Here's what it is about....

On a simple, more-than-ever average night, two teenagers are about to take part in a frightening séance unlike any other.

One week ago, a teenage boy named Daniel was kidnapped and then murdered in a middle-of-nowhere desert region near town. The killer is still on the loose and there are no clues as to who might have done it.

David, a crazed and eccentric boy, has an idea that will hopefully solve the mystery as to who the killer is. Inviting a friend over to his house at nightfall, they attempt to reach the spirit of Daniel through the aid of a Ouija board. Although they successfully communicate with his spirit, all turns horrific when Daniel decides to release himself from the board, and hence cause all hell to break loose in David’s house.

From grim possessions, manipulation of objects, to a complete resurrection; OUIJA is an ‘action-packed’ horror-comedy extravaganza that you will never forget too soon.

Here is a teaser poster for the film, which is set to be about 20 minutes long:

http://diehard.ath.cx/~scallenger/Ouija%20Poster.jpg
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About the filming of the film:

Two weeks ago, I wrote the script for OUIJA, which was to be my final project for my Video Production class. It took me 2 days to write it, but resulted as a approx. 30 page script full of odd characters, funny lines, and some very interesting scenes that I had talked about in my class the whole trimester. I had a group of about 10 people who said they were very interested in taking part in the project (although I honestly believe about 95% of them just figured it would be an easy way to get an A on a project with someone who seems to know what they are doing). This of course got me very excited. Liz, a girl who seemed interested for the grade and for the fun of it all, said we could film at her house. I accepted the offer.

There were only 5 different characters in the original script, and I simply cast 5 of the people in the cast, me included, to be in it. They all agreed and seemed willing to do it. I assembled the rest of the interested people as my crew. So then I tried to plan a day when all of us could meet and work on it. That was the first bump... on the first week the only day we could all meet was Thursday after school. So I told them "Okay, we'll do that... 3pm to 7pm. Alright? And then all we need is 1 more day and we'll be good." And they all agreed unanimously to that statement.

When Thursday came, only the cast members showed up at Liz's house. Luckily Liz wasn't cast in the film and took the camera when I would be in the shots. So although there was really only 1 crew member, I still felt relaxed and confident that it would be fine. Wrong... after only a mere hour... just 1... suddenly one of the cast members brings up the fact that she needs to go home because her mom needs her to look after her sister. So she leaves, so we try and film the other scenes that she isnt it, so we can film her's on another day. Well, we tried that, but then suddenly, another cast member says that he has to go home too and forgot all about it. At that point, I said, "Look... you guys realize that this IS all for a grade, YOUR grade too, right? And mine.". And he agreed, but went anyway. So at that point I called off the rest of the shooting for the day. We were there from 3 to 5pm and had only got about 10 minutes worth of raw footage (perhaps if edited it would be about 2 minutes).

Because of the useless attempt on Thursday, we all thought it was best to reshoot the useless (and after reviewed, pointless and badly done) footage. So this time, we decided to shoot for 1 day only... an entire day devoted to the movie... a day when no one would have to leave or go anywhere FOR SURE. So we all decided to shoot on Sunday from 11am to whenever we got it completed. They ALL agreed, even the crew. And we knew that it HAD to be shot by Sunday because it was due on the coming Friday, so it had to be edited in that week.

Saturday came and suddenly I got all these calls from the crew. To sum it up... only 1 guy could come, but only for an hour. This began to worry me, but I already knew for sure Liz would be there at her house, and as long as she was there, no real worries.

But when Sunday morning came... everything went out the window.

I begin to get some calls from the cast members. Here are some things they said "I'm sick and have to go to the doctor," "My tire went flat and I need to fix it," "My family came to visit," and my favorite, "I just woke up at a friend's house, sorry." In short: NONE of the cast members could (or would) show up, except me.

5 scripted characters + only 1 cast member + only 1.5 crew members = PANIC ATTACK

So I call up Liz and tell her what is going on, and she is just as pissed as I am about the whole situation and just as upset and worried. She tells me "Well we have to film SOMETHING, we can't just turn in nothing at all. Maybe we can make up a new project, like just film us running around or something?"

"No," I told her, "We CAN do this! I can save this movie, I know I can! It just needs to be changed around a bit. I am still going to be at your house at 11am, along with George for an hour, and we WILL shoot THIS film in some shape or form. Be ready when I get there."

So I hung up the phone, went to my room, took out my script, and thought. I skimmed through the whole thing, looked at the clock, had to be at her house in an hour. Then I got an idea.

I have learned from Hollywood that everyone is replacable and anything can be changed in the last minute (for better or worse as we all know). So what I did was, I took my favorite scenes from the script that could all be done in one day, I cast myself as not 1, but 2 different characters (and would dress in completely different clothes, wear a hat and glasses, and so on), I cast Liz as just 1 character but gave her condensed lines from all the remaining characters, and wrapped us and the plot around my favorite scenes. We would follow the script loosely and would take the lines and use them in a improv-like state. I didn't write any of this down at the time, I just thought of it in my head and it stayed there.

With 30 minutes till I leave, I call up Liz and tell her my creative improved idea. Although she really didn't want to be filmed, she agreed anyway. As for the cameraman, however, I told her George could do it for an hour, and I could film all the scenes I am not in, but what about all the scenes we are both in? Liz then said that her younger sister, who had never handled a camera before however, would do it. Not a perfect solution, but it would have to do.

So I then get myself over to her house, with George already there. We start filming immediately. Although most of the movie takes place indoors, there are a few outdoor shots. Now this being a horror movie, I was just hoping the sky would be slightly dark in my desert town. But even better... it rained. It NEVER rains here. So i got to film a great rainy and cloudy opening sequence which I thought would never happen here. Thats 1 plus for the day.

To put the actual filming day in short... it went by remarkably smooth. Although it took some time to tell Liz's sister where to position the camera and how to use it and what exactly to do with it, and because me and Liz screwed up with our lines and acting so many times (which was very funny... not sure i will release any of that though), everything that I intended to shoot was shot. I was particularly proud to be in the sword fight at the end. As a side note, which will be important for you to know in a minute... the film was shot in widescreen (a format I like a lot).

So we really did shoot the film in 1 day. From 11am to 7pm (thats 8 hours, with only 2, 15 minute breaks). Although it all seemed so complicated before, the shooting of it itself was a lot of fun for all of us, but we were exhausted. I had a headache three days after that.

...Now comes to the other half of the story that still isn't done. Oh, and it gets worse, but seems like it will end alright.

When Monday came, I didn't even talk to the cast/crew who didnt show up. I was mad, as I should have been. When i came into the class, I was ready to upload my footage to the class's editing computer system: and Imac (which I hate) and would use the Imovie 4 program (which I like, although it is very slow at times). So I hook the camera up to the computer, open Imovie 4, and begin to load footage...

When I began to see what was being imported, I almost dropped dead.

You see... there's one thing about Imovie that the teacher didn't point out to me. Apparently, it does not properly import widescreen shot footage. So instead of getting the original aspect ratio of the footage imported (with black bars), the image had no bars at all and was STRETCHED vertically, making everything appear tall and skinny. In other words: unwatchable. This of course began to freak me out... all of that work for nothing. Imovie did have a 'letter box' feature, but all it does is add the black bars, but the actual footage stays the same: stretched. So I try to find a solution. I went through the official mac site, search engines, etc... until on Tuesday I found a site that made plug-ins for Imovie, one of which was called the "16X9 Converter". It was one of those wonderful things... it would take my squished widescreen-shot footage and set it back to its originally shot 16X9 aspect ratio! It all seemed so wonderful, right?

Not quite. The cost of this plug-in was $25.00. A rip-off I would say... but I was desperate. This was the tool, the only one, that would save me. So I told everyone about it and my problem... I didn't have that money at all. So a couple of the cast members that didn't show up actually gave me money to do it. In doing so I couldn't help but give them credit as Production Assistants (they assisted in finance, lol). But I am still mad at them.

So we bought the plug-in, giving the money to the teacher which he used his credit card to buy the plug-in, and downloaded it. So, we try it on a computer no one is using. I import the some footage to test it out, and it worked! It was back to its original ratio! But then another problem... the footage looked right now... but for some reason it seemed to skip at times. It didnt do that on the other computer. So... now it was a bad computer problem. We had to wait until Wednesday after school before I would be able to upload to a different computer that would be open.

So on Thursday I go to the computer, ready to hurridly edit the movie that would be due the next day. I click on the file where my footage was uploaded, I get this message: "Acces Denied".

Someone had messed with permission settings. I being a Windows-guy had no idead how to fix it. So I try to get the teacher to do it... but he is constantly busy. So by the time I got a hold of him and fixed the problem... there was only 10 minutes left of the period.

So with a completely exhausted and saddened expression... I suddenly began to tell him the story of my movie's pitfalls to that very moment. And when I said "I just don't think I can have all of this done for you by tomorrow, I really don't", he said to me, "Don't worry about it."

Finally a break... I didn't have to have it done by Friday. Although, he said he wanted it done as soon as possible and try to have it done by the end of the trimester (next Friday). Apparently I have had the most people/technical difficulties any student ever had in the class. I said "It must have had something to do with the Ouija board..."

Maybe.

So with this being Saturday right now, I can say that I have the first 5 minutes of what I think will be a 20 minute movie edited. The only real complaint I have is that the footage is a bit dark at times, but hey... its a horror-comedy! And from the way it looks, the film will be great. Not EXACTLY how I wanted it, not EXACTLY how I wrote it... but it will still be very entertaining to watch and will have all my favorite moments and the feel of what I wanted it to be.

The teacher says I already got an A for it... for not only was I the student to have the most people/technical difficulties, but I had the most preproduction and most intelligent way to work around problems where most students would have simply given up on.

Thank god for that.
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Release date: Coming Soon to studentfilms.com

Hey man, you’re a real inspiration. I’m currently working on a film project and am completely in pieces about how I’m going to get it filmed and edited in time. But I I have a month to get it done and it’s only a 5 min short!

You’ve really inspired me to give it the best go I can and really get what I want out of it. Great job man.

Well, now the film is done. Watch it here:

http://diehard.ath.cx/~scallenger/OUIJA.zip

Big file.

You should think about submitting your film to studentfilms.com. I believe JW has said it before:

"We generally discourage folks posting links to films not hosted on this site. It's not a strictly enforced rule, but keep in mind the cause and mission of the site. Posting links and taking advantage like this robs the website of the means it needs to survive."