Episode by Episode: 6-10

Episode By Episode: 1-5

Alicia in Red

Alicia, played by Charlie Miller, basks in the red light.

October 5th Shoot

Here's a series of images from our shoot last Sunday. We had some excellent makeup work here, which is shown off in the photos. Currently, we've got three days of shooting left on Volume I, with any luck, principal photography will wrap by Thanksgiving.

The October Update

Some time ago, I was discussing a February 2008 launch date for the series. Obviously that has come and gone long ago, but progress on the series continues. Rather than do a bi-weekly format as was originally planned, we're going to be putting out episodes weekly. The first season/volume has four shooting days remaining, one of which will happen on Sunday, hopefully we will be wrapped with the whole volume by November, one year after shooting commenced. Considering we'll have shot the equivalent of a feature in a year, working around full time jobs for nearly everyone involved, I think that's not too bad.

So, when will the show actually be released? Well, right now we're in talks with a distributor who's got some really interesting things going on. We're hoping to come to a deal soon, and will announce it here once things are official. And, after that we're looking at a launch date in the January 2009 range. Obviously all of this is theoretical since no one has actually seen the show, but things are happening, and soon you'll have an episode to look forward to every week for 13 weeks.

More Images

Respect to Bergman

A New Look Site

I'm trying to consolidate all my web presence on to a blog format, hence the redesign here to make it more of an all in one resource, and not just a blog. There's not that much new content, but I'll be expanding the cast section and adding a crew section shortly.

As for a general update on the project, episode 1 is picture locked, and just needs some score to finish it. We're shooting more stuff, and will hopefully finish shooting Volume I by November, a year after we started this whole thing.

When will material be released? That's the big question now, we're looking into distribution options, so I don't want to just put anything out there. But, keep an eye out, once we know what's up, I'll post it here.

On Web Content

I read this lengthy Wired article on web video content, and the possible evolutionary path for the format. There’s some interesting stuff in there, particularly the association of current day web conditions with film in the 1900s, when the accepted formats weren’t really set. Why are movie 90-120 minutes? How did that format come about, and how has it become so omnipresent?

Back in the 1900s, there were no features, there were only shorts, 5-15 minutes. That’s kind of like where the web’s at now, only most content is even shorter, just a few minutes per episode. With The Third Age, we’re hitting about 8 minutes an episode, which feels like a good amount of content. There’s plenty of material in each episode, but it won’t really tax the attention span.

I think there’s two essential philosophies when it comes to web content. One, the one present in the article, is the notion of corporate controlled shorts that exist primarily as commercials for something else, a TV show, movie or product. The Heroes or Battlestar webisodes exist to promote another show, and though they may have content in and of themselves, those two minute projects are inevitably going to pale next to the longer parent show.

I’m not sure if it’s just what the article chooses to focus on, but there seem to be almost no emphasis on the art of making web videos. There’s a lot of discussion of product placement and the business end, but very little discussion of the sort of artistic possibilities offered by web content. For me, the web offers an opportunity to do the kind of serialized narrative that just wasn’t possible for indie filmmakers in the past. Our first motivation behind doing this series was to tell a story, and that story happened to fit well into little eight minute chunks.

I find it kind of depressing that there’s so much focus on the economics of web video, and on classifying it with words like ‘content’ that obscure the art and make it into just another market to be exploited. There’s always going to be an emphasis on money, but why can’t we also focus on art? I think that’s going to be the next big jump. If people will watch Lost on their computer, who’s to say the right original show wouldn’t hook them as well?

Milton Passes to Shadow

Tomorrow we're meeting with a producer about distribution for the series. Things are happening.

Holly as Phoenix

Another Update

After completing casting, we started shooting back in November, the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. There's two approaches to shooting an indie film, where you don't pay the cast much and you're not being paid much to shoot it. One is to shoot everything at once, just take two weeks, crank out the scenes and finish it then. The other is to shoot sporadically, considering we haven't even posted episode one yet, you can probably guess the approach we took. For the past six months, we've been shooting roughly once every two weeks, always on the weekends.

This is good creatively because it makes it easier to see how things are developing. After seeing what the actors could do on the first day, we were able to tailor the script to their strengths on our next days of shooting. And, it helps make it easier to conceptualize the overall development of the story. Watching the footage we've got cut together now, you can see where another scene is needed to clarify something, or where there's too many scenes of one type in a row. I like working like that a lot better than writing a whole script in advance and slavishly clinging to it. Writing a script for a movie and not adjusting it when you shoot is like writing a piece of music on paper and not hearing it played until you're already performing it live. It's a lot better to work in film itself, to adjust and change as you go. This story still has the same core concepts as it had at the beginning, but it's evolved in many different ways as we've been shooting.

Last Sunday, we shot some more stuff, filling in gaps in the first couple of episodes. Basically, we've got one scene left to shoot in episode 1, and a couple of pickups for episode 1.5, a news report about one of the main characters. After that stuff is shot, we'll finally be ready to release episodes. We've got a big backlog of material now, five episode's worth, but just need to fill in those last few gaps.

In addition, we've been in talks with a couple of producers about getting the series some kind of distribution. So, stay tuned for that, hopefully it will work out and we'll get a bigger platform for the work. Either way, you'll see it in the not too distant future.

Yesterday's Shoot

Yesterday, we shot almost the entirety of Episode 7 of The Third Age, the hinge of the story, in which a lot is revealed through a metaphoric journey up the Kaballah's Tree of Life. I haven't seen the footage yet, but it felt great shooting it, and hopefully will edit together into something good. In the mean time, check out these behind the scenes photos from the shoot, shot by our lighting designer Raul Coto Batres.


Hallie prepares to ascend.


Brian, Misti and Hallie wait for us to be ready.


Jordan and I set up a shot.


Misti in the circle.


I set up to film the opening incantation.


Hallie is a star, ascending from Binah to Keter.


We once again put Sel through a strange plastic ordeal.


The face of God, at home in Keter.


David Haug, and I set up a close on Hallie.


Filming with a wind tunnel effect.


Kristen finishes the sun that will illuminate Tifferet.

Shoot Schedule

Six shooting days remain on the first Volume/Season of The Third Age. The Volume will be thirteen episodes, with the target length for each around seven minutes. However, two of the first three are hitting closer to nine, so the running time will vary. I'm hoping that each episode is a satisfying piece on its own, and contributes to the story. Jordan and I are working to make sure that each episode has some kind of interesting visual element within it, and so far I think we've been succeeding.

Working on the project is a bit schizophrenic. We've still got one scene left to shoot for the first episode, which has met all kinds of trouble on its journey to production. Hopefully we'll knock that out next week. However, after that, we added a sequence that's essentially Episode 1.5. It's a news report, should be about two to three minutes, but we've also got to shoot that before the first episode goes live. What I'm telling you is we're likely to not put the first episode online until June. I'm hoping this is a good thing in the long run, since it means we definitely won't have to delay episodes later in the volume. I've realized that it's impossible to write/shoot/edit an episode in two weeks, it's too much, and having all this lead time is great. I've got about 35 edited minutes done, so it's just a matter of filling in the gaps in the various episodes.

And even as we're still working on the first couple of episodes, we're writing and mapping out the end of the Volume. We knocked out a bunch of script, centering on the introduction of two new characters, who are going to really shake things up. I'm hoping they'll be like Spike and Dru were on Buffy, just walk in and screw with everyone, even as they become the viewers' favorite character. I'm really feeling the voice of the show now, it's a pop, fun story with a lot of darkness at the core. This stuff is more over the top, the end of the Volume will return us to the more subdued, emotional focus of the early episodes.

I realized while writing that we're basically structuring the series like Evangelion. The first few episodes are broody and atmospheric, then things will go to a bit more fun, crazy place, after the introduction of a charismatic red head, before sailing off into surreal mental states in the second half of the show, episodes 14-26. But, that's a way off.

Next week is a big shoot. It's a ritual sequence, in which the characters symbolically ascend the Tree of Life from the Kaballah. It's pretty exciting stuff, and will function as episode 7, the midpoint of the Volume, resolving a lot of questions from the start, and setting up the back half of the Volume. From there, the story really propels itself, and the characters get twisted up in awful knots until the last episode of the Volume.

Of course, you'd probably care more about all this if you'd actually seen an episode. I can't do that for you yet, but I can show you some more behind the scenes photos, these are from the shoot for what will be the first episode's opening sequence:


(Alex Berger [Mark] looks over the script)


(Jordan and I prepare the set)


(Jordan frames a shot)


(Jon Cimmino [Scientist] takes his place)

Behind the Scenes Photos

Here's some pictures from our shoot last Sunday.

The Latest on T3A

The release date for The Third Age looms ahead next month. In the mean time, we’ve been shooting some cool stuff. Last Sunday, we shot out at Larchmont Reservoir, where they’ve got a giant wall, which looks like something out of an old Kung Fu movie. So, our shooting style was The Seventh Seal meets a Touch of Zen. A couple of weeks ago, we shot some crazy car footage. A night car scene is the menace of low budget cinema, but I think we pulled it off in a dynamic and exciting way. Judge for yourself when episode two is released.

In other news, we lost an actress from the project. Rather than recast, we decided to ditch that whole plot line. It’s weird because we were kind of feeling that there wasn’t that much of a place for her in the project, she was a relic of old storylines, old ideas, and after inventing new characters and situations, she proved herself inessential. So, perhaps she did us a favor. There were pieces I’d have liked to use with her arc, but we’ll do okay without her.

The Latest on T3A

The release date for The Third Age looms ahead next month. In the mean time, we’ve been shooting some cool stuff. Last Sunday, we shot out at Larchmont Reservoir, where they’ve got a giant wall, which looks like something out of an old Kung Fu movie. So, our shooting style was The Seventh Seal meets a Touch of Zen. A couple of weeks ago, we shot some crazy car footage. A night car scene is the menace of low budget cinema, but I think we pulled it off in a dynamic and exciting way. Judge for yourself when episode two is released.

In other news, we lost an actress from the project. Rather than recast, we decided to ditch that whole plot line. It’s weird because we were kind of feeling that there wasn’t that much of a place for her in the project, she was a relic of old storylines, old ideas, and after inventing new characters and situations, she proved herself inessential. So, perhaps she did us a favor. There were pieces I’d have liked to use with her arc, but we’ll do okay without her.

The Trailer is Live

Quicktime



Here it is, the first real trailer for The Third Age. This will give you at least some idea of the plot, or at least the feel of the work. As it says in the trailer, episodes will start going live in May. Shooting is happening regularly, and most of 'Volume I' has been written, so we should run smoothly to the end of the first Volume. Please post any comments you've got on the trailer, it's obviously still early, but I always love to hear feedback.

When the Hell Does it Begin?

The initial release date of February 2008 has come and gone, and we're rapidly moving past April. When will you actually get The Third Age? Well, the primary reason for the delay is that we don't have episode one done. We've been shooting the first seven episodes or so out of sequence, so despite having over a half hour of edited material in the can, we're still missing one scene from the first episode. That's the problem with working on a low budget, it's hard to schedule people when you're not paying them.

But, we should be shooting that scene on April 20th. If that happens, the first episode will be done shortly after, and online by May. In the long run, it's good. We can store up six or seven complete episodes, and have a lead on producing new ones. It's going to be tough to keep episodes coming out at a reasonable pace, but this way, we should be able to put out ten, and complete 'Volume I' before having to take a hiatus.

I'm working on a more plot-oriented trailer now, that will likely be online by the weekend, and give you a better idea of the project. I think it's coming out great, visually we're doing a lot with essentially no budget, and the acting is stellar all around. Hopefully you'll like it, once it does finally begin.

Zinone on the Street