Themorningstarfilm's Blog

Notes from the Director, Dominick Sivilli.

themorningstarfilm — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:46:13 +0000

Many people question the meaning of life. Why are we here? What are we supposed to do? For C.H. Aron, the answer is simple: his job. It’s what he is and what he does. But what happens when that meaning is taken away? What happens when the world ceases to have a place for someone like Aron? Does it all end with a whimper? Or can a new life with new meaning take its place? The answer to these questions are not simple but they can be explored through the power of storytelling. Storytelling, especially in film, is a tool with many active parts designed to relay a message to the audience. Dialogue, sound, music, editing, and visuals; everything must come together to create a coherent, cinematic experience.

The Morning Star was originally meant to be a spoof on the film noir genre; something that was short, simple, and easy to do in a weekend. And after a few
weeks of brainstorming, Christopher J. Otis, my writer, came up to me and gave me exactly that. However, there was a problem. It just wasn’t working so I asked him to take a different approach to the film. Less spoof and more serious. I told him not to try and fit it into any particular genre. Just let the ideas flow. Fortunately, Chris already had a whole army of ideas just waiting to be thrown into the blender and after he came back with the rewrite I was presented with a beast of a totally different color. The script was complex and at first a little bit weird but the only word afterwards I could bring myself to say was “outstanding”. From that point on I knew this was a movie I had to do; that this was a story I had to tell.

STORY – C.H. Aron, a gun for hire on his last job, and his partner Mara search for the depressed and murderous Leander Lomax, a young man whose past actions require the duo to end his life and ferry his soul from this world to the next. But, what at first seems like an everyday assignment to Aron soon turns out to be more than even he can handle as Leander’s actions reveal a part of the world that no one thought possible. The Morning Star finds its center surrounding the tale of these three characters, each one inspired from various cultural myths and legends, each one facing the end of the world in their own way.

VISUALS – After reading the script and doing my research, I came up with ideas to make the story connect visually with the emotions I wanted everyone else to feel. I wanted every single shot and lighting technique to convey a different message throughout the story. Color, framing, and shot size plays just as important a role as the dialogue spoken by each character.

EDITING – The editing plays out slowly in the beginning but as the journey of Aron and the other characters intensifies, so too does the way I cut the film.

MUSIC – In the world of “The Morning Star”, there are only three characters. To convey that idea, William Archiello (the composer) and I came up with the idea of having only three instruments play throughout the entire film, one for each character, each instrument telling their character’s story in their own unique way.

All in all, behind the technical aspects of “The Morning Star”, this film is essentially about finding the single most important thing we hold closest to our hearts and battling the fear of loosing it for good. It’s about realizing that even within that worse-case-scenario, a new day will always rise brimming with new possibilities.

The Morning Star mentioned by Fangoria

themorningstarfilm — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:18:58 +0000

Here is the article with links to the festival website.

Also a link to the Fangoria page.

The New York independent features VINDICATION and CROSSED with both be part of the Queens International Film Festival, which takes place Thursday-Sunday, Nov. 12-15 at the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts (35-12 35th Avenue). Stolis Hadjicharalambous’ CROSSED, the bloody story of a hitman haunted by his past and tracked by a sadistic assassin, has its world premiere Saturday the 14th at 4 p.m. VINDICATION, written and directed by Bart Mastronardi and edited by Hadjicharalambous, screens the same day at 10 p.m.; none other than Clive Barker has praised this study of a young man whose attempted suicide leads him on a frightening voyage through guilt and self-discovery. In addition, Dominick Sivilli, who worked on both movies, has his short film THE MORNING STAR (written by CROSSED co-scripter/star Christopher J. Otis) at the fest on Thursday the 12th at 4:30 p.m. The filmmakers will be attending, and tickets for all of these can be purchased via the fest website above.

Morning Star Screening

themorningstarfilm — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:04:17 +0000

Screening at

Thursday, November 12 2009 at 4:30p.m

at The Holiday Inn Screening Room

39-05 29th Street, Long Island City, NY 11101.

BUY TICKETS HERE

The Morning Star QIFF page

QIFF update

themorningstarfilm — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:47:33 +0000

Hey all. The Morning Star has a date and time for its screening at QIFF.
November 12, Thursday
4:30pm at the Holiday INN screening room.
39-05 29th Street, Long Island City, NY 11101

Trailer Song

themorningstarfilm — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:53:21 +0000

I’ve been trying to get some of the composed music by William Archiello up for people to preview. More on that soon. But in the meantime if you saw the trailer and like the song the artist is Inga Liljestrom courtesy of Groovescooter Records. I’ll leave a link to her music video below. Feel free to check out her other work.

And leave some comments on whatever you feel like. request things or just ask questions.

Inga Liljestrom – pheonix

Trailer.

themorningstarfilm — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:32:05 +0000

Just a quick update for the day. Check out our IMDB page, there is a trailer linked on it. We are trying to get some more stuff online, but for the time being here is the link to our page and also a link to two of our brother films Crossed and Vindication. They are both features and both different. Enjoy for now, we hope to have some better links up by monday.

The Morning Star IMDB

The Morning Star Trailer

Crossed

Vindication

Some Stills

themorningstarfilm — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:25:07 +0000

First thing I wanted to do here is put up some stills from the movie to liven this place up a little. Give it a touch of the real stuff from the movie. Soon to come links to trailers, some songs and music and more.

But for now I hope you enjoy these stills.

The Morning Star

themorningstarfilm — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:15:25 +0000

The Morning Star has risen. After months of editing, sound, music and licensing now our short film has gotten its first selection into the first festival submitted into, the Queens International Film Festival. This is just the first post with more to come along with some pics and links to other cool things and films.

Thanks for checking in and come back soon.