How did you come up with the concept for the film?

I think the best way to answer this question is by giving a picture of the reality I was facing back in 2011.  2 years removed from graduating college with a Film Degree, I was still struggling to find a job in my field.  Frustration finally came to a peak when I couldn’t even get a Production Assistant post on a local film crew.  Knowing that I was a dime a dozen when it came to videography, I chose the VFX route to make me stand out and hopefully get hired.  The catch was I had no work to put on my reel that was VFX nor was I trained in it.

I came up with a short concept of a character standing in a circle with three towers shooting energy balls at him, all the while dodging them to survive.  I figured if I shoot it, create the world in 3D and add all the visual effect elements, I should have a decent reel to show to employers.  But when I was writing the treatment, that scene took off and morphed into a short film that explored the idea of the character being a real person being trapped inside of an 80’s video game console.  I found this route to be fascinating because growing up in the 90’s, video game consoles is what I grew up playing and I wanted to do a film that reflected that past.

The short film idea continued to grow as well and I now had a full feature, 90-page screenplay by October 2011.  The action sci-fi film paid tribute to all facets to gaming, not just video games.  Examples included chess, 1st person shooter, 16-bit arcade fighting, cheat codes and trading cards.  My love for gaming in general was fully expressed in the protagonists journey and I now had a behemoth that I really wanted to create visually.

How did you find your talent?

I attended Bowling Green State University in northwest Ohio and in 2009, graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Film Production.  What was great about the university is that the Theater and Film Department purposefully had the acting classes pair up with the film production classes for students to both gain experience in their respective fields.  Because of this, I was fortunate to have met the future lead roles for the film: Dylan Stretchbery, Kelly Rogers and Johnathon Byrd.

When I finished the script in 2011 and began casting, it was a no-brainer for me to reach out to them.  Each said yes not only to be in the film but to travel to Nashville, TN for production was planned to be shot at my house.  Living in Tennessee also gave me the opportunity to meet TN natives Andrew Callis and Austin Middleton who said yes in the casting process.  Andrew had the physic and physical training to play the main antagonist.  Even though he had a mask on with no speaking lines, he was great to give that dominant presence on camera.  Austin was still in high school doing theater classes and was phenomenal on camera in being the youngest character.

Finally, I had another actor all lined up to play the eldest brother, Adam.  Unfortunately he had to bail before shooting began in the summer of 2012.  Frantic and working with no budget, I chose to step in to play the role.  I don’t regret making this decision, but there were times during production that I feel I would have benefited being behind the camera than in front.  Lesson learned.

What gear did you use?

After doing research on which was the best camera to use for green screen filming, the Panasonic HVX 200 P2 Camera was the one I kept seeing.  In 2012, it was arguably the best camera for this because of the particular sensor the camera featured and that it shot in 24fps with 48fps as an option.  It was also incredibly affordable to rent and you didn’t have to worry about changeable lenses as an additional price tag.  In addition, it had 2 XLR inputs for us to record audio directly into the camera.  Now looking back, this was a mistake due to the poor nature in audio capture that had occurred on some shoot days.  The other headache that the HVX200 posed was the file structure the footage came in.  In order for me to clearly know what clip was what, I created an entire printed entry log just to be organized.  This camera was used for both shoot weeks in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

Unfortunately, right as we began filming was when the DSLR camera boom happened.  To rent one of those cameras was just not an option because of the steep price tag, let alone needing interchangeable lenses.  It wasn’t until later when the action/fight scenes were filmed on green screen in 2017 is when I chose to rent the Canon DSLR 5D Mark 2 using the Canon EF 85mm prime lens and EF 16-35mm zoom lens.  This was great because audio wasn’t a priority and having the depth of field was a huge plus in capturing some of the tight shots.

The green screen was a $150.00 starter pack off of Amazon and I studied like mad to create my own custom built PC for post-production.  Doing the custom build turned out to be one of the best decisions I made for this project.  Because of the decade long investment, I was able to replace outdated computer hardware when necessary, saving money in the process.

What locations were used in shooting the film?

Production began in 2012 and at that time, my family and I owned a house just outside of Nashville, TN located in the suburbs.  All the scenes that weren’t green screen were shot in our house.  Our front door, balcony, kitchen, living room, guest bedroom and basement is all featured in the film.  The two car garage was used as a studio to set up and light the green screen to film all of the speaking roles and a couple of action shots.

In 2014, my family moved to Jackson, MS for a work opportunity.  At that point in the project, the film needed an additional 1/3 of filming to be complete.  Luckily, the only scenes that were needed was only on green screen and not in the “real world”.  So during the winter in 2017, we once again set up the green screen studio in my garage and finished the rest of filming.  This included all of the remaining hand-to-hand combat fight scenes, the bow and arrow fight sequence and the extras dressed in fedoras to create a crowd in a speakeasy.  I strategically chose to film in the winter time because we learned that it gets pretty toasty in a garage during the late summer months in the south, especially when you’re wearing a full body costume.

How were you able to shoot your scenes on green screen?

There was a tremendous amount of pre-planning of not only storyboarding, but also mapping out the layout of the 3D set that had blocking notes and camera placement cues.  It was paramount for me to over communicate with the actors in where they were physically located in the imaginary scene because we only had one backdrop to work with.  This meant that camera framing was an even bigger deal!

At the time of shooting, I didn’t know how to champion the 3D modeling of the sets yet so I depended on mood boards and sketches to show the actors what the sets would eventually look like.  Now looking back, I give a lot of credit to the actors.  The trust that they gave me considering they had so little to work with during their performance is just incredible.  The payoff in doing all of this prep work came during post production.  When I was finally able to composite the actors in the 3D sets, their movement within the space worked out wonderfully.

Another challenge was the hand-to-hand choreographed fight scenes.  At the time of our first filming session in 2012-13, we didn’t have a concrete game plan as to how the fight scenes will “look”.  After a couple of years of brainstorming, I ended up deciding to just do the fight scenes myself.  I did this by creating movements for each character and then filmed myself performing the fight one at a time.  This also worked because every character that fought had a full on costume and you couldn’t see any faces. I then aligned the timing of the shots in post to make it look as realistic as possible.  That’s why in every one versus one fight scene you see in the film, the camera is profiled because that was the only way I could think of accomplishing such a daunting feat by myself.

What was the process like in doing the Visual Effects?

I relied heavily on Adobe’s compositing software called After Effects.  I was first introduced to the program back in my college days where a colleague of mine would create these really cool title sequences to his film assignments.  I was hooked and wanted to know everything about the program.  In those days, there were only a few outlets to learn the software.  One person I really enjoyed was Andrew Kramer, founder of VideoCopilot.net.  I dissected everything I could and catered the new techniques to the film project.  Knowing beforehand what I needed and how to frame the actors to get the right shot for the visual effects (VFX) was critical.

Throughout the years of post-production, other great tutorials from Red Giant, Creative Dojo and Film Riot were becoming nationally known on YouTube.  Each passing year I became even more comfortable in the compositing process to make the shots look realistic as possible.  3rd party plugins like Trapcode Particular, Form and Optical Flares were huge in creating the sci-fi look that I wanted.  Then awesome programs like Magic Bullet Looks and Red Giant Universe arrived in 2014 where I could stylistically create that gritty VHS look.

Finally, I was introduced to AEscripts.com in 2015, a place where people would create these amazing code based commands that you would apply in After Effects to get a desired effect.  Not only did these scripts help the speed and workflow of creating the shots, but some were used to create some really artistic shots!

In the end, there are over 750 VFX shots in the film.  I’d be lying if I said I knew how to tackle each of them before we began filming.  It has been a journey of not only creating something from scratch, but also an immense amount of problem solving to make the best shot possible.

What inspiration drove the overall design of the world of Gauntlet?

I was heavily inspired by the art style of the 80’s decade and of the film TRON: Legacy.  In TRON, the glowing neon blue lights against the dark, sleek reflective surfaces was such a unique look.  I wanted to mix that style with the gritty, faded, VHS analog look of the 80’s.  Yellows, purple’s and teal blue’s were my main color palette that I drew inspiration from.

One challenge I had a lot of fun designing was the 16-bit fake video game I called “City Strikes” that takes place in the middle of the film.  I took inspiration from a video game that I loved playing on Super Nintendo growing up and that was Final Fight.  Each element in the environment was hand painted in Adobe’s Photoshop along with each pose of both characters, which came out to be 126 poses collectively.

The biggest challenge design-wise was figuring out a way to do a retro design in a futuristic way.  In the film, Gauntlet is a video game console that was created in 1987.  So the mindset I took was thinking from the perspective of the fictitious video game creators who were in charge of designing the future world of Gauntlet in that time.  Challenging, yes?  So for the Heads Up Displays (HUD) and Fake User Interface graphics (FUI), I chose to kept the overall design simple and used basic primitives to drive the overall theme.  Every HUD, FUI and scoreboard design you see in the movie was handcrafted and animated by yours truly.  This was another reason why it took so long to finish this beast.

What was your process in creating the 3D sets?

There were three main programs I used to create the 3D sets for Gauntlet.  In Adobe’s After Effects, I was able to use Video Copilot’s Element 3D plugin to create sets like the Gaming Lobby, the Gauntlet Arena, Pixel’s Tower and each of the three challenges.  I maximized a pre-built modeling pack from Video Copilot and used the elements collectively to create all of the sets.  It was an immense timesaver but also captured the style I had originally envisioned.  This was fantastic because not only did these sets take place throughout the film the most, but the work it took to line up the actors on green screen was much easier since it was already inside After Effects, which is a compositing software.

For the more complicated sets, Autodesk Maya was used to create a grand speakeasy for one of our antagonists and Maxon’s Cinema 4D created the Power Grid set.  Both of these 3D modeling softwares have their respective pros and cons but it was really liberating modeling these two sets from scratch.  To say that I learned a lot during this process was an understatement.  Without Mike Hermes on YouTube and Greyscale Gorilla, I wouldn’t have been successful in creating those sets.

Once the sets were created, I used 3D cameras to match the performance of the actors.  This is where the pre-planning really paid off because I was able to look at my blocking notes during production to match the correct angle in post.  I have to admit, it felt liberating to see a whole scene that we shot on green screen come to life with the 3D set added for the first time.

Why did it take 10 years to complete the film?

Well to rehash, the original goal for this project was to create a film reel that could stand me apart from the competition to get hired. That happened sooner than expected, but I was still able to keep production going.  After couple of years of progress, the time came to figure out how to create the 3D sets.  I hit a massive creative roadblock.  All of my early test were extremely lackluster and didn’t look decent at all.  It was the first time where I thought giving up on the project was the best option. I walked away from the film.

Time away was therapeutic because it was in that down period is when I came up with a potential solution.  A video software company called Video Copilot had a plugin for After Effects called Element 3D that I purchased in the past.  I didn’t realize the capability it had to create some of the sets.  This was invigorating and I soon realized that I was quickly back on the saddle.  To remind you, I’m still only doing this on my free time. So another few years past and I felt burned out creatively.  At this point I was already 6 years invested and I needed a different creative outlet to show off my talent. I couldn’t really show anyone completed portions of the film without giving a huge backstory, but I wanted to show off my new found animation skills that I had applied in creating the HUD and FUI designs. I felt stuck.

This is where I took a step aside to create a YouTube channel that helped educate new sports fans using animated explainer videos.  Lurks Lessons was born.  The year was late 2018 and I was about two thirds done with the VFX on Gauntlet at that time.  When COVID stopped the sporting world in 2020, I finally shifted gears back to the film project, fully committed in finishing it.

It’s hard to assume how long the project would have taken me if I didn’t have other priorities throughout that decade.  But I’m glad it did because I am a totally different filmmaker/artist than I was when I first began this film in 2011.  That’s the thing with progress though right?  You learn and grow by doing.  However, to say that I went back to touch up some VFX shots with newfound knowledge is an understatement and another reason why the project took more time.

Now that the film is complete, what’s next?

For Gauntlet, we’re going to do a late 2021, 2022 festival run and then pitch the film for possible distribution.

For me, a much needed break!

In all seriousness, what’s next for me is still up in the air.  I’d like to continue being a part of the indie film community as a VFX artist/animator.  I feel that what I learned from making Gauntlet can really help other filmmakers accomplish their vision.  So I intend to be an asset by offering title sequences to filmmakers projects on whomever wants my help.

As for my next film? I do have two treatments that I’d want to develop further, but I truly need some rest now that this 10 year long project is complete.