Little Saint Media

BEHIND THE SCENES

1 location. 2 days of filming. 5 principles. 100 extras. 50 crew members.

And 300 hours of VFX work from over 30 artists between LA & Chicago.

That’s the making of TIM.

(The Invisible Me)

The Story behind the story

If you’d like to learn where the idea of the story came from or what symbolism and meaning lies between scenes, CLICK HERE to read a short interview with Indie Activity.

The Storyboards

Once John had the script written and polished, he needed to get a visual baseline of what he wanted to achieve so that our producers could tackle the prep. These are the initial storyboards drawn before our University High School location in LA was ever found. It’s quite surprising how close these are to the final product.

Casting

John knew as soon as he met Haley and Ashley that they were the ones. So much so, he actually felt guilty wasting anyone else’s time in auditions. Here are their audition photos, along with Sebastian and Malik’s. (Haley was kind enough to let us cut her hair even shorter for the film.)

On Set / Stills

VFX

Our Visual FX Shoot Supervisor from The Mill LA (Jason) is grabbing a quick color and light reference for his team.

Extras

100 “High School Kids” were brought in for the lunch room scene.

Dolly Track

Several passes on the ankles were needed to create the “flesh appearing” sequence.

Split Screens

Many locations in the school did not fit our storyboard and so we had to apply cheats. In this case, TIM stares into a library which is not there. So we filmed the shots separately and stitched the scenes together.

Backgrounds

Every time you see TIM, it’s necessary to film the scene without TIM as well - to give the background information to the VFX team so they know what exists behind TIM’s green face, neck, hands and ankles.

VFX Shoot Supervisor

Not a single scene is shot without the VFX Supervisor knowing what their workload is going to be. Here John collaborates with Jason Bergman from The Mill LA to find the most creative and efficient approach.

Plates

It’s all about plates. The kids who pass by TIM are filmed in one plate (at higher frame rate) and TIM is filmed on another plate. And finally, the lockers on the last pass. This is how the varying speeds between TIM’s actions and those of the children are able to be achieved.

Title Sequence

It was important to get the timing of the camera move right on this shot since it’s for the title of the film. John knew that the titles were going to be on lockers but it wasn’t until The Mill explored ideas that the team settled on the carving effect. John felt it symbolized the frustration of the character.

TIM actor

Our actor Haley was a trooper and never complained about being uncomfortable in the mask. A true professional. She did everything in service of the story. We are grateful and would happily work with her again.

Elements

All fabrics, eyeglasses, etc. were all shot with a still camera at multiple angles in the hopes that 2d compositing could be used to fill the parts of TIM that were covered by the green suit, such as the inside of the collar, or sleeves, etc.

Camera

TIM was filmed on an Alexi Mini with Cooke Anamorphic/i lenses with one of John’s most trusted cinematographers; Luca Fantini.

Flare

To create the flare in this pivotal scene when Goth Girl rises up into frame, Luca brought our light from outside the window into the classroom.

Final Shot

This shot is one of the reasons John chose this location at University High. It was important to him (creatively) that when Haley settles and notices that we also “see” her, the arches of the door would be symmetrically positioned behind her, almost like wings, subtly suggesting she is ready to fly.

Equipment

Two of our equipment trucks, parked right outside the school. We had to park several small cars here the night before in order to save the space for our trucks on the shoot days.

Goth Girl / Sketch

In order to have TIM’s sketch ready on the day, we needed to figure out how our Goth Girl would be dressed and even positioned in the art room days before the shoot to give our artist time to draw. This means we needed to finalize Ashley’s makeup, wardrobe, hair and even body position in her chair ahead of time. It all had to match the angle that TIM would see her from in the art room. Here’s Ashley finding her character’s body position and attitude at the production office. This photo was sent to our artist who provided several different options. These are a few of them.