time and a great learning experience I am unsure if I'll ever publicly release the film. I will finish it personally though and the actors/crew will get their copies but after that I think that's where the lifeline of the film will end.

This would be the first film of mine I've never released online.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Behind the Scenes - A Night on the Set

2009-08-06T22:38:00.000-07:00

"The Devil's Company" A Night on the Set (BTS) from Antoine Bandele on Vimeo.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

P.S. A film is still being made. I took a break and that break is now over :-D

Principle Photography Completed!

2009-06-08T15:21:00.000-07:00

We have finally reach the end of principle photography! Sorry I haven't been updating the blog as much as I have been (this one and my personal one). After the Lancaster shoot, schedules have been wonky and I was trying to scramble to get things we didn't shoot in Lancaster.

For our last day of shooting we went over to the apartment of a friend/mentor of mine named Damian Gonzalez. We shot the motel fight scene between our two female characters, which I really wanted to shoot in Lancaster because I had complete control of that location. For Damian's house, however, there were certain things we needed to be cautious about (namely breaking things). The fight scene went well enough for the first few takes and I had almost gotten all the coverage I would need for a set of the fight but on one the takes, Resa (Carmen), who was being pushed by Courtney (Jade) into a wall, bent his towel holder. If that wasn't bad enough, Resa's leather jacket left a lot of black marks on the walls and toilet seat. When we broke for dinner I told Damian what happened and he wasn't as angry as I thought he'd be. In fact, it was his girlfriend's wrath I would have to feel later on that night. Well, it was foolish for me to think the end of the night would end without a hitch. I guess I should have expected as much after this dibacle.

I think the fight scene turned out alright. I won't know until I capture the footage and start editing. I just really hope we don't have to do a single pick up for anything in that bathroom because we already intruded into their hospitality too far. When I shoot action it's pretty sporadic and sometimes I feel like I may forget certain things or I won't have good edit points. Usually, though, it turns out alright. I just like to worry a lot.

After dinner we did an interrogation scene, which was fun, but went on way too long due to lighting. Because it went too long I didn't have time to get the scene like I wanted in terms of the way I wanted it shot and the way some of the performances came off. I felt I did extremely terrible with directing the actors today and I would like to apologize to them for that but I was trying to get out of there before it became a shoot wrapping at 3 AM. If I had complete control of the location I'm sure I would want to do pick-ups for the interrogation scene.

After another short break we did another scene in the bathroom regarding a phone conversation which I enjoyed a lot, mostly because of the way I shot it and Courtney's performance. Because of the lightening issue I had to shoot it all at one angle because doing any reverse on Resa would mean taking ten minutes to relight her. So what I did was shoot everything at one angle through the bathroom's mirror so that you see Courtney, her back and Resa all in the same shot at a slight dutch angle. Then I just got tighter on Courtney, then to Resa and then an insert. I actually like doing this better than doing it as a generic "shot-reverse" setup. The mirrors were a drag to work with in that bathroom but I made it work for me in that scene. I'm proud of myself for that. Plus, Courtney really got into Jade's character in this scene. It felt less like she was "acting". I was watching the Kill Bill Vol. 2 Behind-the-Scenes the other week and Quentin Taratino had mentioned how, in the last scene they shot, Uma Thurman really nailed "The Bride" by the end of production. That piece of commentary reminded me of Courtney who I felt exactly the same way about. She really knew how to just step into the skin of Jade and step right back out.

Wrapping was cool. There was a huge group hug session but then we overcleaned Damian's house to make up for the broken towel holder and dirty walls (which were also cleaned). It was a very laid back shoot. Most of the crew had nothing to do until the dialogue stuff came up. At a point I was come over with fatigue but I came through that somehow. Can't wait for Thursday and Friday. We have two pre-screenings at Hamilton and Reseda High School. We'll be showing them full rough cuts of the film and then we'll have a focus group set up and we'll discuss what they enjoyed/disliked about the film, favorite scenes, improvements that could have been made, etc. I'll definitely blog about those experiences.

***A Devil's Company Blog Exclusive***

Courtesy of Alex Bleyer's Blackberry

Now onto Post-Prodcution! My favorite part of the filmmaking process! :-D

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Late Night Editing with Antoine

2009-06-05T05:51:00.001-07:00

What a night what a night what a night. This was the second all-nighter editing session Antoine and I have pulled...

I cut a few scenes between Zach and Zane, while Antoine cut some other sequences. Slowly but surely, we're starting to see how the scenes will look once we piece them together... and I must say... I think we've all made a pretty great film.

But we're not out of the woods yet- there are still issues with audio, compositing that needs to be done, scoring and sound effects are still needed, we have a deadline to finish the rough edit by for a pre-screening, AND, as impossible as it may seem- don't forget we still have a day left of shooting folks. I still don't understand how Antoine does it all.

Well it seems Antoine is done for the day, as you can see from the photo, and I should be too, considering I have to wake up for work at 7:00.

This better be the best goddamn hour of sleep EVER.

- Alex Bleyer (Co-Editor/Script Supervisor)

Behind the Scenes - Coffee Run

2009-05-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

"The Devil's Company" Coffee Run (BTS) from Antoine Bandele on Vimeo.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Teaser Poster #1

2009-05-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

Ricky Elliott did some brilliant work on this teaser poster!

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Lancaster...

2009-05-03T22:55:00.000-07:00

...was soo much fun! I had such a great time, just all the time I was there!
At first, I was worried that I'd kinda just waste time and not really get the lighting good and just be a headache, but that was totally not what happened. I got everything good, and I think the lighting looks really good, some of the best work I've ever put on film (or video, in this case). I really tried to put everything I know about lighting into play this weekend and I think it really shows. I managed to create some pretty good depth and key the actors well. I made the 400 W DigiMole my little workhorse, I used it for almost every set-up. I threw a 1/2 CTB over it after the sun went down to create a great little night look. And I never held up production or made us run late doing it!

Naturally, with us being teenage kids and college students, the night turned into a party and we all drank our weight in light beer. I honestly love ending a day on set with a beer. There's this weird thing, almost everyone I've met who works on movies drinks and smokes, a lot (expect Antoine). I think it's just part of the stress management of working in that kind of environment. But I mean we all know it's worth it, we just need a little encouragement to deal when it's not.

At first we were all really scared that we'd have a problem with Alex, the actor who plays Zane. We found that he was somewhat unhappy with working with us, he thought it was a waste of his time and etc. We started getting really grumpy with him, Antoine was really mad and frustrated about it. In the end he came to set, we did our thing like always, and he was really happy with us. We never kept him waiting, didn't reschedule him, and made sure we got what we needed out of him when he came, so that his drive wasn't for nothing. We did our research on Alex, it turns out he's the ONLY Turkish actor in Hollywood, and because of people getting misconceptions about Turks, he finds that the rare roles he gets in a film as a Turkish character, he usually has to wear a Turban or some other stereotypical thing. I can understand how he can be frustrated. Also, I've been on shoots where nothings been organized and where actors will come and will have to wait around for the whole day, just to hear that they're not shooting their part that day. I can see how he would be scared of wasting his time with strangers who haven't even all got drivers licenses or college degrees. I don't want to toot our own horn here, but I think once he saw how organized we were and how much we cared about making a great film, he was thoroughly impressed with us and what we could do with less budget than other films.

What else happened this weekend? I think Rob and Resa did their own Behind the Scenes thing. They'd run to me and be like "Hey watch this!" and they'd show me the clip they just shot. It was great to see them getting excited about life behind the camera. On the other end of the coin is Antoine auditioning for the movie I'm shooting for my film class at school. It's kind of fun to see Antoine try acting out and trying to put depth into a character. I'm not saying for sure whether I will or won't cast him, but I think he had a great sense of the character and I think he has connections to draw from to form a fuller character.

-Spencer Smith (Gaffer)

Production Day 11

2009-05-03T22:02:00.000-07:00

Actually no one really took many pictures of the actual production so here are a few pictures of us messing around after the shoot.

Filmmaker of the Day: Everyone!
I mean look how awesome we are?

What we shot was great but we didn't shoot everything we needed because of scheduling conflicts with actors. We're almost there though ... almost there ... we just have to connect the dots really.

I learned a lot today. I had a great talk with one of the actors, Alex Demir. This whoel project has been an entirely great learning experience! Since no one is telling me to go and make a film at a school or a program I might as well do it myself, learn from mistakes and grow on my own, right? No one else can do that for me and I'm glad I'm taking that initiative.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Production Day 10

2009-05-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

First day of the big Lancaster weekend.

Going over some choreography.

Filmmaker of the Day: Spencer Smith
For awesome night-time lighting.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Production Day 9

2009-04-30T21:36:00.000-07:00

Lesson of the Day:
Mini-Vans works great for dollies!

Filmmaker of the Day: Alex Bleyer
For awesome dolly operation ;)

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Production Day 8

2009-04-23T12:46:00.000-07:00

No photos. Short day but it was a good day. I went back to watch dailies and the audio is horrible. We'll have to do major ADR on this scene and another.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

A Look at the TDC Visual Effects

2009-04-21T01:16:00.000-07:00

Hey all, I've been meaning to post for awhile, but needed something to show you until now. For "The Devil's Company," I'm acting as a one-man army on various visual effects. Truly no two of any visuals done are the same. From replacing a cigarette box logo to creating a 1,000,000-particle materialization intro, I tend to work on this stuff closely with Antoine in order to really help get the look he needs. I have a few things I want to show you, nothing too big, just to give you a taste for what's in store...

First and foremost, the blog background. It's a cool premise: have the actual characters on one side, and some BTS stills on the right. Depending on your monitor, the longer it is, the more you get to see, so look out for that.

Here's something most of you (should've) seen already: the intro for the BTS video. This intro took over 11 hours to render out, rendered 3 different times because of various trips back to fix mistakes. As I mentioned before, over 1,000,000 particles a second are being produced, which is no easy feat.

***A Devil's Company Blog Exclusive***

This one was left on the cutting floor, before there was even footage for it: a motel sign. The idea here was just a simple neon "motel" sign, but in the end was cut.

***A Devil's Company Blog Exclusive***

This was a pre-viz done to see if it COULD actually be done, which is illustrated. I didn't have much experience with tracking points and such, so this was kind of new. This method created on the spot effectively kills two birds with one stone: a perfect track, and a clean erase of the markers.

***A Devil's Company Blog Exclusive***

Possibly after post is done and the film is released, I'll show some bigger sequences, and some more pre-viz stuff that went down... When I'm not doing this, I'm working on other filmmaking projects, practicing piano, AND appearing in a few "Deal or No Deal" episodes, airing May 4th. Until we meet again....

Click here to see some of my other work.

- R.A. Elliott (VFX Wizard)

Production Day 7

2009-04-20T13:08:00.000-07:00

Today was a big day. We were going to shoot in a really large park area.

It was great. The child actors were awesome, although I was very nervous about directing them.

Courtney was a tad late but that wasn't the worst of it.

We had to cut our shoot short because a park coordinator said we were not allowed to shoot at the park on Holidays or Weekends (Weekdays and non Holidays are fine). We got everything involving the kids done but we could not finish up Courtney's coverage or Sacha's coverage.

There was no way we could shoot Courtney without the location so we decided to reshoot on a later date during a weekday. But we could easily shoot Sacha's coverage because all of her shots were extreme close ups. So, we drove to look for a decent spot.

On the way we lost half the crew and I had to coordinate everyone back to one spot.

Filmmakers of the Day:
Chris Miller & Veronica Aguilera!

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Production Day 6

2009-04-19T00:25:00.001-07:00

Very short day. Originally this day was supposed to be a really quick and dirty chase scene but now the scenes have been split apart. We did two scenes today and we'll do multiple more next weekend. Should be fun! Today was extremely chill.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

A Clip From Devil's Company LEAKED!?

2009-04-16T23:29:00.000-07:00

Today someone hacked into one of our actress's accounts and sent an e-mail with one of the clips to most of her contacts! In other words, The Devil's Company had it's first leak! These things tend to happen when you share files online.

Don't try and watch the video now. The password is changed.

Look how far up my views went up today alone on Vimeo ... haha ... I wonder why.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Scene 10 Rough Choreography Blooper!

2009-04-16T00:38:00.000-07:00

***A Devil's Company Blog Exclusive***

I have no idea why I was so chill. The girls were freakin' out.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Production Day 5

2009-04-16T00:20:00.001-07:00

A very short but successful shoot date.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Production Day 3

2009-04-15T22:55:00.000-07:00

We're going back in time.

Thank you for letting us use your house!

Thanks for Casting!

Filmmaker of the Day: Christian Valle
For some fantastic support and great Director of Photography work!

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Choreography

2009-04-08T18:34:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I've posted anything, but here I am. Resa and I got together yesterday to work on a fight scene. We didn't have any help from anyone else, but I think we managed. ;-)

Resa came over, we set up what we thought looked like the bathroom in my living room and talked through what the fight could be. I thought it would be nice if Carmen didn't come off as TOTALLY inexperienced, so she pushes me around a bit. It gets a little dirty on accounta' it's two girls fighting each other. We figured it doesn't really matter how much training they have, if some bitch tries to take me down, I might pull her hair a little. (No worries, there isn't actually any hair pulling... Or scratching) Everything worked out great and I think the fight is going to be awesome!

Resa, my roommate, Felicia, and I had a nice little bonding session afterwords, too. It's pretty great to be working with people I actually get along with. I think that's been the best thing about this whole experience, that I genuinely get along with the people I'm working with.
That's about it for now, we'll have more beautiful experiences to report on soon!

- Courtney Case (Jade)

Behind the Scene - A Day on the Set

2009-04-08T11:20:00.000-07:00

"The Devil's Company" - A Day on the Set (BTS) from Antoine Bandele on Vimeo.

Enjoy!

Here is an alternative YouTube link.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Production Day 4

2009-04-06T18:24:00.000-07:00

Production Day 3 will be posted tomorrow.

Great effing shoot! Actually ... everyone gets a filmmaker of the day today! Great job cast and crew! Stay tuned into this blog later tonight. You might get a sneak peek at a thing or to about a thing or to :-D

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Update: 03-26-09

2009-03-26T23:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry. I missed a production day. I'll be sure to post both days three and four back-to-back this coming Sunday after we shoot.

In other news I've got all the rough edits done for all the scenes we shot so far. I just got over an edit that has been bugging me and I've been avoiding since the second day of shooting. I've got something that's viewable but this particular scene will take me sometime to get down. I wanted it to play for only forty-five seconds or a minute but it has a two minute duration right now. Eek!

In other news. I've just got a Visual FX (Ricardo Elliott) guy on board to do some gunshots, bullet hole wounds and some color correcting. Below is two screenshots from some stuff he's working on. Good stuff:

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Production Day 2

2009-03-15T02:34:00.000-07:00

Filmmaker of the Day: Veronica Aguilera
For Outstanding AD Work (2 Day Streak)

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Production Day 1

2009-03-12T01:23:00.000-07:00

Filmmaker of the Day: Veronica Aguilera
For Outstanding AD Work!

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Slates & Walkies

2009-03-06T01:45:00.000-08:00

Just made a makeshift slate :-D

Just purchased some walkies :-D

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

First Read Through

2009-03-01T00:06:00.000-08:00

First off before I begin this blog I just wanted to mention how late I was up last night/morning: 4:00 AM! Why? Because we shot our first read through from two camera set ups and I just HAD to edit them together. I had forgotten how long editing kept me up but never once was I annoyed to be staying up, in fact, I was ultra alert! Editing is so much fun and I haven't been able to edit in so long :-D (The picture below shows how long I was editing for).

I would have post this blog yesterday but like I said above I was much to busy editing the read through together along with some storyboard sequences I already had done.

When I woke up Saturday morning the only thing I had on the brain was this read through because the whole main cast would get to see one another and introduce themselves. I was so excited I even cleaned my filthy room (I have odd habits when excited). I had everything organize, everything was charged and ready to go but I HAD NO RIDE!

Early on I thought my dad might have been able to take me but he was going to a basketball game. Then, I called my grandmother and she said that the place I needed to go to was too far. Then, I called my director of photography and asked him if I could hitch a ride and he said it was a maybe. Okay, I can deal with maybes ... But just in case I called my other grandmother and she said she had to go out to a meeting. So my two options were (A) my DP's "maybe" turns into a "yes" or (B) I was going to take the bus with my DVX100B, my little camcorder, my tripod and my laptop aka NOT GOOD!

My grandmother comes home just as I got a text from my DP saying not only can he not give me a ride but he can't go at all because of car issues ... ARGH! I asked my grandmother again and she said that the lady who she was going to have a meeting with never called so she must have canceled. Yay! I had a ride! (By the way ... I really need a car)

So for two hours I waited out until it was an hour before the meeting. When we left the traffic was atrocious! I mean, I usually don't get pissed off at L.A.'s traffic but today I wanted all the people in those cars to just disappear and go away. I could see I was going to be a little late. Phone calls were coming in as quick as they could come, overlapping one another, people were getting there early and I, the director, wasn't even there! Not chill. We would have actually gotten there on time but the directions we got form GoogleMaps said there was an exit on a street which didn't even exist. So we had to make a big U-Turn in large amounts of traffic.

Finally we were making our way down the home stretch to the location when one of the actresses calls to say she's lost! Oh no! So I had to shuffle between getting equipment out and into the house and trying to find where she was all at the same time. On top of all this, most of this craziness could have been prevented if I had just e-mailed the correct address! I had made a typo, forgetting to put a number in the place of another number and a lot of people were confused.

Pretty much, it was chaos until people found there way and we all settled in.

I am so thrilled how well the read through went. Everyone, and I mean everyone, got along with each other and that was exactly what I was hoping for. The younger cast and the young crew really hit it off but Lori Shea, the mother to one of the actresses, was really awesome too! I remember mentioning a lot that FREE was the key word on this shoot because we are working off an extremely small budget. So many people had the ability to call in favors and we even discovered that Rob Watt (who plays Zach) knew how to choreograph! Resa Barton (who plays Carmen) had her own gun we could use! Veronica Aguilar and Spencer Smith (two crew members) could get a lot of equipment from their school! It was just so great! This really feels like it will be a collaborative effort and I'm so glad that so many of us are ALL excited for this ONE project, which has been merely an IDEA in my head for so so long.

Our first shoot is in a week and a half :-D Wish us luck!

The read through ran 22 minutes and 33 seconds. So expect the film to be about that long.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Motel Manager casted!

2009-02-24T20:55:00.000-08:00

Carlos Orrala as Motel Manager

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Nevada Casted!

2009-02-23T20:42:00.001-08:00

Alexa Shea as Nevada

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Main Cast ... Casted

2009-02-19T18:27:00.000-08:00

Here is the main cast of The Devil's Company (Prologue)

Courtney Case as Jade

Rob Watt as Zachary

Alex Demir as Zane

Resa Xing Barton as Carmen

Sacha Renee-Stackhouse as Natalia

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Casting: An Actor's Experience

2009-02-19T08:14:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! Courtney here. So I realize I'm a couple days late here, but oh well. So, I went with Antoine to see our call-backs for Zach and the Zane auditions. It was really exciting. I love that I get to be such a big part of this project! Reading with the Zachs was really fun, even though I felt like a huge dork. Really, just on a totally superficial level, think about the situation I was in: a nineteen year old girl who gets to sit in a room and have a romantically-tense conversation with about 5 cute boys. Not to mention we're probably about 3 inches away from each other the entire time, so needless to say, it was kind of hard to stay as cool and collected as Jade. Not that I had any bad thoughts or anything, I was very good and very professional, I just giggled a lot on the inside.

Anyway, not the point. I really liked auditioning the Zachs. Especially as an actor it made me realize a lot about the casting process that I already kind of knew, but had never seen in play. One of my teachers at AMDA (American Musical and Dramatic Academy- graduated Dec. '08) used to always tell us when talking about auditions, "just don't be bad". And it's kind of true. As long as the auditioners weren't rude or outright bad, we really liked them and wanted them to be the one. That's the thing about casting that makes me, as an actor, feel so much better, that every person who walks in the door, you WANT that person the be the best you've seen.

The Zanes were exciting to watch too and (I really hope no one takes this the wrong way) they showed me that it doesn't matter how old you are, you can still be a bad actor. That sounds awful and mean, but I think sometimes actors forget that. I always worry that I'm getting a late start as an actor, but then I see these guys and I know I'm fine.

The Zanes that were good though, and I really got a lot from a couple of them. It was just so exciting to actually be feeding off another actor with this script that I've been working on by myself for so long. I keep talking with Antoine about the other characters and what they're supposed to be and what they mean to my character. But nothing beats having another actor right in front of you to actually feed you emotion and interact with you. It got me way more pumped for this project, even more so than before. I can't wait to start working with the other actors and actually be filming!

I have to send my Thanks to Antoine for really letting me be a part of this project. I know he needed to see chemistry and everything, but I just feel real special being able to sit there with him and talk about OUR favorites... It's been great and I suppose I'll post again in a couple weeks.

- Courtney Case (Jade)

Casting: A Director's Experience

2009-02-16T22:28:00.001-08:00

Now, the first time I've ever officially "casted" for a production of mine was last summer at the Inner-City Filmmakers Summer Program. Next to shooting and editing, this had to be my favorite part. When you write something for so long and invest your time into the characters on page it's so refreshing to see them come alive to you right in front of your eyes. I'll admit though, not everything is pretty and beautiful. You wonder if you conveyed the character correctly or not when actors come in and do something that was completely opposing to what was in your mind. But when those few actors come in and nail it ... even exceed my expectations ... I feel so rejuvenated!

Since Friday, we started casting. First we started casting the role of Zach and Carmen. I could not attend that session but if you read the post below you'll find an entry from Spencer Smith (our every-man). Instead, the way I saw the auditions was through this amazing site called Cazt (below). It's a great system. My casting director (Kevin Hidalgo at HidalgoCasting) records the video and the people over at Cazt upload it for him and he sends me the link. I watched the auditions and I get to rate the actors much like YouTube videos and even comment on them :-D! This is extremely convenient, especially since I couldn't be at the first day of casting in person.

So I watched the auditions. Like Spencer said, the Zachs that came in were fair but the Carmens were mind-blowing good. Although he said I'd have a hard time choosing between the girls I knew which one was most like the character in my head (I don't think I'll reveal any of the actors until a later post). The Zachs were much easier to filter through; there were a lot of weak performances and few strong ones. I'll admit, I was shaky on the Zachs and was even considering just bringing in an entire new batch of guys but then today happened ...

So today I actually got to go to casting in person. Today was schedule for Zach call backs and Zane auditions. We even had our lead come in to read with the Zachs to match chemistry. Seeing them act against the person they'd really be with was great for all of us. Again, though, it was very simple to pick the guy we would go with. There were two really good ones but one had more chemistry with Courtney (the lead) than the other.

Then it was time for the older chaps: The Zanes.

A little note that I wanted to point out. The guy who was in the IGN April Fools's Legend of Zelda Trailer auditioned for Zane! That was really cool! I totally didn't realize it until long after he left (photo to left, the screencap makes him look like a criminal on the news but I swear he's nice). He did a good audition but his voice didn't work for me. It was really deep and husky, which is fantastic for the Legend of Zelda trailer but not so much for a modern, small-time mob boss. If you haven't seen the trailer I'll post it below. He shows up in the first 0:35 of the video (or at least most of his voice does).

So for a long time during the auditions I was underwhelmed. I was pretty frightened we wouldn't find anyone I would be completely content with, then one of the men who came in gave a solid performances and after a short break another actor came in who gave the most amazing audition I've ever witness. He actually made my eyes water.

The thing about his audition that moved me so much is that he made me ashamed that I wrote Zane, because I didn't think it lived up to his acting abilities. He made me see who Zane really was. Through his acting, Zane was revealed, Zane found his salvation. Admittedly, Zane would probably have to be my least and most underdeveloped character and this man, this actor, made me ashamed of that. What most of all the other actors did was shout and scream, making Zane seem very insecure and not calm and collected when really he wasn't that at all, or at least in my head he wasn't. A week ago my script supervisor and I were dealing with some of Zane's lines and I had a hard time defending what Zane was as a character but this actor helped me see Zane entirely. He's not a shouting and screaming kind of guy. He's very quiet and demanding and threatening but nothing outward ... but inward ... very subtle ... like Adrian Pasdar as Nathan Petrelli in Heroes. His dialogue and his voice cuts you deep and I really feared him, but he was still vulnerable and reliant on his top assassin.

Today was a good day.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Casting

2009-02-13T22:20:00.000-08:00

Hey guys,

It's me Spencer Smith. I'm gaffer on The Devil's Company as well as filling random odd jobs as they come up.

Today I got to help out Kevin Hildalgo with casting for the characters of Zach and Carmen. While Kevin did the talking and all the other cool casting director stuff, I got to help out by working camera. This actress named Rachel helped us out by doing the reading. She's also helping out another ICF grad with his movie called "Car Ride with Claire"

We ourselves up in a little casting facility called "Cazt" in West Hollywood. It a pretty neat little place, pretty basic. They set us up in a little room with a desk, some chairs, and the most, or lack of a better word, adorable little HD camera in the world.

For the casting of Carmen, Antoine wrote up a little piece of dialogue between Carmen and Zane, just something for the talent to act out to see who has a better feel for the character. All of the actresses who came in brought something distinct and wonderful to the character. I had a drama teacher in high school once tell me, "There are no small roles, just small actors". All of these actresses approached the role in a such a completely different manner. I'm anxious to see which one Antoine picks.

Well, thats all from me. But I just wanted to give you a little bit of my thoughts on casting. I had a lot of fun doing it.

- Spencer Smith (Gaffer/Everyman)

First gun outting!

2009-02-09T17:49:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone! I'm Courtney Case, I'll be playing the part of Jade in The Devil's Company. I'm really excited to be working on this project and have been since the first time Antoine said I looked cool with a gun in my hand.

So anyway, today I shot my first gun. I shot quite a few actually and I'm still learning so forgive me if I forget what some of them were. One of my teachers, Charles Currier, from my acting conservatory, AMDA took me and let me use his guns. My first gun was this tiny, antique .22 caliber pistol. Super cute, really, didn't exactly make me feel hardcore, but it was a good first shot and easy to shoot. Then, I shot two different kinds of semi-auto .45 pistols. The first was black metal, totally sleek, Jade's kind of gun and the other (my personal favorite) was a stainless steel Colt., like the one in the pciture. It was really surreal to be shooting it because I've spent so much timing wanting to shoot a gun, but I got the hang of it kind of quickly (don't get me wrong, it still need a LOT of practice) and it was just so empowering to hold on to. I liked these two 'cause that had just enough recoil and were really well weighted.

I shot a revolver next and the weight, recoil, and all around difficulty really shocked me. It was a pretty old-school revolver, but the trigger was way harder to pull and it was just in general hard to control the gun. Then I shot two of your basic police/detective looking guns, black 9mm with plastic base/handle/whatever that is... anyway, they were fun to shoot, way more recoil and therefore harder to control the targeting. These guns made me want to conquer them because I swear there were like 3 shots that didn't even make the targets and I just kept thinking, "I will learn how to shoot this freaking gun." Just for the fun of it, at the end we shot a couple shot guns which was SO intense! The other guns got me excited and I felt bad-ass, but with the shotguns, I was a little afraid. They're so heavy! And have SO much power.

All in all the experience was really great, I'm totally pumped about learning how to do this more. I'm not gonna lie, there wasn't a lot of character work going on today, it was mostly just Courtney learning how to handle a gun, but now that I can do that, then I can go back with Jade in mind and shoot her guns.

- Courtney Case (Jade)

Pre-Production: Storyboards & Casting

2009-02-03T10:09:00.000-08:00

Storyboards for one of the final scenes of the film are complete. I even made video animatics and added some music. They are looking good! Pre-Production is going well. We had a brief meeting last week with the (so far) small cast and the casting director. Next week we'll start casting. I'll be sure to post up information on that if you're interested in auditioning.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Pre-Production Begins

2009-01-20T23:16:00.000-08:00

Just got the Panasonic AG-DVX100B

Sunday's meeting should be much productive :-D

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

Welcome to the Blog

2009-01-15T15:47:00.001-08:00

Hey blog readers!

Back in February 2007 I was in a Black History performance with a friend of mine named Courtney Case. I had just come off of making my first little short called Whoopi vs. SilentBat, which was all well and good but was not exactly original.¹ I also wanted to do a legitimate film with dialogue and decent acting but I did not have any ideas. At the performance we did a skit about a protest that happened in the 60s (something about black students getting accepted into all-white colleges). Courtney played one of the racist Whites who came in to disturb the peace by shooting a few bullets into the crowd and shouting obscenities (good times). While we were waiting in the wings I looked over to her with the gun and I thought to myself, "Jeez, Courtney sure looks cool with a gun in her hand." Then I went on to say the same exact thing to her aloud and I think she said a hesitant "thank you." When I wasn't on stage I was writing in my notebook. A diarrhea of ideas game rushing through my fingers and by the time the performance ended I had a pretty decent concept that I ran with.

That night, I got on my computer and started typing up a screenplay entitled The Devil's Company. Looking back on it now it was a real mess but in 11th grade I thought I had a masterpiece, a real page turner. My video production teacher, Ms Iannacone, bless her soul, read it too and told me it was fabulous (but she loved anything I touched). At the time, if I got approval from her I went ahead and did it, and so I did! I already had my lead actress, all I needed was the villain, who was to be my dad, and a female antagonist, who was to be another friend named Sacha Stackhouse.

Everything was going so well at first. All the pre-production stuff was coming together seamlessly. We had a motel location, which we had set up, the main villain's office, which would be at my friend's house, and a beach, which we were going to film in a secluded location. Even the props and make-up were coming together nicely; we almost even went to a shooting range to train Courtney as an assassin (but her mother wouldn't have it). Hell, we even had a read through for a scene:

But then I got grounded for failing English and my camera was taken away, which meant production for the entire film was shut down indefinitely. But I knew I was going to come back to this project and here I am and I think the whole project is better for it.

Now I've had the opportunity to go through the summer program Inner-City Filmmakers where not only I (A) learned how to write a much better script (I won first place for best screenplay for my summer project Uncover'd), but (B) I was able to make a great network with the other filmmakers in the program, who have helped a lot with every single project I've done since the summer until now.

Directly after ICF² I picked up the old script and reworked it but I still didn't see how I would find the means to actually shoot it. That was in July. I didn't pick up the project fully until I entered a 48 hr. Halloween film festival with my ICF buddies which reconnected me with Courtney. I had forgotten how good of an actress she was and just seeing her on screen again got me excited. Plus, she seemed just as excited to continue with The Devil's Company as much as I was. I remember we were watching the crew setting up lights and I turned to her and I said, "Well, now I have a crew," which made her and me laugh. But seriously at that point I thought to myself again and again, "I now have a crew," a crew that was as dedicated to making movies as I was. This had to be the time, this was the time!

After finishing the 48 hr. film fest, I ripped through another draft of the script and got it to a pretty comfortable point. I even showed it to the writing group in the winter class I was taking. A majority of them liked it but said it was either too long or reminded them of Kill Bill, to which I retorted that it was nothing like Kill Bill. That film is a revenge/action flick, mine was and is an action/drama. The sole purpose of the protagonist in Kill Bill is indicated by the film's title. I would like to think my film was a little more than that (but I don't want to discuss that, as I may give the plot away). This put me down a bit and I was even considering cutting out the female antagonist. One of the writers in my class who didn't think the script was like Kill Bill told me that everyone is always going to think my work is like someone else and that I should just continue with what I wanted.

So, I just forget my writing group, and made the film I wanted but I took their notes into consideration. I wrote yet another draft and I shared it around with a few trusted readers, even a few new readers to get new opinions. The feedback was tremendously better and I asked each and everyone of them if they felt it was emulating Kill Bill. They all said no. One of my friends even showed it to his friends, which he shouldn't have done but it's okay with me now, and his friend, who usually dislikes action/melodramas enjoyed it. Most of all, though, I was satisfied with the script and ready to continue with it into pre-production, which is where we are now!

Again, welcome to the blog! Here you will find posts and updates on everything Devil's Company related, all the way up to it's release and beyond. I thought it would be fun to track the progress of this film from start to finish, from script to debut, and a blog is a wonderful way to do it. Aside from blog posts from just me you'll be getting updates from some of the cast and crew. Currently we are in the developmental stage. The script is in a spot I want it but now I'm cleaning off the edges. This Sunday I should be purchasing a new camera: the Panasonic DVX100B, which will be our main shooting camera during production. In a few weeks I think Courtney starts her basic training with her combat instructor and a little after that we'll start casting. This weekend I should have a tentative crew list put together and I'll begin drawing up storyboards. Lots and lots will be happening. I'm very glad I'm starting off the year with this film. It's been two years in the making and it's finally coming to life.

- Antoine Bandele (Director)

1 Some people wouldn't exactly say a film about a female assassin who is trying to leave the business to be with her daughter is original either, but eh, to each his own.

2 ICF = Inner-City Filmmakers

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