Behind The Scenes on LST Studios 3D Movies

Since all of our originally filmed 3D movies are now accessible through our Kunaki store in the USA (meaning there's ZERO TARIFFS and NO high shipping fees), I thought some of you might find it interesting to learn how we create our 3D films. VISIT OUR KUNAKI STORE

We've produced FIVE 3D movies, so far...

We’ve currently made FIVE 3D feature films in different genres, but how do I choose what to make?

When it comes to the films I consider making in 3D, my main thoughts as a 3D fan are, what would I like to see, would it be a fun film for other 3D fans and is there a market for it on streaming too?

The main thing I’m always striving for is to make a fun 3D movie for 3D Blu-ray fans and maybe experiment a bit at what could be an interesting 3D movie.

For example: trying to make a slightly more immersive 3D film with long takes to get a sense of being trapped with the hostages in The Great British Heist 3D, or,

A fun slap-stick comedy along the lines of the ‘Carry On’ and ‘American Pie’ films in Babe Camp 3D, or,

A fun love letter to 80s 3D horror like Friday the 13^th part 3D, Amityville 3D, Jaws 3 3D… in my first 3D movie Halloween Jack 3D. (That's a lot of "3D"s in one sentence)!

How do I fund my 3D films?

I self funded Halloween Jack 3D as I’d never made a 3D film before and was desperate for the opportunity.

From then on, the money that comes in from 3D Blu-ray sales and streaming, I put straight back into making the next 3D film.

If you didn't purchase the 3D Blu-rays of my films, I wouldn't be able to keep making 3D movies, so I appreciate all your support.

Unfortunately, 3D Blu-ray sales have been declining each year, making it harder to finance our 3D films.

I have reinvested more money into the new 3D Horror Double-Bill to finish the films. If I make my investment back then we'll continue making more natively shot 3D films. But I'm not going to sugar coat it, we really need your support purchasing a 3D Blu-ray, thank you.

Here's a link to the Kunaki store where you can expand your 3D film collection, thank you.

Why release a 3D Double-Feature?

There’s a couple of reasons for this and one of them is about trying to give more value to 3D Blu-ray fans, offering two films for the price of one.

Back in the day in UK cinemas (and I’m pretty sure in the US and other countries too) there used to be a B-Movie before the Main Feature.

I’m planning to offer more 3D double-bills, if it's financially viable (did I mention we now have a Kunaki store)?

You get the Main Feature as usual, but there might be a 3D film concept I like that is too financially risky to produce as a full 60-70 minute film. The longer the film, the larger the budget required. But could be an interesting 3D B-Movie.

Fractured Island 3D was designed as a 45 minute film, which is the minimum length for a feature film I can get distributed.

People can stream and watch the entire movie on their lunch break or train journeys. Or enjoy as part of a 3D double-bill at home!

For Fractured Island 3D, I had a story idea and worked with the writer Dan Cardwell on it.

I wanted to experiment with more ‘improvisation’.

Fun Fact - we didn't have a script! Well, that's not entirely true.

Dan wrote a script which was only around 5 or 6 pages long. It had no dialogue and was mainly bullet points describing the action that took place.

I wanted to test the idea of how efficient it could be to rehearse a scene, working with the actors where we all create the dialogue and the situation in each scene.

You hear of directors like Mike Leigh who find the film in the rehearsals and it’s always intrigued me.

On Fractured Island 3D, for the first half of the day we’d rehearse the scenes using the bullet points that were in Dan’s script and once we felt we had the scenes ready, we’d then light it and shoot it.

It was good fun work-shopping the scenes with the actors, and I thought the visual concept of the film would be something interesting for the 3D viewer.

Fractured Island 3D is the B Movie to the Main Feature Escape from Crazy Island 3D.

Which leads me onto the next section below.

How did it all start with 3D film-making?

First of all, let’s start with our latest release of Escape from Crazy Island 3D because in a weird way it takes us to the very beginning before my first 3D endeavor Halloween Jack 3D.

Escape from Crazy Island has been in the works for many years and in several different forms.

I wrote the original screenplay over 10 years ago, which was vastly different to the film we finally shot. Making a film in 3D wasn’t even on my radar back then, I didn’t think it was achievable.

The original script was pretty epic. Many locations, many characters, many ‘crazies’, many, many problems.

The original script started off on a chartered boat sailing to the island with our 10 characters on board. And the scripts finale was set at an airfield where our two ‘heroes’ would board a small plane and escape the island just in time.

There was also a huge horror suspense sequence set in a labyrinth of deep underground tunnels….

I had all these locations in place but then the wheels started to come off as soon as I went into pre-production.

1. As this was a self funded micro-budget film, the boat company was letting us use their boat for a tiny fee, but when I went into pre-production the boat company went under (the boat didn’t sink but the company did) and I couldn’t get any other boat company to fit within my budget.

   
   

2. The airfield was fantastic it was all going to happen, but then the management changed hands and the new owners wouldn’t return my calls/messages. And no other airfield or plane owner was interested or were way out of my budget.

   
   

3. The location who had the tunnels fell silent on me too, they wouldn’t get back to me any more, this happens a lot on indie film productions. Other tunnel locations were wanting much more money than we could ever afford.

   
   

4. Lastly, the huge cast became untenable. We needed the 10 actors for 3 full days of filming, we couldn’t cheat it in editing, we needed all 10 actors. Getting everyone's availability to get all 10 people in one place was almost impossible (if we had 9 people we still couldn’t film, we needed all 10 people for those 3 days). It worked out that it would take about 8 months to film those 3 days where everyone was available.

So as you can tell, it all fell apart.

This is normal for low budget film-making, but it was clear the script was now too big for the budget we had.

I dropped the film for a while, then a few years later a writer Graham Knapman came on board to write his version, and unfortunately that version was just too big to film too.

A few years later another writer Yuk Yan Fung said he’d like to give it a try. No script had been fully written but we tried out ideas that were different from the previous scripts, but they weren't really working within the budget constraints and ultimately by this point time had moved on and the focus on the Fracking element had now passed.

We wanted to capitalize on the big thing in the news at that time which was Fracking.

One of several great 3D conversion shots by Andrew Murchie, who's worked on all my 3D movies.

A few years later, I came up with an idea for a 3D film that appeared to align well with the Fracking concept. I proceeded to write a version that fit my budget and utilized the locations I knew were accessible, tailoring the script to those specific settings.

Even though I wrote this new version, I wanted to thank Graham and Yuk for their time and contribution on their versions. It’s been a long process!

In case you missed it - All my 3D movies are now available from Kunaki, please support us and we will continue to make fun 3D movies.

Even though they’re low budget they’re hard work to make and full of heart.

I make them purely wanting to entertain you and to have a fun 3D time for an hour or so.

Thank you.