Under The Gun Trailer#1

[doug maverick]

hey so i know this might be considered spam but since i got messages from some of you wanting to see this. here it is the trailer to my first feature length film under the gun, since it titled trailer #1 it more like a teaser then an actual full trailer but enjoy and tell me what you think:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=t8FOIe6N-rU

or

www.edgewaterstorage.com/utgtrailer.wmv


thanks to you guys on the forum for your support and thanks to gene in advance for not deleting this. besides i'm the guy who puts everyone all to all the knew stuff coming out of hong kong, i should be able to plug my own film.

[VingDragon]

:) ......... :) ......... :)

[mickey]

Hey doug maverick,

Isn't the hitman with the braid from the Alan Lee school?



mickey

[doug maverick]

i think he is

[Shaolinlueb]

I'm in there getting my ass kicked somewhere.

[ayana]

nice trailer ;)

[doug maverick]

thank you everybody worked real hard on this film. and me and my DOP worked harder on making it look like a film. thanks

[doug maverick]

just thought i'd bring this back up as it is my feature film. we going screening it at the pennsylviania hotel november 16 on the 18th floor at 6pm. pm me for more information

[doug maverick]

i put up some clips of the film a while ago to promote the screening back in april. check them out tell me what you guys think.

beach scene featuring shyaporn theerakulstit and kelly fung, directed by me douglas ferguson shot and edited by johnny tsang (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfU_x-GkaLg)

Fight scene, featuring shyaporn theerakustit and many brown, fight scene choreagraphed by manny brown/douglas ferguson directed by me shot and edited by johnny tsang (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcpmSvS3hD4)
side note: manny was the main choreagrapher on this fight scene. i just added some things into it. also we choreagraphed this fight scene on set.

Torture scene: featuring, Guy Dorian, Manny Brown, and Michael Carbonaro
directed by me douglas ferguson/Shot and edited by johnny Tsang (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWoIrm5IeOo)


just to give you guys an update on the film for those of you who care. after the screening in april i got several distribution offers both here and abroad. and decided to for go the whole film festival thing and sell the film out right. as to when the film will be release look for it late 08 or early 09. thank you to all those who have been involved and those who have kept an interest in the film.

also since one of our cast members/choreagraphers Jerry liau is now a finalist on JC's disciple i might upload either one of his scene's or one of the fight scene's he choreagraphed.

[iron_silk]

So what's going on with this project anyway?

[doug maverick]

So what's going on with this project anyway?

the film is currently out to distrbutors, with some already expressing interest. i forgoed the whole film festival thing, as i missed the deadline for some of the big ones and i'm, not a big fan of alot of the film festivals out there, which generally just take your money and don't offer you anything in return(not even a freaking award or anything).i'll keep [people posted on when it will be available. thanks for asking

[iron_silk]

the film is currently out to distrbutors, with some already expressing interest. i forgoed the whole film festival thing, as i missed the deadline for some of the big ones and i'm, not a big fan of alot of the film festivals out there, which generally just take your money and don't offer you anything in return(not even a freaking award or anything).i'll keep [people posted on when it will be available. thanks for asking

Thanks for the update Doug!

So how long did you take you finish editing the project after you shot everything?

And did you get someone to score the music for you?

[doug maverick]

actually the editing process was pretty quick. mainly because i already knew how i want to cut together the film so i just gave a 40 page cut list to the editor who cut it together and then after i looked at it we made changes took scenes out stuff like that. as for score mostly we used royalty free music cause the budget was basically gone by the time we finished the editing but i was able to get some songs created for the film from some people in england. the entire film was shot in twelve days with a "budget" of 15k

[iron_silk]

actually the editing process was pretty quick. mainly because i already knew how i want to cut together the film so i just gave a 40 page cut list to the editor who cut it together and then after i looked at it we made changes took scenes out stuff like that. as for score mostly we used royalty free music cause the budget was basically gone by the time we finished the editing but i was able to get some songs created for the film from some people in england. the entire film was shot in twelve days with a "budget" of 15k

You shot it in 12 days? no way...I thought I mentioned that it took like 2 years to finish or something like that...12 days is impressive

Where would you find royalty free music?

15K is impressive...how did you know where you needed money and where you can get away without money?

[doug maverick]

yeah it was shot in 12 shooting days over the course of two years. we had alot of scheduling problems and my star got his finger choped off in a accident un related to the film.
and as for your other question. its all about planning and budgeting i'm a master at it i don't know how i got like that i just did. first thing was crew iknew that no matter what i couldn't skimp on the crew. so i got my friends over at edgewater pictures who shot a tv pilot i directed for crew. now when i say crew i mean me, the DOP and th sound guy. me and the DOP rigged they lights. thats another thing when doing these indie projects as a director i go over everything in my head about the scene how i want it to look what shots i want(not just shooting every angle and then puting it togather in the editing room you don't have time like that) what kind of lights to use and how to light the scene. also good to have a DP who knows what he's doing. next is actors,i was pretty skimpy on the actor budget and that was mhy one failing because that left me at the mercy of my actors schedules which is horrid and why the film took so long to shoot. so i learned to always pay your actors good so that they can be at your beck and call. as for saving money mostly i saved on actors and locations, i paid little or nothing for most of the locations. theres a club scene in the movie that was shot in brighton beach that i had to go shot for shot with potatoe vodka for the owner to let me use it for free(almost cost me a liver). speed is the key in these films.

IMAO(Improvise,Modify, Adapt, and O vercome) should be your everyday mantra. as for the music my editor has a whole cache of the stuff so he was able to hook it up.

[iron_silk]

wow thanks for replying so thoroughly...I appreciate the valuable info you provide.

TV pilot sounds fun...hope it gets picked up. What is it called?

Well just to stick with something more related to this forum...you mentioned Jerry liau helped choreograph. He's a wing chun guy...so is there other styles and choreographers that contributed to the project?

How about the main character? He looks well trained in the arts.

[doug maverick]

good information on jerry yes he is a wing chun guy but also shaolin and he is a fantastic breakdancer.
the other choreagrapher is Emanuel "manny" Brown. who is an actor/singer/dancer/martial artist. and a frequent choreagraphy colaborator of mine. manny is a multi time winning karate forms and fighting champion, he's studied tang soo doo, praying mantis, wushu and tak kwon do. words cannot describe how awesome this guy on screen(he play's the black guy in the fight scene in the clips).
we wanted this film to have a non distinctive film, not to really show off or chow case some type of style, basically saying these guys picked up alot of there skills along the way keeping what was usefull for killing and getting rid of the useless.when choreagraphing the action we made sure we stuck to that. there were quite a few defferent martial artist in this film playing non fighting roles. the lead actress kelly fung has been training in shaolin kung fu(both northern and southern) under Sifu/master Tak Wah Eng for the past 11 years. the cast was loaded with martial artist of defferent styles for that one reason of having that non distinct feel to the action, i wanted undfer the gun to be a movie with action in it not an action movie, to some extent i succeeded(limited time and budget impede on creativity alot).

[doug maverick]

the TV pilot was called the steele project and it wasn't picked up. sorry to say it was my first project. and honestly i hate it because i was such a rank amtuer when making that film that it shows. although the producers have been showing it around festivals to decent reviews which quite honestly baffle me. the thing was gawd awful. but again done with a extremely limited budget and under extreme and i mean super extreme constraints. i'm hopping my next film that i finished writing a few months ago and am going through the arduous task of getting the budget togather. can get the budget i set for it. i proved to myself and others what i can do with nothing now its time to do a whole lot more with a little bit of something.

[iron_silk]

You're getting decent reviews for your first attempt and not even a good one is wonderful.

You can only imagine what Under the Gun and future projects will bring you.

[doug maverick]

thanks alot. under the gun while again not perfect is a film that i will always love because it took so long to make and when it was done i was as satisfied as i could be(which is not saying much considering i'm never really satisfied with my films) the film i'm working on which i just finished the first draft of the script for is called "sexploitation" and is going to be shot out in California hopefully by the beginning of next year, its a non action, crime drama about a dirty cop, a bankrupt business man, and an arms dealer and the prostitute they all share. still working on it the first two chapters need work. but so far i'm getting good feed back from friends and some trusted colleagues.

[iron_silk]

I know you mention that you limited by time and budget but I was wondering how many takes do you usual do? does it take a long time to set up lighting?

There reason I ask is because I'm helping out on a literally no budget movie (everyone is just friends and family helping out) and there many takes over same scene and from different angles, so I was curious how it was like on your set?

[doug maverick]

the simplest way to solve that is to story board the scene. have all your shots worked out in advance. we used a 35mm adapter when we shot the film which is just like shooting on film rather then digital so it takes up to forty five minutes to an hour to light each scene. depending on the size of your crew it can be considerably less. if your shooting with no budget you should deffinitely plan every scene and shot before you shoot. as for takes i only look for two or three good shots. its useless to shoot the same performance over and over again, so i would get at least two good shots, get a few variations and then move on. we averaged about 10 pages a day. a big budget hollywood feature averages about 1-2 pages a day. i can't stress the planning part enough it will surely make or break your film.