A New Year! What's Next?

Hey folks!

First off, we want to thank everyone for the incredible interest and support you've all shown in the early stages of this film production! The boxcar sequence was very much an experiment in our production process, as well as a way for us to figure out how we want to run this patreon throughout the year as we tackle this ambitious action-comedy.

THE BOXCAR SEQUENCE

Regarding the boxcar sequence, we couldn't be happier with what we captured. The entire crew was incredible. Freddie worked his ass off, and the stunt team worked even harder making sure he worked his ass off. We were lucky enough to have the wonderful Kenny Choi come on board as Don Chang. And despite a stomach flu blasting off of the team during the first two days, we got everything we needed minus one off-schedule pickup that wasn't originally in the script in the first place (more on that soon).

What's next for the boxcar sequence? Now that we are back from the holidays, we are currently building the project file and will begin our edit today. Once we get a good pass, we will send a version of the sequence over to our composer (we'll announce who is doing this soon) to start working on it. It will then go to sound and VFX For VFX, we will lock down a few big shots that won't change in the edit (Freddie hanging out of the train car, for example) to get started on that ASAP.

We also need to schedule a day with one of the stunt men to shoot a little in-character TikTok video for a gag in the action sequence.

We also need to film plates for the train background. Most likely we will be using a 360 camera on a drone, and flying along some nice hillside area up in Northern California.

THE PATREON

Our goal was to have one edited piece of video content each month, and at least some sort of update every week. We more or less accomplished that. But, the patreon really came to life during production where we could do small fun updates of things happening on set almost every day.

Our goal is to find a way to continue doing those smaller updates as things happen, while also maintaining bandwidth for our main BTS maestro (Justin) tto edit together more informative, RocketJump Film Shool-esque videos.

We would love to hear in the comments any feedback you folks have on the first few months of this patreon, and especially what things you would like to see more of, or things you could do without.

OTHER ROCKETJUMP STUFF

Two little updates that may be relevant for people here.

Regarding our previous film We're All Gonna Die, we have been in the process of finding a way to do an independent theater release. Before the end of the year, it was looking like we were gonna do a pretty large release with Cinemark. This was very exciting, but unfortunately (though fortunately for the industry), this fall's box office surpassed expectations. Which means major studios feel confident releasing some of their smaller films in Jan/Feb. Which then means even smaller films like us get booted out. So that deal went away, but we are close to locking down 20-60 independent theaters for hopefully a Jan 30, 2025 release! This isn't official yet, but we'll know in the next couple days. So expect a bigger update on WAGD then.

Freddie and I were also hired to direct a passion project for one of our good friends. We can't talk about it yet (it's not our project to talk about!). But it involves PUPPETS, and we will be using our stage space. So hopefully we will be able to share some of the fun production of that project. We are personally really excited at our first chance to direct puppets, and we absolutely love the script.

NEXT STEPS FOR NAIL HOUSE

As we direct this other mysterious puppet project, we will begin the production design process of the Dumpling Shop itself! The idea is to start building the dumpling shop in March, so that we can start fight choreo soon after leading into a mid-year beginning of filming.

Our producers, Ashim and Cherish, are in the process of looking for a long-term assistant director, and production help to begin breaking down this very tricky and unique schedule. We will be sure to talk through all the considerations to schedule this film.

And finally, Will and I will be finishing up the rewrite of the last half of the script this month, so we actually know what the scope of the final action sequence is.

And tons more to do and talk about in the coming weeks.

Onwards and upwards.

And thank you all for taking this journey with us!

Matt

 (Some of the NAIL HOUSE crew after wrapping!)