How to make an Award Winning ACTION Film for 20 thousand dollars

Well, if you read all the books and study in film school, and maybe talk to some of those who have already done it, you already know or will find out that you should limit your locations, shoot during the day to save on lighting, keep your characters to a minimum, stay away from action, kids, and animals, make sure you stay away from stunts and gunfire and special fx, and try to film locally with the most experienced crew possible so as to not waste time or spend money on travel.

So – knowing all of this – I made the Award Winning feature film BLOOD TIES with my friend and film partner Robert Pralgo (Vampire Diaries and The Blind Side).

Oh yeah, being my first feature film as director and producer, and knowing all the above ‘rules’, I filmed in Bangkok and the jungles of Thailand, on the borders and customs gates of Cambodia, all over the Mall in Washington DC, at the Port of Miami, the mountains and valleys in Roanoke, Virginia, and of course in my home city of Atlanta, Georgia.

I hate rules – especially if they interfere with my creativity, so most of the movie is action, (maybe only 25 people die by gunfire), there are lots of fights, many with professional stuntmen who work on huge movies in Thailand (the Jackie Chan, Tony Ja, Steven Segal – kind of movies), and I cast Erik Markus Schuetz (Ong Bak, Mercury Man) as my bad guy for the BIG fights.

I was also able to add Thailand’s representative for the Miss China Beauty Pageant, actress and model Nawanun Anoma as my love interest.

We don’t have too many animals, just the giant lizard in the jungle and the one mangy dog – so at least that was out of the way early on.

We filmed almost all of it with available light, though I pushed the limits of the cameras and my extensive post processing (mostly in Adobe After FX) to give it the look I wanted and developed. A big part of the movie in at night or in dark interiors so we did have a scene where we had to add a 200 watt light bulb…

Trying to keep the characters to a minimum – I only have about 30 or 40 speaking parts. Most are working actors, and we get lots of compliments of the casting and all these actors brought their ‘A -game’.

So maybe only a total of about 50 stuntmen… I did keep the action limited to mostly fights, a few car chases, just a couple of high falls. We didn’t really have much time for choreography so we limited the special fx to just a few broken bones, and a lot of locking and twisting, kicking, punching, and just a few weapons.

Remembering the ‘limit your location rule’ I made sure we only used about 30 actual locations through out Bangkok – and only a few more in the northern mountains and the jungle. Trains, boats, tuk tuks, temples, abandoned 45 story buildings… those kind of things…

For my experienced crew I used a cameraman I had never shot with before and who had never shot any action. He ended up doing a great job, and since I had to make 4 more trips to Thailand to finish out the movie over a 2 year period, I recruited some of the stuntmen to jump behind the camera anytime I was in front.

To save on music, I composed all the music myself, though was able to add in the amazing voice of Brazilian star Adriana Mezzadri, who flew up to add some polish to many of my cues. Songs from 6 bands completed the soundtrack.

Almost 2 years of editing and post processing… our budget included not only buying two DVX100′s, it also built the editing system and bought the software to do it with, the movie was done!

The awards? “Action Film of the Year” at Action On Film International Film Festival… pretty cool as it was our first fest and went against movies that cost upwards of 2 and 3 million. The Audience Award for “Best Director” at Big Bang Film Festival. I got to see it on the really big screen in Downtown Disney where we won “Best of Festival,” and “Best Visual Fx” at the Indie Fest USA Film Festival. That got me invited to the Rincon, Puerto Rico, International Film Festival where we won “Best International Feature.” Our first overseas screening in the UK at the End Of The Pier International Film Festival brought another award for “Best International Film.”

The feature film BLOOD TIES – shot for 20,000 – in three countries, six major cities, with a total cast well over 100, an average crew of 2, with all post done by one on a desktop computer, will be released by Afterlight Pictures on February 15th.

This is a taste of what we did… BLOOD TIES MOVIE TRAILER

There is LOT of news coming and it might be fun to follow along – contests, screenings, our official World Premiere, reviews, and cast updates… you can find us BLOOD TIES on FACEBOOK here…

The new action movie BLOOD TIES

Making movies!

kely mcclung

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