My Own Suspense Flick - GG's Movie Reviews

Contents:

More promotional material (09/04/08)

More posters for your delight. This time, I'm uploading a couple of one-sheet posters for two of the main characters of the film. Hope you enjoy them!

"Friendship, courage, and milk" (You'll get the joke when you watch the movie.)

"Loyalty, determination, and love"

Sebastián "GG" Zavala

A New Poster! (09/02/08)

I really don't have a lot to say. The film has finished shooting, we're currently in post-production, and we're going to have our first screening this Saturday with my closest friends. They're going to watch it, comment on it and, hopefully, tell me if any improvements are necessary. And if those improvements can be done in post, then I shall do them.

So, now that the "release date" is getting closer and closer, I'll continue unveiling more promotional material. For instance, here's a new poster for the film. Hope you enjoy it!

Click on the image for a hi-res version.

Translation: (Starting in the upper part) "Every good tale needs a... hero?" "Stranger in Peril." "September 2008."

Sebastian "GG" Zavala

The First Official Trailer (08/12/08)

This is possibly one of the most important posts I've written in the last few weeks. After approximately three hours and a half of work, I managed to finish editing the first trailer for my film, "Stranger in Peril."

Anyway, as the old cliché says, an image is better than a thousand words, so I'm posting the trailer which, by the way, is available both in YouTube and the official Facebook group of the movie. ¡Hope you like it!

Sebastián "GG" Zavala

Interview: The protagonists? (08/05/08)

And we continue with the interviews. This time, I'm posting a couple of videos we shot after filming in our locations in an area of Lima called "Casuarinas", aproximately two weeks ago. This time, we're interviewing Werner Guevara, who plays "Julio", and Jerick Freyre, who plays the "Nerd" character. Apparently they had much to say about the movie, (the interview is almost half an hour long), and as you can see, they have had fun (and will continue having fun) making it.

I've divided the interview in three parts for everyone to enjoy. Here it is: (As always, it is in Spanish.)

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Sebastián "GG" Zavala

Interview - Actress and Director (08/02/08)

Now that we're getting closer and closer to ending the shooting of Stranger in Peril (despite a couple of problems that include - but aren't limited to - our lead actor's "house arrest" - for a lack of a better expression), I'll be posting more and more promotional material and "behind the scenes" stuff. Today, I'm posting an interview with Jessica Santivañez, one of our lead actresses, and myself. We were interviewed after filming in Jessica's house, and in said video we talk about lots of things related to the movie.

I've divided the interview in two parts. Hope you enjoy it! (Note: it's in Spanish.)

Part 1:

Part 2:

Sebastián "GG" Zavala

Teaser Poster/One-Sheet (07/30/08)

Now that we've shot about 80% of the movie, and that editing is one its way - I'm filming and editing the film at the same time... now that's guerrilla filmmaking! -, I think it's time to reveal the first teaser poster-one-sheet for Stranger in Peril. More will be coming in the next few weeks, but for today, I'll provide with the poster featuring one of the main characters: the titular stranger. But is she really in peril?

(Click on the image to see a hi-res version.)

Hope you like this first look at the movie's promotional material! For those who don't lnow Spanish: "¿La Víctima?" means "The victim?", and "Extraño en Peligro" is the movie's title, "Stranger in Peril."

More updates will be coming soon!

Sebastián "GG" Zavala

Day Six (07/21/08)

And we continue. We've already shot about 70% of the film - which is a lot, considering we've got very little time and a limited budget. We've made use of various locations - my house, a couple of streets, a big mansion-like house in a nice part of the city, our school and even a tennis academy.

At the start of the film, which chronicles the daily life of our protagonist, we see him going to a tennis class and practising the sport. For this scene, we had the help of my tennis instructor, Ricardo Mendoza. We did the shots in about half an hour, and then we had a small interview (a really small one) with him, which you can see here:

As you might already know, the interview is in Spanish... I'm planning to put some subtitles into these videos/interviews/bloopers/thingies, so if you don't know any Spanish, you'll have to have some patience.

But apart from this video, we also have a couple of pics. If you have a Facebook account, you might have already seen a couple of production pictures from the movie - there is an official Facebook group for Stranger in Peril to which you can access through the banner at the left. If you don't use Facebook, though, here I'm posting some pictures from our sixth day of shooting. Hope you enjoy them.

Sebastián "GG" Zavala

Blooper alert (07/06/08)

Despite some technical and, sometimes, climatological problems, principal photography for Stranger in Peril continues. We're currently shooting the last scenes of the movie - I won't give away many details; I don't want to spoil the surprise! - and it's coming out great. It's a serious shoot, of course, but we're also having fun, and as a proof of this, I'm posting a blooper video. (It's in Spanish, though, so if you're familiar with that language you'll be able to enjoy it more.)

You can also find this video - as well as production stills and more info about the movie - in our Facebook group.

Hope you enjoyed it!

Sebastián "GG" Zavala

Filming at school (06/25/08)

And we keep going on. Now that our school Spanish Play was finally shown and ended its run (it was very popular and liked by most people), we have more time to shoot Stranger in Peril. This week has been and will be very busy concerning production of the film, actually. We’re gonna shoot one of the final scenes of the film – the climax of the movie, actually – in a small warehouse at school this Friday. It’s a single scene, but it’s quite long, and the shooting will approximately three hours. I know it’s not much time, but it’s all we’ve got.

Because of the programmed filming on Friday, yesterday I had to go to buy some props yesterday. The scene is not precisely “actiony”, but I nevertheless needed some stuff like fake knifes and fake blood. That was easy to get. I also had to buy some rope and fake guns; the former I could get, but the latter I will have to buy tomorrow. Apart from that, today I managed to create and print some stuff at school to “decorate” our set…

SPOILERS AHEAD

The scene we’re gonna shoot supposedly takes place in a secret place where the bad guys are hiding. (There’s a whole complicated situation taking place in this scene too, but I don’t want t reveal it – it would ruin the surprise and make this website and the film itself pretty pointless.) The set we’re using – the small warehouse – is creepy enough: really dusty and dirty and dark and full of old stuff. But since it’s kind of an operations place, (a temporary one, but a planning site nevertheless), I decided to print stuff like maps and “spy photos” (you know, pics of people the bad guys might be spying) and all kinds of stuff. We’re also having three or four laptops in there to make them seem more “technological.” It’s nothing fancy, but I think this place is gonna give tons of atmosphere to the scene.

END OF SPOILERS

So yeah, I have most of the props, my actors are ready – I believe so – and I’ve revised this particular scene in the screenplay to make sure it works. Oh yeah, I’ll also have some lamps and stuff to light the set – it’s a little too dark -, and a couple of blue filters to make it look colder and creepier.

Yup, I’m really excited, and I’m pretty sure Friday’s gonna be a great day. I’ll write another update this weekend related to Friday’s shooting, and possibly post a couple of production photographs. (Some of you don’t know how my actors look, right?) I might post a couple of storyboards I’ve drawn for the scene too, but that I might do later today, or maybe tomorrow. I’ll see.

Sebastián “GG” Zavala

The Teaser and a Featurette (06/11/08)

Even though most people don't know of this, I actually managed to shoot a teaser trailer for Stranger in Peril with most of the cast and crew long before the final screenplay was finished or the entire equipment (including a decent camera) could be bought. For those who might be interested in watching this, I'm posting the video.

Teaser Trailer:

I know it looks amateurish, but I was pretty satisfied with it at the moment, especially as an experiment to see what we could accomplish.

Additionally, I've recently come up with a small featurette with some images from our first day of shooting. It's barely one minute and a half long, and it has very little dialogue, but as a taste of what the movie will be, I think it's pretty effective. I hope you're as excited as I am for my little project and, if you get to see this video, you'll notice we're actually having tons of fun at shooting our flick.

Featurette:

Sebastián "GG" Zavala

Note: both videos have little to no dialogue or titles, but what there is, it's in Spanish. They aren't precisely prominent, so they won't ruin the viewing experience.

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