First, watch the trailer and then I'll tell you about what we've been up to.

Here's the short link to the Indiegogo: http://igg.me/at/quantumterror

Did you like it? We're pretty pleased with it. There are issues what we're working to improve right now, such as improving our sound, but over all I think you'd be hard pressed to find anything else of this quality on our budget. I'd say that I'd bet my reputation that we'll probably finish with a better all around film than most bigger budget indies, but the fact is that anytime a director/producer makes a movie, that's exactly what they are doing. Fortunately, I've got a great cast and crew who are bringing a level of quality to this film that would otherwise be out of my reach. However, we still need your help. If you've already pledged, please share our campaign. Now what we've made our goal, Indiegogo is letting us keep raising money, so we can make this movie be the best it can be.

The Story

Samantha Carroll's twin sister Silvia has gone missing, without a trace. The only clues that Sam has to go on are notebooks filled with strange quantum physics equations combined with scribblings about the occult, that have been left behind. Silvia's ex-boyfriend and fellow college classmate claims he has seen her going into the nearby drainage tunnels that run under the town he lives in, however he himself is a suspect in her disappearance.
Accompanied by Samantha's concerned ex-lover Lucy, who has brought a new boyfriend in tow, the now group of four go down into the tunnels where strange alien creatures and alterations of reality, will confront them with their deepest desires and darkest inner truths. Now, the question isn't just whether they will find Silvia or not, but if it's even possible for them to ever get out again.

How We're Making It Happen

If you haven't already seen, we've cast actress Kristin Cochell in the leading roll of Samantha Carroll. She, along with the supporting cast of Paula Marcenaro Solinger, Matt Blackwell, Jordan Michael Brinkman, Mike Gassaway, & Dimitrius Pulido were all part of an extensive casting process, in order to ensure that we had the best actors possible, who would engage the audience and truly bring the story to life. 

The Script

As I say in the video, story and characters count. Executive producer James Hudnall is known for his work as co-creator of the Ultraverse for Malibu Comics as well as Harsh Realms for Chris Carter, and is a writing genius in my book. His revisions of the script are invaluable. We continue to talk on the phone about directors we love (David Lynch and Sergio Leone are names that kept coming up) and tweaks that should be made to the script as footage is shot. We're both very visual storytellers and we want to make sure that ours unfolds through mood, body language, the looks in people's eyes and actions, as much as through what is said.

Building Scary Worlds & Monsters

Let's talk about building underground tunnels and the creatures that inhabit them, on a micro budget. My passion for a long time has been working with a hybrid style of miniatures, trick photography, practical effects, puppets, and green screen composite work, both for the screen and design. I've helped bring to life the visions of some amazing creators, on projects like Passport To Explore, Live Forever: The Ray Bradbury Odyssey, and Harbinger Down, but I'm the director, so I had to bring in someone who I could trust to do even better at that stuff than the standards I hold myself to. That's why I made Jenna Green my head of special effects. You'll probably know her best for her time on SyFy Channel's Face Off (season 4) but she also wowed audiences with work on Army of Frankensteins.

We're not having a go at the FX alone, though. Studio 1881 actually has no internet presence, so you'll just have to take my word for it when I say that the main creature that is being sculpted there is beyond amazing. The fact that Oscar winning FX company studioADI is contributing animatronic tentacles to our film is just mind blowing. Having the support of people with that level of achievement (the Aliens franchise, Tremors, Starship Troopers, Harbinger Down) makes us believe we must be doing something right.

 

The Look & Sound

Cinematographer Anthony Gutierrez is one of our latest additions to the team. This has been an amazing development for us, because even though I had confidence in my own camera skills and artistic eye, there's nothing like having a specialist at the helm, that can look at everything that is going on in a production, and capture it in a way that transcends your average B-movie. Composer Derek Hunt is a relative newcomer to film scoring, but as you can tell from the trailer, he's come up with some haunting melodies that will put the fear, in atmosphere. (It works better when you say it out load.)

...and there's so much more we're doing right now, that we either can't talk about just yet, or would just make this post twice as long as it already is. (Shout out to David Paul, who is doing our titles & the band Frankenstein who have a track in the film.) I just want everyone to see that the stars are right. We've attracted more top notch talent than I could have ever dreamed. We've got a film with amazing visuals, themes like love, LGBT issues, freedom of choice, life, death, spirituality, science, and the passion to make it all happen. Come be a part of it.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Check the shout out we got on this weeks Fright Hype, on Crypt TV.

VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN TRAILER!! That and the best Mortal Kombot YouTube reimaging ever on this week's horror news show FRIGHT HYPE!
Posted by Crypt TV on Friday, August 21, 2015

Christopher Moonlight Productions Helps Amalgamated Dynamics Inc. To Fund Harbinger Down

Harbinger Down Kickstarter

Click Here To Pledge!

I am happy to announce that Christopher Moonlight Productions has decided to stand behind Amalgamated Dynamics Inc. (ADI) to help promote the Kickstarter for their movie, Harbinger Down. It will be directed by ADI's own Alec Gillis and produced by Tom Woodruff Jr. It will star the amazing Lance Henriksen.

This is a project of passion for everyone and that's why we've thrown our support behind it. The money will go towards creating the same caliber of practical effects that won Gills and Woodruff the Academy Award for Death Becomes Her and also got them nominated for and Oscar for Alien 3. They are asking for $350,000.00 which must be raise by June 7th, 2013. This may sound like a lot of money, but in a world where movies cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make, it's really nothing. I'll post the press release below, but I want to say that on a personal level, I really care about this project. It means a great deal to me that there are creators like Alec and Tom, who are not in this for the money but for the joy of realizing their art. They need it. We need it. Why? Because work like this is not a means to an end. It exists for its own sake. Like all art, it is meant to fill our lives and bring us together, like a tribe gathering around a fire to hear the elder tell tales in the dark, and not put money in the pockets of investors, who don't care what the final product is, as long as they get theirs. So, if you are the kind of person who believes that the meaning of life is to make it as full and happy for all, as you can, please do so by joining us in pledging to this project.

...and now, a small sample of the incredible amount of work that has already gone into this project:

 

 ...and my own contributions to the cause:  

...and here's how we did it: 

Academy Award-Winning Team Attempts to Resurrect Lost Art of Classic Horror Film Through Launching Kickstarter Campaign In the spirit of classic films such as Alien and The Thing, Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr. aspire to bring “Harbinger Down” to the silver screen with the help of fan support for their independent project LOS ANGELES, CA – Academy Award-winning Visual Effects artists Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr., co-founders of Studio ADI (Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc.) have launched a Kickstarter campaign to bring their science fiction/horror film celebrating animatronics and makeup FX, “Harbinger Down,” to the silver screen. Gillis and Woodruff hope fans are excited to help not only make a new horror classic, but also to uplift an art form. The filmmakers’ goal is to raise $350,000 from fan support via the Kickstarter campaign by June 7, 2013 to get the project off the ground.

 Harbinger Down, set to star notable sci-fi and horror film actor Lance Henriksen, depicts a group of grad students have booked passage on the fishing trawler Harbinger to study the effects of global warming on a pod of Orcas in the Bering Sea. When the ship's crew dredges up a recently thawed piece of old Soviet space wreckage, things quickly become deadly. It seems that the Russians experimented with tardigrades, tiny resilient animals able to withstand the extremes of space radiation. The creatures survived, but not without mutation. Now the crew is exposed to aggressively mutating organisms. After being locked in ice for 3 decades, the creatures aren't about to give up the warmth of human companionship.

“Animatronics and Makeup FX have been utilized less frequently in recent films, but this is not because of audience disinterest,” announced Gillis, who will write and direct the film. “In the spirit of sci-fi/horror classics, Alien and The Thing, Harbinger Down is a tense, claustrophobic full-length creature film that will feature only practical Animatronics and Makeup Effects. Fans of the art of Animatronics and Makeup FX know this technique is currently overlooked by the big studios; I'm hoping the fans will help us remedy that by supporting this labor of love.”

“Our company, Amalgamated Dynamics, will create the kind of Oscar caliber Creature Effects for which we are known,” commented Woodruff, who will produce, along with Studio ADI’s Jennifer Tung. “Traditional techniques still have a place in modern genre films. We didn’t give up painting, when cameras were invented.”

Gillis and Woodruff have over 60 years of experience between them and have worked with many top filmmakers, including James Cameron, David Fincher, Paul Verhoeven, Ridley Scott, Neill Blomkamp, Robert Zemeckis, Joe Johnston, Nora Ephron and Mike Nichols just to name a few. The filmmakers are utilizing Kickstarter to ask supporters of “old-school” visual effects to give them the opportunity to show it.

Contributors to the Harbinger Down Kickstarter Campaign will receive unique, amazing, thrilling, one-of-a-kind incentives for supporting the project. More details about the project can be found on the Harbinger Down Kickstarter website: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1117671683/harbinger-down-a-practical-creature-fx-film

About Studio ADI (Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc.) Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc. was founded by Academy Award winning creators of special characters and character effects artists Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff, Jr. Calling upon a diverse range of talents and techniques, Studio ADI creates prosthetic make-ups, animatronic puppets, actor duplicates and replica animals. With over twenty years of professional experience, we bring “real” character effects to the set to interact with the actors, lighting and practical atmosphere. We pride ourselves on working with the industry’s leading Computer-generated imagery (CGI) companies to find the right balance of digital and practical effects. For more information and a resume of work on past productions, visit the Studio ADI website: http://www.studioadi.com/ or, the Studio ADI YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/studioADI

All attached jpg photos © 20013 Studio ADI. Permissions granted only for usage in conjunction with “Harbinger Down.” EPK/VIDEO CLIPS/ PHOTOS/INTERVIEWS/STUDIO & SET VISITS available upon request.