The Twenty-Third Letter - Scene 10

We are proud to introduce SCENE 10 from THE TWENTY-THIRD LETTER Trailer. Post-production on the trailer itself continues full steam ahead. But we thought it would be fun to show off a short scene we're very proud of. SCENE 10 was cut separately from the trailer mainly because it contained nearly all the shots required to create an entire sequence as if it were from the feature proper.

SETUP: Detective Donovan Sloan is suddenly awakened from a drunken stupor by his partner, Detective Jesse Stewart. Like many times before, he knows why she's calling. Time to go to work. But this one's different. This one's personal. It's the girl in his nightmares. The day he's been fearing has finally arrived. Our scene begins.

D O W N L O A D [ H I G H - D E F I N I T I O N ]

These are compressed Quicktime 7 files in the H264 format. Because they are highly compressed these clips should not be used to judge ultimate picture quality.

SCENE 10 - 1080P | 98MB : 1920x816 : H264 : STEREO

SCENE 10 - 720P | 75MB : 1280x544 : H264 : STEREO

SCENE 10 - 480P | 35MB : 853x363 : H264 : STEREO

Moments in Time

Kelly Herrin, Barbara Sanders, Mark Ross, Jim Beck, Robert Sanders, Alexandra Boylan, Sean Pritchett, Jay Hinton
Greg McDougall, James Martinez, Alexandra Boylan, Jay Hinton, John Gorman
Michael Caruso (Drake Dante)
The production in full swing.
Sean Pritchett and Robert Sanders
Dorien Davies, Greg McDougall, John Gorman, Tanner Almon, Mark Ross, Justin Memnovich
Dorien Davies (Jesse Stewart) and Sean Pritchett (Donovan Sloan)
City Lofts basement location.
Terry G. Reed (Hadrien Dante) and Ian Malcolm (Jack Winston)
James Martinez, Sean Pritchett, Robert Sanders and Michael Caruso
Mark Ross, Justin Memovich, Robert Sanders, Dorien Davies, John Gorman
Christina Rodriguez (Makeup), Dorien Davies, Greg McDougall (FX Makeup)
City Lofts basement "torture set" location
Kelly Herrin operating the Jimmy Jib.
Scott Cecil, Sean Pritchett, Robert Sanders and Michael Caruso.
City Lofts basement location.

Tanner Almon (Assistant Camera) and Mark Ross (Cinematographer)
Rooftop location.
Cedric Martin (Steadicam Operator).

"The Twenty-Third Letter" - Fifth Weekend: That's a Wrap!

We finished off all principle and special effects photography on day #9. All of the crash matt stunt work went without a hitch with the cast doing their own stunts. Having a grand ol' time, the crew also took turns jumping on the trampoline.

Now we're on to post-production with some model photography in the near future.

Cameras, Cameras, Cameras

Looks like the venerable HD cameras that started a revolution are now dinosaurs. With the new breed of smaller, lighter, and far less expensive cameras like the Canon H1, it has become clear that the F900 and the Varicam are now huge, bloated, ultra expensive boat anchors. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled I got a chance to play with the F900 on SHADOW FALLS, but it's the size of Mini Cooper! Weighs as much, too.

Sony had a whisper display off the main floor at NAB of it's new high-end Cinealta that won't be in full production until NAB next year. It records full raster 1920x1080, 4:4:4, RGB with frame rates of 1 to 30fps in RGB mode and 1 to 60 fps in YUV mode. I don't know -- it looks huge and heavy to me. Probably will cost a quarter of a million dollars fully outfitted. Is this camera really going to save Sony's dying attempt to stay relevant in the digital cinema arena? I don't think it will.

The true buzz around town is Jim Jannards (Oakley, Inc.) new venture into designing a 4K digital cinema camera from the ground up, from scratch, that could revolutionize the camera industry. It's called RED. At NAB they displayed a non-working prototype but swore on a stack of bibles (just kidding) that they will be shipping by the end of the year. We predict Q2 of '07. However, the biggest paradigm shift here is not necessarily the technology (which is outrageously impressive), but it's the price...$17,500. Now, would you rather spend $30-40K on a fully outfitted RED camera that will shoot 4K resolution or $250,000 on a camera reusing old parts?

But the real question is will any of these cameras be relevant after James Cameron completely changes the theatrical distrubution scene with the introduction of high quality digital 3D camera and projection system? Cameron is currently prepping his first film since "Titanic" to be shot with his new cameras, called "Battle Angel Alita" followed closely by "Avatar". Here at Starway, we love 3D.

Read the article here.

So Canon! How 'bout building us an XL-3D camera?

"The Twenty-Third Letter" - Fourth Weekend

We have finally reached the end of principal photography. We now move on to next weekend where we will shot for a full day of special effects greenscreen photography. Followed by model photography. But the bulk of the trailer is in the can.

Day #7 brought us additional shooting in the basement location again. Terry Reed shot his torture scenes with Ian -- great fun.


One of the highlights of the shoot was shooting on the City Lofts rooftop with a panorama of downtown Los Angeles as our backdrop. Cedric Martin returns from SHADOW FALLS as Steadicam operator. Michael Caruso and Sean Pritchett were the victim's of the grueling stunt work they had to perform last night. Our hats are off to them.