Liberata Me
Meet the director and writer:
Pearry Reginald Teo
Pearry was born in Singapore July 23 1978. Born in between the
zodiac signs of Cancer and Leo, Pearry found many facets of his
life battling between 2 contradictory beliefs. Pearry was never
the typical kid in school. Getting picked on by his older peers
led him to lead a very introvert life on his own. Growing up in a
divorced christian family, Pearry was never allowed to watch any
movies or television as a kid, and has never even knew film
directors existed till he was a teenager.
Even as a teenager, Pearry who got to spend time with his father
about once a year was never allowed to hold a camera even to
shoot home movies. Back in the early 90s, video cameras were
expensive and Pearry's dad never trusted Pearry to hold any thing
worth more than his arm. Pearry grew up past his teenage years,
never once in his mind occurred to him a career in films.
In school and in military, Pearry kept a little book which he
called 'The Misfortunes of Annabelle'. Where the name derived
from is still unknown. In it is a documentation of all the
mishaps, misfortune, and depressive things that have happened to
either Pearry or his friends. He also calls this book, 'My little
book of sanity, makes great bestime stories for my head'
Pearry arrived in the United States and enrolled in Pima
Community College. Still studying in Pima doing his general
Education classes, Pearry was lucky enough to meet a rock legend
who played in the band 'The Doors'. Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist
of 'The Doors' was coming to Tucson to play and had invited
Pearry to help document his concert.
Touching a camera seems to feel like magic for Pearry. And he
took it upon himself to make a short film just for himself and no
one else. He gathered a team of people to help him make his first
film, unconcerned about the fact he has no education nor
experience. The film grew and became what is known today as 'Liberat
Me'. It was the first film Pearry has ever done, and it became
something more magical than a pet project. The rest you can say
is history.
MAKING OF LIBERATA ME
The locations that was chosen for the movie Liberata' Me was
chosen carefully by the director over a period of 5 months. Each
settings was carefully planned and had to be of some symbolic
meaning in real life as well as in the film.
The International Arts Center (now known as MUSE - Tucson Home
for the Arts) was a gold mine back when director Pearry Reginald
Teo first discovered it. Of course, he was most excited about the
possibility of using only those places that have been abandoned
for 17 years. While the director of the Arts Center took Pearry
around and showed him some nice settings, it was a dingy room
with was littered with moist, dried mud and dead cockroaches to
which Pearry exclaimed 'PERFECT!'.
After choosing several more locations in the IAC, Pearry and
Chris Allen Tant went on a busy 2 weeks modifying the rooms and
adding more dirt in some of them to until Pearry was happy that
the room was exactly the way he envisioned it.
The next job was to scour through some abandone houses near
downtown. Among the houses were some very old houses which were
abandoned 30 years ago. A particular house at convent street took
the interest of Pearry. Strangely, it was a huanted house lived
by an Italian Family 94 years ago who dissappeared. Pearry did
not believe the house was huanted, he claimed that there were
plenty of residual memories in there, but other than that, it was
the ambience that he liked. Nevertheless, he chose that house for
the playing of the ouija board.
The shoot for Liberata' Me took place only at night. Director
Pearry Reginald Teo wanted no daylight to be present on sets and
opt for a strange green and yellow color palette through his
whole film shoot. Green represents a color of knowledge, while
yellow represents a color of transitions. Most doorways are lit
yellow while backgrounds are lit green. Because of the hectic
schedule, all actors and actresses simultaneously have 3
assistants working on them at any given point in time.
Layton Matthews took the biggest beating out of everyone on the
set. Having a new custom made pants and shirt for every night,
they were custom built to perfectly fit him tightly to instigate
him to move naturally yet with a subtle tone of discomfort. Added
to that, Layton also had to sit for 3-5 hours daily to have his
tattoo effects applied on him. Each procedure gets more grueling
than the previous as the special effects crew have to be careful
for continuity sake.
Cameras and equipment were tested while the cast were getting
ready, generator operators were standing by, and when the sun
sets, the director yells ACTION!
The hardest part about shooting with the equipment of Liberata Me
was that the equipment used was all video. No sound could be
recorded because there was no money to rent sound equipment. The
director did not let that stop him. He persisted in shooting even
when everyone else was voicing their concern. It is after all, a
very inexperienced director who has never even went to film
school nor shot a single video in his life was a friend of ours
and we were afraid Liberata Me would be a waste of time.
But the director just kept things running. For a while, everyone
was curious about his choice of shots and angles, let alone
changing the position of the lights after every shot.
As professionals like DP Gus had constant arguments over lighting
positions with the director, the director knew he had to let his
instincts go with him this time round. Was this a decision that
ended for the better or worst?
Only the final product would tell.....
The last thing any amateur director would want to do was to work
with a huge cast or crew. Director Pearry plunged head first into
the golden rule book of problems and enlisted 60 extras for a
club scene they shot in a warehouse that was occupied by The
FineLine. Arriving at 4am on a saturday, Pearry and his crew
began constructing additional props in the club for about 8 hours
before the cast and Second Skin came down and it was time to
shoot.
By the time their shoot was over, the extras had arrived and with
barely enough time to rest, the crew of Liberata Me continued
shooting till 8pm Sunday. A 17 hour day shoot in a warehouse with
60 extras was enough and when it was over, the crew of Liberata'
Me finally caught their forty winks.
Music used in the Second Skin music video Liberata Me, which
Pearry and Gus edited together. The music video later went on to
win The Communicator Awards for distinction in the category of 'Music
Video overall'. With an award on their hands, the crew of
Liberata' Me felt a new sense of confidence for their director as
his first video he finished already won an award before the movie
was finished.
On the same week he received the award, he was notified by the
director of The Annual Gothic Conventions in New Orleans 2002
that his film was invited to premier in their prestigious
gathering. Clearly results are starting to show, and everyone is
too excited for it.
Now with Liberata' Me in post production, the cast
and crew awaits patiently for the final results that Pearry
have promised them, a project that we will all be proud of.
Of the whole development of Liberata' Me. Pearry dismissed 6
personnel from Liberata' me because he was displeased with their
results.
And the staff were not incompetent. It was the complicated design
of the whole movie from visual cuts to designing the sound for
the movie that was so complex in its origins that it took 4
generations of sound designers to get the idea right.
The sound was designed in Pro Tools while editing took place with
Adobe Premier, Media 100, Final Cut and Adobe After Effects which
also took days to render.
A very strange thing happened during the Sound Design with Lisa
Fowle. While recording the ADR for Layton Matthews voice over,
his voice was cut off by a strange music of a man singing
backwards. Layton stopped thinking it was a mechanical glich but
Pearry insisted they continued recording.
After checking all cables and software, Lisa could not find the
source where the music came from. Going through the weird
recorded voice once again, Lisa realised that the waveform for
the selected music was flatlined. Meaning that the computer does
not recognise the music as any sound at all. Lisa then tried
reversing the clip and increasing the speed of the music
hopefully to find the hidden message. The music could not be
decoded.
Pearry saw this opportunity as an 'annointing from a higher power'
and insisted that we use the music track as part of the movie,
which you can hear in the drug scene. If anyone can deocde the
message, they should call Pearry and advise him what they have
found, he is very excited and welcomes these strange findings.
Liberata Me's sound design was more complex than most feature
film. Completely taking up a devoted superdrive, with over 500
sounds recorded, reverbed and changed, the extensive use of
sublimal sounds was a very heavy emphasis on Pearry's vision.
Dan Brock, post production supervisor of the acclaimed Indie film
Runnin' at Midnight continued the editing task of bringing Pearry's
vision to reality. As Pearry insists on being there every sound
and visual editing, he keeps a clear view about what he wants,
where he wants and how he wants it.
Cast:
Julian Arkgoth
Layton Matthews
Jacquelin Arkgoth Shawna Mansour
Robert Townsend Robert Pugh
Richard Reamer Richard House
Friend 3
James Taylor
Friend 4
Heath Garcia
Tattoo Artist
Frances Stacy "Lisa"
Voice Over Talents
Layton Matthews
Jason Moore
Richard House
Lisa Fowle
SFX Supporting Actors
Geoffrey M. Gardner
Director
Pearry Reginald Teo
1st Assistant Director
Jennifer Gene Hardy
2nd Assistant Director
Effie Fleming
Producer
Pearry Reginald Teo
Virginia Spiller
Sound Engineer and Design
Lisa Fowle
Documentarian
Geoffrey M. Gardner
Director of Photography
Gus Kyriakakis
1st Assistant to DP
Jake Sutton
2nd Assistant to DP
Audrey J. Wright
Editor
Dan Brock
Gus Kyriakakis
Screenplay by
Effie Fleming
Pearry Reginald Teo
Based on the short story 'Fade To Black' by
Pearry Reginald Teo
Special Effects and Make up
Francisco Guerra
Daniel Hernandez
Special Effects Unit Assistant
Zabu Stewart
Location Manager
Chris Allen Tant
Location Supervisor
Mikel Stravey
Storyboard / Conceptual Artist
Miko Stopheles
Prop Designers
Jason Evans
Chris Allen Tant
Costume Design Team
ArMystics Apparel
Weapons and Arms Consultant
Chris Allen Tant
Drug Therapy and Psychotherapist Advisor
Richard Giberti, M.A, N.C.C, C.S.A.C
Interview With Pearry and Gothic Gossip
GG: What motivated
you to do this film's concept?
P: Pretty much the
frustration of being in the movie's business. Everyone is making
short films about fucking teen girls giggling and wannabe boys
bursting in through doors with guns. I guess I just wanted to
something different.
Also, it was my experience with drugs that lead me to do a film
that had scenes of drug use in it. I got to a point where I was
shooting up tylenol and pain killers for kicks. It was pretty bad.
GG: What is the
music in the film?
P: Well, Most of the
music was done by Local Bands whom I had a lot of respect for.
There was one music in the drug room scene that was very
mysterious because it came out by itself while we were working on
the sound editing. It appears to be some music played and sung
backwards. We tried using protools and fucking with the sound to
decipher it but apparently nothing would change. Its very weird
because even the waveform on the monitor doesn't register as a
sound either. If anyone is in arizona, I'll be very happy to show
them the original protools layout sheets cause nobody I know (not
even professionals) could explain what this weird sound is or
where it came from.
GG: Where was the
filming done?
P: I used abandoned
houses and haunted rooms in arizona. I figured if this film was
crap, maybe we could capture some cool footage of spirits when we
played the tattooed ouija board on Layton's (My lead actor) body.
GG: How Long
is the film
P: 27 mins, 27 seconds and 27 frames
(yes it was intentional. 27 is my number because it is the
product of three to the power of three. If you watch my film, the
number three comes out almost everytime. 3 locations, 3 key
scenes, 3 flashbacks for certain scenes, 3 here and there. Also,
27 is the age my beloved Jim Morrison died.
GG: How long did it
take you to do the film?
P: It took me about 3 months to plan
pre-production, 5 days to shoot and about 7 months for post-production.
I sacked about 4 sound designers till Lisa came into the picture
and blew me away.
GG: You gave me the
original script from the movie, that did you change from it
before filming and why? (readers may have read the original script
if they have signed up with RIP on table of contents page..if you join this month, I will send you
a copy of the original story as a thank you)
P: The middle part
of the movie. I dunno why I changed it really. I guess I went
with what felt right at that time.
I also took out the sound of the girl screaming for help while
she was being raped and put in the sound of a baby crying over it
instead. It turned out as a joke but when I realised what effect
it had on most people, it was kinda cool.
GG: What is your next film?
P: Making a feature
film. Its another gothic industrial movie about a boy who
videotapes people in hospitals as they are dying and takes these
tapes and sells them back to the families of the deceased as
memos of their loved ones.
GG: How can readers
get hold of your film for thier own viewing pleasure?
P:Currently now, this stupid distribution company holds the rights for my film. But I'm planning to start a black market for my movie. It is my dream to have a product in the black market. For some reasons, pirated videos to me gives the essence of this film a nice touch. I'm gonna copy about a few hundred of those and throw it out on the black market. I'm having a bet with a friend to see how bad the copies will turn out.
Review of Liberata Me
By
Gothic Gossip
Before I watched this film for the first time , I was enchanted by the idea that it was wrapped around a Goth character. But after viewing it, it wasn't just the idea of a Goth character, it was everything thing about this movie that I fell in love with.
The dark music, the story, the lightening and filming.
Liberata Me is a movie that keeps the viewer on edge. It grasps you in the middle and digs out your guts, wraps your intestines around your neck and squeezes tightly. Your breathing becomes faster, your heartbeat races, and your blood slowly freezes over. This movie will leave you in death's grasp and then released in a harsh fall.
If you haven't had the luck of viewing this film during the Gothcon, then you missed out on a true masterpiece. Pearry has a way of taking a story about "drugs", and add so many twists and turns into it, that the viewer isn't sure exactly which way the story will end in. And when the ending does occur, you will not be upset or pissed thinking you were ripped off (as so many newer films do ), you will be shocked...yes....taken back....yes, but you will walk away completed and satisfied.
I will not be surprised to see Pearry's name headlining films that I will be catching at the theaters. He shows his true talent in this one 27 minute flick. He envisions what he wants, and jumps right in to see his vision come to live. He went without sleep to bring this film alive, and if he is ever given the amount that the big directors receive for making those Hollywood flicks, he would be the King of filmings.
The cast involve in Liberata Me, should also be mention. They are fantastic. For newcomers in the world of acting, they sure didn't seem like it. You know how when you go check out some film and you feel as if the characters really were doing, saying, feeling what the film presented, well, that is how the cast made me feel from Liberata Me.
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