Lady X Begins Her Journey!
 

It's June 1st, the day that Lady X begins her worldwide journey of mystery and intrigue!

Be sure to stop by the Lady X Films to catch the first episode by John Locke in an "undisclosed location".

-Ken Tanaka-

All i got to say to John, is well done, i think for the time span, talent and limitations it was a really cool piece.

Zac

John,

Fantastic job! Without a doubt you have set the bar for the remaining episodes. The use of that helicopter was over the top! Now you have me re-thinking my entire script.

John, nice work!

Wicked stuff guys. Can't wait to see the rest...

I like the slow mo, black and white, rotoscope style, 360 degree effect (As best I could describe it) near the beginning.

Ahh, if only I could have found some other people... ;)

Cheers
Aaron

Good stuff. It'll be interesting to see how we all handle our Lady X's looks. I guess on top of all her skills, she'll be a master of disguise, able to change her ethnicity at the drop of a hat! That Lady X - she's good!

Can't wait to see the next one! Got lots of inspiration from yours, great job John.

Good job John. The pacing was definitely there. The only thing that seemed weird to me was the director talking over the PA system. To me it didn't seem to fit, but wasn't bad. Nice work :)

Ken, or whoever is running the Lady X site. Would it be possible to maybe put a link to download the movie under each episode on the episode list page? For some reason Internet Explorer (PC) and Quicktime never seem to want to play nice with streaming media. IE locked up 3 times before I could finally and quickly use the link to download it. Thanks and I can't wait for the upcoming episodes!

matt

Duuuuude *thumbsup*. Man I wish I had the resources I now have (financially) to do an episode... But, my hands are tied. Maybe there will be a sequel, or something.

Excellent work John, I can see you're going to have a lot of fun with that V8 in the future!

I feel inspired.

wow....gasp
 

Great work John !

Her nails must of cost a fortune <;~)

Maybe we can coax John into telling the funny story of how "Take 1" of that fish market chase sequence went.

-Ken-

Gee...thanks everybody!

I've been in postpartum zombie-dom since putting it online yesterday and these are the first feedback I've read. You've made my month.

Matt, we can probably arrange something. We'll have a pow-wow about it.

"Respect mah auth-or-it-ay." LOL... Alex and Aaron, better save this for a future "Lady X in Birmingham" episode.

Andrew...you said it! I'm in love with the V-8 now. Obviously I need a lot of practice, but at least it'll be fun in the process.

Dan... just cheapo paste-ons from a discount store. Around $5, I think. Do they look real? I was hoping they wouldn't look like cheapo paste-ons.

And Zac, Paul, Dylan, and Imran...thanks for the nice comments.

As for Ken's request...here goes-- I was a bit worried about the "bad guy" running around with a pretty real-looking pistol, so I told him to stick close to me, and to put it away between takes. He said, "Okay, okay" and so I figured we were on the same page. My thinking was that since I'm a "gaijin" and wearing a V-8 rig that people would actually notice me first, then wouldn't be alarmed by the guy with the gun.

After explaining that I couldn't run full speed and that he'd have to slow it down a bit, we got ready for the very first shot--where he runs the full stretch about two blocks, then does the turn around and comes back. I said, "action" and FOOM! He was gone! I think he might have actually broken the Olympic record for "200 meter dash with a weapon."

He must've been really wired because he took off so fast, I didn't even get one step. I just watched him run and run and run...all two blocks...and flashing the gun the whole time. I was just waiting for the police to shoot him and then come back and arrest me.

But this is Japan...and instead of alarm, people just watched him pass with a "Was that a guy with a gun...and by the way I'll take 500 grams or red snapper" attitude. So, no worries.

P.S. By the way..."helicopter schmelicopter"...I can't give anything away here...but you guys aren't gonna believe what "prop" is coming up in Episode 2 by Steffen Werske. Blows my helicopter away.

Wow, a prop that'll blow away a helicopter? Are we all going to have to start one-upping one another on the props? By the time we get to Episode 10 someone's going to need to blow up a car or two, and by the final episode, someone's going to get LadyX to glide in on a Space Shuttle.

Blow up a car? Shhhh. Dylan might be listening.

Nice...

I'm with Lady X on this one; Black jelly-beans are sick!

-Nori

Episode 2 is in the compression stage
 

Great episode 1 indeed. At this moment we are working on getting
episode 2 ready for next weeks airing. And you thought you
had a quite summer when all the shows are on hiatus, no
such luck I'm afraid!

Now, John, tell us about the real/fake(?) gun... How did you
get a hold of that (or made it perhaps)?

<<<-- Originally posted by Nori Wentworth : Nice...

I'm with Lady X on this one; Black jelly-beans are sick!

-Nori -->>>

Actually, I thought it might be a suppository. That's why she left it on the seat.

Even sicker.

-Ken-

HAHAHAHA...

I can't believe you made me laugh on a monday morning before my coffee...

<<<-- Originally posted by Alex Knappenberger :

"Respect mah auth-or-it-ay." -->>>

You caught that also. Thought I was hearing Cartman for a second! :)

<<<-- Originally posted by Imran Zaidi : Wow, a prop that'll blow away a helicopter? Are we all going to have to start one-upping one another on the props? By the time we get to Episode 10 someone's going to need to blow up a car or two, and by the final episode, someone's going to get LadyX to glide in on a Space Shuttle. -->>>

That is kind of what I was thinking since I have the last slot. Well, I do live in Houston, so maybe I can score a ride on the shuttle. Better yet we could do some kind of crazy stunt that would include the Enron building. It is sitting there nearly vacant. Hmmm....

Haha... you could get some footage of the shuttle flying away, and then cut to Lady X coming down with a parachute...

Make sure she signs a waiver!

Heh Paul, I thought thats what it sounded like, also...

How did you afford/how much did it cost to get the helicopter in there?

Well what John is not sharing with the rest of the class, is that he was funded by a "major" Hollywood money man. Of course this has not been confirmed, just speculation in the trade rags. :)

<<<-- Originally posted by John Locke : Blow up a car? Shhhh. Dylan might be listening. -->>>

No comment at this time.



<<<-- Originally posted by Alex Knappenberger :

"Respect mah auth-or-it-ay." -->>>

Same thought here as well.

John,

I hope this is not considered poor etiquette and if so i apologise but i'm really interested to know how much it cost you to film this episode?

I'm really keen to try something like this myself but as i've never done it before i'm at a loss on where to start.

I have an XL1 and powerful PC for editing so don't need to shell out for those

Congrats on a great first episode.

Regards

Nick

Thanks, Nick. No problem with the question as far as I'm concerned.

The helicopter was actually pretty cheap. Rik Sanchez told me about it. We rented it for a 15 minute tour which came out to about the same cost as a night on the town for two. It would've been even cheaper, but I didn't want to share the tour with another couple...so basically I paid for four passengers.

I'd say the whole cost came to between $350 and $400. About half went to the chopper.

The two guns are actually cigarette lighter metal replicas...they cost less than $10 each. After that, the only expense was Lady X's hat, scarf, sunglasses, and shoes...all pretty cheap.

I got burned recently on another project that was cancelled at the last minute recently...so I was determined to do this as cheaply as possible.

I forgot to tell you guys about one thing that "almost" happened...I know a guy here in Tokyo who is friends with someone who's high-ranking, maybe the prez, I think, at Aston-Martin Japan. He asked for permission on our behalf to use a Vanquish and they, unbelievably, said okay. And wouldn't you know it, it rained for about 10 days straight. Dang.

The lesson is...if you don't ask, you don't get.

John,
very cool video, I showed it to Rob last night and he loved it also. I'm glad you were able to use the helicopter, it looked great, I wish they had those heli-tours in Osaka.

Very nice work using the V-8, I wonder how many people will run out and buy one now for their Lady X video :)

Congrats to everyone who are putting the Lady X Project together, it has gotten off to a great start.

Thanks for the info John.

What actors did you use? where they known to you or did you contact an agency? I have no idea how i would contact some people who would be interested in doing some very short films, any ideas would be appreciated?

Regards

Nick

Nick,

I found Lady X through an online classified ad that I placed for a movie I was planning to shoot previously but that got cancelled. I made it clear that the role was not for porn and in doing that got several responses from actresses with amateur short film experience. Mari Iwasaki got the role, then turned out to also be very helpful in arranging things that required a Japanese-speaker, so she became associate producer.

She's been in over a dozen short films, so she has quite a network of acting friends. She contacted Gen Mouri to play the "Bad Guy" and "Security Agent" role. As for the Number 02, Mike Galbraith, he works in my office and has never acted before. In fact, he didn't have much time, so I just fed him the lines one by one and he'd repeat them back to me. Finally, Edward Baffoe is a manager of a restaurant here in Tokyo and I met him there last Christmas Eve. I was carrying my camera with me and he came over to ask about it. By the end of the conversation, he said he'd like to be in a film so I told him I'd call him whenever a part came up. He's also never acted before...and was fed the lines one by one (unfortunately he got cut out almost completely).

I think considering the time constraints and lack of preparation (no rehearsals and in most cases only a bit of action scripted) they did a good job. Especially in the office scenes since none of them were filmed together at the same time. All that interaction is me interacting with them one on one, on different days, then edited together. I've never smoked so many cigarettes in my life!

Bottom line is they all volunteered to do it for free...and I appreciate that.

If you're going for low budget, I recommend you find an experienced actor for the key role, partner up with them or at least make them an associate producer and then let them help with the casting.

Heh - 'Associate Producer' - anyone ever see "State and Main" with Alec Baldwin, William H. Macy and Philip Seymour Hoffman?

Funny reference to the shady title of 'Associate Producer'...

I didn't mean to imply anything negative about the title...Mari was a HUGE help and she deserved credit. :)

Matt Batea...we've solved your problem. Go to the episode 01 page and you'll see that there is now a web poster that you have to click to get the movie to play. That was a good suggestion since we found it was a problem checking in on the number of views and reviews (not like I WANT to see them...yikes) without loading the film each time.

By the way...I planted two "Easter eggs" in the movie. One is my "Hitchcockian" cameo, and the other I won't give a hint for.

Also...one really obvious blooper...anyone who can spot where Lady X walks right past my Glidecam post that I set down on the ground while I did one shot handheld wins a prize. In fact, prizes for all three!

<<<-- Originally posted by Imran Zaidi : Heh - 'Associate Producer' - anyone ever see "State and Main" with Alec Baldwin, William H. Macy and Philip Seymour Hoffman?

Funny reference to the shady title of 'Associate Producer'... -->>>
Haha, I was thinking the same thing, what was the line? "Associate Producer credit is what you give your secretary instead of a raise".

Thanks John, works great! :D
Did you know anyone to get that rate for the helicopter? I'm not up on the rates, but I thought they'd be around the $500-$600 range. Sweet deal though and worked out great.

Hey the Glidecam post is when she's coming out of the alley in the dress, I think. Still can't find the others though.

Very nice!
I want a Glidecam V8 too!

Good thoughts on the getting the experience actor as the central role and making their assistant producer.

Fingernails
 

John, I really thought they stood out according to your directions in the setup of Lady X. More than the lipstick IMO. In other words, they caught my eye, and made me look for them again as the story progressed.

Again, great job.

Matt,

You spotted it! Okay, I've got a "prize" for you...give me a couple of days to finalize it and I'll send it to you.

No one's spotted the cameo, eh? (No...I'm not the guy that whips around to look at Lady X as she walks by... that cracked me up when he did that)

<<<-- Originally posted by John Locke : Matt,

You spotted it! Okay, I've got a "prize" for you...give me a couple of days to finalize it and I'll send it to you.

No one's spotted the cameo, eh? (No...I'm not the guy that whips around to look at Lady X as she walks by... that cracked me up when he did that) -->>>

I recon you are the dodgy looking chap wearing the wig chasing lady x out of the headquarters ;)

Nick, you're half right! I am a dodgy looking chap...but not that one. That dodgy chap in the wig is the same as the bad guy in the beginning. ;)

Well, that's you on the Wanted poster that Lady X rubs her cigarette out into. The felon has a literal Spanish translation of your name, Johnny Padlock. The name appears again as a writing credit, and some of the other credits are also variations on your name. (Hope that's not your other easter egg.)

I would have let somebody else take a crack at it, except that I'm really curious about this prize.

Peter: "Whoa-ho, now look, Slick, we're not going to buy your lousy timeshare, all right? Now where's my boat?"
Salesman: "Ho-ho-hold on! You have a choice! You can have the boat, or... the MYSTERY BOX!"
Lois: "What, are you crazy? We'll take the boat."
Peter: "Now, now, not so fast, Lois. A boat's a boat, but the mystery box could be anything. It could even be a boat! You know how much we've wanted one of those!"
Lois: "Then let's just--"
Peter: "We'll take the box!"