The Scourge And The Passion

Words matter and my words seem to matter a lot more than I thought. I understand that.

Seditiosa is, still, in its development stage and maybe it is necessary for me to give some more insight about what it means in our world. The world of movie making, that is.

A project begins with an idea, which then it turns into a concept and then the development starts with the writing of the script. A film can be in development for years, like, for instance, 69 Année Érotique, or months, like Maleficarum, or days or maybe a hours, like Le Marquis De La Croix.

In the case of Seditiosa, the proposal came to us in July and it had a basic script, which was very much based on the original story, that of the gospels with a woman in the place of The Christ. A Female Christ.

Once the proposal was approved, it entered the first stage of development, The Script.

There are some elements to the story that are obvious and will be needed in the film, costumes, locations, props. it’s a period film. That’s when Seditiosa entered a second stage of development, the work for Fundraising.

But we can’t start the fundraising without some idea of who our main cast will be, particularly our Female Christ, so, Seditiosa entered the first stage of pre-production, The Casting. It was obvious who would be cast in the roles of the three women who will be crucified. To Jac it was even more obvious that the one to be the FC was Simonne, who had a brilliant performance during her crucifixion in Monxa Mala.

That’s where we are right now.

The Script has its demands, one of them is the development of the characters and that in itself has its own demands, their background, specially that of our main character.

Jac was in France at one point, he was working on the casting for Martyr, Camille was working with him and he had a small team doing the footwork. One in the team, Olivier, became the official AD, (Assistant Director). Another member of his casting team, Gerome, the man manning the camera at the time, had extensive experience in film.

As Jac discussed his script with them, because they were looking for very important leading characters, Gerome kept asking Why. Like a 4 year old child that needs to know the why to everything.

Jac understood. You cannot have a scene without a reason for it, and it has to lead to another scene with its own reason for existence, and then another one… and so on. So… the big question when writing a script is WHY?

Why is our female christ the way she is? Why are her disciples following her? Why is she arrested, beaten and crucified? Why, why, why …

For the story of The Christ there are all those scrolls dating back to a few thousand years BC. Most in the form of re-interpreted prophesy. Does the prophesy apply to our FC?

That’s where the background comes in and that’s where Jac is in the script.

Another nice picture from our big supporter

I was recently watching the HBO series Rome, because I wanted to see some costumes from those days. I love the series now, I’m hooked. One thing that I can say is that I saw 25,000 dollars on every shot. I kept saying to myself, that shot cost 25,000, that other shot too… and the other… the entire scene probably cost a couple of hundred thousand… and the episode, a couple of million, if not more… yes…

In our case, an extra will probably be on the low end of the spectrum, that extra, who has nothing to say except be there, in the crowd, will cost around 25 per day. If we need that extra for 4 days, she or he will cost 100 bucks, right there. 50 of those extras, if we want a nice looking crowd, would cost 5,000!

That is the cost if the extras are naked, of course. If the extras wear something like a robe, sandals, head scarf and so on … well, then we need to add more to the budget and to be on the really cheap side, that’s another 1500 just for the Extras!

Another important, very important issue The Atmosphere, the way the film will look, the way the streets, the fields, everything within the sight of the lens will look and what kind of ambience we have to create to give the film the right tone, the awesome style it needs.

To accomplish this we are scouting places where we might be able to create the look of the times we want to recreate. Not an easy task in South America where the Roman Empire had no presence. The first European architecture influence arrived in the 1500s. All colonial. We have to go back a thousand years or more. Do we have to build a Middle East city? That would be too costly… maybe some adobe walls painted in orange would to the trick. Lot’s of dark orange brown walls in those times.

The production details of the movie comes much later, when everything else is in place, the script, the funds, the locations, the costumes, the cast, the crew and so on. Then, and only then, Jac will sit with his production team and design the shots and the look of the film itself.

That’s when he’ll instruct the make-up people on how he wants the lashes on the women’s skin to look like, knowing that as each of the victims receive each lash, the effect of the lash marking the skin is created right away, but it must be preserved for continuity. The marks left by the lash must be photographed, they must be worked on for the next angle, the next shot, the next scene… and that is the work of production, not of development, or pre production. And that will be done when its time comes.

But the marks of whip is the one issue in constant discussion.

You have mentioned the Mel Gibson film a few times. I certainly hope you are not using that unrealistic blood fest as the basis for the whipping and crux scenes in Seditiosa. I know of no one outside the religious fringe that thought it was a great film. With regard to fund raising, once your Indygogo link is up and a production schedule is indeed finalized, you may get beeter results. Some may not want to do the Pateron thing, as they feel the movie will be used on other projects instead of the Seditiosa film. Be honest on your plans with regard to what you plan on doing (the stuff you have shared with regard to the plot and scences that I have seen sound terrific, except for my long running concern that they girls in general and main charater in particular will be beaten to a point of idiotacy from a trauma level to complete the walk and last any time crucified). Many where VERY upset at the promise of a great crux scene at the end of Justine, only to have whatever that was actually released. AND stick to your schedule of filming and release. I get the impression things are already “slipping”.
wanttoknowmore

I understand the importance of dialogue and feedback, but these comments are incredibly unfair. You yourself have been interacting with Margot on the Patreon, and she has been consistently responding to your comments and questions. And nothing in her latest post implies that she is trying to imitate the Passion of the Christ.
Iconoclast12

I truely hope you are right. It just seems that The Passion of the Christ film keeps being mentioned. Maybe I am reading too much into it.
wanttoknowmore

I myself only mentioned the Gibson Film in response to you mentioning it earlier so it certainly wasn’t me who knows something more about what they are doing. I think (and hope) it is just you reading too much into it like you said. I don’t think the final product will look like the Gibson film. Probably more like Jesus of Nazareth 1977, or maybe Lamb of God in terms of look and style, only female and with far greater emphasis on the crucifixion in terms of the proportion of time of the film that deals with the physical crucifixion side of things.
Crucified Life

The Passion of the Christ is one film we use as reference for a number of things. It cost 25,000,000, and we’re trying to raise 25,000. Mel Gibson used his own money to produce it, which means no studio would touch it, and he made 600,000,000 mostly because of the large religious fringe, which obviously is quite large. I wonder how many patrons we would have if we were appealing to them for a film exactly like The Passion of the Christ. One idea that comes to mind is…. wait for it… The Rapture!

Another reason we use The Passion of The Christ as reference is to make comparisons with other films on the subject, like The Last Temptation or J of Nazareth and how other movie makers dealt with the issues in the story, particularly the scourging and the crucifixion.

We are not ready to go into detail of what the scenes will look like because we don’t have a budget yet. Not only that, we don’t have the locations, the props, the costumes. So, we don’t know, we can only discuss the possible scenarios.

We cannot imitate other films because we don’t have 25,000,000, not even 1 million…. we hope to have more than 10,000 and see how far we can take that cash. We did pretty well with Justine, considering the non favorable conditions Jac had to work with.

Agreed on the Justine crucifixion scene. I don’t know what the production values of that film were, but that scene was very disappointing. The nailing wasn’t even shown, the girls were completely passive, and I really don’t like the scaffolding aesthetic. I really hope Seditiosa goes in a different direction.
As for Patreon and support, what wanttoknowmore says is probably true. Some people might be waiting to have more clarity on the project before they jump on board. Indiegogo will probably help. Another thing that will help I think is once you have some images from the movie, consider sharing them in other threads in this forum. They don’t have to be images from production because by that point it’s probably too late, but even concept images or early rehearsals will be good. If you are looking to get the level of support escalating quickly, I think people will need to see something that gets them excited and dispels doubts. Proof of concept if you will. Maybe you can consider making title posters of all the main characters, or digital composite images. Just throwing some ideas out there.
I’ll be curious to see what kind of material the Indiegogo campaign will have too.
TomHoff

Justine was not about a crucifixion, it was about Justine and her multiple misadventures in despair, and not all of them. Most of the story takes place in Rodin’s realm, his dungeon, his bedroom, his house exterior, all of which was nicely built with all those props, particularly The Wheel. The crucifixion scene was not central to the story, it was an epilogue and there were some issues with the production at that time that worked against it.

Seditiosa is about the crucifixion, that’s the central theme of the film and all the attention will go to dramatize that central part of the story, like the dungeon scenes in Justine did for Ronin’s drama with his ladies.

Having said that, the production will depend a lot on how much money we will have when we begin shooting the film.

We don’t have pictures of the movie because the movie has not been made. We won’t have pictures of rehearsal until the time we start rehearsing, we won’t have pictures of the locations, or the costumes, or the props, until we have them and to have all that we need to find some cash. Thus, if we need to show the movie before we make the movie then we’re in a bind.

And that’s how things go.

I agree with the fact that Justine’s crux scene was not the best even though the other aspects of the film were pretty good. I was an Associate Producer level backer for Justine and the lack of a good crux scene in Justine disappointed me. I know however that you guys can deliver with a great Passion Play crux scene since the one at the end of Monxa Mala was very good. The crux scene at the end of Monxa Mala is my most favorite crux scene by Jac so far and I feel that it can be even better in Seditiosa. I may not be able to be able to invest as much into Seditiosa as I did with Justine due to personal reasons, but I hope the Indiegogo campaign goes well for you,
joek0

Monxa Mala was about the torture and crucifixion of the nuns. All 6 nuns suffered torture, 2 of them died on The Rack, the other four were crucified, not at the same time, but in pairs. Through out the entire movie someone was being torture, sometimes two or three at the same time. The entire production was dedicated to their torments and the production work was intensely concentrated on the central theme of the film, the priest going nuts and torturing anything that moved. Each torture planned and carried out with overwhelming details.

Everything in Seditiosa leads to the crucifixion of the FC and her two companions in pain. And here comes the comparison to The Passion of the Christ again. That film was about the last couple of days in the life of Christ, it concentrated on his arrest, scourging and crucifixion, with some silly flashbacks to his better days with his mom.

Seditiosa won’t go back to her good old days with mom and siblings. The reason or reasons for what is to come will be stablished in the first 20 minutes of the film… in Jac’s current work, it means in the first 20 pages of the script, and then it will go into the nitty gritty of the story. The troubles, the arrests, the scourging, the sentencing, the walk to the Skull’s Hill, the crucifixion, the agony on the cross… and the end. That’s at least 70 minutes of extensive suffering for all three of our leading ladies. There’s no surprise ending, we all know how it will end, the story deals with the how it got to that point and the question to answer in the story is WHY?