The Universe Surrounding the International Post-Apocalyptic Franchise, Depleted
Author: Jeremy Hanke
The editor of MicroFilmmaker Magazine, Jeremy Hanke helped spearhead the World of Depleted Creative Community to give creative personalities of all types the chance to explore a world they could help build together.
I know it’s been a long weekend for folks who weren’t already signed up in our Community section Saturday morning! Well, your wait is now over!
The new Teaser Trailer is now live for your viewing pleasure! Once you check it out, go over to our WoD Facebook Discussion area and share your thoughts and ideas! (And don’t forget about the special Easter Egg hunt!)
And, remember, if you don’t want to have to wait to see new Depleted content in the future, be sure to sign up in the official WoD Community and be on the fast track to all the newest glimpses into the future of the human race and all the mysteries surrounding it!
After much time and labor, the electric new Official Teaser Trailer for Depleted: Day 419 (with bonus secrets related to the Feature) is now complete. People who were already signed up for the World of Depleted Community list got a chance to check out a secret sneak peak on the 18th. The official roll out will occur on September 20th!
We’ve also created a special new Discussion section on the World of Depleted Facebook page, so you can discuss the new trailer, relay thoughts about any of the Depleted secret Easter Egg hunts, comment on the new secrets unveiled in Gavin’s Journal, and talk about your own suspicions about the Fall.
We’ve been hard at work on new elements for Depleted, so I thought I’d catch you all up to speed!
After a lot of grueling work, we’ve got most of our special effects completed for Depleted: Day 419. This then allowed us to start to compile the opening teaser trailers for Depleted: Day 419! While we’re not quite ready to release them yet, they will be out shortly!
I also completed work on the Depleted: Blood of the Martyr script, which will run approximately 20 minutes when finally shot. Jason Frederick Gilbert is going into full pre-production on it and is planning to shoot it at the end of the year!
Yesterday I had a chance to have a G-Chat with ARG (Alternate Reality Gaming) guru, Andrea Philips, about the future of Depleted and our own intent to make special content available to our fans through ARG elements. (She was extremely gracious to take time out of her busy schedule to help us and I really appreciated the perspective she brought to the table due to her experience in the ARG world.) Obviously, fans of the franchise know that we’ll be unveiling the ability for filmmakers to contribute films to the universe of Depleted, with those that help flesh out the world receiving Canon status and a share of the profits associated with their films. However, we want to have interactive ways for fans who might not be interested in creating a film or writing a story to get involved. As such, we are looking at a variety of ARG elements that can allow viewers to find out secrets about the world of Depleted and find out about different factions they might be especially interested in. Fans who aren’t interested in these elements won’t lose out on the main storyline, but those who want to participate will be able to uncover a lot of the lore and mythos behind some of the major events in Depleted, as well as special ways to get involved!
We’ll have more on that in the near future! In the mean time, you can get some clues about how this may manifest by staying current with the Gavin Hesterdale Journal!
After weeks of hard work, the color grading for Depleted: Day 419 is now complete. Normally, color grading is performed after final special effects have been laid in. However, with DP Nate Eckelbarger about to move to Austin, TX, we proceeded on to the color grading as soon as picture was locked. (Despite the relocation, we are happy to report that Eckelbarger is slated to return as the DP for the Depleted feature in 2011.)
As I really like to give my visual department the reins in the final look of the film and only get in the way if things are diverging from my overall vision, I was happy to let Nate’s keen eye take lead on this journey. (Interestingly, despite our access to a number of different plugins, we ended up using Magic Bullet Looks almost exclusively, as we continued to discover more and more ways to tweak our image in the most organic and believable way possible.) The final look is gritty, stylized, and tight, bringing up memories of films like The Terminator and The Thing. From here, we move hard into final audio, score composing, and effects!
Director Jeremy Hanke and DP Nate Eckelbarger Figure Out Final Coloration on Depleted: Day 419.
We are in the process of finalizing notes for another chapter in the Depleted saga: Blood of Martyrs. Set 47 days after the Fall, BoM shows the earliest snapshot of the world after the chaos truly sets in. The script was co-written by Kari Ann Morgan and myself, while the brilliant Jason Frederick Gilbert (the director of the award-winning Coat Room comedy) is slated to direct the film. Set to be shot on location in Ashkelon, Israel, the short film will reveal two pivotal characters in the Depleted mythos and new insights into the fate of the world. It is currently scheduled to be shot at the end of this year, with an anticipated release in Q1 or Q2 2011.
We’re very pumped about the upcoming film and the new clues these will be present to our fans! Stay tuned for more news in the near future!
After working for weeks with DP Nate Eckelbarger to come up with a color grading look for Depleted: Day 419,we’re nearly complete with this element of the filmmaking process. To reflect some of the bleakness of humanity over a year into the Fall, we chose to use some subtle desaturation and curves generally. To replicate older lenses, we used anamorphic lens flares when characters are outside, while, indoors, a higher contrast look with more subdued flares conveys the look we’re going for.
Initially done with a variety of different plugins, we eventually chose to go with a straightforward combination of AE/Premiere Pro’s Unsharp Mask plugin and the Magic Bullet Looks suite (with a few uses of Colorista for certain scenes). The power of Magic Bullet Looks is really impressive when you delve past the presets and start using real world camera knowledge. Coming from a digital world, I’ve really enjoyed learning about traditional film recording from my DP, as he’s much more comfortable with film based recording. His knowledge of cameras, lenses, and film helped insure that the looks we came up with are authentic to what real film could capture with specially chosen lenses and glass filters!
To get some previews, you can check them out below.
As the investigation gets hotter and more complex, Gavin Hesterdale discovers crucial information that could finally uncover some of the initial culprits in the global events that ignite the cataclysm of the Fall!
A Moment of Contemplation for Steven "Norm" Mathews on Depleted: Day 419...
His birth name may have been “Steven”, but I always knew him as “Norm.” The nickname, apparently, had been given to him when he was at school in BCTC and, as great nicknames do, it just stuck. He never told me whether it was due to the fact that his bustling personality at times reminded folks of “Stormin'” Norman Schwarzkopf or whether his love of beer and his comfort in groups made him feel like a kindred spirit with Cheers’ perpetual fixture, Norm. We who knew him seem to be equally divided on the subject. (As I learned from his father after the memorial service, it was, in fact, for “Norm” from Cheers. And it was actually appropriated by Steven, not in college, but in seventh grade.)
When I first met Norm, he was working on a short film called, “The Message,” which Eric Henninger had brought me in to co-direct. He was 1st AD and I got to know his boisterous nature well through it. He somehow managed to have packed a 42-year old’s personality into the body of a twenty-two-year-old. After that film, he studied lighting and, when I was in the midst of shooting Nick Denney’s film, The Guardian, he came into replace our gaffer when she could not complete the film. His desire to tweak things until they were as good as they could be allowed us to make the best possible film under the circumstances (The Guardian would go on to win second place in a national film competition) and his wry sense of humor helped keep people sane.
When I first told Norm about the World of Depleted earlier this year, he was quick to point out some of the areas that made no sense to him, forcing me to revise my narrative ideas into a more cohesive whole. After that, he went from being skeptical of the Depleted concepts to being one of their greatest supporters. When he relocated south before we could shoot the prologue to the film, he volunteered to come back so that he could serve as Gaffer on Day 419. During the shoot, he insisted on flirting with our happily married art director, not because he was trying to be inappropriate, but because he knew there was no danger of anything being misconstrued. Norm was one of those guys that, even at times when he was trying to act curmudgeonly, somehow managed to instead be endearing.
He so believed in the Depleted world and what we were striving to accomplish that, when it came to discussions of working on the feature film next year, he requested that he not be paid up front, but that he get a perpetual percentage of the back end. In the world of low-budget films, that sort of belief in a film is humbling and precious! With Norm’s tragic death last week only four days before his 25th birthday, he was denied the opportunity to work with us on the feature film. However, I wanted to share with you, our friends and fans, some of the pictures of him from Depleted: Day 419, as we will keep his memory close in our hearts as we continue to explore the World of Depleted and strive to make it into the narrative work he believed it could be!
God bless,
Jeremy
A Moment of Contemplation on Day 419…
Norm and DP Nate Eckelbarger Talk About The Visual Principles for Depleted: Day 419
Norm and Sarah Jane Help Adjust Lights in Day 419
Norm Mathews and 1st AD Kari Hanke on the set of Day 419.
Norm and DP Nate Eckelbarger Discuss the Best Way to Light Kat Carney and Eric Henninger in Day 419
Norm Mathews Helping Out With Marking on Day 419
Norm Discusses Lighting With DP Nate Eckelbarger
Norm Works With Production Designer, Sarah Jane, on Day 419
Norm Fills The Room With Smoke on Day 419, vaporing Script Supervisor Chris Tanchyk
