Bill & Maggie – 1st TEASER TRAILER (short film)

Jonathan Leiter | September 29, 2015 | Bill & Maggie - Project Updates | No Comments

The wait is over…

The first real fruits of my labor have finally been put together into a cohesive piece. And I can finally show the world what I’ve been working on for the past year.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am proud and excited to present the first TEASER TRAILER for my SCAD short film project, “Bill & Maggie’s Intergalactic Taxi Service.”

The film was conceived almost exactly one year ago on a random chance of concept juxtaposition.

“What if a father and a daughter ran a taxi service in space, and what if they had to take the Queen of England to another planet?”

That’s basically where this all started.

When I began production for this film, I did not have an entire script written up as early as I should have, because the idea came late. I had a few ideas prior to this one–both also related to space–but none of them felt like the right idea to pursue. I didn’t want to just work on anything, even if that might have allowed me to begin pre-production right when my school or my professors would have preferred it.

I wanted to make a film that expressed who I was, what I was all about, the kinds of characters I enjoy, the type of story I like to tell, the type of visual and physical humor I like to see, and the visual aesthetic that I want to carry with me into every other project that I work on in my career. So this couldn’t just be any old film, it had to be the right one.

So even though this is just a student film, shot and edited when I was finishing out my Senior year at college, and even though this is just a short with a comparatively small budget, that doesn’t mean I have to treat it like that. This film could take me somewhere. It could get me the job I’ve always wanted. It could get me to meet the people I’ve always wanted to talk to, to the places I’ve always wanted to see.

Despite how long it’s taken, and despite how little updates I’ve made in the past few months: while it may look like I’m not doing a whole lot, I can tell you for absolute certain that I am doing everything in my power to make this the best damn film I possibly can: because there is nothing more important in my life right now.

Every ounce of my creativity, imagination, and drive is being funneled into this project. And no filmmaker on their own films should do any different. If you love your work and you love your craft, than make it sing and shine and loud as you can.

With the completion of this trailer, the first huge leap of post-production has now been made, and the rest of the process will be a lot smoother. I’ll still have plenty of visual effects techniques to learn and bugs and kinks to work out before things are the way I want them. But rest assured that “Bill & Maggie” is on its way to being completed by the end of the year, to be ready for the Festival Circuit in 2016.

Over the month of October I’ll be designing and creating all of the other models, props, and digital assets that I need to finish the rest of the uncompleted shots in the film: which total around 55-60. Quite a lot to handle. And as I complete each of these digital models (including planets, space craft, props, set pieces, and outer-space formations), I will be creating lighting and animation tests, both in image and video form; which I will be posting on my other blogs, websites, and the Bill & Maggie facebook page.

If you’d like to keep up to date with the Bill & Maggie project, head on over to these sites and get on an RSS feed, a wordpress feed, or Like the Facebook page. Thanks so much.