At The End Of The Tunnel Blog

Sex Ed Class Inspires Artwork

If you grew up in the Midwest during the 90s, you may remember Sex Ed. If you had what Midwesterners consider an effective Sex Ed class, you might even remember Sex Ed now when you’re having sex.

“It will hurt”, “They will laugh about you at school”, and my favorite, “You may catch an STD and die”.

Since Felix in “At the End of the Tunnel” always skipped class and didn’t get to experience Sex Ed, he’s getting a crash course now, thanks to The Preacher. And The Preacher is adding his own input thanks to certain things that weren’t allowed in public schools, things like Hebrews 13:4.

“Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”

The Preacher explains to Felix, “You can catch more than STDs from premarital sex, you can catch the attention of Satan.” So I drew a picture:

Sort of sexy, I must say…

I then sent it to Calum_McGhee, and he gave me this:

Not bad, this would have helped a lot of teachers out in the 90s.

Here they are side by side.

Guest post from lead actor, Fernando Noor, on Latino stereotypes.

Today we have a guest post from our lead actor, Fernando Noor who says cheekily, “One of the best things about this project? I finally found a use for my borderline racist thug headshots!”

Fernando:

A few years ago, my former agent requested I go for a more “stereotypical Latino look” because I wasn’t getting any auditions. I asked her what she meant and she told me that one of my advantages was that I was fluent in Spanish and that I should go for a gang member look because those opportunities are out there for Latinos. I didn’t know what to make of this, but hey, Arnold played a barbarian and English actors play the stereotype all the time, so whatever, “It’s a character” I thought. So I decided to try the gang member look if it meant getting some opportunities. But from the very start, I knew deep in my heart it was not going to work.

DSC_7020-web — I look like a real gangster, right?

I went to get my thug headshots and when I arrived my photographer argued with me about how he just did not see me as a thug. I didn’t disagree, but told him my agent wants it because she says she can get me work. The photographer took the pictures, they looked okay, but I could see dread on his face.

Noor_Fernando-0_6_DSC_7307-14-07-02_13_44_58 — No longer Mami’s good boy.

I never got a single audition from my former agent with my thug look. I was heartbroken. I wasted a ton of money on these thug pictures for nothing. I deemed them worthless and shoved them aside until…

AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

Felix is a former bad boy, now born again Christian, and the pictures fit the character because the kid is not a straight gangster, but has a funny quirky edge. The pictures can finally be used!

Everything happens for a reason.

Our first official poster!

So, I lied the other day when I said the next post would be about the art used in our pitch trailer. Our poster got finished a little quicker than what I thought it would, so I wanted to post about it instead!

I’m also in development on another horror film, “Sombra”, which has a bigger budget than this one, and for that film I used a professional graphic artist to come up with a great poster concept. “Tunnel’s” budget is quite a bit smaller, so that trickles down to our art budget.

I was back on one of my favorite sites, Fiverr, when I found an artist who does minimalist movie posters for $50. I jumped at the opportunity.

Since our pitch trailer is going to have bits of humor as well as horror, I don’t want people to get the impression that our film isn’t going to be scary. I wanted the poster to be unsettling and get that “horror” element across immediately.

I played around with some ideas, and eventually came up with the idea that the bright tunnel of light could also sort of double as a swirling drain… so my idea was to add some blood in there, swirling through those bright lights and emptying out the other side.

Here’s what I sent to the artist:

I would so go see that film based on that poster.

Here’s what the artist sent back to me.

A bit more dynamic in terms of color…

Here they are side by side.

Even More Concept Art: Felix’s Hell

It’s Monday, so we’re all potentially in Hell right now.

Even though Felix visited Heaven, no horror film would be complete without a nice mockup of the underworld.

I wanted Hell to be a nice mirror image of Heaven. Instead of cotton ball trees, we have bone boughs; instead of roads paved with Bibles, they’re now paved with maggots, you get the picture.

Here is the mockup I sent to Calum_McGhee on Fiverr.

Scary… in many ways.

Here’s what Calum sent back to me.

Scary… in the right ways.

And here’s our side-by-side.

Tomorrow I’ll be posting about some of the art I made for our pitch trailer.

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More Concept Art: Felix’s Heaven

I like how this post falls on a Sunday.

A lot of this film will deal with Felix’s trip to Heaven during his near death experience. Since Felix’s time there is going into a memoir meant for mass production, we felt like only the most extremely cliché version of the afterlife would do.

I tried to think back to simpler times, and then imagined a world of cotton ball bushes and clouds, a happy fountain, a rainbow, nesting doves, and a road paved with Bibles. Once again, I turned to my pal, Calum_McGhee on Fiverr.

This is the mockup I sent him.

Definitely a unique piece.

This is what Calum_McGhee sent back to me.

More refined, cleaner, easier on the eyes, I’ll admit…

And here’s the side by side comparison.

Tomorrow, just to keep the world in balance, we’ll see a sketch up of that “other place”.

Feel free to find us on Facebook, and Twitter!

So, now that your script is done…

Because “At the End of the Tunnel” is a micro-budget film, we believe we can raise the money on our own through private investors and crowdfunding.

That means getting all of our ducks in a row, meaning “looking somewhat professional”, before we go out asking for cold hard cash.

How do we do this? How do we seem like a good investment? For us this involves getting artwork in order, a poster, a pitch trailer, a lookbook, a budget, schedule, preliminary locations, identifying blogs and websites we can appear on and contact, trying to make some contact with distributors, and getting some of our cast in order.

The first thing I’ll talk about is the artwork, just because it’s always such a fun process to see what the artist comes up with.

Our film is a horror/dark comedy. Because of the religious themes like the near death experience, Felix seeing Heaven, Felix being a born again Christian, Felix’s Christian memoir, we want to clearly lay our cards on the table in terms of “tone” so we do not mislead people who might think the film is something different than what it is.

We’re not an “anti-religion” film, but we are not a family friendly religious film. We definitely have a few things that someone of a strict religious nature might find a bit offensive, so that’s why we wanted to get our artwork started early.

Felix is writing a memoir based off of his near death experience, and his preacher/literary manager feels the memoir would be bolstered with some artwork. One of the moments The Preacher would like to illustrate is Felix’s suicide attempt.

Suicide attempts are not funny, but being cradled by Jesus dressed in a doctor’s outfit sort of makes me chuckle. (Again, laying our cards on the table here).

I actually was on Fiverr one day and spotted an artist who I thought could do a nice job. His Fiverr name, Calum_mcghee, and his gig title, “I will draw whatever your heart desires”. How can you beat that???

So I contacted Calum_Mcghee and I sent him this mock up:

I’m quite the artist, right?

And he sent me back this:

Which I have to admit is a little better than mine. Let’s really rub it in now…

And after that, a beautiful collaboration began, which I’ll be sharing more of tomorrow.

And…

If you’re interested in hiring Calum_McGhee, you can find his Fiverr profile here: https://www.fiverr.com/calum_mcghee

So, what is “At the End of the Tunnel” about?

I hate synopses, and I resent I am asked to write them… but enough whining.

If anyone ever deserved a second chance at life, it would not be Felix Phelps…

At the End of the Tunnel is a horror/dark comedy that follows Felix Phelps, a former bad boy who is revived after a suicide attempt he tries to carry out with his girlfriend, Lyric.

During Felix’s attempt, he has a near death experience, sees Heaven and meets God who tells him he’s returning to Earth with a message, a message for all of mankind. The only issue with that message… God doesn’t get it out before Felix is sent back.

That doesn’t stop Felix from telling the story though, and when he meets The Preacher…

…he becomes “born again” and decides to publish a feel-good, tell-all memoir on his life, death, return, and conversion.

The only issue with that book… Felix’s now ex girlfriend, Lyric, has come back on the scene as a Youtube star, and she’s threatening to expose a secret so explosive, it will damage his second-chance beyond repair.

Felix needs to find a way to keep her silent, or just pray she doesn’t tell…

Welcome to our official blog!

Hey there, and thanks so much for checking out the blog for our horror/dark comedy “At the End of the Tunnel”!

Making a movie is a hugely challenging process, and I felt like adding to that by forcing myself to keep a written record!!!

….

Did that sound snarky? Eh, let me rephrase.

I felt like sharing what I learned in written and online form so that others could observe and borrow from my experiences.

“At the End of the Tunnel” is a micro budget horror film, this means we’re under the $250,000 budget range. In reality, we’re under the $50,000 range. The film has been designed with minimal locations and few cast members.

Here’s a little bit about what the film is about.

“After a near death experience, a troubled young man becomes a born again Christian, but when the opportunity comes along to sell a feel-good memoir based on his rebirth, his ex girlfriend threatens to expose a damning secret; he must decide whether to take action, or just pray she doesn’t tell…”

The film will have religious themes like the 2001 film “Frailty”, with the darker humor of the 2004 film “Saved”.

We’re so proud to have a Latino lead character in our movie. Latinos only have 4.9% of the speaking roles in large films, and it’s time for that to change. We also have a female writer (moi), director (moi), DP and editor (not moi). The percentages of women in these roles in Hollywood are also abysmal.

Check back in here for updates on the film process, how-tos, bts pictures, and potential rants (though I have promised not to.)

Thanks so much for reading, and I’ll be speaking with you soon.

-Claire Wasmund