Editing Hell continues in the House of Forbidden Secrets

It has honestly never taken me as long to edit a film – usually I shot for 4-8 weeks, and it takes 6-8 weeks to edit, and then I do final mix that takes a few days…. but this is my big comeback film… it has a talented cast, a wonderful story and some genuine original ideas – I want to make sure I do it right.  It is beginning to take it’s toll on my life a bit, but I am very proud of the film and of all the people who worked so hard to make my vsion become a reality.  We pulled together and created something truly special from out of the air – hehe.  It was hard work, cold nights, long hours, and longer hours in editing – the sound design has been tougher than I thought.  ON set we had a few tech issues with sound that took me forever to isolate and fix – and it about made me crazy – but I am getting SO darn close now – it has taken me a while to update the blog here, but I’ll be back more often now…. updating everyone on screenings and releases and such.  Soon everyone will be able to see my baby – cannot wait!

Todd Sheets

Haunting the halls of Shadowview Manor – week 2

Second weekend of shooting is done and it was even better than the first. We have done some pretty amazing stuff so far. 17 scenes have been completed!!! Much of the very hard dialogue was during these scenes, and the cast pulled it off without a hitch!!! The dedication of the cast and crew truly made this task easier. Thanks to everyone for pulling together and becoming a family so quickly! We are creating something really special and it just keeps getting better every time we shoot as people learn more about each other.

One thing we did for sure on weekend 2 was we truly worked overtime on the atmosphere. The lighting, use of fog and shadows was impressive. We also have truly mastered not only the use of our steadicam, but our dollies. Wayne and I built another dolly this week in between shooting days and it truly is an awesome way to do shots. It will also be great when we move filming to the BEAST haunted house here in Kansas City next weekend. We can be setting up a dolly shot on another set WHILE using our first dolly for shooting. Sure does make things move faster when you get everyone on the same page and have enough gear to make it work.

The footage looks even better than before and I can;t wait to start editing the whole movie. I edited scene 3 together last week, just to see how it flows, and it sure seems to work almost perfectly. This one will really blow some people away. I promise.

Until next time, keep it bloody!

Todd Sheets
Director

First Weekend of Shooting

Just finished our first weekend of shooting before we take a break for the Christmas holidays. Things went even better than I thought, we had an amazing time and the cast proved to be just as incredible as I expected them to be!

The main Cast of House of Forbidden Secrets

We had several key dialogue scenes to do and some minor stunts and action sequences. Things went very smooth. Highlights were the Seance scene where Iris, playing the role of Dorothy Fremont, was actually so scared at Nicole’s amazing performance that she tried to run away! Great job everyone! Cannot wait to be back on the set with all of you on January 4th, in the new year of 2013!  The new dolly we made from scratch worked great as did our steadicam system created by Assistant Director Wayne Whisenant.  Footage came out stellar!