Here’s a little shot we made of Dave Pereyra (as “Cookson” one of the evil spirits) running through the ice-melt creek at our desert location. His character is running away from his ruthless leader Montague.

This was shot using a tiny hi-def camcorder, the GoPro Hero HD, in an underwater housing. The camera, about the size of a small cell-phone, was placed at water level. The slow-motion effect was applied in post-production. We did a little bit of color grading to make it look like twilight, although we actually took the shot in mid-morning.

Dave was instructed to run across the creek and step close to the camera. He stepped a little too close, though, when he splashed water onto director Peter Bohush and his second camera positioned just behind the GoPro. Some quick clean-up action with Peter’s sweat shirt saved the second camera.

We think this shot looks great, and it may end up in the final print of the movie. We’ve shot some other scenes with the GoPro as well. It’s great for action shots. It’s an easy camera to use because it has virtually no settings, just turn it on and hit “record.” The biggest downside to this tiny camera is that it doesn’t have a viewfinder or monitor, so we never know what it’s actually shooting. We just try to point it in the general direction of the action and hope for the best!

Broken Spirits star, co-writer and executive producer Steve Weese takes you on a behind-the-scenes video tour of the production on-location.

If you’d like to see even more “BTS” videos and pictures, make a small donation to help us produce this movie, then sign up for a free VIP account here on our website. Get your name in the credits of a feature film and other great perks!

Ever wonder how characters in movies and TV shows “shoot” guns and get “shot?” Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the gunshot scene in BROKEN SPIRITS.

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For our VIP Members only, here’s the full behind-the-scenes video on how we “shot” the scene where evil gang leader Bane (Aaron Valencia) gets shot. We won’t tell you who shoots him, or what happens next, but we will pull back the curtain on how moviemakers “shoot” someone without firing a real bullet!

Here’s the video, and below we’ll tell you how we did it.

How We Did It

You may have seen other movies use “squibs” for gunshot wounds, and real guns firing blanks. Those are great but they are somewhat dangerous, as the squibs have small explosive charges and the blanks in guns use real gunpowder. Our solution works just as well, but is totally safe.

First, the “squib” is actually a condom filled with fake blood (water, cocoa and food coloring) and then taped onto the actor underneath his shirt. Special effects coordinator Jared Lindsey rigs a fishing line around the squib and out through a small hole in Aaron’s shirt.

Then Jared positions himself just off camera, and at the moment of the gunshot, pulls hard on the fishing line, breaking the condom and squirting the fake blood out through Aaron’s shirt. Aaron had to time his acting to fling himself back against the wall at the same moment.

The gun we used is called an airsoft gun, used by gamers and similar to paintball guns except airsofts shoot a small plastic BB at non-lethal speed. This particular gun uses propane gas to propel the BB and cause the slider on the gun to “blow back” just like a real semi-automatic. Of course, we don’t use any BBs in this gun, we only want the effect of the gun kicking back the actor’s hand a little and moving the slider.

Everything is timed with the director’s voice commands. It’s not easy getting two actors and the effects supervisor to all move at the exact same moment. And if any one of them messed up, we’d have to clean Aaron up, put him in a new shirt, re-rig the squib and start all over — that’s a long process. Fortunately, everybody did their thing right on cue and the shot came out perfect the first time, as you can see in the final clip.

We hope you like the clip and the little BTS (behind-the-scenes) story. Thanks for supporting BROKEN SPIRITS and stay tuned for more BTS updates!

Pete Bohush
Director

We are excited to announce that Andy McPhee from the hit TV show Sons of Anarchy has been added to the cast.

Andy plays “Mr. Oldman,” an old gold prospector whom the young heroes meet early in the movie. He offers a warning about the dangers at the sweat lodge they’re going to, and holds a special power to communicate with the alternate dimension that could be crucial to the life-or-death situation they’ll find themselves in.

We are excited to announce that Broken Spirits is now being produced in association with Anime Expo! We are extremely excited about this partnership, and will have more information about it to come in the future.

Here are some stills from the first two weeks of shooting. Check back for some behind the scenes video!