ParagonsParagon

DEMO HAS 3 PARTS:

FIRST: SOME OF THE MAGAZINE ARTICLES I DID.

SECOND: A REPEAT OF VIDEO #1 THE FOUR MINUTE SHORT TEASER.

THIRD:CLIPS FROM ALIEN FACTOR ,  MOST OF THE THINGS THAT  I DID OR ORGANIZED.

THE PLAN

My intention is to show behind the scenes and making of things photos related to the Demo video while waiting for the 18 minute adjusted sound clip of Paragon to be prepared.

Also during the wait and forever thereafter  there is  : THE ARTICLES BY “YOU” THE READERS AND SUPPORTERS OF THE BLOG.

The first one  is already done.  It was  done by Blake whom you will meet very soon in an upcoming blog article that contains a short video by him and great photos explaining how he shot the video. Now onto the  current demo video and the article about it.  My video will help newcomers to Paragon quickly about my beginnings.

PART ONE: MAGAZINE ARTICLES

I wrote  many articles with some being “How to do it’ and others were simply stories about what occurred during filming. If you’ve read my posts, then you have come to know some of my stories.

My  method of how to present a how to do it article has been copied by others for many years. I left no stone unturned and told exactly what to do and where to go for supplies and even the cost.

It took me one year to develop better sentence structure, but when I got it I got it! My cousin Larry helped me re-learn sentence structure. Who whould’ve  thunk I would’ve needed English skills? Certainly not me in high school or college.

PART TWO A REPEAT video OF THE SHORT  PARAGON TEASER.

It is there because it came that way when I had the transfer made so I could run it on the blog. The fewer the edits the less it cost me. So please bear with it to get to the Alien Factor material.

PART THREE IS ABOUT “THE ALIEN FACTOR” MOVIE

ALIEN SPACE SHIP

This miniature space ship  was made by Ted Rae. I took it and the “Inner man alien” that I made out to a friends property in Rochester Michigan and set up a “forced perspective”. Look close and you can see the man in the center of this clip photographed off the blogs movie.

It was raining when we filmed the above  scene and the motorcycle thing below.  Everyone thought we would have to go home. However I remembered that in a light misty rain the drops can not be seen on film and told them no problem. I hoped that I was right. I was!  No one ever noticed who saw the movie.

MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT SCENE

The cycler is my brother Rick. He was our Richard S Kirk in Paragon’s Paragon. Notice it is dusk in the movie and he has sun glasses on to be “cool”. “CooL” is a word that has managed to stay “cool” even in this day and time.

The Michigan film material lasts, from the Alien spaceship and Alien transforming, up the the blue ray that heals the girl. It  was an “AD ON” time extension.  The reason is because the finished movie was too short , not long enough in minutes.  No distributors  would look at it. And it also needed to be blown up to 35 mm from the 16 mm that it was shot in order to spark interest.  Money talks and you know what walks. The blow up cost almost $ 15, 000 dollars.

The movie was dead in it’s tracks. So  I wrote an “insert” scene , rented equipment, and had a private showing  in Michigan of the short version to raise the money for the blow up which came from friends and relatives.

BLUE  RAY ALIEN HEALS ACCIDENT VICTIM

This was a simple double exposure. A hole was cut in a black poster board and a solid piece of black cardboard was slowly moved to send the beam down at the girl. It was done blurred and out of focus. It was done in our back yard.

Back in the day! The effects could not be viewed until the film was processed overnight. If  the effect failed then it had to be done over .  It was like shooting at something blind, and waiting to see if you hit the mark the next day or not. Nothing like shooting video now a days.

Well this is getting kinda long so I’ll talk about some other Alien Factor shots taken off my blog video on an upcoming post article after Blakes article.

John

John