The idea that started it all

LVJ started as the dream of a group of filmmakers to create a science fiction adventure movie inspired by the ones they had grown up with. The slight problem? They had no funding. The resulting journey would become a decade long passion project to bring their vision of an indie sci-fi adventure, low on budget but big on ambition to the screen.

Starting with a script

The script had to feature memorable and original characters. Instead of square jawed action stars it would focus on three underdogs to lead the adventure; wanna be heroes, written off by everyone.  Alongside these hapless heroes it would be full of sci-fi adventure; battling spaceships, fighter jets dueling with alien craft, original alien creatures that would be at home in the Star Wars cantina and more. All of which was going to be tough without any money.

Raising Money

The project started by shooting short test scenes to generate interest and hopefully financing. Visual effects were added to show the potential scale and a short trailer was created. With this in hand the team headed to the Cannes film festival.

The response was extremely encouraging. People loved the idea, press ran stories on the homegrown project and distributors expressed interest. Upon returning home the positive feedback continued but despite extensive efforts it was apparent no-one was going to take the risk of financing the ambitious indie feature.

Without funding, the film was going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to shoot. Which left only two choices; abandon the idea or try to make the film as originally envisaged but without financial backing. The decision did not take long to reach

Shooting the movie

The scale of the film was huge with shooting taking place in and around London, Los Angeles and New York City where whole streets would be shut down. Sets had to be constructed, alien creatures designed and built and high tech, normally expensive, locations sourced to provide the required production values, all on a zero budget

Filming took place in seperate blocks, matching the availability of volunteer actors, crew and locations and the demands of the film's scale. It was clear it was going to take a while and although the core team settled in for the long haul, no-one could have imagined just how long the journey would take.

As filming stretched out the team was lucky to have a cast and crew that kept the faith, believing in the dream enough to keep turning out time after time. Alongside scenes with principal actors   extensive second unit green screen filming had to be completed in the UK and US capturing everything from space shuttle pilots, military personnel and aliens through to 1970s cops, newscasters and reporters.

Post Production

As principal photography wrapped the first edit showed huge potential but also a number of problems which would need to be addressed with extra filming. Post production could not proceed until this was completed and the edit finalised. There was no point in spending weeks creating visual effects for a scene only to have it cut from the movie.

With filming complete it was now years from the film's inception but post production could finally get started. Work had been ongoing for years creating digital assets such as spaceships and sets needed to bring the story to life. Now they could be employed in over 600 visual effects shots allowing the heroes to battle hordes of aliens, jets and gunships to fight UFOs over the desert, space shuttles to face an alien fleet and more.

In addition to the obvious spacecraft, explosions and laser battles, many more subtle effects would be needed with almost every scene having some digital manipulation. New York scenes needed 1970s period details adding,  backgrounds of scenes shot in the UK had to be replaced to match desert scenes. With no funding and a small crew it was a monumental task that would take many years.

Other crucial elements of post production could now begin to take shape. Sound design could start creating original sounds to bring aliens and spaceships to life and work could get underway on the film's soundtrack, blending a large scale orchestral soundtrack reminiscent of Star Wars and Back to the Future with a 70s cop show vibe.

Almost done

Which brings us to the present. When we started the project we had no idea it would take over ten years to create but it's going to be worth the wait. Every day we get a step closer to completing a filmmaking odyssey and the finished product is shaping up to be a more thrilling and fun sci-fi action adventure that we could every have imagined.

As the film nears completion we are sharing behind the scenes features, cast and crew interviews, clips from the film and soundtrack, filmaking tutorials and more. Add to that, upcoming graphic novels and a webshow and there should be plenty to keep sci-fi fans entertained until the film’s release which we can honestly now say is.... coming soon.