Oct 2010
Midnight Son -- FINISHED
2010_10_15_15:22
Back in the fall of 2007, when the Orphanage was still a semi-thriving VFX company, Stu Maschwitz, one of the co-founders, came to me and asked if I was interested in cutting a low budget horror film. Although horror isn’t really my genre, I was thrilled about the opportunity and he put me in touch with Scott Leberecht, the writer and director of “Midnight Son”. Scott sent me the script, which I read and loved, along with an early animatic trailer he had cut and a cinematography highlights reel that he was using to raise funds. We talked about the project and it was obvious that we had the same thoughts in mind for this story.
The film defies any genre -- the premise is rooted the vampire mythos, but the tone and style is a dramatic character driven story, combined with a struggling romance: I call it a “post-modern gothic romance”. Without giving anything away, “Midnight Son” is the story of Jacob, a young artist who has a terrible skin condition that causes his skin to burn severely if he has any contact with the sun. Because of his condition he works nights, lives in a basement with the windows taped shut, leads a pretty lonely existence, and develops some strange food cravings. The rest has to be seen to appreciate.
That fall I cut a few select scenes, on spec, to help Scott raise completion funds to get the film into a festival. I then went back to The Orphanage while he shopped it around. Through a series of fortunate events, the scenes landed in the hands of Eduardo Sanchez, one half of the directing duo that made “The Blair Witch Project”. Sanchez was drawn to the story and signed on as Executive Producer and they quickly raised some money to complete the project. I then took a few months of extended leave from The Orphanage to cut the film for festival submission. This was the summer of 2008 and we were trying for the Sundance deadline that year, which was in September. The schedule was tight but I managed to get a rough assembly in time for that submission, although it was pretty evident at the time that the film wasn’t finished enough (some reshoots were needed, and there were some structural issues that both Scott and I were struggling with). I then spent another 3-4 weeks refining the cut to a state that felt pretty damn good. Suddenly, the money dried up. This was now the fall of 2008 when the banking and credit crunch was at its apex. Investors weren’t signing on, people were nervous.
I went back to the Orphanage in October while Scott moved forward with a couple of reshoots. He did the reshoots in November and gave me the new media in December. He had run out of money to pay me but I believed in the project so I told him I would continue cutting in my free time, after the holiday break. The Orphanage returned from their holiday break in 2009 and opened the cut up once again. By this point, VFX were starting to be worked on by some students at The Academy of Art, San Francisco. I doled out the necessary plates for them to work on and was getting ready to start cutting the film again at night when The Orphanage shut down the first week of February. This meant that I no longer had the equipment resources to cut on or a job to keep me paid. Ugh.
From this point, Scott took over as editor. At the time there were big concerns about some key story points and how to keep them in the film without blowing the pacing of the film. It is much to his credit that he was able to address these issues while essentially learning how to use FCP.
I attended a screening last Friday for the students at The Academy of Art who worked on it and not only was I proud of my own work but I was also happy to see the film finally finished and see what Scott was able to do with it. Scott is currently submitting to festival and looking for a distributor. I really hope it gets a theatrical distribution deal because it has the chance of really developing a cult following. It’s completely engrossing to watch and sucks you in (no pun intended) from the moment it start to the final cut to black. I love the film and hope this is only the first step of Scotts feature film career!
The film defies any genre -- the premise is rooted the vampire mythos, but the tone and style is a dramatic character driven story, combined with a struggling romance: I call it a “post-modern gothic romance”. Without giving anything away, “Midnight Son” is the story of Jacob, a young artist who has a terrible skin condition that causes his skin to burn severely if he has any contact with the sun. Because of his condition he works nights, lives in a basement with the windows taped shut, leads a pretty lonely existence, and develops some strange food cravings. The rest has to be seen to appreciate.
That fall I cut a few select scenes, on spec, to help Scott raise completion funds to get the film into a festival. I then went back to The Orphanage while he shopped it around. Through a series of fortunate events, the scenes landed in the hands of Eduardo Sanchez, one half of the directing duo that made “The Blair Witch Project”. Sanchez was drawn to the story and signed on as Executive Producer and they quickly raised some money to complete the project. I then took a few months of extended leave from The Orphanage to cut the film for festival submission. This was the summer of 2008 and we were trying for the Sundance deadline that year, which was in September. The schedule was tight but I managed to get a rough assembly in time for that submission, although it was pretty evident at the time that the film wasn’t finished enough (some reshoots were needed, and there were some structural issues that both Scott and I were struggling with). I then spent another 3-4 weeks refining the cut to a state that felt pretty damn good. Suddenly, the money dried up. This was now the fall of 2008 when the banking and credit crunch was at its apex. Investors weren’t signing on, people were nervous.
I went back to the Orphanage in October while Scott moved forward with a couple of reshoots. He did the reshoots in November and gave me the new media in December. He had run out of money to pay me but I believed in the project so I told him I would continue cutting in my free time, after the holiday break. The Orphanage returned from their holiday break in 2009 and opened the cut up once again. By this point, VFX were starting to be worked on by some students at The Academy of Art, San Francisco. I doled out the necessary plates for them to work on and was getting ready to start cutting the film again at night when The Orphanage shut down the first week of February. This meant that I no longer had the equipment resources to cut on or a job to keep me paid. Ugh.
From this point, Scott took over as editor. At the time there were big concerns about some key story points and how to keep them in the film without blowing the pacing of the film. It is much to his credit that he was able to address these issues while essentially learning how to use FCP.
I attended a screening last Friday for the students at The Academy of Art who worked on it and not only was I proud of my own work but I was also happy to see the film finally finished and see what Scott was able to do with it. Scott is currently submitting to festival and looking for a distributor. I really hope it gets a theatrical distribution deal because it has the chance of really developing a cult following. It’s completely engrossing to watch and sucks you in (no pun intended) from the moment it start to the final cut to black. I love the film and hope this is only the first step of Scotts feature film career!
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