Suvudu Universe

Your new film Rotor DR1 looks so amazing! It’s hard for me to believe it is an indie… and I hate to even call it that, because it’s more like a “communitie”. Can you tell my readers a little bit about the way you took the audience into the film-making process?

The whole project started as an idea I had years ago, but I’d say large scale community involvement started before we’d ever begun work on a trailer or a script. They’ve been involved every step of the way, from world design to character casting to plot, and we even had people send in concept sketch art, poetry, songs, and some even drove thousands of miles to appear as extras!

Considering the audiences before even making a film is kind of like making a movie backwards! But I also think it’s really indicative of the film and world we are living in today. Were you inspired by any other directors or TV and film you had seen take a similar route involving the audience?

Inspiration came from a variety of sources, but I’m not really aware of other directors doing the exact same thing. Screening a completed film to a focus group has been around for ages, but we figured since social media makes assembling people with opinions so easy, we could bring them in sooner and get them even more involved.

How did you come up with the idea for Rotor DR1?

Rotor DR1 was the evolution of an idea I had to make a movie starring real drones with no CGI. As passionate hobbyists in a hobby that’s getting increasingly negative press coverage, we all wanted a chance to tell a story that paints drones in something other than a sinister light.

Your audience actually cast the female lead, and she is really good! What was that journey like for you? I know I would have been nervous about that!

The casting of the female lead was a very surprising last minute shift. The story was going to be about a boy and his drone, but the forum community was clamoring for a female counterpart. It wasn’t until we were part-way through writing the third episode that we even realized she was going to be a main character.

Was there anything in the production you just weren’t willing to budge on? Like some community member insists you use their crazy aunt Sally in a scene and you just weren’t having it?

As far as things we were unwilling to budge on, nothing really comes to mind. The main reason our project worked is that we were adamant about everyone being heard, whether or not we chose their ideas. In fact, the community was fantastic all the way across the board. We had planned some story beat guardrails to keep the story manageable, but the audience just sort of organically pushed the story along.

The drone in the film is actually real and you had a drone pilot flying him! How does one go about finding a drone pilot for their independent film? I’m guessing there aren’t many listings for that on Craigslist?

As for finding a drone pilot for an independent film, we were fortunate enough to be closely affiliated with Eric Monroe and Flite Test, and had access to some incredible pilots. In fact, we didn’t have a single crash during principal filming or when actors were on the set - although we did wreck a quite a few drones during the drone races!

It looks like you didn’t have to use too terribly many off-camera, special effects since you had an actual drone. What percentage of the film would you say uses computer-generated imagery?

The only CGI we used was for the EMP color distortion shot, a couple signs and some of the HUD radar tracking shots. Any of the drones, explosions or aerial shots were all done with practically. 

A lot of people are freaked out by drones, but I’ll be so excited when I don’t have to depend on the post office to lose my mail. It’s a lot easier for me to believe a machine lost my package than an actual person. What do you think about drones and their upcoming, and highly anticipated introduction into everyday life?

Drones are a fantastic tool with tons of application. Like any tool, whether electricity, submarines, rockets and medicine and so forth, it can be used for numerous positive and negative applications. Public fear is always present in every new technology because the negative always screams the loudest in the beginning. We’re of course really excited to see drones start doing same-day delivery from online purchases or used to rush time-sensitive heart transplants to patients, or deliver parachutes to people in burning buildings, or who knows what else. Any technology that can make moving parts or information cheaper and faster is certain to have a lot of long term positive impact once people are done trying to weaponize everything.

It must have been a really amazing experience working on this project. What was the most memorable day on set like for you?

The most memorable day was definitely the drone race. We had amazing community members show up from all over the country to be in the film, the energy was high, that was the moment that we really realized we were making something awesome!

So what’s next for you? Any new films in the works?

We have a couple things lined up next. One big thing is making our methods available to other film studios that want to get a head-start on building a fan base & build creative support for their first film. We are also developing a 3D printable prototype DR1 that people can make at home and film their own side-stories to send in or post on YouTube. There has even been some discussion about designing a collaborative website geared specifically for people to come together as a community and create something. We are, of course, open to suggestions!

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT CHAD’S FILM AT ROTORDR1.COM