About this project
Aug 20th: UPDATE 3 - Stretch goals revealed!
Aug 19th: UPDATE 2 - First goal reached, more to come!
Aug 10th: UPDATE 1 - Pledge Add-ons
Thanks to YOUR support, we have reached our base goal and have set up THREE NEW STRETCH GOALS!
There are still many old-school filming techniques and practical effects we didn't use, primarily because nowadays, some of them are very rare, exotic and require special materials and tools. Techniques like matte paintings and rear projections would make „Slice of Life“ even more atmospheric and visually appealing, so it was always our wish to include them in our movie. If we reach this goal, that wish would become a reality! Plus, we would build even more more miniatures and that means a bigger, more vibrant cityscape!
Our first stretch goal would enrich the visual appeal of the movie, and this one would add more drama and tension to its story. It is a scene that demands a brand new set, made from scratch, but it would be well worth it because that scene would give more gravitas to our main character and the struggle he has with himself, his nemesis and this damn city he's stuck in!
Even though „Slice of Life“ premiere will be held in Zagreb, Croatia, we always wanted to have another, international one. And what better place to do it than the center of film industry: Los Angeles. Not to mention that our movie is set in the streets and on the platforms of that same, albeit futuristic LA, so it would be kind of poetic! „Slice of Life“ on the big screen, in-depth and detailed film-makers show and tell and a chance to hang out with you guys (and a couple of cold ones)... yap, that would be a dream come through!
When we started working on “Slice of Life”, we wanted to make an original movie set in a rather familiar world, and the biggest influence for us was clearly “Blade Runner”, as Ridley Scott, Jordan Cronenweth, and other movie legends envisioned it back in 1982.
Wet, foggy, and gritty streets of futuristic Los Angeles were a perfect place for our story, but we didn’t want to just copy/paste it and shoot a replica… We wanted to pay our tribute to “Blade Runner” in terms of aesthetics and some iconic motives, and at the same time make “Slice of Life” something more than a mere fan-film or a sequel, with an unique storyline that doesn’t rely on anything seen in the “Blade Runner” universe.
That being said, “Slice of Life” is a tasteful homage to the masterpiece that inspired us on so many levels and we are honored if anyone can put our little movie in the same sentence as one of the greatest cinematic accomplishments of our time, but that is where the connections between these two movies end and our paths diverge.
The duration of the short film will be approximately 20 minutes.
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It is just another damp, rainy, and foggy night on the streets of the futuristic Los Angeles. Beneath the flashy neon signs and heavy traffic, scum of this megalopolis tries to make a living and hopefully survive to see another day.
Criminals, junkies, prostitutes, punks… and one lonesome drug dealer in the middle of it all, fed up with this ever expanding city and lowlife parasites that inhabit it. He may be well on his way to leave it all behind, but fate has made other plans and his whole world will come crumbling down when a dirty cop with an agenda of his own enters his life.
A big part of that 70s and 80s Sci-Fi allure comes from the use of practical special effects. Visionaries of that era relied on miniatures and models, animatronics, matte paintings, and other techniques for creation of those lavish imaginary worlds. Even today, 30 or 40 years later, the charm and depth of their work remains unparalleled. We are not against CGI and other modern era tools (we use it heavily in our commercial work), but in order to pay a worthy homage to our predecessors, we wanted to make “Slice of Life” as authentic as we could.
So, everything you see in our trailer and will see in the completed movie is made the “old-school” way.
We learned to build miniatures, light them properly, learned how to create practical effects, so that we could film everything in camera like people did back in the 80s. We filmed on real sets that we built from scratch for “Slice of Life”. All of the miniatures and real-sized sets were created from cheap materials, junk, computer parts, and lots of imagination.
Building the "car set":
Building the miniature car for exterior scenes:
We have spent the last three years in a garage, taking every spare moment of our time and all of our skill, dedicating it to bringing “Slice of Life” to… well, life.
Our core team consists of only three people, and with some help of our friends and family, we carried this project on our backs for as long as we could, but we realized that, in order to finish our movie in the way we envisioned it, we need the help from our fans and the wider community. As a platform best suited for our needs, we chose Kickstarter to present this movie, connect us with our audience, and give you a chance to be an essential part in the creation of “Slice of Life”.
We need you guys to help us finish the movie. A big part of the movie is shot, but we have an extensive miniature shoot ahead of us and a complicated post-production process.
For the miniature shoot we need better equipment like new lenses and additional lighting, and a professional motion control system (because everything will be shot in passes*).
*Shooting in passes - a complicated and slow process of shooting the same shot multiple times in different lighting conditions, the same way it was done in the 80's.
There’s also lots of additional miniature building which is very time consuming so we need to put our daily commercial work on hold. The only level for which we’re settling is the “Blade Runner” one.
The cherry on top will be the soundtrack. Vangelis is infiltrated in our minds and souls, so we have a pretty big mountain to climb. Help us, and together we’ll put our “Slice of Life” flag on top of it!
First and foremost, you get our deepest gratitude, not just for helping us financially, but for believing in us and our project. We want to thank you for your support and trust, and give you something to remember "Slice of Life" as one of your fondest memories in the years to come.
That being said, we prepared lots of cool “Slice of Life” props, T-shirts, special “Slice of Life” collectors’ boxes and a beautiful movie soundtrack, exclusively pressed on vinyl. Of course, there will be one more thing - this finished short film called “Slice of Life”, which you will be able to enjoy for a very long time in the years to come.
You like our reward tiers and want to contribute, but feel like you’re missing out on something? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! With this add-on system, you can build your own perfect reward package and enjoy full “Slice of Life” experience with all of the items you want. There are NO LIMITATIONS to the number of add-ons you can get: all you have to do is choose an amount to add to your pledge and answer a survey at the end of the campaign regarding the items you want. You can choose from the following list of items and follow the instructions bellow:
To add an add-on to your pledge, follow these steps:
1. Press the “Back this Project” button above. If you’ve already pledged, it will say “Manage Your Pledge”.
2. Choose a reward you are interested in and increase your pledge in the “Pledge Amount” box by the amount (in US dollars) of item or items you want to add. (There are no limitations to the number of items you can add.)
3. We’ll send you a survey after the end of the Kickstarter campaign regarding the add-ons you chose.
After we have launched our trailer, we had great luck to be picked up by many esteemed international publications like “The Verge”, “io9 Gizmodo”, “Huffington Post” and movie fan sites like “Jo Blo”.
We appreciate all the help that we have managed to get so far. But now, the time has come to make our biggest and final step: KICKSTARTER.
So if you are a member of the media and you would like to help a few hardcore movie lovers that are trying to make something special from their garage by covering our story or arranging an interview – please, contact us at relax@sliceoflifefilm.com
Any help with spreading the word around would be AWESOME. Please share our story with anyone you think might appreciate the project. It would mean the world to us. Also, you can share our campaign through the "Share" button at the top. Sharing is caring!
The Verge article : https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/29/14430964/blade-runner-croatian-filmmakers-fanfilm
io9 article: http://io9.gizmodo.com/this-blade-runner-fan-film-looks-absolutely-gorgeous-1791789192
If you're hooked and can't wait to see the finished "Slice of Life" film in all it's glory with tons of bonus features don't fall into despair! As we said most of "Slice of life" was filmed over the span of 3 years. So here's your chance to watch the painfully beautiful journey of making the film in our garage. Witness how we managed to survive an ant invasion, film through the biggest croatian heat wave in the last 50 years and learn all about "spiderweb transplantation". Plus, listen to some cool blues while watching this fun and epic featurette series.
Risks and challenges
“Slice of Life” is a massive project, and if we take in consideration all of the facts (small crew, heavy use of practical effects, insufficient time and funds to fully commit to it), we have done a pretty good job in the last three years.
Most of the principal shooting is completed, so the film will come out one way or another, but we don’t want it to be just another short sci-fi movie that you scour through and forget about 20 minutes after you had watched it. We want to make “Slice of Life” an unforgettable experience for fans of the genre and also for those who don’t really know that much about it, and to pay a truly worthy tribute to the classics that kept inspiring us for so many years.
We hope that we are not alone in this and that you share our love and admiration of those classics (and movies in general), and we welcome you to join us on our adventure.
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