Editor’s Note: I met Sean Williams at Comic-Con’s Hall H between panels on the first day of the Con this past July, chatting as people do. It turns out that Sean is a filmmaker, and he’s working on a sci-fi project – travel to another planet! strong women! – that sounds really great.

Last week Sean let me know that he was ready to start “officially” talking about the project, and wanted to know what I’d like to know. I told him I wanted to know, basically, everything. How the project got started, who’s involved, where he is in the process, etc. What follows is the narrative he wrote up on the spot on his phone and sent to me via Facebook Messenger in response. One long narrative that was completely engaging. He even copied and inserted biographies as he went along. It’s no wonder the man has won writing awards.

Here is his reply to my “everything” request, with the addition of a couple of graphics he sent along later. I was very interested in the project when he first told me about it, but now I REALLY CAN’T WAIT to see ADAM 8:

Working spot jobs freelance here and spec pay there, I’ve always run into people that talked about what they want to do. The film they’re gonna make. And I was the same… Someday. Somehow. At some point. A really good friend kind of told me put up or shut up.

So I started Crackhorse Films. Not with the instant intention of shooting a feature. We set sites lower but with a broad audience. The internet.

I wrote, produced, directed (the majority of) two seasons of a web-series One Day. The first season takes place over the course of one really bad day. But double meaning for me is One Day I will do something… One day. The show got some views, around a million, and improved with each episode.

But it wasn’t about views. We did it as a learning experience. To make mistakes and grow. To unify a team.

And that team grew, as did their skill sets. It’s always been our plan to help talent behind and in front of the lens to develop.

Continuing with that mentality we started doing short films for the internet. Trying to push our capabilities. And develop that team. One Day camera operator, directing. Stunt player as a coordinator, production assistant producing. And even as we enter preproduction we’re still shooting little shorts. Learning new things.

But I’m always looking for THE opportunity. The time to strike, cash in all my favors and rally the team. Some had moved on to bigger companies, which I love, it shows we’re teaching and learning the right things. The most notable is my former assistant AJ Marbory (who) is now an assistant to a line producer working on films Zero Dark Thirty, Life of Pi, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and the upcoming Million Dollar Arm.

That opportunity struck. Or in my eyes it did, when I met Visual Effects master David R. Hardberger. Hardberger is iconic in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. David’s resume reads like a nerds film history class: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Bladerunner, Star Trek the Motion Picture, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, Spaceballs, Willow, Flight of the Navigator, WarGames, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. And I’m leaving so many off that list.

I pitched him an idea I had been kicking around for a short. An idea I had no script for, but I know it had to be science fiction. The pitch was simple. Future Earth and disease has killed off the Y chromosome. Men are gone and the ability to reproduce with them. So a team of woman go into space in search of a lost colony of terraformers with the hope to find healthy men. But once they get there they find whatever humans are still left are enslaved by a primitive but powerful alien race. It’s a team of Ripley’s from Aliens vs. a Braveheart alien race.

It hooked him. Or piqued his interest. I continued pitching without a script to people I know within the industry and got a fair amount of interest.

Now the goal of actually writing the script. Giving pages and characters to something that had never been more than a nugget of an idea. A blind pitch. I have written solo and with a partner in the past but I wanted to move quickly and strike while I had generated interest.

I enlisted friend and newer writer Frances Manzo, she earlier in the year had asked me to read a script she wrote “Redlight Kate” and I was blown away with this dark story about a stripper struggling with addiction and abuse issues. This was also made amazing by knowing Frances and that she’s so Nickelodeon. In fact has been on multiple Nick programs.

She was the partner I needed.

Bit on Frances Manzo… Frances is a Dancer, Actress, Writer and Singer. She studied acting at the Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in Los Angeles and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Loyola Marymount University with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. For her starring role in the play, “Halo.” Frances won the Maddy Award for Best Actress in 2008. A few of her credits include Britney Spears’ music video and tour, Beyonce’s “Run the World (Girls)”, Destiny’s Child rour, “LXD (Legion of Extraordinary Dancers)”’ 2011 MTV VMA’s, “Hannah Montana”, “Glee”. “iCarly”, and many more. Frances co-wrote a song that was featured on “CSI: NY”.

We banged out an outline working off my idea and quickly decided the script working on sections and then rewriting each other’s work until we felt we had a great first draft.

Now I was in, 100%. I’m making this movie. Time to enlist help.

AJ Marbory, my former assistant, signs on as supervising producer.

AJ MARBORY (SUPERVISING PRODUCER) AJ is a second year film student with a focus in directing and writing, specializing in dramas. After modeling, she got her start in the entertainment industry as a personal assistant to Sean Williams. She has since moved up to being an assistant line producer to Tabrez Noorani in India, most notably working on Life of Pi, Zero Dark Thirty, and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. She has a particular interest in the human relations and networking side of the industry

AJ feels the next logical step is to see how the script reads. A table read is in order to hear those characters rounded out a touch and made flesh.

Since I had worked on several projects I knew I had a few actors I wanted for supporting roles. People I knew could deliver no matter how large or small the part. This also stays to the Crackhorse Films policy of developing talents. There was no way we could make this movie without bringing forth some incredible people that haven’t broken through yet.

We made some casting decisions.

NATALIE STORRS (ACTOR – Role: KRYSTAL) A Los Angeles native and graduate of the University of Southern California School of Theatre, Natalie Storrs is an accomplished, award-nominated actress working in the professional theatre, film/tv, commercial and new media industries. Performing in professional theaters from London to California, Natalie has built an extensive resume, and was recently nominated for a 2012 Craig Noel Award by the San Diego Critic’s Circle for “Outstanding Female Lead Performance in a Musical “. Natalie can be seen in many television/internet commercials, short films currently making the festival circuit, and in the SAG comedic webseries Decently Priced, debuting Spring 2013.

VERONICA BURGESS (ACTOR – Role: AUGUST) Born and raised in Southern California, Veronica grew up in the arts. She started dancing at the age of six and was involved in a variety of ballets, musicals, and children’s theater productions. A taste for adventure has always been in her blood, which is why she enlisted in the US Navy at the age of 17. After serving 4 years onboard a ship stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, Veronica had seen and experienced a lot the world had to offer. She completed two tours overseas in Operation Iraqi Freedom II, and her ship was the first to respond in Hurricane Katrina relief. Upon completion of her active duty service, Veronica earned her Bachelors of Science degree in Kinesiology from California State University Fullerton in 2011. During her college years she began modeling and acting at a professional level. She has modeled for several companies such as Nioxin, Sebastian, Wella, Bonsoir Bella, and Kevin James Fashion. She has also appeared in several films and online series including the popular One Day, which has earned over 1 million views to date. Currently studying at The Acting Center Los Angeles.

KAIGHT ZOIA (ACTOR – Role: AVILA) Kaight Zoia, a country girl, came from a small town with one stop light. As a little girl she has always had a passion for performing. She entertained family and friends with skits, puppet shows, dances, magic shows, and animal training shows. After studying acting at Michigan State University, she decided to move to California to pursue a career in Acting. She worked all summer in a factory to raise enough money for the trip, packed her car, and headed out boldly not even knowing the difference between Beverly Hills and Compton. Luckily, she was able to dodge some bullets, find her path and begin her journey as an actor. Snakes and Tarantulas and Frogs, Oh My! These are just a few of the exotic animals Kaight owns. She’s an animal lover and enjoys camping, 4wheeling, and fishing. Growing up in the woods in Northern Michigan sparked her adventurous, outdoorsy, and risk taking attributes. However, this has taught her to be wholesome and down-to-earth as well. This reflects the roles she gets. Action, bad-ass, edgy, intense, fighter able to do her own stunts and on the flip side you will also find a sweet, dorky, girl next door. She has acted in numerous films such as ‘Serial’ with director/writer Sean Williams, ‘Chances’, and ‘Stab Awake’. Kaight has worked with producer/writer/director Dennis Feldman on his new trilogy project . She performed a stick-fighting routine for the theater audience while hosting Shockfest Film Festival and has done stunts in many projects including the popular web-series ‘One Day’.

NATALIE LE SUEUR (ACTOR – Role: ASENA) Starting in Theatre at the age of three, Natalie has lived to perform, whether it be singing, dancing or acting. Born in New Zealand, Natalie’s parents decided to move to Australia in 2000 to open the door to more opportunities for Natalie’s already budding career in stage theater. After four years of success in Australia as the leads in world reknowned classics such as “Oliver Twist”, “The Secret Garden”, “Grease” and “Fame” musicals, Natalie developed an itch to stretch the horizons in her acting career and merged to Film/TV in 2004. Since making the switch Natalie has worked on Australian National TV Series such as “The Elephant Princess” and “H20:Just Add Water”, starred in Short Films “BFFL”, “Alex/Eddy”, “The Weight of It All”, “Comedy, Comedy” and “Dusty” as well as working on such prestigious films as “Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of The Dawn Treader”, “A Heartbeat Away”, “The Great Raid”, “How to Change in Nine Weeks” and “Charge Over You”. After National exposure in all listed above as well as a wide range of commercials for leading brands like “Suncorp”, “Drumstick” and “Warner Bros. Wet’n’Wild Waterworld”, Natalie was accepted into a partial scholarship program at TVI Actors Studio Los Angeles to further accelerate her career and made the move to Los Angeles.

As well as Rebekah Hughes, Frances Manzo, Elizabeth Small, Clint Worley, Emily Bell, and Katarina Leigh Waters.

Fun fact about Veronica Burgess, she was the friend that told me to put up or shut up.

And then, calling on actor friends to fill in the gaps, my current assistant Jay Taylor scheduled our table read. Now if I’m being totally honest, having actors read words I’ve written, bring life to imagined characters; it’s amazing. And horrifies me.

But having my friends reading my script out loud. Adding a few people in the room that I didn’t know at all. Some real true blue nerds in the bunch too. They may hate it.

To add to the pressure I invited David Hardberger to come listen in. If you think about it this man has been in the room with Peter Jackson, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard… There is nothing I could have written that would hold this man’s interest.

All but accepting ruin, I went to the table read expecting the worst. All the high hopes I had in writing had now been dashed by my own doubts. So when the players started reacting to scenes I was confused. But when they all applauded after I was elated.

David had his notes but agreed on the spot to be our Director of Photography.

His forty-plus years in the industry and specifically visual effects brings a incredible amount of experience to the project. He has a honed eye and vision that will give our film polished and stylish visuals.

Frances and I tossed ourselves into rewrites. Nothing is perfect on first pass. Quickly rewrite after rewrite I felt my eye was getting stale. I needed a fresh set, and we enlisted Strix to aid me in a round of rewrites.

STRIX BELTRAN (REWRITES) A PHD Student at Pacifica Graduate Institute’s Mythological Studies program and is recognized as a Joseph Campbell Scholar. Strix is developing the dialect, history and religious beliefs of our characters, further expanding the depth and richness of the story.

Now, finished script in hand, we started to expand our team.

We need a good villain, someone that has experience acting in prosthetic makeup.

CAMDEN TOY (ACTOR – Role: CAHAL) Camden will be playing our villain. He has extensive experience working in prosthetic makeup and creating complete characters even though his true face is never seen. His resume includes television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer playing multiple demons, vampires and ghouls over the show’s run. He was also on Angel and featured in over forty-nine films.

Music is a important part of any film…

BRENDAN “BSIDES” LONG (COMPOSER) Brendan “Bsides” Long. Brendan studied Audio Production at Emerson College in Boston MA. Graduating in 2003. Starting his career composing cues for the George Lopez. After securing many placements in the record industry and on television, he took a 9 month bootcamp working with Dr. Dre in 2009. Brendan received Grammy nominations in both 2012 for best comedic recording with The Lonely Island, and in 2013 with Lupe Fiasco for best rap album. Most recently he began collaborating with Smirnoff’s “Master of the Mix” champion DJ Jayceeoh, including “Got my Gun on Me” French Montana remix which recently reached number 5 on the DJ city charts.

We intend to make a character-driven story that has a lot of action.

JASI COTTON LANIER (STUNT COORDINATOR) A seasoned stuntwoman, Jasi has worked on television shows The Closer, Vampire Diaries, Castle, The Mentalist, Dexter and The Walking Dead; and feature films Scary Movie, Identity Thief and Alice in Wonderland. Our story centers around strong female characters and we felt it important to have a female coordinator that can bond and lead by example, because she already is a bad ass.

And the team continues to grow…

KRISTA THOMAS-SCOTT (PRODUCTION DESIGNER) A professional designer for over 20 years, Krista Thomas-Scott received her degree in costume and set design from the Honors Tutorial College at Ohio University, going on to study at Central St. Martins in London, England and completing the professional intern program at The Juilliard School in New York. She had the opportunity to costume-design a staged reading of Julie Brown’s “Earth Girls are Easy” with Broadway stars Kristin Chenoweth, Hunter Foster, and Mark Kudisch and was the craft artisan for the NJ Shakespeare Festival’s summer season of 2002. Krista moved from NY to LA in 2008 with her husband and renewed her passion for production design with the independent feature A True Story, as well as several shorts, including Prized starring Stephen “Twitch” Boss. Recent projects include assistant design work for two operas at USC, and production design for three short films shot in LA.

CORENA GIBSON (COSTUMING) Corena Gibson went to a small design school in San Diego California called Fashion Careers College, as well as studying Art History at SDSU and worked as an assistant Costume Designer for many TV shows for Stu Segal Produtions in San Diego. After graduation she worked as a Costume Designer for Sea World in San Diego, where she was a key member in designing Sea Worlds first ever Halloween Adventure in 2001.

Now we’re in negotiations with some name actors and hope to have big news soon.

This is just a touch so you get the flavor of our SCI-FI film ADAM 8:

There was a hybridization of the simple seasonal human flu virus and a feline virus. The Feline Flu became a silent pandemic; mild symptoms and limited fatalities. We didn’t realize until years later the virus attacked and mutated the Y chromosome. Since then, babies have been born female, with less babies each passing year. The last living male is dead. I, like everyone else, have lived my entire life without ever knowing a man. They’re extinct on Earth. The Adam Project was designed to save mankind. Some would say it’s a last ditch effort, the death rattle of humanity. It’s our mission to locate a missing terraforming group to recover any living males. We’re Earth’s last chance. We’re ADAM 8.

Now we’re moving on to our first step in fundraising. Later this week all involved we be voting on which design they like best. It will be made into a t-shirt and sold online. The profits will be used for additional conceptual art, space ship model mock ups and further pre-production development.

And then the narrative stopped. WAIT, I thought, YOU CAN’T END IT THERE. WHAT HAPPENS?! So I asked Sean, well, what happens? What comes next, in what order, with the whole process?

Next steps. Sort of in order. I have a cast wish list. So the steady action is talking with managers of that talent to get who I want. Going one at a time with the theory each added cast member makes the project more appealing to the next we approach.

The t-shirt fundraiser. We (cast & crew) are shooting to sell 1000 t-shirts. The money raised will go to costume design, life casting actors to develop the look of our aliens, and the space ship mock ups, which will be done by McCune Design. Grant McCune (now passed) did the X-wings for Star Wars and won the Academy Award for visual effects. And additional concept art/storyboards.

And then? Argh, a cliffhanger! We’ll have to wait to find out what happens with this extraordinarily cool and exciting sci-fi project. For now, that’s the story – to date – of a “someday” idea that grew to a short film that has blossomed into a feature length production. We’ll keep you posted about the progress, but make sure to follow ADAM-8 on Twitter and Facebook for the very latest.

 

Sean Williams, a trained photographer, sees things in the frame and knows how to visually tell a story even in the writing process. Writing, Directing and producing two seasons of Crackhorse’s web-series ONE DAY as well as working freelance on several projects has seasoned Sean in making every dollar count and add to the production. Sean has also been a finalist in multiple writing contests and has a passion for collaborative art forms.

Crackhorse Films was founded by Sean Williams in 2001 as a collective of highly motivated professionals and beginners brought together from varying career backgrounds with a common interest; to make quality independent films. The intention is to expand our abilities, grow our network and produce some cool diverse content.