Blackrayne is Back!

My first fiction novel Blackrayne is back on Amazon.com, but on top of that, I am in the process of making my first ePub based ebook. Blackrayne will be available to those will iPad, iPhones and other eBook readers that read the ePub format.

For those who don't know Blackrayne is about a psychologist named Jason Blackrayne who contracted HIV from a sex addict patient he slept with.

Desperate for a cure Jason's becomes a disciple of  Dr. L. Robert Hauss, a former psychologist who claims he can heal any disease based on the "Transcendental Collision" the theory that all energies are one and can be readily manipulated once we've transcended the mental trappings of the mortal world to tap into these energies. Hauss merges the mental with the metaphysical which intrigue's Jason, but there is much danger that lurks in Haus's teaching.

Jason becomes one of Hauss' disciples, but what he doesn't know is one of his Haus's enemies wants to kill Hauss and is willing to take out all of the Hauss followers to do it. If you like modern/urban fantasy I believe you will like this book. And if you have a Kindle this would make a great edition to your reading list. The Kindle edition is only $2.99. And once all the kinks are worked out you will be able to buy the ePub version from the links over  to the right.


I took a little break from shooting Epitaph for the
Christmas and New Years break, but we did shoot something. I actually helped JR2 Productions on a shoot called, "The Perfect Letter". It was shot on the Red Camera with DP Brandon Riley at the helm. 

This film is a strange little diddy written by myself and John H. Rogers III. We shot this in one day after being snowed in at a hotel in Memphis. It was a lot of fun and Epitaph's Marissa Joy stars, as well as John Ross, reprising his role as Lucious from the old JR2 film "La Petite Morte" and myself. You'll have to see it to believe it. Brandon and the guys were incredible and the footage from the Red is absolutely awesome!

First Teaser for the Epitaph: Bread and Salt movie.

 

A higher quality version of the trailer is available at Epitaph Teaser HD. The teaser was edited by our producer John H. Rogers III.

-Nate

1st Fight Scene for Epitaph: Bread and Salt in the can.

We started Friday morning at 9:00 am. My doorbell rang. A weary Joseph Canales entered with a two liter of Mountain Dew. So I'm like "Hey, man, what's up." We chat for a bit, then he tells me he walked for three hours to get to the location. Apparently he got in at about six or so that morning via Greyhound because his car broke down a day after he'd bought it. Through a series of events he decided to walk from the Southside Greyhound station to our location. I have friend who does this in the summer, walking from Blue Island to the Northside. He does it for exercise.  Difference is, he doesn't have to do an action film afterward.

I got him fed and and moments later Adam our DP got there and Christian Dior Creasy who plays Arcus Fallen and who has been volunteering to do the BTS for us. So for the whole day Joseph and I worked on the construction of the scene as Adam plotted out the angles and all the video elements and Christian shot BTS. We got an amazing fight out of it. Everyone was happy with it when they saw it edited together.

It's funny because when I started putting the scene together for some reason I felt l should reverse the flow of battle, weapons first then martial arts, but when I edited it yesterday I decided it was excellent the way it was, martial arts, weapons and then back to martial arts. I ram really happy how it turned out.

-Nate

 

 

Epitaph: Bread and Salt Production Underway

WOW! It's been some time since I was last here. I wanted to update and keep people posted on what was happening at least on a weekly basis. I've been steady with my production journal, but I haven't been getting around to updating the blog. So here's what been going on. The movie is cast for the most part. We still need someone to play the Rabbi Hassan and Dr. Tanner parts, but we've started shooting what we can.

When we started we slated to shoot with the Canon HG10, but I was contacted by the photographer who help shoot JR2 Production's "The Storm". He showed me what he had in mind and what his camera The Canon 5D Mark 2, could do. He came aboard and has been shooting since last week. It's been slow, but we plan on a three month shoot and have been working it out. Adam's a perfectionist and I'm a shoot and run kind of guy, so we've been meeting in the middle and managing to get some great shots. I tell him what I'm going for and he figures it out. Best DP I've ever worked with on anything.

So far we've shot scenes with Jack Gusta, Yohanni Liman, Jim Hager, Carissa Lynelle, Jenna Halvorson, Walldkiria Kawai and a little bit with Leena Kurishingal of "The Long December." We added a cameo by scream queen Kelsey Zukowski and also had three went through several ladies to play the character "Siren" until we met Rachel Stubbs came to us. She's a trained stunt woman, has worked with "Babes with Blades" and is engaged to a guy who makes prop weapons. You simply don't get better than that. LOL. I've been working on the posters too. All of them are on our facebook and production journal.

-Nate

Epitaph: Bread and Salt Casting

We did casting for the Epitaph: Bread and Salt film this Friday and saw a lot of great actors. We had a lot of fun and made a lot of new friends. We met with each actor one by one and cast people who looked as close to the characters as possible as well as could make the characters believable. Saturday we met with DP Adam Daniels who wanted to shoot the film on his Canon 5D Mark II. The images this things shoots is incredible. So things have started. In two weeks we should know whose who and what's what.

Epitaph: Bread and Salt Lighting Test

I went to the Apple store today (you know, where I convert my footage, LOL) and here's a few of my test shots for this area. I get attacked by an Estrie on the big street. Have a fight in the alley with an undead assassin and a whole bunch of other fun things that go on.

The irony is I went through all that trouble to convert these files (Which is why I hadn't uploaded them, I thought I had to convert them) and then I get ready to upload them and as I'm reading the list of accepted files low and behold M2t is right there. Remember RIF: Reading Is fundamental.

Either way I have the camera in 24p/1080p mode (the HG10 comes in only two modes 1080i and 24p, tell me this wasn't made for low budget filmmaking) and it's in shade mode I believe. Watch as I poorly narrate this walk through a northside neighborhood.

And at I some point in the vid I meet a guy on the street who asked to be put on camera, but what he had to say won't be shown for the sake of all in the watching/hearing of said video. Honestly, if it had been a woman, the vid could have become an instant HBO hooker doc, but I digress.
(Then again Zombie Girl seems to be quickly becoming a beloved character, so maybe a zombie hooker doc?). But yea, so take some time and check out the footage. I hope you like it. I'll be posting more soon.

You'd be surprized what happens when you walk down the street with a camera. When we had the DVX all the women thought we were with Girls Gone Wild, yet there was no evidence of such save me having a video camera. (I actually used that DVX to talk my way onto the "ER" set once. LOL).

We are considering ways to add extra light to these scenes if needed, but I really like the creepy look in some place, specifically the shopping center and some of the alleys. But here's the "footy"...

Epitaph: Bread and Salt Film: New Victor Locke Costume

I've put together the second "Victor Locke" costume for the upcoming "Epitaph: Bread and Salt" film. The outfit consist of a dark blue trench coat, black hoodie and black pants and is based on the cover for "Epitaph: Beginning of the End" comic. It's the second costume, the first being based on a cover for the upcoming "Victor Locke: Demon Hunter" series.

At this time props including a vampire handbo, several vampire guns said to shoot a special kind of silver bullet, a fighting stake and various holsters and sidearms to keep Chicago citizens safe from Estrie and other vampires.

I have been designing the props myself and still have a ways to go. None of the blades have been filed down yet for screen use and I'm still mapping out what I want some of the special effects to look like in my head. There will also be special appearances that I'm going add back into the script including Fixmaster, Damious and maybe Patrika. So far the main characters from the first comics consist of Nightevil, Ashen, Zombie Girl Rebecca and  Locke himself.  Characters that have not been seen in the comics yet consist of Dr. Tanner of Frank Stein Institute, Siren and the Defenders of Eden (aside from Rebecca).