Whitestone Motion Pictures

that’s magic production: 2 days in

Brandon McCormick — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:27:54 +0000

We’re two days into the production of That’s Magic!, and what a couple of days it’s been. We’ve just wrapped filming at the beautiful Pearce Theatre, a 100 year old opera house in Gainsville. It was an epic shoot, with our very first, and hopefully our very last, 24 hour straight shoot. We’ve taken a day to recoup and then we’re back on schedule. The crew and cast for this project have been completely amazing and our new inters are getting right into the flow of things. Some of us are getting sick, all of us are exhausted, but the good news is the film is looking great! We couldn’t be more happy and proud of eachother for the hard work and dedication everyone in the Whitestone family brings. We can’t wait to share this film with all of you, so keep following the production and get ready, magic is in the air!

Behind the scenes photography by Luanne Dietz

“that’s magic!” preproduction vinnette #1

Brandon McCormick — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 15:16:51 +0000

Click to Play

Just sharing a few glimpses into the production of the next film from Whitestone Motion Pictures “That’s Magic!”.
We’ll plan on bringing you more of these vignettes, along with blogs and hopefully some live webcams of the actual production, along with a full behind the scenes documentary in December.

See you on set!

preproduction blog: ‘that’s magic’

Brandon McCormick — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:59:38 +0000

It seems often at Whitestone, we just get to briefly celebrate a great film effort like Awake O’Sleeper before we’re right off to the next project. The truth is, we couldn’t be more excited. We realize that we get to make more films than the average filmmakers, so we just push on the gas and get to it!
Whitestone’s latest film “That’s Magic!” is shaping up to be one of our most advantageous projects yet. We’re pleased to announce Jackson Walker has signed on for our lead role as the disillusioned Magician.

The Wright Brothers Nicholas Kirk and Billy Wilkerson have been in overdrive working on the two extensive musical pieces in the film, and I’m not lying when I say it is by far their greatest work yet.

This past week, our location at the Pierce theatre was confirmed, a wonderful place to work with and a location that will set the vibe for the entire film.

We’ll also be working with the Phantom HD camera, the same camera we used for the ‘Wind’ film. Our Assitant Director and Co-Cinematographer Dan Marrero has been trained in NYC by Able Cine to operate the camera, cutting our costs that are needed to rent the camera. What will we be using it for you ask? Oh, well that’s a surprise.

In fact, there are a few surprises in store for this one. Some that are even too early to mention, but we have a few aces up our sleeves.

We’ve just come off a 12 hour story session with myself, writer Charlie Wetzle and the Wright Brothers, where we tore the story to pieces in hopes of rebuilding it into something truly exceptional. We hope that the intense amount of work going into this side of the production makes for a much better film on the other side.

As we’ve always said, we are all storytellers, every one of us.

I think it’s safe to say we’ve put more pre-production into this film than we’ve ever had the opprotunity of doing before. Most importantly we’ve worked harder at the story and the way it’s told and unfolds. This gives us a greater sense of what to do and how to do it, along with the confidence that each and every one of us are working to master our craft.

The film will be released at the end of December, but keep coming back to our site for updates before, during and after the production.

See you on set!

awake o’sleeper: behind the scenes

Brandon McCormick — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:27:27 +0000

Without further ado, we introduce the behind the scenes film for Awake O’Sleeper.

Our great thanks to Luanne Dietz who produced, directed and edited the film. All still photography is hers as well. Visit her site here.

the hallow’s eve diversion

Brandon McCormick — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:08:54 +0000

At Whitestone, we not only believe in telling great stories, but we also believe in living them. With Halloween just around the corner, my good friends over at Cause and Effect have been putting together the second annual “Hallow’s Eve Diversion”. The story goes something like this.
One night a year, everyone is expecting a knock on their door. What if, instead of getting candy for ourselves, we did something for someone else. We are collecting cans for our local coop, in one night dealing with hunger in our area for many weeks.
We would like you to join us as we try and become part of a bigger story. A story about others. If you live in the Atlanta area, you can sign up and visit the Hallow’s Eve site here.
If you’re not local to Atlanta, let us encourage you to think bigger than yourself. Maybe you have an opportunity to start something similar, or find someone who is doing something great and join in.
And maybe, we can all be silly enough to believe we can change the world.

whitestone announces preproduction on a new film: “that’s magic!”

Brandon McCormick — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:36:21 +0000

We are proud to announce that we have officially begun pre-production on our newest film, “That’s Magic!”. Due out this December, That’s Magic! is a story of a magician who has become disillusioned with his craft and no longer believes in the idea of magic.
What we’re most excited about is the format that we’re pursing with the film. Our team is hard at work creating original musical pieces for the film, and we are looking to films like Mary Poppins and Nightmare Before Christmas for inspiration on the ‘musical singing’ format within the story. We believe this to be a throw back to the Disney films of old, with our own Whitestone twist on it.
We look forward to bringing this film to you very soon, and we’ll be posting pre-production updates as always so you can keep informed and up to date on the production. Check back often for updates, and get ready for That’s Magic!

watchmaker’s son wins crystal heart award: heartland film festival

Brandon McCormick — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:24:16 +0000

Congratulations to the the Whitestone team for winning the Crystal Heart Award from the Heartland Film Festival for our film Watchmaker’s Son.

We’re honored to receive this prestigious award and have a shot at winning the grand jury prize at the festival. I will be attending the festival later this month and will post short updates on the ceremonies.
You can check out the film’s page here.

behind the scenes photos: awake o’sleeper

Brandon McCormick — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 21:38:48 +0000

Here are some additional behind the scenes photos from photographer Luanne Dietz. More to come soon, along with a full behind the scenes film, so check back often!

whitestone presents: awake o’sleeper

Brandon McCormick — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 21:59:05 +0000

Ladies and gentlemen, we are very proud to present our latest short film “Awake O’Sleeper”

A Hero comes from the wilderness to cry out to the captives, pleading for them to awaken. This short film from Whitestone was in part inspired by “Plato’s Cave” and depicts the struggle of freeing the captives, whomever they may be. This film is set to the song by the same name originally written for this film by the talented Wright Brothers: Nicholas Kirk and Billy Wilkerson.

Do you hear the Lion roar?

Download the mp3 of the song here.

Download an iPod/iPhone version of the film here.

Download an HD Apple TV version of the film here.

To watch the film online in HD, you can check it out here at Vimeo.

(We’ll be uploading behind the scenes photos soon.)

Additional credit: Luanne Dietz: Still Photography and Assistant Color Grading.
We are working on a behind the scenes documentary of the making of Awake O’Sleeper, so be sure to check back for that soon.

awake o’sleeper: post production

Brandon McCormick — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:57:36 +0000

The camera is wrapped and the extras have gone home. Everyone high fives each-other and we all leave set knowing we worked our hardest. The crazy part is, making the film has just begun. Awake O’Sleeper is in the editing process, where it will stay for a few weeks. There are over 70 shots for the three minute film, and with those, about an average of 10-15 takes for each of those, resulting in about 6 hours of footage in the can. Sure seems like a lot, but sometimes that’s what it takes to get it right. One of my goals as a filmmaker is to have no regrets. No sitting in the editing room saying ‘oh, I wish I shot that this way’, or ‘I wish we took a better take of that’. So the pain on set becomes the excitement in the editing room. For Awake, I have a lot of great stuff to work with, which makes editing less of a chore and more like a fun search for what will make the piece incredible.

Once the piece is laid out, I’ll bring in Nick Kirk, the composer and writer for the musical piece and he’ll help me sync each frame of video to the music. Often a tedious process that results in having your eyes play tricks on you while you wonder aloud, ‘does that look right?”.
Once we have locked picture, it’s on to my favorite part. I fire up Final Cut “Color” and start the color grading process. This is the first time when the image in my head begins to emerge on screen, and the feeling is tremendously exciting. I’ll be brining in Luanne Ditz, our resident photographer and documentary filmmaker, with her keen eye for color to help me take the grading from good to excellent. After that, it’s rendering and more rendering. Nick plays with some opening sound, and we ship it out for export, resulting in an HD final film with that ‘right out of FCP’ smell.

This project, although terribly hard, has become one of my favorite. The gap between what is in my head when I sit to write out storyboards and what is in the final draft of the film gets smaller with each passing film we make. If you haven’t noticed, we all love making movies, and every one of us at Whitestone is grateful for the opportunity to pursue a craft in storytelling.