THE FOZBOSS (2019)
Director • Writer • Executive Producer • Editor & Visual Effects
Marketer • Cinematographer
EQUIPMENT
Production
• Panasonic Gh4
• Canon Rebel EOS T3i
• iPhone X
• Zoom Recorder H6
• Boom Microphone
• Røde Shotgun Microphone
• Zoom Shotgun Microphone
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Post-Production
• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Adobe After Effects
• Adobe Photoshop
• Video Copilot Saber
• Video Copilot Element 3D
CONCEPT & INSPIRATION
The Fozboss was conceived by combining several original character ideas from around our college dormitory. I began to think "What would happen if all these characters existed within the same world?" and soon, the story was born.
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The script was finalized and production began in the fall of 2018. The hallway combat scene was filmed in 4K with external audio and a detailed storyboard.
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However, the amount of equipment was too much for me to deal with as a one-person crew, so changes had to be made to accelerate the production process. Keeping the work I had done, I changed my camera setup to a Canon T3i with an on-camera shotgun microphone instead of an external setup.
PRODUCTION
Filming took place across the college campus: in the dorms, student lounges, the science hall, and the digital media arts building. The cast, most of them first-time actors, weren't expected to have their lines memorized, and so filming was a shot-by-shot, line-by-line basis with no coverage.
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This methodology applied to the fight scenes as well, which were planned, rehearsed, and filmed in rapid succession. Given that the cast was so large, we had to work around people's schedules and wait for the locations to be quiet enough so we could film in private.
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Although the story had been worked out, additional scenes were added in later to incorporate more people into the project, including the "storyteller" scenes at the bookends of the film, and the scene with White Lightning.
CREATIVE SOLUTIONS
During one of the scenes towards the end of the movie, the Fozboss finds himself in a void between life and death and meets the Fozmentor: an alternate version of himself. Nathan, who played both characters, had to converse with himself for an entire scene all while reacting and talking realistically.
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As a solution, I used a nearby C-stand and raised it to be exactly Nathan's height. This way, he had a physical object he could look at, preventing his eyes from wandering (and being inconsistent) and giving him something tangible he could interact with.
POST-PRODUCTION PROCESS
The entirety of The Fozboss was edited on my humble 2015 Macbook Pro. Though the bulk of the work was done in my dorm room, I also took my laptop home with me, where I connected it to an external monitor (pictured) and worked while on break.
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The biggest difficulties were audio-based. Since I had used my on-camera shotgun microphone for most of the movie, the dialogue was difficult to hear at certain points, especially with music and other audio elements in the background. I had to borrow one of my friend's Zoom recorders and record extensive ADR, bringing back several cast members so the sound could be the highest possible quality.
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Music turned out to be difficult as well. I didn't have time to hire a composer or make my own music, so I used a stock music library for the soundtrack. The hardest scene to score was when the Fozboss encounters Jonathan. I ended up going through over eight different tracks before finding one that fit the scene.
VISUAL EFFECTS
While the work wasn't incredibly complicated, there are far more VFX shots in The Fozboss than you might guess.
Jonathan's Energy Blasts
These were the most visually impressive effects to pull off in the movie, so I decided to modify Video Copilot's "Saber" plug-in: animating a laser beam effect and keyframing its origin to the actor's hand. Adding a "Glow" effect really helps the whole energy blast look cohesive, and cranking the velocity effects in Saber makes the energy look as if it's being violently propelled outwards.
Manimal's Murky Eyes
The eyes themselves were fairly straightforward: make two masks covering both eyes, fill those masks with a black color, and feather them to taste.
However, the elbow grease came into play with the sheer number of shots (eleven!) that required this effect as well as the manual keyframing that the masks needed. Lots of work for such a simple result!
Dead Pixel Correction
I had no idea my camera had dead pixels on the sensor until production was almost completed on the film. For most of the scenes, there are two or three pixels that are clear as day.
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Removing these pixels was far more work than I thought, as it required continual adjustments for some of the shots where the lighting changes. This is by far the most prevalent VFX shot, affecting over fifty individual shots in the final cut!
MARKETING & PROMOTION
Having been conceptualized and filmed at a private college, it made sense to direct the film's marketing campaign at the student body itself, using the names of the people in the movie to draw people's curiosity.
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Small flyers with the movie poster on them were printed out and distributed across the university campus.
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When making movies with friends and peers, tagging them on promotional posts concerning the movie is a great way to increase engagement: their parents will see it, get excited, and share it to their own accounts so that even more people become aware of it.
Original Film Poster
"Ensemble" Variant Poster
PREMIERE NIGHT
On May 1st, 2019, The Fozboss debuted at one of the university auditoriums. Over fifty people attended the premiere and, two days later, the film was released on YouTube where over 600 people have seen it!
