“To the Other Shore” is a film set within a mind of a man in a coma.
He sets out on a quest to awaken from his coma.
Fun Facts
- 12 years in the making
- 7000 working hours
- 240 hours for editing a single clip
- Shooting ratio: 101:1
- Running time: 75 minutes
- Budget: $9000
- No motor vehicles were used
- There was no script
- Shot entirely in and around Provincetown, MA
- Made by a single person
Fun Facts
- 12 years in the making
- 7000 working hours
- 240 hours for editing a single clip
- Shooting ratio: 101:1
- Running Time: 75 minuts
- Budget: $9000
- No motor vehicles were used
- There was no script
- Shot entirely in and around Provincetown, MA
- Made by a single person
Articles about the film
FAQs
Technical
My main camera was a Canon XH-A1. That camera broke in 2012. By that time, around 90% of the footage was filmed.
After that I used a friend’s Canon 7D for most of the remaining shots and a couple of other point-and-shoot cameras after the 7D was gone.
No one. All the shots were taken from a tripod. There are no moving shots in the entire movie. Any focus change was done either in post-production or auto-focused in-camera. Some minor camera shakes and movements were also done as a visual effect.
It’s about 75 minutes long.
Yes. There is some speech for the most of the movie. There isn’t much talking in the first 20 minutes though.
It was all spent on Tech equipment. Between the computer system, the camera and all the accessories, the net cost was significantly more than $9.000, but, taking everything into consideration, I figure $9.000 is a fair estimate for the budget. For example, after the camera and computer broke down, I sold them for parts on Ebay. Some of the other considerations are – if I weren’t making a movie, I still would’ve had a pretty decent computer during the 9 years I used this one. Some of the other equipment is still functioning that I might use in my future projects.
All of the locations and props were available to me for free. The outside locations were all within biking distance from where I lived. The inside ones were mostly shot where I lived at a time. What wasn’t available to me, I shot in front of a green screen and inserted the backgrounds afterwards. The entire cost of the movie is in the equipment and technology used.
It was a 2009 Mac Pro, updated to 2 x 3.33GHz 6-core processors at the time the composing of special effects started. Also, it had 64GB of RAM and Sapphire Radeon 7950 graphic card. HD setup was 256GB SSD boot volume, 1TB PCIe SSD (used for footage needed for special effects), 6TB HD as my main storage (that’s where the post-special effects rendered files were stored) and another 256GB SSD as the export volume. The monitor was Apple’s 27″ cinema display.
The software used was Adobe Production Premium CS5.5. The four main programs I used were: After Effects for special effects, Premiere Pro for editing, Photoshop for preparing the photographs before compositing them in After Effects and Audition for sound. I rendered the footage from After Effects uncompressed before inserting it in the Premiere Pro. The direct link between the two programs is too slow for playback in Premiere. Also, at all times, I had at least two redundant backups of all of the files and at least one of them was outside of my apartment.
That computer broke down in late 2017, after which I bought the new Macbook Pro, which is similar in speed as the old computer. At that point the movie was almost finished.
That, too, I made alone. It is a WordPress website, with OceanWP theme, hosted on AWS. It’s designed visually (with drag-and-drop elements), I didn’t learn any coding to make it.
No one. All the shots were taken from a tripod. There are no moving shots in the entire movie. Any focus change was done either in post-production or auto-focused in-camera. Some minor camera shakes and movements were also done as a visual effect.
It’s about 75 minutes long.
Yes. There is some speech for the most of the movie. There isn’t much talking in the first 20 minutes though.
My main camera was a Canon XH-A1. That camera broke in 2012. By that time, around 90% of the footage was filmed.
After that I used a friend’s Canon 7D for most of the remaining shots and a couple of other point-and-shoot cameras after the 7D was gone.
It was all spent on Tech equipment. Between the computer system, the camera and all the accessories, the net cost was significantly more than $9.000, but, taking everything into consideration, I figure $9.000 is a fair estimate for the budget. For example, after the camera and computer broke down, I sold them for parts on Ebay. Some of the other considerations are – if I weren’t making a movie, I still would’ve had a pretty decent computer during the 9 years I used this one. Some of the other equipment is still functioning that I might use in my future projects.
All of the locations and props were available to me for free. The outside locations were all within biking distance from where I lived. The inside ones were mostly shot where I lived at a time. What wasn’t available to me, I shot in front of a green screen and inserted the backgrounds afterwards. The entire cost of the movie is in the equipment and technology used.
It was a 2009 Mac Pro, updated to 2 x 3.33GHz 6-core processors at the time the composing of special effects started. Also, it had 64GB of RAM and Sapphire Radeon 7950 graphic card. HD setup was 256GB SSD boot volume, 1TB PCIe SSD (used for footage needed for special effects), 6TB HD as my main storage (that’s where the post-special effects rendered files were stored) and another 256GB SSD as the export volume. The monitor was Apple’s 27″ cinema display.
The software used was Adobe Production Premium CS5.5. The four main programs I used were: After Effects for special effects, Premiere Pro for editing, Photoshop for preparing the photographs before compositing them in After Effects and Audition for sound. I rendered the footage from After Effects uncompressed before inserting it in the Premiere Pro. The direct link between the two programs is too slow for playback in Premiere. Also, at all times, I had at least two redundant backups of all of the files and at least one of them was outside of my apartment.
That computer broke down in late 2017, after which I bought the new Macbook Pro, which is similar in speed as the old computer. At that point the movie was almost finished.
That, too, I made alone. It is a WordPress website, with OceanWP theme, hosted on AWS. It’s designed visually (with drag-and-drop elements), I didn’t learn any coding to make it.
Production
I wouldn’t say it is based on my personal experiences, but there certainly exist similarities to my life. I spend a fair bit of time in solitude, contemplating themes addressed in the movie. I’ve had my fair share of serious crises but I have never had a real-life crisis anywhere remotely as profound as depicted in the film.
Starting around 2011 until 2018 I always thought that I’d be able to start releasing the film the following year or the year after. Every time, I was wrong. On one side, it was always taking me much longer to execute my goals, but on the other side, once executed, the results were much better than I had expected.
In retrospect I can tell, I had never thought it would take me 12 years to finish this film, but I also had never expected it to turn out as good as it did.
The biggest practical mistake would probably be editing the first draft before enough of the footage was shot and using a computer program not best suited for my needs. Eventually, I discarded the entire draft I spent months creating and made a new one from scratch.
I didn’t know anything about filmmaking before I started this project. It took me quite a bit of time to learn everything from scratch, on my own. Additionally, there was no pressure for me to hurry up. I took my sweet time to do the best I can with what I had and knew then.
Internet.
Some training tutorials at the beginning, Youtube, tech forums and general search later on.
A lot of trial and error.
I’ve always learned best on my own. Never had any official training. Never felt it would’ve been useful.
Technical
My main camera was a Canon XH-A1. That camera broke in 2012. By that time, around 90% of the footage was filmed.
After that I used a friend’s Canon 7D for most of the remaining shots and a couple of other point-and-shoot cameras after the 7D was gone.
No one. All the shots were taken from a tripod. There are no moving shots in the entire movie. Any focus change was done either in post-production or auto-focused in-camera. Some minor camera shakes and movements were also done as a visual effect.
It was all spent on Tech equipment. Between the computer system, the camera and all the accessories, the net cost was significantly more than $9.000, but, taking everything into consideration, I figure $9.000 is a fair estimate for the budget. For example, after the camera and computer broke down, I sold them for parts on Ebay. Some of the other considerations are – if I weren’t making a movie, I still would’ve had a pretty decent computer during the 9 years I used this one. Some of the other equipment is still functioning that I might use in my future projects.
All of the locations and props were available to me for free. The outside locations were all within biking distance from where I lived. The inside ones were mostly shot where I lived at a time. What wasn’t available to me, I shot in front of a green screen and inserted the backgrounds afterwards. The entire cost of the movie is in the equipment and technology used.
It was a 2009 Mac Pro, updated to 2 x 3.33GHz 6-core processors at the time the composing of special effects started. Also, it had 64GB of RAM and Sapphire Radeon 7950 graphic card. HD setup was 256GB SSD boot volume, 1TB PCIe SSD (used for footage needed for special effects), 6TB HD as my main storage (that’s where the post-special effects rendered files were stored) and another 256GB SSD as the export volume. The monitor was Apple’s 27″ cinema display.
The software used was Adobe Production Premium CS5.5. The four main programs I used were: After Effects for special effects, Premiere Pro for editing, Photoshop for preparing the photographs before compositing them in After Effects and Audition for sound. I rendered the footage from After Effects uncompressed before inserting it in the Premiere Pro. The direct link between the two programs is too slow for playback in Premiere. Also, at all times, I had at least two redundant backups of all of the files and at least one of them was outside of my apartment.
That computer broke down in late 2017, after which I bought the new Macbook Pro, which is similar in speed as the old computer. At that point the movie was almost finished.
Yes. There is some speech for the most of the movie. There isn’t much talking in the first 20 minutes though.
That, too, I made alone. It is a WordPress website, with OceanWP theme, hosted on AWS. It’s designed visually (with drag-and-drop elements), I didn’t learn any coding to make it.
Production
It happened spontaneously. When I started thinking about the story, there weren’t many people living where I lived, and, out of those who were there, I didn’t know anyone interested in making movies with me. Being in that situation, all of the ideas that came to me were based around the fact that I would be doing it alone.
Looking back now, I can also say that I psychologically needed to do this alone – as a way of growing up. I wasn’t ready to stand firmly behind my ideas and vision and the movie would have suffered for it.
I wouldn’t say it is based on my personal experiences, but there certainly exist similarities to my life. I spend a fair bit of time in solitude, contemplating themes addressed in the movie, but I have never had a real-life crisis anywhere remotely as serious as depicted in the film.
I didn’t know anything about filmmaking before I started this project. It took me quite a bit of time to learn everything from scratch, on my own. Additionally, there was no pressure for me to hurry up. I took my sweet time to do the best I can with what I had and knew then.
Starting around 2011 until 2018 I always thought that I’d be able to start releasing the film the following year or the year after. Every time, I was wrong. On one side, it was always taking me much longer to execute my goals, but on the other side, once executed, the results were much better than I had expected.
In retrospect I can tell, I had never thought it would take me 12 years to finish this film, but I also had never expected it to turn out as good as it did.
The biggest practical mistake would probably be editing the first draft before enough of the footage was shot and using a computer program not best suited for my needs. Eventually, I discarded the entire draft I spent months creating and made a new one from scratch.
Internet.
Some training tutorials at the beginning, Youtube, tech forums and general search later on.
A lot of trial and error.
I’ve always learned best on my own. Never had any official training. Never felt it would’ve been useful.
