The Big Plan – A Fistful of Dollars
I was doing a bit of history about how some cash came our way and started something new. I began with Maleficarum, the now classic movie reviewed by Christian Lanciai in the book FILM REVIEWS as “the masterwork of a genius”
The conditions of the work at that time, the wonderful locations, the great cast and so on gave us the opportunity to make Maleficarum and two other films we produced back to back at that time.
Some time later, after we released Maleficarum and we were preparing the theatrical release of Barbazul, someone else came with an offer. A good amount of cash for a very elaborate whipping scene in a movie. The offer came with very specific details of what the scene should look like.
At that time we were in the process of doing the pre-production for a vampire movie, an idea Jac was carrying in his heart of hearts since the days of Carmen and Vero, 1996, to be exact. Incidentally, the main characters in that possible movie were going to be played by Carmen and Vero, back in the time. Things didn’t work out then and for many circumstances in 1997 the trio headed for New York to begin a whole new life cycle.
The cash offer was accepted and the scene was included in the vampire film exactly as it was requested and as part of a very elaborate and big sequence with a big number of actors, an amazing location, excellent props, costumes, the works, a big production values movie.
The offer was specific in its instructions. The woman had to be tied facing a whipping post, her chained wrists stretched up the pole until she was on her toes, she had to be stripped off her rags and whipped in front of a crowd.
That was perfect of one of the protagonists in the story, Moira, an Irish woman that collaborates with the South American rebels who are fighting the Spaniards. She is captured, gang raped, dragged to be whipped, chained to a post, whipped and left at the scaffold until the night.
In a post written in 2012, when we were shooting the film, we told the story of how the filming of that scene developed:
We had to continue the flogging that Monday, and on that same day we had to finish her off. Her execution, I mean. We were shooting from 9 am to 8 pm non stop and Amy had to be naked all of that time… tough, really tough because for the most part the day was cold. Indeed it was the hardest day for Amy.
One amazing thing was that this is the very first time we involved a large number of people in a scene like this, a public flogging, where our lady was in front of so many people, most of whom had never, ever seen anything like it, and she was naked too.
The actors were truly impressed, but not only the actors. We were shooting at a museum and on Monday there were a lot of people in their offices surrounding the yard where we set up the scalfold.
They were stunned. Watching the nasty proceedings from behind their windows, or from the balconies, never in view of the cameras, of course . And the flogging itself was real enough. The sound of the whip on Amy’s flesh was loud enough to make everybody squirm.
Her acting was, as always, superb, and many a person thought that it was real, that she wasn’t acting at all, that she was suffering.
And this went on for hours, to have all the angles Jac wanted and to make it look as good as humanly possible.
When later we saw the rushes, there were tears in Amy’s eyes, all that suffering was paying off. The cinematography was amazing, the set was amazing, the acting was amazing… so the scene was working very, very well.
You can read the entire post and others before and after here:
https://redfeline.com/chronicles/2012/02/05/a-quick-update/
That’s how intense the shooting of that requested scene was. To complete the sequence we had to go back to the set the next day and put Amy through a lot more suffering.
The story of Dead But Dreaming takes place in different ages, thousands of years apart, from ancient Inca times, Ancient Alexandria and finally in the days of the war for independence in colonial La Paz.
Each period of time with costumes and props of the times and with characters that are simply awesome.
Vero flew from France to play the ancient vampire Nahara, Mila played Aphrodisia, the vampire created by Asar (Jac) after she’s crucified and Amy took the role of Moira, the Irish woman helping the rebels.
The offer of cash was a small part of the budget, but big enough to help us create an amazing colonial world.
The film was very well received, the reviews were great, it went to festivals and was featured in international magazines. It had a theatrical release in many cities and thrilled audiences all over.
Jac Avila’s Dead but Dreaming does for Vampire Films what Coppola’s Apocalypse Now did for War Movies…transforms entertaining and traditionally horrific stories into beautiful works of epic art.
C Dean Andersson
After Dead But Dreaming was completed Amy and Jac thought that it would be a good idea to raise some cash for another film, this time Amy’s third movie, Olalla, an ambitious project based in the story of the same title by Robert Louis Stevenson, his first story, he later wrote Jekyll and Hyde and other famous novelas. That tale of intense filmmaking will be part of our next post.
A question came my way.
I am planning to contribute more than 100 and I would like to know if the films will be made for sure. I’m not too worry about the dates. I understand that.
We’re working on the funding. A little part of that effort is what I’m posting now, with links to the movies we have with the intention of selling them, of course, and hopefully in great quantities, if possible, that means more than one movie per person.
There are other means of funding we’re working on so to make sure we have enough to make those four films as big as Jac wants them to be.
We are expecting some news regarding substantial funding by the 2nd of May, opening the possibility of planning the shooting of the first sequence in the film as early as June. That sequence is the one where all the characters are introduced and the Runaway Slave is captured.
Apparently some people misread a previous post, where I mention the BIG Project, or plan. I clarified that it was NOT A FILM, but a PLAN to access FUNDS!
One of these people went as far as to contact one of the actresses to find out what the BIG PROJECT was… And of course, the actress was kind of surprised to learn that there was some kind of big project she apparently wasn’t part of. She contacted Jac to ask him about the big project, Jac didn’t know what she was talking about… and now I have a mess in my hands.
So, just to clarify, again, … the BIG PLAN I mentioned is related to the FUNDS we need, not a new film.
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