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(v.) To Augment - A Thesis Short Film by Renn Brown

post #1 of 35
4/26/10 at 5:00pm
Thread Starter 
So I've made a little movie that's currently snaking it's way through post-production (picture lock today, Sound work for the next month), that I hope some Chewers find interesting.

It's called (v.) To Augment, and it's a 10ish minute sci-fi/body-horror flick about the internet and technology and the like. Black & White, shot on 7D, and to describe it in terms of other films, it's a rumination on the themes of Videodrome by way of Primer, presented in a modern take on a Pi/Tetsuo: The Iron Man aesthetic. Those are the big influences.

I'll drop the poster here now (which can be clicked on to make world-sized), and over time I'll add a more detailed synopsis and other interesting materials. Hopefully some festival dates, sooner rather than later.

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post #2 of 35
4/26/10 at 9:35pm
Sounds awesome. Looking forward to seeing more.

At my school they basically told us not to apply for the senior year capstone project if you planned on making a horror or sci-fi movie. In my first screenwriting class, I wrote a horror script which literally every student in the class loved and the TA said it was the best thing anyone had written that year, but then the professor basically told me it's shit purely because he has only seen one zombie movie and he thought it was shit. So it's always nice when someone goes for something a little more interesting and weird than your standard drama from college kids who haven't had to deal with any real drama in their lives.
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post #3 of 35
4/26/10 at 9:50pm
Thread Starter 
Oh don't you worry, we produce about +75 thesis films a year, so there's plenty of self-important dramas. Also, we don't apply for shit and besides following the basic handbook rules (no kids, cars, or guns without proper paperwork and oversight), we dont' have to get approval for anything. There is plenty of offered guidance and critique etc through the 3-quarter senior project process, but at the end of the day we produce and shoot our films entirely independent of the faculty, so we can do whatever we want.
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post #4 of 35
4/26/10 at 10:00pm
At Temple University, you have to apply for the senior project program your junior year. They accept only about twenty proposals each year, and from what I hear, they seriously micromanage all the movies. No thanks. I'll just scrape together some cash and make a movie on my own, thank you very much. I'm not really into directing anyway, so I'm just trying to learn as much as I can about what I like to do (writing, editing, and sound) before I get sent out into the world.

I guess Temple's system weeds out some of the people who have no business making a movie, but the faculty's bias definitely limits the types of movies that come out of the school.
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post #5 of 35
4/27/10 at 12:18am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Erik Wacker View Post
At Temple University, you have to apply for the senior project program your junior year. They accept only about twenty proposals each year, and from what I hear, they seriously micromanage all the movies. No thanks. I'll just scrape together some cash and make a movie on my own, thank you very much. I'm not really into directing anyway, so I'm just trying to learn as much as I can about what I like to do (writing, editing, and sound) before I get sent out into the world.

I guess Temple's system weeds out some of the people who have no business making a movie, but the faculty's bias definitely limits the types of movies that come out of the school.
Yeah, fuck that. If I wanted to go to school to submit to a central authority and have the faculty decide everything I do, I'd major in theater.
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post #6 of 35
4/27/10 at 1:19am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Troy Nixey View Post
Nice poster Renn!...sorry that's all I got, I only finished high school
Shit, that's plenty! Thanks. I'll have more material in here soon.

Oh, and 100% picture locked this afternoon. Fuck yeah.
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post #7 of 35
4/27/10 at 1:48am
Hope it makes it round my parts come festival time. Look forward to hearing/seeing more about it.
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post #8 of 35
4/28/10 at 10:07am
Gorgeous. *ahem* There's a great festival that takes place in Toronto called "After Dark" that focuses on sci-fi/horror flicks. I think they might be accepting submissions now-ish. The website is at www.torontoafterdark.com.

(...just saying.)
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post #9 of 35
4/28/10 at 1:56pm
Thread Starter 
It's corporeal! (click it)

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post #10 of 35
4/28/10 at 4:33pm
How did you get that effect? It's really awesome but I have no idea what is going on.
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post #11 of 35
4/28/10 at 4:35pm
That sounds so good. Hopefully one day I'll be able to see this.
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post #12 of 35
4/28/10 at 7:16pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Erik Wacker View Post
How did you get that effect? It's really awesome but I have no idea what is going on.
I'll go detail by detail and break it down for you one of these days, but most of the answers are thoroughly unglamorous (it's all in-camera BTW). Fortunately I had this guy doing the work: www.nathanjonesphoto.com

He's goddamn amazing.
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post #13 of 35
4/29/10 at 4:58pm
Renn, you're at SCAD? That sounds like a pretty lenient thesis process. Is there any truth to SCAD having a really high prof. turnover rate?
Anyway, it sounds cool and the poster is great.
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post #14 of 35
4/29/10 at 6:07pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan Bean View Post
Renn, you're at SCAD? That sounds like a pretty lenient thesis process. Is there any truth to SCAD having a really high prof. turnover rate?
Anyway, it sounds cool and the poster is great.
It's very lenient. There's as much guidance as you're willing to hear/seek, but we're a production oriented school- our basic M.O. is venturing out with the equipment, making product, and then reporting back to the professors for critique. Your education comes from getting your ass on sets, not sitting in classrooms. Of course, I'm making this sound totally wild wild west and it's not, but relative to what I'm hearing about other colleges...

As for the turnover rate, I think that was more of a thing back in the 90s. Things are settled down now- SCAD has become a very efficient, structured machine these days and now its focus is on growth. The sound department specifically has really accumulated and kept a very prestigious group of instructors.

I'm very pleased with my school and with the effort they're putting into getting our name out there, I have a strong feeling the value of my degree is going to keep appreciating with time.
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post #15 of 35
4/29/10 at 9:00pm
That poster is aces Renn, really cool choices. That tagline is brilliant too. Only four words, but very evocative and compelling.
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post #16 of 35
4/30/10 at 10:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Renn Brown View Post
It's very lenient. There's as much guidance as you're willing to hear/seek, but we're a production oriented school- our basic M.O. is venturing out with the equipment, making product, and then reporting back to the professors for critique. Your education comes from getting your ass on sets, not sitting in classrooms. Of course, I'm making this sound totally wild wild west and it's not, but relative to what I'm hearing about other colleges...

As for the turnover rate, I think that was more of a thing back in the 90s. Things are settled down now- SCAD has become a very efficient, structured machine these days and now its focus is on growth. The sound department specifically has really accumulated and kept a very prestigious group of instructors.

I'm very pleased with my school and with the effort they're putting into getting our name out there, I have a strong feeling the value of my degree is going to keep appreciating with time.
That sounds pretty cool, and you're obviously enjoying it. I can see the value in something like that, though I think I would prefer a more balanced approach. My wife is finishing her first year at Boston University getting her MFA in film prod. and it sounds pretty different.
One of her profs said SCAD is kind of infamous for a high turnover rate in profs/instructors so it would be a good place to try and teach if that's the road one would want to take. He could be full of shit, though.
Apparently a USC thesis is shooting around here this summer... she's going to try to get on it.
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post #17 of 35
5/5/10 at 1:13pm
That poster is greatsauce.
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post #18 of 35
5/9/10 at 12:06am
Thread Starter 
Thought I'd toss some more images in here. Should have something more substantial soon though.

The first image is what I originally concieved as the poster image. The idea was for the poster to be based on a striking, thematically-connected image, rather than actually connecting to specific imagery from the film. With that in my head, I went for something in color, with no technological presence at all. I still love the photo, and it will be definitely be in the EPK, but once Bob took the image we ended up using, there was no going back.


This was another of that same set-up. Again, a great image for the EPK, but not poster material.


And finally, this is my vanity picture. It was taken so that I could put the EPK's "Director's Statement" atop it. The idea came from this: http://www.vanityfair.com/images/mag...photos0712.jpg and I love it more than I feel comfortable admitting. You get a better look at "the device" in this one too.

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post #19 of 35
5/9/10 at 8:47pm
Love that first picture of the burning book.
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post #20 of 35
5/28/10 at 12:08pm
Thread Starter 
Arty video of the final (at least until the festival mix) mix session. Set to a piece of the film's score.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcR5sw3b0EI

Oh yeah, we didn't win, but we were nominated for Best Undergraduate Sound Design (and we didn't even have foley or the final mix in yet!). So that was cool business.
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post #21 of 35
5/28/10 at 12:59pm
Fantastic! Absolutely love the music.
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post #22 of 35
5/28/10 at 1:32pm
Took me a while to realize that was the music and that your sound mixer wasn't run by steam power.

Fun stuff!
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post #23 of 35
5/28/10 at 4:48pm
Nice. It really sets off my control panel fetish. All them buttons and switches and faders and little lights mesmerise the bejebus out of me.
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post #24 of 35
5/28/10 at 9:14pm
Believe it or not, this is kind of one of my most anticipated films of the year. Really hope you put it online eventually.
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post #25 of 35
7/7/10 at 3:06am
Thread Starter 
Alright, I feel comfortable making this publicly available now. I would strongly encourage you to watch this at the highest-resolution that your computer can handle, with the volume as loud as your environment will allow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqI8FvbXPe0

This was a "demo" of sorts that I cut together for the purpose of recruiting post-production sound crew members (a purpose it served pretty well). It also functions as a de facto teaser trailer.

I think it's fairly indicative of visual tone, but doesn't even really hint at the experimental/meta-narrative place that the film eventually reaches.

More stuff soon soon soon.
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post #26 of 35
7/7/10 at 4:01am
The cinematography is really beautiful. I can't really find much else to say except it looks weird and great.

Oh, and very nice music.
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post #27 of 35
7/7/10 at 4:54am
Yeah, very intriguing visually and that music works a treat.
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post #28 of 35
7/7/10 at 7:43am
Interestingly enough, the shot that intrigued me most was that first shot in the library. After the opening shots, the texture of the books on the shelves look like a motherboard of some sort.

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post #29 of 35
7/7/10 at 3:19pm
Thread Starter 
The song should be familiar to fans of Seven.
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post #30 of 35
7/10/10 at 11:51pm
Great poster, and the visuals are quite nice. DSLRs are the new wave.
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post #31 of 35
8/5/10 at 9:04pm
Thread Starter 
IMDB happens, though the credits are (obviously) not fully populated.
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post #32 of 35
8/5/10 at 10:12pm
The NIN track actually hindered my appreciation! I couldn't stop thinking of Seven. But it's just a demo, so no worries. It's looking really slick!
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post #33 of 35
10/31/10 at 1:10am
I am interested in what happens to the main character's eyes and why.
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post #34 of 35
11/3/10 at 1:50am
Pretty fucking badass dude. Good job!
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post #35 of 35
11/3/10 at 1:52am
Still waiting for this chunk to be put online.
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