I’ll start with the official synopsis:

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Shot in Oregon and Washington with a dedicated crew of only two people and an overall budget of $10,000, ‘Arctic Sounds’ is a film with two intercutting stories, one during the day and one at night. The day half of the film follows two men, Steve and Paul, in the aftermath of a crime they’ve committed in Portland, OR. The two fear they’ve been found out, and set about tying off loose ends on their last day in town. The night half of the film continues from the day (later, in the same 24-hour period) as Paul and May (Steve’s sister and Paul’s significant other) make their way from Portland to Seattle.

While Paul and May struggle to hold on to one another, Steve tries desperately to start a new life for himself. The day and night stories are told simultaneously, and through the parallel timelines, the focus of ‘Arctic Sounds’ remains on the three main characters–how they relate to and care for one another, and how they deal with themselves.

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Or, as Jeff Mills likes to describe it: “it’s a love story about growing up.”  I kind of like his description better.

Here’s a clip (I’ll try to post a second one soon).  It’s from the middle of the movie.  In the day part of the clip, Paul and May are looking for one another.  In the night part, they’ve found each other and so discuss where to go from there.

Now that I’m just about finished making Arctic Sounds, I figure that I should tell you all a bit about myself, about my first feature, and about how we made it.

When I was 10 or 11, I read Rebel Without a Crew, Robert Rodriguez’s book about how he made El Mariachi, and, like a lot of people, I thought “this is how you make a movie.  You save some money, get a few people, a camera and a microphone and you shoot it and you edit it.  And that’s it.”  After I read that book, I was determined that some day I was going to make a movie using this method.

I drew stick figure comics when I was in elementary school, and when I was in junior high I started making animations in PowerPoint (setting frame times to “0 Seconds” and moving objects between frames like in cartoons).  When I was 16, I stole my mom’s digital still camera and started making stop motion animation using action figures and shooting at 12 frames per second.  I shot about 40 minutes’ worth of stop motion (about 28,000 frames), and then I went to college.

I thought for a long time about going to film school, but decided against it.  I watched a lot of short movies and found that, while the ones made by film school graduates tended to have better lighting, there appeared to be no correlation between whether or not I enjoyed a movie and whether or not the creators went to school for it.  So, I figured that people–though they might get better with experience–were really just born good or bad at making movies, and I didn’t want to spend four years learning only one thing just to find out I was no good at it.  Also, I figured that since the people that were bad at it continued to try, it isn’t possible for a person to tell whether or not he or she has any value as a filmmaker.

And so, with these three things in mind (1: I had to make a movie, 2: going to film school had no effect on a person being an interesting filmmaker, and 3: I was in no position to judge whether or not I was one of the select few with talent), I decided to go to college (the regular kind).  I also figured I’d give digital cameras four years to get better before I tried to make a real movie with them.  When I graduated from high school, I went to Reed College in Portland, OR, and got a degree in physics.  I wrote one short and one feature-length screenplay while at Reed, but otherwise I just put movies out of my mind and focused on my work.

I graduated from Reed in 2007, and got a grant from the College to adapt my senior thesis for an article in the American Journal of Physics.  I had an office at Reed for the summer to write the paper with my adviser, which took about a month and a half to finish.  I used the remaining month of my summer in the office to write my second feature-length screenplay, Arctic Sounds.

After four years of devoting myself completely to physics, I had to stop and decide what I wanted to do with my life.

I finished the script and at the end of the summer I got a job working on a computer simulator.  I liked the script I had written, and decided I had to make it.  From August 2007 to August 2008 I worked during the day at my first ever full-time job, and I worked at night to put together what would become my first ever feature-length (and live-action) film.

Casting took forever.  At that point, almost all of my friends had degrees in physics, and none of them knew people that acted or made movies.  I spent nights researching cinematography techniques and going to local plays.  I got a book about sound recording for digital video.  I used craigslist to find local actors and auditioned them in empty classrooms in the Reed physics department.  I wrote emails pretending to be my friend Dewey so that it would look like there were more people working on this movie than just me.

I started securing locations (the script took place half in Portland and half in Seattle), and I wrote an email to Connor, my friend from high school, about looking for a place for me and my very slowly growing cast/crew to crash in Olympia (on our way to Seattle).  He put me in touch with his friend Sophie, who I had met once and who occasionally did media production with people in Olympia.  I talked to Sophie over email, and she agreed to come down and do sound recording for my movie.

In August 2008, having assembled a cast and rehearsed all the scenes, I quit my job (after giving notice a few months earlier), and shot the film.  I directed and did all the camera operating and lighting for the movie while Sophie recorded sound.  Basically, Sophie and I worked like a two person documentary crew (though the style of the movie is more like the New Hollywood films of the 70s or the independent movies of the 90s).

After an exhausting 21 day shoot (during which time I got more exercise than ever before while getting 4-5 hours of sleep every night), we finished the production on September 1, 2008.  Since then, I’ve spent over a year doing the editing, color correction and sound design for the film.

During my time working as a computer programmer, I managed to save around $20,000.  I spent about $10,000 of it on the production of the film, and have been living off the remainder of my savings while I finish the movie.  That money’s pretty much gone now, although I’m going to start working at a new job on Monday to begin replenishing it.

These days, editing is pretty much done (I say “pretty much” just because I might make some minor changes as I watch the movie with different people and get feedback), and we’re finishing off the sound.  It’s taken a long time, but I’m happy with the end result.  I still don’t think that people are capable of really judging their own work, but I don’t really care any more.

I’ll be glad to be done with AS, although I’ve worked on it so long that it’s oddly depressing to stop.  I don’t know what else to do.  I’m writing another feature right now.  I’ll let you know how that goes.  I’ve had the goal of making a movie for most of my life, but I never really thought about making two of them.  It should be ok.

Zach

I’m making a final version of the movie, fine-tuning and re-editing a few things until I can feel that my work is done, editing-wise.   I’m also looking for a job (the kind that pays me money).  Both of these things are taking longer than it feels they should and both have a tendency to send me into as deep a depression as I’ve ever felt, but it’ll be ok.  These are fairly up-town problems, I have to admit, so I wouldn’t worry about them too much.

Well, I’ll worry about them, but I won’t be offended if you don’t.

I hope things are going well where you are.

Zach

“Arctic Sounds” is currently 124 minutes long (including credits), with 60 scenes and 569 shots.  I think it’s looking pretty good right now (color-correction-wise), and I’m hoping to have it finished soon (though finishing the sound will take longer).

Anyway, color correction’s going well.  I turned 24 a couple weeks ago.  I wrote “Arctic Sounds” when I was 22 and shot it when I was 23.  My goal is to finish shooting another feature-length movie before I reach 26. But who knows.  That’ll depend mostly on luck, anyway, so we’ll see how it goes.

I’m more concerned about how I’m going to feed myself in a few months than I am about doing all this nonsense again.  So, I dunno.  It should be ok though.

Sophie Butigan and I are currently starting work on the sound design and color correction. After enough of that is done, I’ll work on scheduling a cast and crew screening sometime in the next couple months.

What’s left then is to submit the film to various places and try to get it seen by people.  I don’t particularly look forward to this step.

Which isn’t to say I’m not incredibly proud of this movie.  I am, and I’m extremely grateful to all the people that helped make it what it is.

I’d just rather work on something else than be a salesman for something I’ve already made.

Oh well, I guess I have to do it, so I’ll do it.  There are worse things I could have to do.  Oh well.  I’ll work on writing another script in the meantime to help give myself a sense of purpose.

I hope things are going well where you are.

Zach

We finished shooting on September 1st.  The three week shoot went fairly well, and we managed to finish on time.  It’s still up in the air whether or not I’m any good as a director/editor, but I guess since we managed to complete the shoot on schedule and under budget, I can feel ok about my skills as a producer. Or, maybe not.  Maybe I can feel good about any producer skills I may have if this movie makes any kind of profit.

Oh well, I’m sure I’ll be able to find something else to feel good about.

In the meantime, here are some (ungraded) stills from the movie. These feature Jeff Mills (Paul), Brian Allard (Steve) and Laura Anderson (May)–the film’s three leads.  Also pictured: Joel Franklin (Man in hat) and myself (Rick).

I’ll try to post more in the semi-near future.

Anyway, a lot’s going on in the small world of New Low Productions. After about six months of searching, casting is officially complete on “Arctic Sounds” (my first feature film). Now I’m in the process of securing locations, rehearsing with the lead actors, filling out the crew, and scheduling everything. (If you’re interested in volunteering to be part of the crew, and will be in PDX between August 11 and 24, feel free to send me an email at zmschultz@newlowproductions.com.)

I’ve spent the last six months planning how we’ll shoot each scene, so now it’s mostly a matter of finishing everything off and hoping that it all somehow works out. Hmm, now that I think about it, I should check over my sound plan again. Hmmm.

It’ll be a 21 day shoot, going from August 11 - September 1 (the dates are official this time). Very small crew, very low budget. We’ll be using a Red One camera (exciting), and filming in Portland and Seattle/Olympia/I-5. Right now, the plan is to film all the Portland scenes Aug 11-24, and the Seattle/Olympia scenes from Aug 25-31. Should be good. The plan will get more firm once we finish setting up the locations in Portland (all the Seattle ones are done though, which is nice).

And that’s about it. For the hell of it, I think I’m just going to start ending these entries by posting random videos that I like. I’ll start doing that next time though. Instead, I’ll end this one with a short movie I made when I was 18 called “Skeletor.”

Sometimes I’ll do something and realize “I’m glad I’m not dead, because, if I were, I wouldn’t get to do this.” I try to average one of these moments per day—though with mixed results.

Yesterday, I managed one such moment, watching this performance of a new Animal Collective song:

No luck yet today. I’m not yet sick of this song though, so maybe I’ll get a freebie there.

In more on-topic news: casting continues and the shoot schedule has been pushed back to August.

Zach

Originally, I just needed a place to host some files online while I and a slowly growing group of collaborators pushed along in developing a feature film (we’ll start shooting in June, but I’m already spending most of my time working on it). Anyway, but then I couldn’t sleep one night and now there’s a website. And a blog, which is a little silly.

This blog doesn’t serve a lot of purpose, except to announce when I make updates to the site, or if there’s any particularly interesting news about the development of the movie. That could get boring though, so the alternate plan is to post pictures of cats until I’m famous enough to use this as a forum to issue public apologies (stay tuned to the Source Awards in 2010!).

I don’t know. Should be good though.

Zach