Jake Hull and Rhett McClure traveled to Elgin, IL to help our buddy Tony Wash shoot his newest project, "A Chance In Hell". We brought our RED ONE camera rig, and ran 2nd unit camera for two of the coolest 18 hour days an indie filmmaker can experience. There's just something special about a project that you spend your own money to travel 8 hours and work your ass off for the love of your craft.

We witnessed a talented group of underpaid and overworked filmmakers, set designers, grips, gaffers, volunteers and friends painstakingly craft a period horror film that looks like a million bucks! And we were only there for days 7 and 8 of the production process! The pictures from Curtis Clegg (who regularly stepped in to HELP whenever necessary) show just how much work everyone accomplished. Even when tempers flared, the indie spirit of Do It Yourself seemed to keep everyone focused on the goal of creating a world class horror film! That and tons of caffeine, nicotine, and sugar.

DP Mitch Martinez is quite a character to begin with, but we met him focused at the END of the grueling shoot, when the onslaught of special effects began to slow down the pace of the production process. We witnessed a Nazi Zombie take an axe to the head, brave American soliders in period uniforms follow multiple blood stains trailing off into the darkness, and an 11 year old girl Zombie rip a solider's head off and then throw his spurting bloody skull at the camera, screaming.

I can't say enough about the special effects crew. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say pretty much nobody except Tony worked harder than they did to make this movie as awesome as it will be... Chris Patrick was especially awesome at rigging the zombie death scenes and managing a staggering number of fully made up zombie extras.

Rhett's proudest moment happened when we got to shoot a dolly scene with a tumbling grenade, rolling along perpendicular to our RED ONE camera skimming the 'ground', hurtling toward an unlucky soldier's crotch at 120 frames per second. Also! Mark my words, the "Old Boy" homage fight scene in this short is more elaborately staged than anything I have seen from Hollywood recently. and way above what most indie filmmakers could dream of, much less execute.

Yes we worked some insane hours. Tony tends works his crew pretty hard, but gets the results and then promotes his films relentlessly. Nobody else on the planet could direct screaming bloodthirsty zombie children like this guy. Jake and I learned a great deal about shooting with our RED ONE, met some great new talented filmmaker friends, and in general got a giant inspiration for the short films and feature we will be shooting this year. Great things only happen with a LOT of hard work, blood, sweat, tears, and more blood. And more tears. And more heart. Can't wait to see the finished product guys!

Get Info and Check out pictures from the making of "A Chance In Hell" at http://www.facebook.com/#!/achanceinhell?v=info&ref=ts

Their IMDB page is up at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1594426/fullcredits#cast

Thanks!
Rhett McClure

Published Feb 8th, 2010, FROM http://rhettmcclure.com/?q=node/42