The Last Battleground

[Sonny]

In case you missed me over in the independant film section or the newbie introducing yourself place, I'm Sonny Fernandez and I make no-budget horror movies.

Bleed



Cold Blooded



The Aborted



BloodGod



Why havent' you heard of any of these? Well I pretty much make my movies back to back. Seriously, I barely wait a week between movies before I'm jumping to the next one. Don't let that scare you away though. I put my heart and soul into every single one. I just work really fast. But it also means when it comes time to start playing the game of getting them out to distributors, hitting up festivals or promoting the hell out of them, I just don't have enough time.

Cold Blooded IS out now from Michigan Street (you can pick it up at amazon.com) and BloodGod as  well as The Aborted are going to be out from Brain Damage next year. So my stuff will be getting out there eventually. I'm not going to take up space here explaining stuff about my previous flicks though, the best place to find out about them is over to  myspace.
myspace.com/sonnyfernandezfilms
You can find most of the trailers on youtube also.

What I'm really here to talk about is the new movie we're filming now.
It's called "The Last Battleground."
We film about once a week so I'll be updating with pics and stories often.

The movie follows a bunch of folks, all seemingly unconnected.

There's two of the most pathetic hitmen ever to walk the face of the planet.



There's an abused girl who depends on her invisible friend to get her through rough times (that's her in the mirror.)



There's these two...a girl who lives on the streets and an artist who's been noticing a change in the world around him...



Then there's these two...the guy split on the girl a year ago with no explanation and now he's back trying to make amends...



Anway, yadda yadda, long story short, the plot gets pretty insane, but I'll tell it here like I always tell it.

In most movies they always talk about heaven and hell fighting a war and someone always does something to stop hell from winning, you've seen it a million times, "The Prophecy" "Constantine".  Well, in this movie...nobody stopped hell from winning.



It's the end and absoultely no one is here to save us.

So we basically follow these characters as the world descends into chaos and madness.





Their stories bounce off each other and intertwine in all kind of crazy ways.



All kind of monsters are rising up and running around causing insanity (I'm a Lovecraft fan!)









And all of this happens within the first 40 minutes! We haven't really gotten to the really BIG beasties yet.

If you'd like to see this bad boy in action, as well as hear a kickass song from Serenity's Call, check it out.
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=43495518

The footage is also up at youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr_qR6HIQKo

Hope you folks like the pics, any questions or anything feel free to ask, I'm always around and I'll be updating here regularly!

[Andrew]

I really like how fast you work.  I've been trying to tell my people back home that it'll totally be possible to have a feature done within a couple of months, but they always argue with me.  I might just have to use you as proof, sir!

[Sonny]

It all depends on the movie.

The HARDEST thing about making indie movies (for me anyway)  is getting the cast together. Most of my cast are in college, work full time jobs, have girlfriends or boyfriends, so working around their busy schedules is often the hardest thing! So taking that into account, it only took about 3 months to make The Aborted, but it only had 3 main characters, but Bleed, which has a whole crew of people, took damn near a year and a half to make, but that movie was ridiculously ambititous and required a ton of stuff for it to work.

You've got to get creative sometimes, I've shot different people on different days, then edited everything together later. It gets frustrating and crazy rough sometimes, but if you want to make it work, you've really got to be %100 committed, there really is no half assing it.

[Andrew]

Awesome!  Sounds like I'm in for an interesting time.  I've been waiting about four years to get started, and when I get out of the Air Force I'm pretty much going to explode.

[Andrew]

PS:  Thanks for all the info!

[homeless_camel]

Congrats on getting those films done and pursuing your dream. I'm in the middle of college now and once I have the degree and "hopefully" making decent money, I will go forward with directing my own films.

They will be no-budget, but that's how poor I am right now, I can't even afford to shoot a no budget movie. lol

I have always believed in that philosphy you talked about, grab a camera and shoot.

[Sonny]

PS:  Thanks for all the info!

Hey no problem man. I live for this stuff 

Thanks a bunch homeless_Asshole!

I have always believed in that philosphy you talked about, grab a camera and shoot.

And that's really the only way to find your voice. The more you shoot, the more you develop a style. But you've got to be careful, there's a ridiculous flood of no-budget movies nowadays, every yo-yo with a camera is heading out to some barn with his friends making zombie movies. Horror fans are so jaded with homegrown movies nowadays it's damn near impossible to get noticed, folks are just fed up, and rightly so, it's so cheap to make a movie nowadays, people are spinning out some real generic been there, done that crap. I try my best to make stuff that's first and foremost entertaining. I just beg everyone who's picking up a camera to try and do the same.

I'm so BEGGING for the indie horror movie to make a come-back. There's so much crap being released by the big studios nowadays, it's remake after remake after remake...fans should be turning to US for their fix. But they don't trust us. It's really time to turn that around..I'm trying my best...but it ain't an easy game this movie making stuff. 

I wish the best to everyone else who's getting into this! 

Anyway, TLB news:
So we're out there filming last night, and we're getting quite the crowd out there watching us, people just kept gathering and gathering, first it was 5, then 10, then like 15. We were filming right outside an apartment building, and the crazy tenants were yelling at us all night. One lady was screaming something about God and abortions and other lunacy, some guy kept mooning us and showing us his balls.

Anyway, more and more people are watching and I keep throwing them into the movie, "Don't just stand there, run through the shot!" It's suppose to be chaos anyway.

So eventually these two little girls show up in their pAjamas (they were watching from the window of the building) and showed up wondering what was going on, they looked like they were like 10 and Liz was like, "Be in the movie!" So now I got all these strangers and these two little girls running around the dead bodies and guts and puddles of blood and chaos. Everything during this scene is cut so fast you can barely tell who's who anyway so I'm just throwing everyone in there....

So finally we get to the scene where our two main characters run and jump into a car to get away.

I say "action!" our main two characters run, get into the car, and then, out of nowhere, one of the little girls jumps in with them and yells, "Go go get out of here!"

HAHA! It was pretty funny. Then the cops showed up and we had to move to a different spot, by that point the crowd was just ridiculous.

Great night of filming...here's a few pics!























We actually film again Saturday, should have a couple of cool pics to put up!

[WIL]

I'll ask the question everyone wants to ask but is afraid to! Do those two girls get naked? Probably not they look 15, but you can never tell these days.

[Sonny]

Haha, somehow I have the extreme luck of having ridiculously cute girls in my movies.  Don't ask me how or why, just the other day another indie moviemaker told me how lucky I was to have girls in my flicks who were willing to do this kind of stuff. But they all rock pretty hard, I'm really appreciative because...and here's another secret...if you put up pictures of pretty girls...guys WILL go check it out...just to look at more pictures.

But here's the thing...and this is the one folks...this is the one that gets me run out of websites with pitchforks and torches...this is the one that gets me chased to that goddamn windmill...this is the idea that gets me burned at the stake from here to goddamn Alaska.

I have no problem with naked girls in horror movies, not only do I like looking at naked girls, but I think in a lot of ways, fear and sex sit side by side. There's a certain thing about going to see a scary movie with a girl and having her jump in your lap in fear. I fully realize this. Sex and horror movies have been intertwined for a long time now.

But look at The Exorcist....The Texas Chainsaw Massacre...28 Days Later....Night Of The Living Dead...The Evil Dead....Alien...The Shining...some of the greatest horror flicks in the world don't have a lick of gratuitous sex in them (well The Shining had that shower part...but we all know how THAT shit turned out...and yeah...I know E.D. had that one tit shot...but c'mon gimme a break here). Now I'm not saying I'm making the fucking Exorcist here...what I'm saying is I think maybe, one of the only ways we're going to get this genre out of the pit it's fallen into is to drag it into adulthood kicking and screaming.

I haven't had one scene in any of my movies with kids sitting around smoking pot...never even had a pothead in one of my flicks...and I've only had one person drunk...but there was a point to that and the point is I'm trying to avoid the cliches and generic crap as much as possible.

Now, there is a sex scene in "Bleed" but it's more about the shit it stirs up than the actual sex...and I did it without showing anyone naked, because there wasn't a point really.

If one day, one of my movies really required it, having someone naked that is, I'd do it, if it was positively crucial...I'd do it in a heartbeat. But right now, I just can't bring it to myself to drag myself to that level for no reason.

I'm sorry  I know it sucks....and I know I'm kind of insane...but what the hell am I gonna do?

Tell you what, I mostly made this for my pal Topher, who does a lot of the music in my movies nowadays, wasn't really planning on spreading it around that much but it came out pretty cool....so here you go-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTD3OPoCzKo

No naked girls in it but there is some cool new stuff in there...

I film in like 3 hours and I'll tell you another thing. Every time before I film I get nervous as hell..."Do I have everything ready?" "Are all the effects ready to go?" "What if everything goes to hell and I screw it all up?" My stomach tightens up, I get a little headache, I don't really eat...everytime...

but when I get there...and that camera gets infront my face, I just go away and go into this weird filmmaking zone. It's really weird. Hopefully be around tonight with some pics.

[WIL]

You write too much, my readers only have a 5 sentence attention span... 

[snk429]

Sex scene with no nudity? Because there's no point!?! 

Forget it! I'm not gonna watch this movie anymore

You also explained why the Exorcist does suck, there's no sex!

[Sonny]

Haha 

Well we didn't film tonight. Remember when I said the hardest thing is getting ppl together? Well one of the girls forgot she had this important test tomorrow and had to study all night...she didn't tell anyone until we were all AT the place we were suppose to film...so the whole night was shot.

But this is the kind of stuff that happens. You plan and plan and then bang everything falls through, so we just went back to Aarons house and watched a movie.

So it goes....

[Bokonon]

The reason most low budget movies fail have already been mentioned. For starters any time you work with non professional actors prior commitments, work, school, friends, family, and laziness become part of the picture. It does seem like it would be extremely difficult to get everyone into one place at the same time. When it comes to attractive cast members and nudity goes some people are just in the right place at the right time. Let's be honest: some places have more attractive people than others. It depends on whether you are filming in California or Arkansas. I've seen some ultra low budget that has a fairly attractive cast, but then there are those movies where it looked like they found the cast members at the local laundromat or flea mall. There are women who want to become professional actors who are willing to drop some clothes in order to help the film succeed/ help build their careers. Then there are those who aren't quite ready to do that and probably never will. 

Good luck with the film. I strongly support low budget film making.

[Andrew]

You write too much, my readers only have a 5 sentence attention span... 

OMG!  I was reading his response, and just kind of skipped to the next post, and laughed pretty hard cause it was true.  Then I felt like a freaking idiot, so I went back and read the rest.

I agree.  Nudity isn't as necessary as some people seem to think.

[Sonny]

Good luck with the film. I strongly support low budget film making.

Thanks a bunch Bokonon, lord knows we need all the support we can get!

Haha, I do tend to write WAY too much so feel free to skip around the posts  I tend to ramble a bit...

So I make all those effects too, I ain't no Tom Savini, that's for damn sure. I'd love to be able to PAY someone to do all the effects...but it doesn't work like that...so I'm forced to spend obscene amounts of time on this stuff.

I figured I'd share what I've been working on for the past couple of days. The lighting in my aparment ain't the best...but here we have a giant pair of legs. I don't want to give away what they're for...but obviously they're attached to something really big. They're involved in what will hopefully be a pretty awesome moment.

See while most people are asleep...or hanging out with their friends...this is the shit that I do...

I make giant fucking feet...

I actually hate showing my effects early...keep in mind these aren't done by a long shot!

Ton of more work to be done.





But damn this kind of stuff cracks me up. I was doing test walks with them tonight..making sure they're going to work and I was laughing my butt off cause they looked so neato.