Fancy some post production?

So it's been a while since I've updated the progress of Slange Vang. I'm glad to say that the reason for this is that I've been grinding my arse off to complete this film, and so far it's been totally worth it.

 At this point in time, there are too few hours in a day and it shows in my eating and sleeping patterns taking a drastic turn for the worst.But this is what it's about. Having a dream, having no money, then sharing the dream with people and then have the privilege to get to show it to the world. 

The past weekend had been an amazing blessing. Stepping into Sonic Scalpel Studios in Rietfontein to record the score for Slange Vang with long-time beard brother, Gerhard Jacobs and the musical freedom that is Werner Hurter.

We got together friday night to start writing some material and the synergy was amazing.So amazing that first thing saturday morning, we were setting up my drums to record the theme song entitled The Way of Death. In no time we were on to record guitar tracks with Sonic Scalpel's newest addition: A Fender Hot Rod Deluxe III, retro-your-face-off, two-tone-jerseyed maniac of an amplifier. Before we knew it, the creaky, crusty bass tracks were laid and we moved on to some lighter instruments.

We recorded with an organ dating from the 1870's, named Apostel, which belongs to Werner. This was an amazing experience with an amazing instrument.

So after a ridiculously hot weekend, me and my two sweaty friends sat back and enjoyed the mastered tracks and we unanimously agreed that we have created something that we would gladly fork out our hard-earned coin for.

On to more blessing, I was lucky enough to find Cordier de Beer at Bekend Recording Studio in Roedtan, Limpopo to record some expertly written narration written by the man himself. 

So with all this new audio it's time for a final sound mix with the best in the biz, Pieter Brits from Brits Productions. This will ensure that the film has great audio quality for a production that I've been toiling for almost 8 months.

All in all, an immensely tough week filled with blessings I could not  dream about.

The film should be done in a couple of days, so keep an eye out for the arrangements of a premiere due soon.

Thanks for following, and I hope that everyone will enjoy the film as much as I've put into it.

Filming- Weekend 2

So I was feeling confident after the first weekend of filming. And with that confidence we hit weekend 2 with a bag of buffaloes. Introducing a new actor on set changed the dynamics drastically. New wardrobe, new horse, new everything.

We started out friday afternoon with primary cameraman, Marcel Klopper dropping from a tree, breaking the only branch that would get him to the top. So I toughed up and shot the scenes from the tree myself, tied to the tree by a crusty piece of sisal rope. Friday night we had the amazing privilege to have Mr. Ernst Meyer on set, a man that I revere, and his presence on set showed everyone why I have so much respect for this man. For this reason it was quite hard to do to him what I did, but you'll just have to wait for the film to see what that was.

Saturday was a big filming day. One scene only, but it was a biggie, and would almost break cast and crew alike. We shot in the open veld on a conflict scene and here's the kicker: no trees around us for about 200m. We had lunch in a 20cm bar of shade cast by the vehicles. We quickly depleted our water supply and had Ombri 'the mule' Pieterse walk a solid piece of earth to get water. Little did we know that all the water pipes are above ground in the smoldering 36 degree heat. On top of that actors were jumping on each other, brawling in the dust, getting thrown to the ground. Take after take, they kept bringing the bacon and put up a massive performance.  I am so proud of the cast and crew for this scene and I'm looking forward to editing this part, because for once in my filming career, a scene actually played out exactly as I envisioned it.

Sunday was the best way to end off a film shoot. With a change of location we found ourselves on the Van Zyl smallholding near Boschkop. The river on this location had such a calming effect on everything, not to mention the fact that we had a canopy of trees overhead. After we did the shots we all got into the river to cool off and just unwind after a hectic shooting weekend.

Overall, a great weekend and a massive performance from cast and crew. I have been truly blessed in this crucial part of filmmaking. More updates to follow as post production kicks in pretty soon.