Movie Production Blog

BLOOD RED FEAR

I survived writing the script for Blood Red Fear somewhere in 2005. Than I handed it in for a possible production in Taiwan. I did not have any expectations, since it was my first script! Keep in mind I wrote this one during my spare time. My only wish was not to get bashed too hard for it. However after a few negotiation rounds and to my big surprise I was poised to go to Taiwan! Looking back now around one year later, I cannot say that I fully understood into what I got myself into at that time ... . If I think about it I must say that the odds clearly stood against me in having success with the production. Not only is Blood Red Fear my first movie, but I also had to shoot it in a diffrent country in a diffrent language. So the whole thing was quite a crazy idea ... But I succeeded!
The real production started when I arrived in Taiwan after a very long flight somewhere during 2006. One of my first duties there was to convince the taiwanese partners in the movie. I must say, that during the first meeting I suddenly had mixed feelings about the project. However these bad emotions proved to be largly unfunded. As soon as I had the right crew, we were able to go straight into pre-production. This also ment finding the right actress. As everyone can probably imagine this was no easy task since the main character is quite an unusual role. I first saw "Yvonne" in the casting agency, but my first impression was that she looked too strong! As a solution our make up artist changed "Yvonnes" appearance and we got our main actress. To make a long story short here, in the end we found the right "couple," but only at the last possible moment! This was my first big adrenalin rush during the production. At the same time we also had to find the right locations. One scene in the movie plays in a public toilet. So I had to see many toilets ... .

One of the biggest problems of Blood Red Fear was finding the right outdoor places. Of course Taipei is very crowdy, but for the story the city has to be deserted. As a result shooting in central Taipei was out of question. One option was to go into the mountains around Taipei, but this proved to be too difficult as well. The weather conditions there are not easy to handle. Either lots of rain or the light is way too strong. But finally after some trial and error we found some really cool locations. The production manager did a very good job! Other than that, I needed a karaoke place, too. However the team came up with a brothel. You also do karaoke there, but mostly certain other things ... . So I did not ask why they do know this place, but it was a cool idea.

One of the first scenses we shoot was the ending. How to shoot a movie ending with just two rooms and a corridor? The result is one of my favorite scenes! How does it feel to sit in the directors chair? First I must say that I never ever felt such an adrenalin rush before. And I had many jobs before! Second I found out that leading a crew was much easier than I had thought. I just needed some time in the beginning to figure out how to communicate in an effective way with them. After everything was settled the production became very smoothly for most of the time. As a result after two days my taiwanese partners started to relax! So we were able to finish the shooting in the beginning of march, right on time. Than we took a month off with me making a trip to Japan.
When I came back to Taiwan in the beginning of April we went straight into post-production. The break proved to be very usefull for editing, because this was one way for me to get some distance to the characters and the material. Never the less editing was still painful. Of course it is very exciting to see the movie come together, but ... . For sound and voice recording as the next step of the production we used a studio where taiwanese politicans record their speeches. So yes they are very good. For various reasons we did not use the voices of theoriginal actresses, but hired some voice actresses and actors. The same voice as Hannibal Lector!

I must say I enjoy working most if I am under time pressure. I think I am addicted to the adrenalin rush now. So voice and sound recording was for me the most fun part of the post production. However after that was done some problems started to appear. As I mentioned before, Taipei is a very crowdy and lively city! ! So we had to erease many unwanted objects in the background. When the special effect guy saw my wish list, his face got longer and longer! The poor guy had to work lots of overtime. But for me this part of the job was more simple. All I had to do is come to the office three times a day and say: This is good. Or in other cases: Sorry, do it again! Since I am talking about special effects here: what I did not expect was, that we couldnīt get any stuntman. So for the end scene we had to use computer effects as well. As a consequence post-production took us much longer than I had originally thought.

At the same time, we also went to a photo studio and shot some promotional material. It was nice to sit in the directors chair again so soon. Both girls were very cool, so the session took us much longer than planned! Than finally after all the pain the whole production was finished after eight months of hard work.

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Thomas Ulitzka Liesl-Karlstadtstr.21 81476 Munich Germany